Good to hear you are recovering and had good treatment, I think that you were lucky to get a doctor who referred you.

We are having difficulty in getting to see a doctor, online form filling.

Re transport. There is a company Hymas that used to be on a small village between Knaresborough and Ripon called Burton Lenard. Their yard was too small so they bought land on what was the old A1 north of Ripon.

I pass their new yard fairly regularly and they now at a guess have possibly 100 lorries, most for feedstuff.

Pass the yard on a Sunday chocker block with trucks, during the week there can be as little as 10.

One of my diving pals worked for Reed Boardall at Borobridge but did nights for better pay.

It’s a few years now but he retired as too many Polish and others were undercutting wages.

Things improved and increased wages but the wages went high because there were very very few drivers about.

If you pull into a service area for a rest and watch lorry drivers a lot of them are grossly over weight. So maybe there is a high turnover due to health problems.

All skilled trades are the same lack, of trained people.

A joiner was last year £200 per day., plumbers etc the same. Getting you boiler serviced is difficult as lack of engineers at least where we live. Cost about £60 per hour.

It’s probably all down to supply and demand.


To important things Bikes. You had modified a standard bike ? I assume it has flat bars!

What was you bike and what was fitted to electrify it.

Motor built into the rear wheel.

I ask as I have a bike which I’m thinking modifying.

I have just had my Specialized Creo SL e bike modified from drop to flat bars. That was expensive £475. Going to try it out in Northumberland in the next few days. Expensive as new flat bar, break levers, grips, switches for electrics and dropper post.

When I walked into the local Specalized. Store two weeks ago the had modified a 2025 Carbon Fibre one with SRAM electronic gear shift. It looked fantastic. I balked at the price though £5,000, but thought and asked if they could convert my 2021 model but with less expensive gear The Sram gear would have cost say around £1,500 if used to convert my bike.

Why did I have mine converted. When bought in Nov 2021 it was great. But after a heart attack in early 2023 my physical ability declined. This year has been a nightmare health wise particularly since about 4 weeks before Easter so not a lot of cycling.

I have no idea what has been happening with me health wise since well before Easter. Sort of stressed out and very short tempered. That not being helped as Ann is not good.

I can only think that I picked something up on a hospital visit before Easter as both Ann and I were at the hospital 4 times each month, who knows what I picked up or something else.

It’s odd that in the last two weeks I feel that I’m snapping out of it.

However the main reason to swap to flat bar is safety. I never used the drops ( maybe twice ish) and drops are narrow and roads rubbish felt I could easily come off the bike. With drops hand holding the bar maybe 12” apart, with a flat bar say 24” apart so more stable.

My back gives problems so I also had the stack height raised about 10 mm to easy my back.

I had a dropper post fitted a few months ago to make it easier to get on and off the bike , only a 50 mm one, helps my balance problem.

The more upright riding position will give me better visibility over country walls etc.

When out riding with my cycling group ( pre heart attack) I felt it was a bit of a waste of time as always pressing on to the coffee stop and missing the vista around

Today dropped a bit gaff came away without my bike lock keys so cannot get the bike off the car and because of that cannot get the bike off of the cycle rack off, so cannot get to my tool kit Very dumb trick!

It great that I have been able to write this as been out of it for a couple of months. Also sitting in the caravan looking over to The Cheviot and its hills dam good.

Allan C.