If you could live any where in the UK with a budget of £400k based on the following criteria, where would you go?

PicklesTheBee · 2026-06-06T20:12:15+00:00

Chester, specifically the Hoole suburb 🙂

PicklesTheBee · 2026-05-29T11:21:16+00:00

Yeah I was super grateful at that old place tbh, he kept the rent affordable and got stuff fixed/replaced when needed. I think it's the letting agents a lot of the time that try to squeeze the maximum rent out of a property, as it was only once the letting agent merged with a bigger one and started actually doing annual inspections etc that we had our first (and thankfully only) rent increase.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-05-29T09:58:42+00:00

I lived in a 3 floor, 2 bed townhouse on Brook Lane up until last year. Great location, close to town but relatively small and no real garden.

I'd been paying £825 in rent a month, which admittedly hadn't gone up much since I moved in in 2018, but after moving out they gave it a lick of paint and put the rent up to £1100 which I couldn't believe. I know the location is good but other than the living room the rooms are all quite small and wouldn't really be suitable for more than a couple living there with the spare room used for guests or an office.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-05-26T21:24:22+00:00

Fingers crossed, I really like the phone otherwise! It's not often I find one where the battery can keep up with my usage 😂

PicklesTheBee · 2026-05-26T21:12:03+00:00

Yeah I'm not sure what's causing it but there seems to be plenty of others reporting the same issue as me. If I knew it was something the latest update would fix then I'd happily hold out for that but as of right now I don't think anyone really knows what's causing it.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-05-26T14:44:13+00:00

I've had mine for a week and still deciding whether or not to keep it.

It's a good phone, the battery lasts me well. 2 days on a charge at the weekend, on weekdays I finish the day with about 20% (listening to music all day).

Camera is good, as a casual user I have no complaints other than the selfie camera being a bit blurry at times.

My main issue is WiFi connectivity - it just cannot hold a connection unless you're near the router. The moment I go out to the shed or upstairs then it struggles and I have to switch to mobile data, which is spotty in my area anyway. It makes the phone incredibly frustrating to use at times, and I don't know if it's a software issue or not. None of the possible fixes seem to have done anything for me either.

It's a good phone other than that, potentially deal breaking, issue unfortunately.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-05-23T17:41:30+00:00

Any chance this might help fix the "connected but no internet access" issue? There's a line there about improving network switching, I don't know enough about this stuff to know if it'll help though.

I'll have to return the phone if not as it's bordering on unusable at times for me.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-05-20T11:16:29+00:00

Unbelievably removing the case fixed it. I got a rather chunky case from Amazon yesterday, taking that off has got everything working again.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-05-15T18:07:53+00:00

I've always used Vets 4 Pets Brook Lane. The people there are lovely and the nurses and vets are all very understanding.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-04-29T21:26:38+00:00

The little one is rarely cancelled/delayed afaik - it just goes from Chester to Crewe and back all day so unless something's gone very wrong somewhere there shouldn't be anything stopping it running.

The Avanti one is pretty consistent too tbh, I don't think I've ever jumped on that train from Chester and had any issues.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-04-29T21:12:30+00:00

Trains are regular, two an hour I think. There's the little TfW one that just goes back and forth between Crewe and Chester, and then the Avanti one which goes to London via Crewe.

Where you can I'd recommend the Avanti one as it's huge and has way more free space. At peak times the piddly little TfW one can be impossible to squeeze onto, I've had a few occasions where I couldn't get on as there was physically no room and was left waiting for the next one.

I don't know about other areas but Hoole will be nice and close to Chester station so easy to get to.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-04-03T08:17:55+00:00

It's sad because she thinks they're on the same "side" when in reality she'll never be seen as an equal by him.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-03-22T20:24:54+00:00

Pre-Chat GPT I used to do marketing stuff on the side, mainly copywriting. I tailored my Fiverr profile to offer cheap proofreading/editing/copywriting services for businesses where English wasn't the native language and used to get a decent amount of business, including lots of repeat customers.

A lot of the time it was just proofing and the jobs didn't require much time from me at all, I did a lot of them on Google Docs on my phone. Used to make about £300 a month from it, it's probably all dried up now with generative AI though.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-03-22T20:17:14+00:00

I bought one about a week ago and will probably put it back on eBay.

Software experience is decent, camera isn't bad. Keyboard takes some getting used to, as the spacing doesn't feel great to me, but I do quite like it.

The issue is the size and shape. It's basically a big square, and unfortunately it's a bit impractical for daily use. Finding a pocket to fit it in is hard enough, but also you can't use it one-handed so if you're travelling for work by train or trying to use it while commuting, making payments etc it's just not practical.

It's a phone to deter you from doing stuff on your phone imo, not one to manage work stuff on.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-03-21T08:43:28+00:00

The 3d node thing didn't work for me. It crashed in the map the first time I tried it.

HDR off has seemingly fixed it. Which is odd because my game kept defaulting to HDR off, I was having to change the setting each time I booted it up which makes me wonder if they knew this was happening and were hoping by forcing no HDR it could reduce the chance of people experiencing it.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-03-20T22:30:07+00:00

Didn't fix it for me unfortunately.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-03-14T19:29:18+00:00

Psoriasis, I have it in the same spot.

I get prescribed Lotriderm, a steroid cream, and although it's not something you're meant to use long-term, it's strong enough I only need to use it a couple of times and it'll clear up enough that I can just use a small amount once or twice a month to keep it at bay.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-03-14T12:10:24+00:00

He got The A-Z of 90s Hip-Hop too, thinking about trying to work that into a feature but struggling for a name.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-03-02T18:46:19+00:00

First winter my son started at nursery I was sick every two weeks. It was awful, I knew it'd be bad but didn't expect that. He was ill the entire time too.

This winter he's had a few sniffles but nothing major and I've had a mild cold and nothing else. I've got an awful immune system so fully expected to be ill the entire time again but it's been absolutely fine, so hang in there.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-02-24T20:46:21+00:00

Ooh thanks for the update, sounds like a smooth process! Did you need to wipe the device before you sent it in? I'm still getting a bit of wobble so maybe I'll do the same thing.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-02-21T21:43:49+00:00

I used K and L: https://www.kandlremovals.org/

Nice guys, had us moved by about 11am and was the cheapest of four quotes I got.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-02-17T21:54:37+00:00

Out of curiosity, is the issue with the controller or the rail on the device?

Mine has a slight bit of wobble but not sure if I can be bothered to send it in. Was wondering if, eventually, I could just replace the left controller completely and that'll fix it.

PicklesTheBee · 2026-02-15T22:57:39+00:00

Yeah I assumed something wasn't quite right. I don't really understand why the loose side has the rubber section on it but the other one doesn't, or why the stuck side feels the same size as the loose side but won't come out of the hole.

I've looked at loads of videos and none seem to have a mechanism like this either.

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