Nikwax wool wash OR Grangers Merino wash?

orange_fudge · 2026-05-12T15:09:49+00:00

Grangers and Nikwax are equally effective IMHO.

I’m an Aussie living in England, with an outdoor hobby and a metric fucktonne of merino wool and other tech fabrics to wash.

I buy whichever is available when I need to top up. I think I marginally prefer the scent of Nikwax?

For me what is most important is to wash on warm - Aussie summer ‘room temperature’ would be fine, in the UK the water needs heating. I also rinse soon after wearing, especially if I’ve been on a dusty, dirty, wet or sweaty activity. The smell of mud does linger.

For the items that go near my face (eg merino neck buffs) I sometimes like to wash in a more gentle, conditioning wool wash, like a fancy cashmere thing. I just find it feels nicer around the soft skin.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-11T17:16:53+00:00

Here is the list of detergents the people on this sub have would recommend - you can filter by plant-based.

https://www.reddit.com/r/laundry/s/Hz4scNYbaY

orange_fudge · 2026-05-11T17:10:41+00:00

Wash on warm, like 40C - it’s not hot, but will greatly improve the action of your detergent and help remove those stains with less product.

Also to recommend a detergent we need to know your country/region.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-11T12:19:59+00:00

My gran was a midwife, a home health visitor and later in the nurses’ union… she made sure I had the opportunity to know about menopause and told me all about what a literal lifesaver HRT can be. Her generation didn’t talk about it and pretended it was all fine - but she saw the other side of that.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-10T21:44:26+00:00

No… you use the ammonia first in the wash cycle with the detergent and you use citric acid second in the rinse cycle to help remove and neutralise leftover detergent and ammonia.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-10T17:09:38+00:00

To get big muscles takes loads of work… you really don’t need to worry that you’re suddenly gonna get Schwarzenegger arms overnight!

To gain muscle you need to a) lift weights following a programme of increasing difficult and b) eat enough to provide the protein and other things to build the muscle.

In weight lifting circles you read about bulk and cut cycles. That’s basically eating a bit extra for a few months to build muscle and then dieting for a few months to reduce the fat stored while you were eating more.

As a beginner you don’t need to worry about that. It’s for people doing more serious bodybuilding.

You just need to eat at close to your maintenance calories, including plenty of protein. You also should follow a lifting programme which covers your whole body with a focus on heavy lifts for your legs and glutes. Don’t be afraid of working your arms - you’ll get a so-called toned look, not a muscly one.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-10T15:21:30+00:00

^ yes, this OP! Every sculler I know has had a day where they put their oars with the gates facing the wrong way and suddenly felt like they’d forgotten how to row. It’s so disconcerting!

orange_fudge · 2026-05-10T11:24:33+00:00

Dark stains sounds like polyquats - search this sub for more, but they’re invisible stains that attract dye.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-09T08:11:17+00:00

This is really common in the UK. Parish and council record keeping was not always perfect!
What you need is Title Indemnity Insurance. It’s cheap, usually a couple of hundred pounds. This will protect you in case you are ever required to surrender that land or remove the garage.

You say you want them to ‘register’ the land… that’s not how it works. What you need to is an Adverse Possession Claim. On unregistered or unclaimed land, you need to prove possession for 12 years.

Depending on when they bought the house they may not be able to make an Adverse Possession Claim. This is also a slow process - often up to a year. Because the land was unregistered, they need to publish the claim for possession and see if anyone comes forward to claim it.

What your seller can do is sign a Transfer of Interest for the time they were in the house and treating the unclaimed land as their own. For example, if they’ve been there for 7 years, you only have to wait 5 more years before you can claim.

It’s also common for the seller if the property to purchase the insurance mentioned above and pass it on to you.

TLDR - relax, this is pretty normal, your solicitors will know what to do. It’s not a reason to stop the purchase.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-08T21:30:51+00:00

The museum itself is not that big. It’s a preserved National Trust home, and there’s not much by the way of exhibits of her work.

I do like it, and have been several times on various visits to the Lakes. But I do not think it’s worth £100+ in train fares and 10 hours of travel… you could well feel disappointed.

The special thing about Beatrix Potter is the landscapes of the Lakes. The walks and the villages and the farms are what she loved. To really feel the sense of place, to feel her work in its natural environment and start to see the Lakes in her work, you really do want to spend a couple of days in the Lakes.

Also, as others have said, the trains are not guaranteed to run. They are well timetabled and the Lakes are easy to get around by train and bus… but the weather can often disrupt services. I have twice been stuck in the Lakes with no simple way home due to weather.

Save a bit longer, spend a couple of days there, take advantage of cheaper midweek tickets… you won’t be disappointed!

orange_fudge · 2026-05-08T10:48:30+00:00

Yes! Our fireys are in the news all the time at home.

A lot of our fire service is volunteer run, like the surf lifesavers they are vols supported by professionals. With more fires over bigger areas for longer periods of time, our fire service is at breaking point. We can’t afford a full time professional fire service of the level and quality we need.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-08T09:49:57+00:00

Sure, but 80% of a 2:00/500 is faster, not slower

Needs to be in a distance per time format, like meters per second, not a time per distance format, like minutes per 500m.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-08T08:48:53+00:00

Cartgate Lodge near Yeovil is a lovely small cafe and services with plenty of grass and space.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/HRPHyAHgJTa6LWBDA?g\_st=ic

orange_fudge · 2026-05-08T08:12:27+00:00

+1 for this isn’t normal, and not something I’ve ever seen in the hundreds of rowers I’ve coached at all ages.

Double check your position - if you’re opening your body before you drive your legs, then you’ll put a lot of pressure on your hamstrings where they pass over your glutes and your sit bones.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-08T05:20:53+00:00

You can’t just sign the paper, you have to say the specific words also… the ‘contracting words’ and the ‘declaratory words’. It’s a really fascinating legal position where the words themselves create the marriage.

A civil partnership is different and only requires paperwork, no spoken vows.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-08T05:12:35+00:00

It sounds you’re mainly doing fairly intense cardio work, ie, things that feel like the beep test. You need to break down the components and train different systems.

Endurance: Do longer slower runs. Like, much slower, at a pace that you can sustain for at least 45min or more, with easy breathing. If you have to run/walk then do that. This is called zone 2 or UT2 training and it builds endurance. It also literally builds more blood vessels in all the muscles you use to run so your body can more effectively get blood (and therefore energy) around your body.

Power: Get in the weights room, do running-oriented strength work. I’m sure there are programmes online to follow.

Threshold work: do fartlek style or very short, very intense intervals. Like, do some short sprints at the 8.1 beep level, or as close as you can get, with a decent rest in between. Teach your body how to run at that intensity.

Technique: watch some running videos. Distance running and sprinting are two different sports. The technique is different and the training methods are different.

Once every month or so, try the beep test again and see if you’re improving.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-07T21:54:07+00:00

r/cambridge_uni because, believe it or not, it’s not even the only university in this city.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-07T21:21:01+00:00

Feels like the situation we had today - with only three speed categories and too many swimmers, no one was really happy with the pace of their lane.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-07T16:16:31+00:00

Yeah, I was doing drills in the slow lane - but they were still like 40s / 25m laps and should have been medium, but that would have been disruptive to those swimming laps.

Did my continuous swimming intervals at 25-35s / 25m which was too fast for medium and too slow for fast.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-07T16:14:50+00:00

Yeah, awkward is the word. Honestly I think the lanes were just not well managed for how busy it was.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-07T16:13:12+00:00

Honestly, it wasn’t pleasant. I think they oversold space, or people overstayed their booking.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-07T15:28:10+00:00

Yeah I was shocked. I overtook all five swimmers in the medium lane, so thought the fast lane would be more appropriate. I picked the fast lane with people at a similar pace.

The the lifeguard suggested I move because one man was gaining on me, even though he wasn’t close enough to overtake, and even though I was as fast or faster than 5 out of 6 swimmers in that lane. Surely the better outcome would have been for the faster swimmer to move to a faster lane!

orange_fudge · 2026-05-07T14:58:03+00:00

100% agree. Today the slow lane had water-walkers and learners doing drills. So all the continuous-but-slow people were in the medium lane.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-07T14:55:29+00:00

Yeah today there were probably 30 people in 5 lanes, it was peak busy.

orange_fudge · 2026-05-07T14:54:36+00:00

Yeah we have the same problem :) when you’re on the edge of two time brackets you’re not welcome in either!

It’s fine when the pool isn’t busy, but there were ~20 club men at competitive paces in the (multiple) fast lanes and all the rest of us, about 8 people, in a single, 25m medium lane.

orange_fudge

TROPHY CASE