mmaddock

No experience of chainsaws before, but after getting fed up of hand sawing logs I bought one!  It's only a fairly cheap McCullough petrol model.  The instruction manual isn't the best and in the interest of safety I just want to check out how hard (or not) the chain brake should be to operate.  It takes a fair effort to put it on (and take off) to the point where I feel like it's going to snap everytime I do it.  Is this normal, because it is a cheapo model, or is something likely setup wrong?  It does actually do what it's supposed to do. Cheers, Matt

Feeling very jealous - I'm not allowed a bike any more :-(

Merle, I will probably be coming back to France in both Jan and Feb with an empty Espace, so should be able to fit in what you need.  I am in the Vienne, on the border with the Charente if that is of any use to you.  I could meet you somewhere around London area for the pick-up.  If that's any use, let me know and we can wok something out. Matt

Anyone got any idea when the one in St Junien (87) is on? Cheers, Matt

I don't know why it is that everyone seems to think French smoke more than the English (myself included!) - perhaps it is that they do it more openly (less socially unacceptable than in the UK??) but the figures I saw were that 26% of UK residents (aged 15 or over) smoke and 27% of French residents smoke - so really very little difference between the two.  (Figures from the WHO-2004) Matt

[quote user="Deimos"]Locals round me seem to like burning things. I cleared one field and the next field (not mine) was uncut but both very dry. Somebody came to look and was suggesting I set fire to it. I was not keen so he just got out his lighter and started. Fortunately I stopped him as my field would have gone up as well as my neighbours !!. Ian[/quote] I had the gendarme around after setting fire (kind of accidently I may add) to my garden.  I was told in no uncertain terms that it was illegal to have a fire without a permit, and that I must pay for the visit by the pompiers (despite me actually having put the fire out by the time they arrived) - although no bill ever arrived. I have to say though, it was very effective at clearing quite a large area quickly - but I wouldn't recommend it - and the neighbours were not too happy. Matt