Jewel

Sorry for not posting my thanks sooner, have been poorly in bed since later on the same day I posted - this is the first time I've logged on since. Thanks for all the recommendations folks, much appreciated

Hi all, We're looking for someone to take down two smallish evergreens, cut back another tree that overhangs our garden, take out an overgrown hedge and put in a fence on two sides of our (very small) garden. Does anyone know anyone/have any recommendations? Ideally we'd like to find someone who's friendly, doesn't charge over the odds, gets the job done well. We're in S8. Thanks.

They do a kofte, which is minced seasoned lamb and a shish, which is cubes of lamb, both of them done on skewers on a char grill. I'm vegetarian now, but was haunted by elif kebabs for ages after giving up meat - my husband still partakes and assures me they're just as good as they used to be!

I'll second Elif on Ecclesall Road, the kebabs are second to none and the guys there are really friendly

It was somewhere on Devonshire Road, which I think is actually Abbeydale, thinking about it! Not sure exactly where though.

We went through similar with my son, when he was 8; we spent £6,000 on solicitors fees etc and the court made us attend mediation (which we'd suggested in the first place, but my son's father had refused), which helped, as he then had to listen to what my son had to say instead of dismissing it as fabrication and pressure on my part. Cafcass were not enormously helpful, but equally not obstructive, either. I don't know if this is any help, but it sounds like your sister's case is what's called a "wishes and feelings" case, i.e. it's about the wishes and feelings of the children, given their ages. This should mean, in theory, that if you jump through all of the court's hoops and the children don't change their minds and are able to express their feelings to Cafcass/the court/in mediation, and she can avoid mudslinging, allow the truth to come as much from the children as possible (rather then from her), remain calm and fairly objective towards all of the "professionals" that get involved in these things, it should all come good in the end. This is what happened for us; we attended mediation, my son agreed to give things with his dad another go, after a few months and several more discussions between him and his dad, with more of the same behaviour that had prompted him to stop contact originally, my son decided again that he didn't want to see him any more. The door has been left open for if he ever changes his mind, but for now my son seems much happier and more settled for the decision. I kind of think that he needed to go through the whole process in order to reach this point, so although it was horrible at the time, my son in the end got what was best for him, on his terms, which is what it should be about - although I know for some it doesn't work that way, and we had no sense of certainty that would be the case while we were going through it. It's immensely stressful and I do feel for your sister and her children; it's awful when children who want contact with parents who are engaged and want to be involved are prevented from doing so, but equally awful when children who don't want to see a parent who is unreliable, disengaged etc, are forced to. Sorry for the essay! Good luck.

Thanks guys, just wanted a general perspective before I decided whether to rant to the council or not! We live just off a bus route, which is usually gritted, but doesn't seem to have been this year, but it seems that lots of you have seen the gritters out, so not sure what to think :/ My husband and boys are fine thank you; although husband isn't looking forward to work tomorrow, as it's a company car

Hi all, my husband had an accident this morning, when his car, with our 4 year old and 18 month old in the back, skidded on black ice in Nether Edge and he crashed into someone's garden wall. Fortunately none of them were hurt and the woman who owned the house was lovely to them and said that she had decided against going out because the road was unsafe. During the time it took for my husband to change a tyre (one of them blew in the accident), 2 other cars, one of them a 4 wheel drive, came perilously close to doing the same thing. The patch of ice was at the bottom of a t-junction, so the car just skidded straight over the lines, across the road he was joining, on to the pavement and into this poor woman's wall. If anyone had been walking along the pavement, or a car had been coming along the road he skidded across, it could have been a really nasty accident. I know that there have been cuts, but it's not the first time over the last week or two, when there has been ice on the road in the early evening or during the first half of the day and I've not seen any gritters, or noticed any of the roads have been gritted (we live in Norton Lees) and it seems to me that this is potentially endangering people's lives. So I was wondering whether anyone on here knew what the deal is with gritting this year, if others have had similar experiences or whether we've just been unlucky and/or unobservant where the gritters are concerned?