No cycling here right now: Winter, she has arrived.  10-15 cms of snow on Sunday, some of it later melted.  -11 this morning, windchill of -18.

Bikes are all in my basement workshop, awaiting their winter service.

 John, I was going to make a crack about how “There’s no bad weather, just bad clothing”, or my favourite Dutch expression “You're not made of sugar”, but I just finished watching an episode of Not Just Bikes called “Why Canadians can't bike in the winter, but Finnish people can”. I think I can understand why the bikes are in the basement awaiting more favourable cycling conditions. For those unfamiliar, Not Just Bikes is a great YouTube channel about cycling culture and urban planning.

 All four pictures in today's installment are from a particularly spectacular 30km stretch of coastline between Hiroo and Cape Erimo. The road is squeezed between the water and nearly sheer cliffs. A lot of the ride was through avalanche sheds, covered but open on the water side, allowing a great view, and 12km of tunnels, the longest of which was 59m short of 5km, (most tunnels in Japan have the length shown at the entrance) with 2 more at 2km each.

 Here's a little story about my previous evening in Hiroo. After my daily ritual of a scrub and soak at the local sento (public bath, like an onsen only with tap water instead of mineral water), I checked Google for a nearby restaurant. It showed a taishoku (set meal; rice, soup, pickles, main, for one set price) place right around the corner, although it showed “busier than normal”. Hiroo is not a large town, so I thought busier than normal probably still isn't too bad, so off I went. I arrived to a totally empty parking lot, but I did see movement inside so I thought I'd check it out. Going through the door I was met by the proprietors, a husband and wife, 80 years if they were a day.  “Aitemasu ka?” (Are you open?) The wife apologetically says that they are closed and leads me out the door. Then she sees the bike. “Oh my! You've been riding a bicycle? Surely you can't go away hungry!" (Actually, I had no idea what she was saying. She was speaking far too quickly for me to understand, but that's what I'm going to say she said). She then ushered me back inside, and opened the restaurant just for me! It was one of the trip’s highlights.

Just a thought……the OP had a problem with gear slippage in the lower ratios and then changed the oil (and adjusted the chain) which sorted the problem……then found the oil leak.

Could an oil leak have been there all the time (and emptied the hub of oil) which has now become more obvious with new (more) oil in the hub?

Did much oil come out when the hub was drained or was it dry?

Aaargh! I hope not..

Have reattached ex box successfully now and will hold off on another oil change and keep a close eye on things

Airline tickets bought.   Railway tickets to LHR bought.   Raven sorted.  Leaving UK in early Feb 2026.
Horrible flooding in SL so I wondered about cancelling but as I go in 2 months time I am continuing.
Details in my CycleBlaze Journal

https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/srilanka26/

If I'm looking at the inside surface of ex-box face on, do I turn the ex-box nut clockwise or anti-clockwise for gear 14?

The simple answer is anti-clockwise to get to gear 14.

If I'm looking at the inside surface of ex-box face on, do I turn the ex-box nut clockwise or anti-clockwise for gear 14?

I can't remember, but there's no need to.  You can change gear with an 8mm spanner while the wheel is in the dropout,  turn it to one end, turn the pedals, turn it to the other and you'll know.  I frequently forget to change gear before disconnecting and do the above, it takes a couple of seconds.