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So I'm puzzled by the sign (which I haven't seen) saying Disappearing Chemist as well @Marigold . When I learned to read they were experimenting with the phonetic alphabet and as a result I struggle with spelling. As we all know that experiment didn't work well, but it did get me started on...

Not sure the grit is oyster shells crushed up? Looking at the stuff we have in our mixed grit (bought in England) it contains much smaller pieces of broken shell which look like cockles?

TV here published the result of a survey about Valentines Day. 20% said it was about love and 80% said it was just commercial and took no part in it. In our case it was an excuse for fizzy wine, fillet steak and a large chocolate gateau, paid for in part by not buying cards or any other...

We removed our brambles using a small sharpened spade, to cut the roots about 4" down. Of the approximately 10,000 taken out a few came back, but only 20 or so a year which is easily managed. Some areas where the growth was very weak they were strimmed off a few times and then they stopped growing.

Our smart meter electricity account tells us that we have reduced our usage by 15%. Will it save us any money? No, the price went up 15% from today! But there was a report on French TV which said that, excluding space heating, the average household uses 20% of their electricity for fridges and...

Reading about your bird species count Marigold made me curious as to how many we have here at the moment. My total is 17. Some of the more unusual ones are Kestrel, Nuthatch, Egret, Jay, Woodpecker (lesser spotted) and a Black Winged Kite. There will be several more later in the year including a...

It has to be some kind of sick joke. Why on earth would anyone want o kill hedgehogs?

BBC Scotland said at lunchtime a dozen extra repair teams had arrived by ferry at Lerwick, but were going to be hampered by the weather conditions.

Pot (ceramic) eggs work for us. They attack them and fail to break them so just stop doing it. Problem starts with a broken egg, so it can happen at any time especially if eggs accumulate in the nest boxes. Sooner or later one will drop her egg onto one that is lying there. Can't remember where...

I've just been watching a programme on French TV showing parts of England from the air. Some of it featured the steam locomotive 45110 which ran on the Severn Valley, Google tells me. I did catch a glimpse of a road sign pointing towards Worcester.

Ideally you would have a run that rats can't get into, but that may be a lot of work for you. You certainly can't use poison and they wouldn't eat it in preference to chicken feed anyway. First thing is to remove the feed at night and make sure they haven't access to water. They will eat the...

In the attempt to save as much fuel oil as possible we have reduced the boiler temperature to 45C. We had a sharp frost last night and the house maintained its temperature. We have the boiler outside in the garage and the main heating pipes are in the loft, all fully insulated now (there were...

That looks so much like villages in Northwest Derbyshire Hen-Gen.

My recipe book says "for perfect function of your septic tank add 200 mice". Believe me it worked wonders for our stinky pit. I was reminded of the fireplace in the rental. It had a wood burner with an insulated flue, but the hole in the plasterboard ceiling was too big so there was a gap...

We had cats that couldn't kill the mice, they just brought them into the house where they lived quite happily in the tumble dryer. When we moved to this infested house (and the previous rental was possibly far worse, despite the cat) we trapped 200 mice in the first year with 13 traps on the...

We've found that, for a given temperature, a dry room feels warmer than a damp one. We have several dehumidifiers which are used in Winter above 60 %. Whilst they do use electricity it's one of those cases when it gets used twice, so once to run the appliance and it then heats the room. In the...

Lovely to see her fight back to a normal life. A very special chicken.

We don't have bins here, so no rubbish collection. The communal bins are on the way to town so you take your rubbish to them when you go to town. Unlike England glass doesn't go into the recycling bin but into specific bins for that in town or the dechetterie (tip). There were so many Brits in...

As the clocks go back tonight the TV has featured 'The clocks go to Winter- an endless debate!' Whilst the whole of Europe agrees it is a real pain and would like to keep the same time all year and have also agreed that they must all use the same one (Summer time or Winter Time), they can't...

They have Ex-Bat rehoming here as well Shadrach. We bought broiler hens instead and gave them a full life. One of them is very different to the others- about half the size and lays really well. According to the official figures only 100,000 Brits have been issued with residency permits in...