Slugs, Snails & Table Salt

Ready to retire for the night, TV switched off, lights out in the aquarium, waiting for Debbie and Lucy to come back in from the garden, I hear a feint "Paul" followed by a louder "Paul!" and then a very loud, you've got less than a second to get here, "PAUL!". I dashed through the house at lightning speed to see what was up.

Debbie pointed out that we had come under a late night ground assault from a battalion of slugs and snails. I watched on bleary eyed as Debbie ran inside to get something and on her return started bombing them with handfuls table salt. It does seem to do the trick although I'm not sure what effect it will have on the plants and there's so much salt in out garden now, there's no danger of any ice forming for the next 10 years.

This morning we examined the battlefield and while most of the critters had made a hasty retreat, there were some hard cases that refused to give up. I found some slug pellets in the shed but the label said they were dangerous for animals so I put those back. Meanwhile Debbie had found a tub of mixed sunflower flower seeds and wanted them sprinkling round the top of the garden.

There I was, dressed for work, dancing about in the flower bed doing the shake 'n' vac, scattering these seeds all over the place. Coming back down, my mud laden foot whizzed off the step, legs went in the air, arse hit the grass and my hand broke the bird bath into a thousand pieces.

If it hadn't been for those darn slugs and snails last night, I wouldn't have a superficial bird bath wound or a shiner on my backside, they've got to go and I'm open to suggestions...

Paul.

Beware Swan In The Road!

Driving into Doncaster for a spot of nice top shopping, we hit a traffic jam, this time not caused by the usual football traffic but a swan crossing the road at the roundabout!

A lady had kindly stopped to try and usher the swan to a safer place but he wasn't having any of it, preferring to play chicken with the oncoming cars oblivious to the chaos all around. Eventually he made it to the central reservation where he hopefully stayed until whoever the lady was calling came to rescue him.

Paul

Meet Mr Hedgehog

Debbie managed to restrain an extremely exited Lucy last night after finding Mr Hedgehog in the garden going about his slug busting duties.

I don't think he was too impressed with the camera so we let him crack on with tackling those slimy blighters that keep eating our flowers. It seems he only patrols the top garden, we don't see many slugs at all up there so he's obviously doing a very good job.

Maybe I should install some kind of hedgehog ramp so he can get down to the lower level more easily, then I might be able to stop feeding the little buggers with my precious beer.

Paul.

Just Keep Walking

The later sunsets and great weather we've been enjoying recently have allowed us to get out for a walk in the evenings. We keep forgetting to pick up our pedometers so I'm not sure exactly how we've been wandering but it's certainly much further than we ever managed last year when we were out of puff by the top of our road!

We're lucky enough to be surrounded by fields, woods, lakes and reservoirs, so we intend to explore every square inch while the light is with us over the spring and summer months.

Paul.

Long Hot Summer Starts Here

We had a scorching weekend, it was very warm for April on Saturday but on Sunday it just got plain silly.

Even Lucy, who loves soaking up the rays, eventually found a place to lay in the shade.

I decided to get the new push/pull lawn mover out, it cut the lawn a treat but it wasn't half hard work in that hot sunshine.

On Monday evening we took a stroll round a local reservoir, it's been some time since we've watched the sun go down while out walking. According to the weather experts, we could be doing this quite often this year.

See a few more pictures from over the weekend here.

Paul

Early Summer At Worsborough

Sacked the decorating on Saturday, we took a stroll round Worsborough Country Park and enjoyed the early taste of Summer.

The Full Set

Paul

Birdies In The Mist

Our garden is hive of activity bird wise at the moment, sparrows, chaffinch, goldfinch, starlings, collared doves and our resident pair of blackbirds all appeared together this morning through the mist. This is the most we've seen at any one time in all the time we've lived here and it was lovely to watch them all going about their birdie business.

Over in Scotland, Borders Birds are recording pair of great tits in their high tech nest box with amazing results, it's great watching this real life birdie drama unfold as the pair inspect their prospective new home before deciding to move in.

Nothing to report on our nest boxes here, although we've been so busy, I doubt we would have noticed if one of our feathered friends had moved in. Now that the mornings are lighter, I'll hopefully be able to steal a few minutes each morning for a spot of garden watching.

Paul.

Painting Walls Instead Of Eggs

Just a quick update, we're still here and still very flippin busy!

Over the Easter weekend, we painted the stairs, painted the landing, painted the bedroom and wallpapered the living room. There is still a little more papering to do and then we can start on putting up the cladding round the stairs and fireplace. After that, all we've got to do is the dining room, which should be finished just in time for work to start on the bathroom, which is being moved around before the ceiling is repaired, then we can start on the tiling and painting in there.

Apparently we had nice weather over the bank holiday weekend!

Paul.

Spring Flowers

The Full Set

Angel Fish

The Full Set

It's Been Four Years

Four years today we decided to set up something called a blog, not something we knew much about but seeing as everyone else was doing the same, we thought we should have one too.

We started out on Xanga where we stayed for a few months before getting a new computer with XP and discovering that Xanga wasn't compatible with the new operating system at the time. That's how we ended up here with Blogger and we haven't looked back since.

Along the way we've made loads of blogging friends and on this special day we would like to thank you all for dropping by and saying hello.

You can see our very first ever post here, made just after Lucy came to stay with us.

So on our four year anniversary, it seems quite fitting that we simply share with you our love and joy once again, Lucy!

Paul