Wholly Holey Moley

This is the work of a sole mole (not a vole) who achieved its goal within one hour! This wretched little rodent has been tunelling vigorously in and around the field adjacent to our garden. Yesterday there was no molehill in our garden - I looked outside an hour later and there was this volcano of earth. Husband suggest that I (note not him) should go out and spear the ground with the garden fork to see if we could harpoon the little chap. Note for animal lovers - no success!

A boring walk until . . . . . . .

We came across this topiary at the edge of Radcot lock. We decided, as it was a nice sunny day yesterday, to follow the path along The Thames near Faringdon. I must say I was dissapointed - the area seemed a graveyard for small motor boats, their owners long gone. It was a sad sight to see - flapping tarpaulins, rusty hulls and peeling paintwork. However we set off across some fields near the river bank - the going was fairly rough for my wonky knees but I ploughed on. Then we came across this lock - it was in the midst of the country with no permanent road access - the lock keeper was hard at work mending some chains - it was evident he had also spent a great deal of time with his little bit of garden!

I think this area of The Thames has not got the same charisma as the canals.

Post Office Games

I receive shedloads of catalogues - a few I subscribe to and the majority I do not. I tried emailing the various companies asking them to take my name off their mailing list - consternation - I found that many of these companies then started sending me two catalogues!

A friend advised me the best way to stop these catalogues from flooding through your letterbox was to just scrawl 'Return to Sender' upon the outside and cover up your own name with a label requesting removal from mailing list and post back. This seemed to work for a bit - just a little bit.

I think our local sorting office decided I was a nuisance and I found the wretched catalogues returning to me with my sticky label torn off to re-display my name and address. I now have a different system - I add the return address on another sticky label - I think the sorting office do not like searching the catalogue for the return address - so far success.

We do not have a letter box - we have an American style mail box attached to our porch. All of the four new houses find these difficult. If we go away we have to arrange for a neighbour to empty our box - I think it can only hold about 5 thick A4 letters in total. You ask why do we not insert a letter box - we have very nice thick oak front doors - it would be a mammoth job to install a letter box - way beyond Husband and I.

My Window Pain

We have been having trouble with a window since we moved into our new-build house two years ago. We moved in during August 2006 when we had been having a hot summer (remember those far off hot days?). In about February 2007 we experienced the first N and or NW wind howling around my bedroom window - the result - an awful moaning noise that changed pitch with the strength of the wind - it was so loud I had to move out on windy nights. We could not find the cause. We padded the window opening with J-cloth - annoyingly the wind would go away and we would have to wait until the next N/NW wind to see the result of our labours. More moaning noises - we took out the little vents on top of the windows and filled them with newspaper - no luck. We rang the builders - they were not interested to find out the exact problem as they would have had to arrive on a day with the wind in the right direction - too much bother for them! I was getting cross because the spare room bed was uncomfortable - we bought a memory foam mattress cover for the bed - that was good for visitors as well as me!

This problem carried on for a full year until I nagged Husband to really DO something about it! The result was we hired a cherry picker device (quite good value we thought) and our lovely next door neighbour who has a head for heights and building experience zoomed up to the window - luck was with us - it was a horrible cold windy day with the wind coming from the north. He could see nothing but raised himself above the window and lo and behold he discovered the window had not even been sealed in properly by the builders!!! The wind had been vibrating against a piece of waterproofing lining. Neighbour cheerfully sealed up the window and all was well - until last week. A familiar moan started again - oh no, not again.

I had a brilliant idea - I bought some blue-tack, hung out of the window and squashed it into the recess above the window. Silence was golden. This weekend we bribed Neighbour to scoot up his own long ladder and re-seal the window (the sealant had dried out). So really, we have to persuade our neighbour not to move house ever so that annually he can renew the sealant for us! Why oh why do not builders check their own work. I would have been fired from my job if I had made such basic mistakes.

Handy Household Tip

These little beauties are used to bake apples in the microwave. Just prepare the apples as you normally would (ie core, stuff with sultanas, add dab of butter and slit skins) place the apples inside containers and turn on microwave. I used them for the first time yesterday and followed the instructions - had the most delicious apples in less than 4 minutes. Saves the fuel used to bake in oven. I bought these through a well known catalogue whose head office is up in the Lake District.

Virgin Outage - more like Outrage

I gather from Virgin help line 50% of its users are without email services, including me! Am thinking of ditching this inefficient service as within the last 6 months there have been many down times. Any ideas which ISP I should change to?

High In The Sky Trouble

I was amused by a snippet in the news this morning. As you can guess the item in question was certainly not financial news - there is nothing to be amused about on that topic.

Apparently Quantas had an 'in-flight upset' - well, the mind boggles. Perhaps all the passengers developed food poisoning and dashed to the loos all at once creating a weight imbalance, loo paper bulging out under the doors, sick bags taking the strain (sorry, Strine as it was a Quantas plane). On a serious note the plane landed safely and all was well - possible air turbulence.