sime42

That's bloody hard graft. How long did that take you? Good idea with the stumpery.

That's why I said "something more like" PR. [emoji848] There's no easy answer but the current setup is obviously not working. Heaven forbid that someone the likes of Farage were to ever get into power! Though on reflection he couldn't be that much better that Boris surely.

Pretty astute there analysis I'd say.

I see your point but I think you give the ruling elite too much credit. They're too arrogant to change the way they behave, unless they are really forced to. Independents and all the smaller parties would have to attract so many votes between them as to deprive the big two of the majority. That's a lot to ask. The "wasted vote" was intentionally in quotation marks, it was a somewhat tongue in cheek comment. I've voted for the smaller parties in the past, and will do so in future. I just meant that our current system is not really fair for the likes of them.

They'd be a good option, they've obviously got their priorities in the right order. Sadly though unless/until we can reshape our electoral system to something more like Proportional Representation they'll always be a "wasted vote" in our broken system.

[emoji23]

I'm struggling at the moment, no where's to put the many pots of young plants, seedlings and germinating seeds. Run out of window sill space in the house and still too cold at night to move things into the greenhouse.

She's not been idle then! Lots going on there.

Ai, you've got a bargain there.

That's a real beauty.

You're right of course, we the human plague of parasites, are the problem. How can we ever action the solution to that though? It's an ethical minefield; trying to reduce or even limit our population. Sure, we could try to enforce contraception in third world countries, but I don't think that would help much. Most of the damage is done by or driven by us in first world countries, (with stable or even declining populations). Surely we ought to at least mitigate the effects of our presence on the planet. The basic problem is exacerbated by the way we live our lives, our massive overconsumption of everything for instance. Maybe it's just me, but I feel pretty depressed about the grim state that the world will be in when my son grows up, if we sit back and do nothing to try to improve the current trajectory.

Maybe we'll finally see some progress with the new guy in charge. Here's hoping .... Climate change: Biden summit to push for 'immediate' action WWW.BBC.CO.UK Forty world leaders will be urged to increase their carbon-cutting actions at US virtual summit.

I should have known it was too good to be true.

This is the gas powered automatic trap. Looks good in theory. Shame its so bloody expensive! A new weapon against the greys WWW.FORESTRYJOURNAL.CO.UK The alien North American grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is a huge challenge for UK foresters, especially those wanting to grow hardwoods for…

I was thinking about this too.

Good plan. Oily fish like mackerel is really good. Tasty too. Just a shame about all the heavy metals in it due to pollution in the seas. You're meant to be careful about how much you eat because of that. Bloody humans!

Avocados do eventually disappear. I tend to sieve the compost after getting it out of the bin each year. To get rid of any plastic crap and retrieve any cutlery! At the same time I chuck any bigger bits of un-composted organic debris, like avocado, into the bin to go through the next cycle. Not sure what makes moss so tough but there's definitely something about it. It's used in hanging baskets as a liner and also a major constituent of carnivorous plant soil mixes. I grow some of these and the moss always lasts years before rotting down. Thinking laterally, maybe this is also why moss peat takes so many thousands of years to form any depth of.

Yep. But aren't there some downsides to reintroducing Pine Martins all over the place? I heard something about them once but forget the details again. Do they attack birds nests as well or something?

Anyone know why the buggers do so much bark damaging? The Greys. A guy told me once that it was all to do with territorial behaviour and the fact that they have no natural predators in this country. Frustratingly I've forgotten the details of what he said. Until recently I didn't realise that they attacked oak trees as well. I thought it was beech and sycamore that they preferred to go for. I was doing a light reduction and thin of an oak a few weeks back and when I got to the top loads of branches were screwed with squirrel damage.

I'll vouch for squirrels being good eating. Though I had a mate of mine do the butchery, I wouldn't have bothered myself as not much meat on them. I think he used 2 or 3 of them to make a terrine. If was very good.

Bloody marketing! I fell for it the first time of reading. Thinking biodegradable meant it would disappear in my compost bin after a year or so. Maybe I won't bother with PG tips after all,.and just go back to putting all tea bags in the household waste. We have no food waste option for our rubbish collection with our LA, but I think all the household gets incinerated anyway. Cheers to you and your daughter for the info! PS. Avocados are amazingly tough. Skins and stones.

Just out of interest;- is your motivation purely environmental protection? Or do you make some kind of use of the "by-products"? That would make sense; it would be sensible for people to eat squirrel meat as an alternative to highly resource and energy costly farmed meat like beef.

I very highly commend you. Thanks for you efforts. Grey Squirrels really are the Devil's Spawn!

This book is really good. It's short, readable and takes a no nonsense approach to the issues of back pain, causes and treatments. It describes the back in terms of a mechanism, which is all it is really, a series of joints. The idea being that you can treat the problem yourself before it escalates too much. Treat Your Own Back by Robin McKenzie | Waterstones WWW.WATERSTONES.COM Buy Treat Your Own Back by Robin McKenzie from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25. Personally I'd always go to a physio rather than a chiropractor or osteopath. The latter often seem to have a bad reputation for being no good, and money grabbers. Physios might also be more used to dealing with active, physical people like ourselves and sports people. Providing the issue is not too serious, one that requires surgery, you want someone to diagnose the problem and then give you some exercises to do at home, rather than asking you to go back to them every week for three months to be poked and prodded, at £50 a session. (That happened to my partner. She wasn't impressed and jacked it in after a couple). The most useful thing that I've taken from that book, and a couple of visits to a physio is the best way to treat a bout of acute back ache is to do an exercise to bend it the opposite way to normal, i.e. arch it backwards. A good way is do some press-up, but try to keep your groin pressed to the ground. A few days or weeks of that, a couple of times a day, really helps in my case. The rationale is that the discs get squeezed out backwards from bending and lifting over time. As they're flexible they can, to a certain extent, be squeezed forwards again to where they should be by bending the back over backwards. Works for me. All that said I think a certain amount of back pain is a sad consequence of manual labour and getting older. Mine always aches a bit after too much bending down or heavy lifting. Also, bad posture is a big culprit. I reckon there's as many desk workers or more with back problems. Swimming and cycling are good for stretching out and freeing things up. Hanging upsidedown too! I've never tried it but the idea is to stretch the back and open up the vertebrae.

Me too, for peace of mind. I'm sure it's not necessary though as that webbing looks bloody strong.