Webber.net.nz

No it’s not a form of storage for your ipod. It’s actually a chicken home called the Eglu (or a rabbit home or whatever small animal you can think of really). Being an ingenuitive kiwi, I couldn’t help but think it would be easier to build my own A frame. Amway Susan’s been thinking about having one in our garden. Fortunately I have talked so sense into her…
What we do with two chickens and a funky designed house when we go back to NZ?

It took Susan a few weeks and garden full of seaweed and copper tape but finally she declared war on the slugs. The last straw was when she woke up one morning to find her new pansy’s were the slugs latest victims. Since then she has been out each night with a torch decapitating the enemy. Speaking to my Mum (also an amateur slug mercenary), she is planning to get Susan a miners light that you attach to your head. I understand with out the right equipment neutralising slugs is just harder than it needs to be. Fortunately while in Bath Susan found the equivalent of the SAS survival manual. It’s a book called 50 ways to kill a slug which features many different approaches a large proportion she has already tried. My remit seems to be eradicating the extra large slugs most of these Susan is to nervous to touch.

Last week we had a friend called Mike come and stay with us. He’s a friend of a friend of a friend form Oamaru, New Zealand. We all got on well and being a bit bored and stuck in Andover he was pretty happy to just do whatever we wanted to do.

Susan has been obsessed recently with protecting her lettuces from the slugs without killing them. Going to the local Garden store the guy at the desk who was almost certainly a Vietnam protestor and vegetarian said “I’m not into killing things, animals or anything but when it comes to slugs” his eyes sharpened and voice grew deeper “It’s War!, It’s you or them” he went on to tell us how he waits for the cover of night before deploying his secret weapon “the scissors” upon any unsuspecting slugs heads and then leaving the slugs headless bodies for the birds to eat in the morning.

As you can imagine this quickened Susan’s resolve to search for a way to avoid slug genocide. After hours of internet research – copper tape, special pellets the works – she ended up on a site suggesting seaweed acts a barrier to create slug free strongholds for what would otherwise be a valley of free lunch.

So poor old Mike was dragged to Clevdon, a local sandy beach to collect seaweed. After hauling a few shopping bags worth we decided to leave when all the locals started looking us like we were barmy.

We then moved on to Weston Super Mare. It’s a quintessential British seaside village. Complete with donkeys, dodgems, and various other amusements. Surprisingly it now has sand, which isn’t really compulsory for a seaside town in the UK as most people go there to spend money on ice cream and fish and chips rather than swim. After smacking into each other on the dodgems and dragging Susan away from the dangerously addictive 2p coin pushy over game we had our compulsory fish and chips and got home to watch The Worlds Fastest Indian.

Note from Susan:

The slug war still continues, so if anyone has any good ideas to stop the slugs from eating my lettuces please let me know. Any suggestions must be humane and preferably not harm the slugs. However, as I am now tiring of their ongoing feasting of my lettuces, I would consider methods which would HUMANELY kill the slugs. i.e. salt and beer do not fall into this category.

I’m battling UK government bureaucracy to get the paper part of my Drivers licence reissued at the moment. For a start the UK is the only place I’m aware of that has a photo drivers licence card but still insists of using the paper licence as it’s official documentation. You might ask what’s the point in issuing a paper licence but perhaps that would be too cynical.

Anyway being a diligent supporter of the civil services I promptly got on to the DVLA and found I can phone a number pay £19 and my paper licence will be reissued. However not so. It seems those instructions “Aren’t as clear as the could be” (some might suggest completely wrong) and I need to reapply for a licence again.

So all I had to do was pick a form from the post office and fill it out and a new licence would be winging it’s way to me. In order not to depress you too much I wont whine on with my sombre tale but I’m sure you can imagine even getting the form wasn’t simple.

Okay my wife gets these ideas. They usually happen went we go into these stores where they sell all sorts of “time saving” stuff.

While in Newcastle in one such store called Lakeland she saw these sock clips.

You attach them to your socks before putting them into the wash and then you can just hang them on the line and presto.. no more spending hours infront of the TV matching different shades of black socks. I have even been assigned my own colours (yellow and green).

We are yet to do any washing with the clips attached. Personally I’m not so sure about this but what do you think?

I need to ask,
What is the point in having a large plastic container that sits inside your kitchen sink?

I had never seen one until we moved to England but here it’s totally the norm.
Is it to save water?
Does it save the sink from getting scratched or is it like many English traditions is it just because they always done it that way?

To my kiwi brain it seem funny to have perfectly good sink and then put a plastic container inside it to use just like a sink.
Maybe I’m wrong.