Onoff

A small child equipped with pencil and torch is very useful. This one can be made available for the appropriate fee through the buildhub tool loan arrangement:

Best guess is a belemnite fossil. Like an ancient squid but with an internal skeleton. I'm giving it to the girl who identified it as she's been seriously ill and thought it might cheer her up.

How many artisan barbers visits / pilates lessons would that pay for?

Note the digger had broken this one apart. Can't find the other half of the flint "shell".

Yep. Tbh this type of "inclusion" is pretty common to round here. My brother is good at spotting them. Came down one day and I'd unearthed a tennis ball shaped flint. He said "There's a fossil in that!" Gave it a sharp tap with a club hammer and we've a perfect sea anemone / tribolite type thing. I'll try and find it and put a photo up. This one though he has no idea. Suggested I contact the British Museum.

Came home and saw a weird, flint sticking out of the bank where we've dug out to extend the patio: The plain side: A quick clean in the sink with the scrubbing brush: Any thoughts as to what it is? Bone?

I am on clay. Thin top soil, clay, chalk. Flints in every layer

On another forum, in part answer to the same question, somebody wrote: "A good quality geo membrane under the sub base is the most important factor". Really? Without diving into the paving expert site, is that really correct?

For my patio sub base I'm using a lot of the local flint that I'll whack down. Up until now I've been picking out the chalk but do I need to? Seems hard enough a material, should whack down well and remain in place and sticky when damp. Thinking a whacked flint / chalk sub base then sand/cement dry mix pre the slabs.

Fused switches. The smaller ones I think limit you to supply in at the bottom and load at the top: Whereas the big long metal cased ones are configurable for in/out either way: What's the smallest fused switch you can get that will take the supply in at the top would anyone know? Cheers

Says he like an old hand, standing on the shoulders of giants!

It's the second one I've seen. The last was in a house in the next village maybe 20 years ago.

I've not seen one of these voltage controlled circuit breakers for a few years! Tbh I'm surprised the DNO fitted a new head and meter with it there. Done a few years back when we were having lots of local power issues. The seals are even initialled and match the signature on the meter labels. This is a self contained, metered supply separate to the house off a pole in a old, block built cooper's shed. Think double garage size with a solid dividing wall. There's a bit of T&E coming out the bottom of the VOCB feeding a rusty, lidless ancient cu, the other side of the wall. That's a whole other story, falling apart etc. Feeding just lights and a couple of sockets for the garage & all in VIR. They want to feed a new annexe and have already run a 16mm2, 2-core SWA in a duct underground. A yellow duct no less! I'm not sure if that's worse than the usually used / seen blue! Too late now to even give them any tape for the trench as it's all concreted over. I was thinking they should go REC2 then Henleys after the meter. Then one set of tails to a new, local cu the other side of the wall and sort those lights and sockets out. Another set of tails to a 100mA time delay RCD then an 80A switch fuse feeding the SWA to the annexe. They've a BG split board for the annexe. As it is it's actually better as it is than many round here. All farms or ex smallholdings! 😂

The hair and a fresh application of coffee grounds last night: Are you supposed to spread the hair thinner?

A relative suggested they've had excellent first years growing veg then the second year seen the plants decimated by pests. Maybe "they" are then in the soil, multiplying ready for next year? More hair applied to the nibbled beans tonight, purple dyed hair to be exact! Dyed hair withstanding I'm trying not to use anything artificial. That extends to oil used on the gardening tools. Rather than 3 in 1, WD40 etc is vegetable oil an option? Was even thinking to spray inside my box section frames.

Western yellow centipede is the best guess. A lot bigger than the 70mm I've read they grow to!

The times I've heard that...

Make 'em:

Now I'm scared! 😬 I thought I'd seen whatever it is the other evening but now there is no mistake. I was just out slugging on the bean patch. There was "something" on the ground about 4" long. As the torchlight hit it disappeared underground but so fast I thought I was hallucinating. Where it went underground was a say 5mm dia hole. I gingerly probed it with the Leatherman blade but backed off as it's dark and I've seen Tremors! Any ideas?

Lidl.

I put some seeds in the little pots, in compost.

12 Harrier F1 butternut squash and 45 tongue of fire red runners. The trays from when SWMBO did her hanging baskets:

Got as far as filling a bucket with nettles last year after a tip on here. Promptly forgot about it until it dawned what the smell was! Then the bucket dried out. Seem to recall you're supposed to dilute 10:1 as it's strong stuff. Just given the soil around each plant about 100ml of this made up, organic fertiliser:

Small weeds are still growing up around the beans so I'm not so sure the coffee is doing major harm?

@SteamyTea the bloke who wrote that is wong... Seriously though, point taken though a bit late now On the effectiveness as a slug/snail deterrent it's either that or the garlic water that's keeping them away it seems. Only two plants out of 50 have been nibbled and I found the culprit on one and dealt with it (small slug). I've also been putting human hair around the plants. If the caffeine is having a suppressing effect I wonder if it's worth giving each plant a liquid feed now?