Be Excellent To Each Other

It must look a lot bigger than it is. It looks about 25cm across.

Prove it!

Go there at christmas and see if he's eating them.

Just ordered a bag of swans. I'll see how I get on with these before deciding how many herons I'll need.

Selfie from earlier today, see totally not the queen.

I'm convinced

Hi Convinced, I'm dad!

Wait a minute... it’s not Christmas

That’s just his giant stadium crowd of swans waving their lighters as they sing God Save The Queen for TOTALLY NO REASON.

All the girls say that.

It's actually 10cm diameter.

A 21-year-old pair of sunglasses.

I had a pair of those about 21 years ago. Slightly different in that the magnesium frames were two different shades of grey; arms and nose piece were slightly darker than the eye frames

I think mine are 20+ years old.

Obviously these were very much second hand - I bought a pair in ~2005 and loved them with all my heart, but lost them on a night out a few years back. These were a bit eye-watering in terms of the price (although not as much as the Romeo X Metals, which change hands for £750), but I'll forget about that soon and have lovely sunglasses forever*.


* until I lose this pair

Oh, that’s quite nice. I think we need something like that, but I can’t remember where. Maybe in the utility room. Does it just attach to the floor?

Do you know how the price compares with when you originally bought the first pair?

Pretty sure the most expensive sunglasses I’ve ever bought were £4.

Fun Fact: Oakley's are one of the very few sunglasses brands that aren't owned and manufactured by Luxotica.

Alright, not fun.

Triple-ish.

Well, hopefully they make your eyes happy. Imagine if they were the old pair you lost somehow found their way back to you.

I think I paid nearly £300 new for them.

I've bought a 2 metre long lead to charge my ipad.

It doesn't charge my ipad.

GAH!

Similar to what I said when I plugged it in.

Last ones I got, in December, were (1.2M) Gianac ones, which have been fine.

I use anker or Amazon basic cables. They have Ben great so far.

Amazon basics cables are good too.

Good knowledge.. I've just ordered one of amazon. Thank you!

Mine were about £200, I think? Not polarised, though, which is probably the difference.

A sub £10 hexapod robot from Banggood that I'm going to kit bash with a Tamiya tank.



Unless I fall in love with it an just make the tank as normal.

It sings and dances and has colourful lights!

No, it just sits there. It's quite heavy and has a ridged rubber base, so it doesn't move unless you want it to.

Ours is behind the kitchen door to stop it hitting the wall and replaced an old aluminium, wall-attached thing that I finally got fed up with gluing back together. I was considering one of those spring types, but Ollie would just have wanted to boing it all the time.

Babies and puppies are a lot alike in that regard.

And grown men. I will always boing a boinger.

We have these metal Covid signs (think along the lines of a street sign for an icecream shop) all over the office currently and I can never resist given them a boing as I walk past them.

No, wait... Now it does.

Apple do some checking on the cables plugged into them IIRC, so it might be that, and I think Doc G had a cable that only charged in one orientation?

Perhaps that second part is worth experimenting with on your part?

Your house must have dirty and/or slow electricity, you probably need to spend a load of money on replacing cabling. Get the cables with the filters to purify your supply.

I bought myself a bird feeding station for the garden, because I just love birds snd have always wanted one. I’ve stocked it with all birdy treats for various kinds of bird friends. I thought it might take weeks or even months for the birds to trust it, but it’s really quickly been very popular, snd we’ve had all kinds of birds. Blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits, greenfinches, robins, sparrows, and these lovelies, who are just so beautiful and comical. I know some people discourage them from the feeders, but I love them.

What the...

Seriously? That’s awesome.

Cor! That’s awesome.

Yes, we had some opposite the flat as well, as there are a lot of trees around there, but this is the first time we’ve had somewhere to watch them up so close. I was hoping when we got the new place that there might be some parakeets here, as we are near a golf course, and they really like parks, but they seem to nest in the trees right at the end of the gardens here.

We've a very similar feeding station that we've had for years. And we get a few squirrels after the peanuts as well, so we have a seperate feeder for them. We used to put monkey nuts out for them, and it was fun to watch them bury them only to have magpies or crows watching them and then digging up the nuts a few seconds later. We gave up on the monkey nuts because the squirrels never tidy the shells away and the palce was looking a mess. We see the parakeets flying over, but they rarely some down to our feeders.

Eight pallet collars, sans pallet.

I was really nervous about these arriving because I was worried the lorry was going to have a bad time getting down the road, but it was fine.

They’re sturdier than I thought, so I’m hoping they’ll last a couple of years.

Are these for flower / veg raised boarders, Mimi?

Yes, sorry, I had written that, then lost my post and tried to repost it and forgot to type that but out again.

They are for raised vegetable beds. I’m going to keep the pallet collars on for the first year, then remove it when the beds are established and then I have the choice on whether to use them to set up any further beds.

Thinking of doing some two tiered ones like this:

Nice! are they pretreated? I'd slap something on them if not before you fill them, or I guess you could line them too.

Oh, nice idea! Do you mind me asking where you got them from? As I have a feeling with impending tiny doggo I'm going to need to move some of my plants!

I was just going to ask the same. As I want a raised bed in my garden.

Not at all, I got them from here: https://www.manutan.co.uk/en/key/pallet-collars

They were a good price and there’s free delivery, too.

@Zardoz No, I was specifically looking for untreated wood as my friend and I are doing the Charles Dowding no dig bed method. These aren’t permanent structures. You line them with cardboard and fill them with your composted material to form the bed, which you plant into in your first year.

Come Next winter you remove the pallet collar and the bed holds together, and you just lightly top up with whatever you’ve composted, because slugs like the environment between the soil and wood, and you don’t want to encourage them.

The cardboard breaks down and mulches the grass/any weeds below it, but will compost in-situ so roots can grow to the bed soil beneath the bed and compost.

The collars can then be dismantled, passed on or used to set up new beds, until they are no longer useable. Permanent wooden sided beds mean more slugs, etc. My friend has been doing this a few years, so this year she’s handholding me (via the internet) and I’m basically shadowing her. She’s sending me half her seeds so that we can sow and plant together, so that I know what I’m doing week-to-week, so I can find my feet.

That is a great idea. I am going to look at it. Thank you.