PowerSwitch

I'm a BTL "landlord". Am I a parasite? No - I tried to sell my house for 4 years and when I couldn't sell it (all the first time buyers wanted a new house in the estate in the next village) I had no choice but to let it out if I wanted to move on to something with a garden big enough to gr...

Kind of glad that the path to our allotment runs between our house and that of our new, friendly but easily-roused-to-violent-anger neighbour (who also has an allotment there). Easy to tripwire it and get neighbour to pulp infiltrators :-) I'll just stand back and shout encouragement, whilst providi...

Biggest boost to my candlemaking adventures was the discovery that the *perfect* thing for melting leftover candlewax is an old slowcooker. No direct flame, so no danger of spontaneous combustion. I have an old one (two person size - my family is now 4 plus visitors!) which I just chuck all my candl...

Argh! This thread has rekindled my mad wish for a dog. I've always loved the look and temperament of lurchers, but my hubbie fancies those rather over-bred retriever-types, so we're at an impasse. Of course, I couldn't give up the cats, and lurchers tend to chase anything that runs, so.... Ah well! ...

When you look at the economies of doing it the old-fashioned way, it can be scary: A *good* hand weaver should be able to produce four to five yards of cloth per day. It takes approximately 7x the time to spin the wool for that day's weaving. You can make a pair of trouser from a couple of yards of ...

Yep, definitely no electricity needed for this piano. Only problem is that husband tends to break into involuntary attacks of "Roll Out The Barrel" whenever he sits down at it... We were lucky and got it for free because a friend of a friend was moving and couldn't be bothered to shift it....

We bought a push-along lawnmower last year, and I have a carpet sweeper which I use in preference to the vacuum cleaner. All torches are now hand-cranked as well. I've also given up the electric mixer for baking, and have resorted to the good old-fashioned wooden spoon. I figure a bit of vigorous mi...

Hi Tatters, I've got my Mum's old one and it's a high-dome (tall lid) Prestige. I use it a fair bit, and it works much better on an open flame like a gas hob than on an electric/woodstove top. Even better is the fact that I've got her original 1950s instruction manual. I'll photocopy it and post it ...

Tattercoats! All that time on the phone and you didn't tell me!

That's it, I'm definitely visiting now

Bugger! That's the same chicken ark that I'm refurb-ing and planning on putting chucks into come spring... Any ideas where the weakness that let the dog in might be? I'm just thinking that maybe beefing up the doors on mine might not be such a bad idea, given this horrid event. My sympathies on the ...

I'm fairly new to the forums and delurking with this post, so please be kind! Due to a really complicated set of circumstances (far too long and boring to go into now) we own a cottage that we rent out as holiday accommodation, and live next door, which we rent. We also own a piece of land a short d...