HOUSEHOLD TIPS NOT FOUND IN WOMAN'S WEEKLY

[chinatyke]

Time for a water pistol?

Catapult - made for the job! You must have plenty of ball bearing ammo in your treasure chest. Then into the slow cooker - tastes like chicken. [OK, I'm only joking, I know some people like animals and wouldn't dream of eating them!]

[Stanley]

Can't you just see the headlines! I have decided to pick up after it just as I do with Jack. Hateful job but safe and effective.....

[Stanley]

It's funny isn't it but I have no problems picking up warm deliveries from Jack when we are out on exercise duties but have a violent revulsion to picking up cold crap! I have mentioned this to other responsible dog walkers and it seems to be a common trait. The cat muck is of course cold and I hate it!

[Stanley]

Look after your books! I am constantly surprised that when I have occasion to look on tinternetwebthingy I find that books I bought for a song many years ago are now worth a small fortune.

[Stanley]

Just out of curiosity I lifted the manhole of the foul water sewer in the yard yesterday. Clean as a whistle. I put this down to sparing use of detergents, not putting large amounts of fat down the drains and my daily dose of bleach. I've seen people get into terrible trouble by not attending to their drains....
I lifted the results of a visit by the nocturnal cat last night and burned it on the stove. I hate it but the coffee grounds don't seem to be putting it off yet.....

[Tizer]

I think the garden centres and some hardware shops sell `cat scatter' type materials. They have a smell that deters cats. Have you tried them?

[Stanley]

I shall have to look into the matter..... Thanks for the heads up.

[Stanley]

I have no experience of modern child management. From what I can see it is far more difficult now than it was fifty years ago. However one tip does strike me, the more you can divert children away from the screen and the 'Cloud' and get them out into the real world, the better it will be for both the children and the parents. Have I seen comparisons between kids in urban areas and those where there is no mobile phone reception and poor internet connection?

[Tripps]

There are quite a few clips on youtube showing cats' reaction to the introduction of a cucumber to their location. Not all - but a lot - show an amazing reaction. I guess they think it's a snake. Worth a try I'd say.

[Stanley]

My dad tried that once with painted sections of hosepipe, it didn't work so I'll pass!

[PanBiker]

We tried it with our two cats and they both had a look on their face that seemed to say "What's that cucumber doing on the floor". One sniffed and the other one poked, then they got on with their lives.

[Tizer]

We've seen birds unwilling to land on the ground when we've left out a hosepipe but I've never tried it with cats. The scented anti-cat pellets from the garden shop work but need topping up at intervals. They would probably work in a small garden like yours; in larger gardens the cats just take a different route. Another problem with trying to deter cats is that so many are deaf; they don't respond to shouting or to the ultrasonic cat deterrents. Have you tried a sign saying `No cats allowed'? Cat owners are always telling me their pets are intelligent.

[Cathy]

Cats don't see your garden as yours Stanley, to them it is just part of their territory.
Have you tried pinocleen, pinecones, citrus peel, lemon thyme, chicken manure, lavender, penny royal?

Whenever male cats try to get the attention of my desexed female cat in spring, I spray them (thru the flyscreen) with water... it works.

[Tizer]

Have you tried pinocleen, pinecones, citrus peel, lemon thyme, chicken manure, lavender, penny royal?

Wow, that's a powerful mixture, bound to work! It's got as many ingredients as the food and cosmetics products that the supermarkets sell!

[Stanley]

I'm not going to let cat shit rule my life.... I shall just keep gritting my teeth and picking up!

[chinatyke]

I'm not going to let cat shit rule my life.... I shall just keep gritting my teeth and picking up!

Does putting grit on your teeth help to grip the cat s...? That's the beauty of false gobblers, you can use them for many tasks. Wouldn't sand-paper be more hygenic?

[Cathy]

Don't you appreciate my research Stanley?
I'm gutted...

[Stanley]

I always appreciate a word from you Cathy. Now it's lighter at night I am picking up then. At least I'll keep the plot free from contamination!
Don't throw the ball for your dog if you have a suspect shoulder. I did it yesterday and am suffering the consequences!

[Stanley]

Woman's Hour did a programme yesterday asking older people to contact them with advice for the young. I didn't join in but mine is to work slowly and with purpose, you will get more and better work that way than rushing round like a headless chicken. Everyone is in a rush, but how much are they actually accomplishing? These are the people who 'have no time to cook'.

[Tizer]

We've been helping a relative with their new house in recent weeks and it's involved a lot of contact with builders, plumbers, electricians etc. The younger ones are often disorganised, fail to turn up for agreed meetings or at the wrong time, don't respond to or even acknowledge phone calls and emails. It's a shame because they seem to be good at their trades but there's far too much of the headless chicken syndrome. The `organised' ones are those who have their wives working with them, sorting the meetings, quotes, invoices, calls emails; they're organised but by their wives, not themselves. And some of them have been to expensive private schools!

One chap turned up 15 minutes before the agreed time. My relative is a busy woman, runs her own business, has two kids and was on her way back from walking the dog. When nobody answered the door he didn't wait, just drove away. She was back in time and eventually rang to ask why he hadn't come. He didn't seem to be able to grasp the idea that he should have waited to the agreed time.

[Stanley]

Punctuality is the politeness of princes and the courtesy of kings..... Today we have people with access to more accurate time than the first atomic clocks but no idea of timekeeping. The executive in charge of IBM Time Management in Europe once asked me where I had learned to do it. I told him it was the way I was brought up and honed by driving against the clock for decades. He offered me a job any time I wanted one. I could be described as obsessive about time, even in retirement Jack and I have set time based routines. This is the reason why he is such a good house companion, he knows exactly where he is in the larger scale of the day. It is also the reason why I still get so much done and I never rush. This to me is the basis of a well-ordered life. Show me a bad timekeeper and I'll show you someone who allows chaos to rule their lives and it spills over into every aspect of it. That's why they are bad communicators as well.....(They are also useless at animal management!)

[Stanley]

Sorry about the rant yesterday but I hate chaos! A lot of this was reinforced when I was running Bancroft engine, the only way you did a good job or even survived was if you had an iron routine and stuck to it. As many engineers learned to their cost, one slip up could be disastrous or even fatal. A very powerful incentive and it worked. Good routines are the basis of a well ordered and happy life!

[Tizer]

That's how the armed forces work too. In contrast look at the chaos in the Department for Education with exam papers online before the exam! When the teacher told them about it they couldn't even find it on their own web site and she had to help them. Then they didn't take it down immediately. Now a lot of other problems have emerged.

[Stanley]

I followed that as well Tiz. Reinforces my points about having good routines and working slowly but with purpose.....

[Stanley]

If you occasionally follow my daily practice of cleaning your pint pot with bleach and boiling water, before tipping it down the plughole to clean the U-bend, dip the spout of your tap or taps in the hot bleach mixture. Biological tests show that this neglected part of the sink (like the handles of the taps!) can have the highest bug counts due to splash back from the sink. Only a small point but well worth thinking about if you are really serious about keeping your sink clean!