Honesty October 29, 2007

Full marks to the chap at Costcutter in Bexley Village, who today gave me back the £20 with which I dozily overpaid for my shopping last night, following a five hour drive back from up North.

Neither he nor I noticed me handing over said extra £20 note, but thanks to a till check and his honesty,  the chaps from Costcutter now have a spotless reputation in our house.

I’d wanted to write to Costcutter head office to compliment him, but he insisted that it wasn’t necessary (so I still don’t know his name). Instead, sir, I’ll pass on my thanks here.

Oh squirrels, where art thou? September 13, 2007

It’s oh-so-quiet in the loft this evening.  This is a good sign; but they are cunning and deceptive, and we cannot assume the battle is over.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned in a Bexley-related post that I would be evicting some squirrels from my loft.  At the time, I suspected that I might have a prolonged battle on my hands, and I was very, very right.

Some things that I now know about squirrels:

• they are not cute and amusing when you live in the same house as them
• electronic squirrel deterrents don’t really bother them all that much
• they have the capacity to turn you obsessive and slightly insane
• they will stop at nothing to return to ‘their’ territory, especially when they have left their babies there.

I have tried a fair range of anti-squirrel measures: some effective, and some not so.

Pest control was right out: this is always fatal to squirrels, and that’s not my bag (or my cage).  It is their world as much as mine.

Cutting the top off a large fir tree, next to our house, was fairly effective. This did, however, seem to delay the babies in leaving the nest, since it was their escape route.

What didn’t work was stuffing the hole in our fascia board with chicken wire, and then putting an electronic “Dalek” device in the middle of it.  This contraption was supposed to alert me to furry burglars, so that I could chase them off.  As it happened, the little sods were already inside the fascia board when I stuffed the hole up, and they made a right old racket trying to get out.  So, I had to remove the wire myself, losing the “Dalek” device in the process.

For the whole of the next week, we were woken at 6.15am  by the sound of squirrel-in-fascia board (a kind of “scratta-scratta-scratta-scrat” noise) followed by several shouts of “Exterminate!”. Funny, but not at that time in the morning.

However, it now looks like all three babies have left the nest. I saw them in the leylandii tree down the bottom of the road yesterday, taunting a cat. They looked at me as if to say “There’s that potty-mouthed bloke from downstairs – got out on the wrong side of bed again, by the looks of things”.

So, if anyone wants any squirrel advice, I’m your man.

Bexley blogosphere doubles in size… August 13, 2007

..since I joined in with blogging, by the looks of things.

Actually, I’ve found two others blogs which seem to have a focus on the borough: Bexley conservative future and Duncan Borrowman of the Lib Dems.  How’s that for being impartial – I’ve linked to websites for all three major political parties now.

Of course, being an apolitical council officer (that’s the official line), I won’t have much to discuss with these two, but maybe they’ve got some views on furry mammals or crisps they’d like to share.

No offence meant to any other Bexley bloggers whom I have not found yet. Quite the opposite – please get in touch!

Fox news August 13, 2007

And not the Rupert Murdoch kind, no sir.

Following some comments about my previous post, I’ve been doing some digging on foxes. (Our local foxes, very kindly, have reciprocated by doing some digging in our back gardens. Not for nesting purposes, it seems: they just like digging).

Andrew is correct in thinking that Lewisham Animal Welfare are a bit down on fox feeding. We’ve just published the council’s fox advice on the Lewisham website. (Eek – I’ve just spotted a typo in it – must fix that first thing tomorrow!). Bexley Council are not quite so down on it, and have a spiffing pictorial calendar showing the “fox year“. Less impressive was their response when I tried to probe further on this issue – they advised me to look at their website.

Well, having looked at several pro-fox sites like the fox project and National Fox Welfare Society I’ve decided that fox feeding, in moderation, is ok, provided your neighbours don’t mind the mess and the occasional large hole in their garden.

I know a lot of the neighbours are already regular fox feeders: one fella even treated the vixen with a course of anti-mange medication last year. I’ve decided to ask all the others for their views before I continue feeding them.

A local post for local people August 1, 2007

The tagline of this site says that this blog is supposed to be about living in South-East London, and I’m keenly aware that I’m yet to share many thoughts on this.

I’m a keen follower of the goings-on in the Lewisham blogosphere, being an employee of the local authority for the borough, and it is two of those blogs in particular that inspired me to start this one (Andrew’s and Henry’s). Andrew was also very encouraging when I met him at the Catford beer festival.

I haven’t found a blogosphere for Bexley yet, but then, I haven’t looked that hard either.

So, a little bit about Bexley for you. Bexley is a village, and a London Borough. I live in both the village and the borough.

I love Bexley because I can get into London easily (though sometimes I have to run like hell to catch the 00:10 last train home of an evening – the taxi fare from London doesn’t bear thinking about) and get into Kent easily too when I fancy some fresh country air.

What I like best is that, on the outskirts of the village, is a farm shop and a fantastic butcher’s shop, plus an Italian Deli in the centre. This means I can put my money where my mouth is by buying local, and avoiding the supermarkets as much as possible. Smug. (I also think that supermarket shopping is a perfect way to ruin a perfectly good day off work – in Asda, no-one can hear you scream).

It’s not quite as lively as other places I lived (Greenwich, Forest Hill, Tooting, the East and West Ends of Newcastle) most of the time, but it’s kicking on a weekend, when the majority of its 9 pubs will be jam packed. This pretty much suits me.

It’s pretty foxy. We have a family of foxes living behind our garage, and they are very friendly, like the neighbours. As long as you put food out for them occasionally, they don’t poo in your garden (the foxes that is, not the neighbours – boom boom). I’ve discovered that they like cheese, cakes, the leftover vegetables after you’ve made stock, quorn chile, meat of any description and bread if there really isn’t anything else to eat.

There’s plenty of other wildlife, perhaps a bit too much. I’m going to be spending part of the forthcoming weekend trying to evict some squirrels from my loft. The council has some very good advice on this, I’ve noticed.

That was all very positive, don’t you think? More on Bexley at a later date, I think.

Evenin’ May 8, 2007

No promises, but this is what I think I might write about:

• lovely food, probably cooked by Mary and me, washed down with some lovely booze
• why I hate Walker’s crisps
• my struggle to put my education to good use in the IT business
• how to wind up BT – forever
• my latest consumer campaigns
• wild and crazy music
• online gaming
• living in Bexley, which is in Kent and South-East London, strangely
• working in Lewisham (maybe)
• yogurt fights, chair racing, elephant shaped flower-beds, why mice are irresistibly attracted to me and other stories from my creatively mis-spent, but not wasted, youth.