There's a firm called Vouch - they verify your details so your proposed house rental or whatever else can happen. That's fair enough but they're starting to kick the backside out of it. Do we want them to set us up with utility providers? No thank you. Do we want them to set us up with this, that an...

We've done all the paperwork(or nearly all of it anyway. We just have to cough up the deposit and a month's rent in advance. It's an expensive business. We're expecting to get the keys tomorrow and then we'll be staright on the road south with a rented van to take another load up here. We'll sort ou...

Good news. We need to be out of this AirBnB in a couple of weeks but we've got the house we wanted! We can move in as soon as the paperwork and money are sorted! :D Halleluja! That gives us a year of breathing space to find somewhere to buy. :D I dunno, why should we buy? It's not as though we have ...

So, what the heck caused him (I assume it's a bloke) might have caused him to develop that habit?

Hi Primrose, I'm not sure I've ever cooked snails. If I have I've forgotten how - and most of my cookbooks are in the removal company's storage. I had a look on G and found this, which seems sensible. https://www.thesnailhouse.co.uk/2021/11/05/how-to-prepare-snails/ My late stepfather used to enjoy ...

We're in a ground floor flat. I have difficulty with stairs and only the taller most modern flats have lifts. I think the guy upstairs is a cross between a kangaroo and an elephant but it's hard to imagine how either of those could be so heavy footed. It's boof, boof, boof, making this flat shudder....

I think you can eat ordinary ggarden snails if you detoxify them first. Keep in a container and feed them only water and lettuce. Then run out and buy butter and garlic. I have eaten snails (in France) but didn't like them very much because of the thick bit on the bottom. Can't remember if it's call...

On the subject of "lipstick on a pig" the next-door neighbour on the other side says he thought it all looked a bit OTT, and they've been doing it for two years now. Why? If you have that kind of money why not buy a better house in the first place? It really doesn't make sense to me. Anywa...

Most likely the spammers were very active. Possibly some bots too, but perhaps the forum had a security issue in that it wasn't totally up to date with every issue to prevent the bad guys and they got through. I had an issue the other day with a flood of spam on one of my email accounts. Sometimes i...

We watched the Crow Road when it first came out and liked it so much we bought half a dozen copies and sent them to friends around the world. Everyone loved it. Most couldn't stop watching until they'd seen the whole series. Staying up all night in several cases. I'd thought that 'Crow Road' was may...

Alan Alda (Hawkeye Pierce in the MASH TV series) was very upset as a child when his dog died and his well-meaning father sent the dog to a taxidermist. Nice idea but it was not a success. Oh gee. It sounds horrendous. I've bought the Kindle version of one of his books £3.99. https://www.amazon.co.uk...

That's just dreadful, Barney. I am most certainly not trying to excuse them, I would take the Tony Martin approach too. But I don't have a gun or even a pistol these days. It's just that I wonder how desperate some people are getting with this cost of living crisis, food banks and all that. No, it's...

Hi Myrkk, I'm not sure that Scotland is the same as the rest of the UK for many things. Scotland is more civilised.

Also income tax is higher but you get more for your money. Council tax includes water. There are quite a few differences.

It's terrible trying to get an NHS dentist in some parts of England. Most won't take on any new NHS patients. We were lucky because we found a good dentist several years ago and she agreed to have us back when we were evac'd from Kyiv. I'm wondering what the situation is like in SW Scotland. So, if ...

It's not really very sensible for me to do any gardening right now, not even a little bit of kitchen gardening. We're moving from Kent to SW Scotland in three weeks time. Then it's an AirBnB for a month and then goodness knows what. But Scotland is a bit behind SE England in terms of seasons so if w...