Slugs and snails and internet Romans
Very little to report here. The boys started this morning with a bit of Roman history (Internet-Linked Romans - the actual title is “Romans” with the “Internet-Linked” bit as a subtitle, but the front of the book says “Internet-Linked Romans”, so that’s what I always think of it as, and anyway, I find the notion of internet-linked Romans vaguely amusing). Meanwhile I exercise-biked since the weather didn’t look too promising. The weather continued to be unpromising all day, so George and Freddy played outside, then took shelter from the rain in their friend R’s house, then played outside, then… well, you get the idea. Barney went off to find his friend C (the one who just moved in up the street) and they spent the rest of the morning searching for ants for C’s ant-farm.
We’ve had a bit of an invasion of massive slugs in the garden recently (must google to see what I can do about that) but this morning one was making its way across the conservatory floor. Fortunately I had the foresight to have male children, and one of them (Barney) went and found a garden-trowel and removed it for me. I then decided to wash the floors (to get rid of the slug-cooties), and ended up vacuuming throughout downstairs - which necessitated tidying the family-room - and mopping the kitchen and conservatory. Lunch was late as a result of that (nobody allowed in the kitchen until the floor was dry, see), and we had just finished up when another home-ed mum and son arrived. The son is just a few months younger than Barney, and they’ve a fair bit in common, plus they live less than 15 minutes drive away, so that seems a good friendship to kindle 
They brought chocolate biscuits, which led to a slight deviation from the weight-loss plan, but I think I’ve managed to work it them off 
Freddy has gone off to ju-jitsu; George has decided to give it a miss until Christmas. Barney is undecided as yet, so has been given until next week to make up his mind. Jack has gone with Scratchy to drop off Freddy and to buy groceries, so it’s all very peaceful here - Barney and George are in their own rooms reading, and I’ve got Toby snoozing beside me
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Yuck re. slugs. In our old house, we used to get them having midnight parties in our front room - it was really horrid coming down the next day to see slug trails everywhere. There were holes in the walls and we couldn’t do anything to stop them! Beer traps might help reduce your numbers in the garden…? And to stop them coming in, if you put a copper strip along the doorway, they don’t like ‘walking’ over copper and avoid it at all costs, usually!
Oh we had a small hole behind a fire place and slugs used invite themselves into our house to. HOle has now gone and so have the slugs. Don’t know it works but friend told me that hair (ie bits left on the floor after hair cuts) stop slugs.
Ew, I don’t like slugs either. Thankfully there aren’t too many here (though we get a lot of snails in the winter). We found that coffee grounds kept them away from plants, without hurting any animal life. Crushed egg-shells around plants does the same, but is messier. To get rid of them non-chemically, either import some hedgehogs or frogs, or try beer traps.
I was impressed that another family arrived just after you’d done an unexpected clean/tidy etc of the house. We often find folk turn up when I’ve decided NOT to do some necessary cleaning .
Ah, well we were expecting them, you see
nematodes works well for slugs - we had loads in leeds.
also enjoyed the kitchen gods wife - and what a good book title too
I had to look up nematodes - I must admit they don’t look much more appealing than the slugs!
I’m loving The Kitchen God’s Wife - reading it while I sit on the exercise-bike, and it keeps me going