Egypt4u

Nothing much planned today other than to fill in all the passport details on the airline for the five of us on our Christmas in Austria. Might as well get that done and book airport assistance rather than leave it to the last minute.
Having noticed that this thread has attracted more than 430,000 views and 2500 posts, I looked back at Horus's first post.
It was January 2016, he was installing his new TV, was it really that long ago? I was still driving and we did the weekly shopping run. The second post was from Jayway. I often think of Jayway and her telling us about her life in Portugal and her horse, Glory. I hope she is OK and if she looks in, it would be good to hear from her.
It just made me think how time fly's.

Oh wow ! Christmas in Austria....that will be magical

Time is flying far to quickly these days

Yes - Christmas in Austria is definitely going to be a real treat!

Thanks for the well wishes. I'm up and sitting in my chair today. Am feeling tentative. Slept through most of yesterday. Dunno what I have but sure hope it goes fast. Seems everybody else has it too so good to be 'not alone' in my misery.

It's an absolutely filthy day here in Kent! Pouring with rain, and so grey that you can hardly see without a light on! Just the sort of day to curl up with a good book - which is just what I'm doing!

Ruby Slippers wrote:It's an absolutely filthy day here in Kent! Pouring with rain, and so grey that you can hardly see without a light on! Just the sort of day to curl up with a good book - which is just what I'm doing!

Same here RS, only problem is that we have a long standing arrangement for a family get together for lunch at a pub on the beach. Can't imagine anything worse on a day like today, just hope they have a nice fire going.

Oh and I forgot to mention, we have another uninvited guest in the loft. I have video and it is a large rat. I did wonder if it could be a squirrel but definitely a rat. It has eaten all the bait I put down so far so I now have fresh bait AND two traps.



This is only 10 seconds but if it won't play, click on 'Rat in the loft.mp4' and it should download so that you can click on the download, probably at the bottom of your screen. Just a bit of Sunday morning amusement

Would you Adam and Eve it? It is now wall to wall sunshine, blue skies and white fluffy clouds! Ah well - that's the great British weather for you!

Oh wow ! Grandad it looks a big one don't know what I would do if I saw that in my loft

How do you manage to have such an empty loft ? I have boxes & boxes of stuff in mine.

Weather here is dull and grey - no rain but no sun. Not sure how the rest of the day will turn out.

@Grandad - I hope you get the biggest snapping close rat trap you can find and slather on the peanut butter or cheese or whatever your rats there find tasty to eat. He's a big one! Hope you're rid of him asap. Good video though!

Not too sure what I'm really going to do today. Haven't done much these past couple of days. I'm definitely feeling better each and every day but I just don't feel quite up to par and/or like doing anything much.

Grandad wrote:

Ruby Slippers wrote:It's an absolutely filthy day here in Kent! Pouring with rain, and so grey that you can hardly see without a light on! Just the sort of day to curl up with a good book - which is just what I'm doing!

Same here RS, only problem is that we have a long standing arrangement for a family get together for lunch at a pub on the beach. Can't imagine anything worse on a day like today, just hope they have a nice fire going.

Oh and I forgot to mention, we have another uninvited guest in the loft. I have video and it is a large rat. I did wonder if it could be a squirrel but definitely a rat. It has eaten all the bait I put down so far so I now have fresh bait AND two traps.

phpBB [video]

This is only 10 seconds but if it won't play, click on 'Rat in the loft.mp4' and it should download so that you can click on the download, probably at the bottom of your screen. Just a bit of Sunday morning amusement

Try as I might, I cannot see the video! I thought at first it was because I was on a tablet but even on my laptop, it wont let me open it! Says its 'unsafe'!

RS, it is only a 10 second clip, one of many. Others have opened it as I suggested by just clicking on the words Rat in the loft.mp4 which should be a live link. This will download the clip, usually to the bottom of your screen. If you click on that it should open. OR it might download it to your downloads file...

Tried everything, Grandad, but it just won't work for me.

Re: Rat in the loft I clicked on the words.

Rather blah looking day outside right now. Kinda grey but doesn't look like it will rain right now and the forecast is supposed to be sun. Maybe this afternoon will get brighter.

Dunno what I've had or still have. Sure feel just tired. Never did work into a cold or flu so must be a new germ that leaves you tired.

Think I will get out there today and pull out and up the rest of my carrots and clear off the last tomato plant. I'll bury all the green tops off the carrots for worm food and probably the tomato plant too. Soon I'll be getting garden lettuce again though. It is coming on great guns in this weather.

Worked for me when I clicked on the words Could have been worse Grandad could have been a 7 foot snake:-

"Stephen Hope and his wife Annette were left "stunned" after the reptile fell at their home in Stockingford, Nuneaton.

"I'd only gone up there to look for some books, it was pretty frightening", Mr Hope said.

The snake, thought to be 14 years old, is now being cared for at the Nuneaton and Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary.
The snake, now nicknamed Lofty, is "doing well" according to the wildlife sanctuary's owner Geoff Grewcock.

Mr Grewcock said: "No-one's got any idea how it got in the attic.

"Maybe someone's just dumped it and it crept in there".

Mr Hope said they would be getting a builder to check out the attic, "just to make sure there's no other snakes up there".

I had rats in the loft at the farm. Unfortunately both the rats and the mice loved the bait the council put down. Eventually as 28lbs a visit wasn't doing any good they washed their hands off me. I bought some very expensive new stuff and the rats actually broke into the box and ate it before I could use it. The mice made a nest in my husbands jacket pocket in the wardrobe and ate a pack of chocolate flavoured poison in my chest of drawers full of clothes. It was a nightmare.

We found where they were getting access - a pretty big hole under the eaves and put a bit of fine strong metal netting over it. A new visiting tom cat cleared everything outside the house in a couple of weeks, supported by the 5 cats already doing service.

About a week after closing the hole I glanced up at it and to my horror saw dead rats piled up against it. Not an image easily forgotten.

We get lots of rats in this area given I'm so close to the swamp but so far none have gained entrance into the house. Cause of all the rats I stopped feeding the birds also cause bears tend to raid bird feeders and I didn't want to have to fix any or all of the fence torn down by a bear wanting to get to a feeder. I do still have the feeders hung for interest but there is no food in them.

IF I could find something of a feral cat I'd take one but the ferals we get here are totally wild and I don't want to have to try and trap a cat to get it yearly shots (which is a requirement) and all animals here get fleas. I'd like to be, at least, able to get close enough to give it a monthly flea treatment, worming etc etc but have it live out back. I have an area that I could augment food however IF a cat can get into the space so can raccoons so if and when I see signs of a rat I'm putting out traps. Too many birds eating dead animals to put out poison.

I can't for the life of me see how people would ever want a rat as a pet. I get the ferrets and other warm fuzzy guys and I do have one cousin who has never had children but she and her husband do have 3 (count 'em) THREE totally bald guinea pigs they house, dress up and constantly take photos of ..... but to each his own.

Given the rise of crime and pilfering I'm starting to think Belgian Malinois, German Shepherd, Rottweiler for the front yard........

I heard a thump in the loft at about 11.30 last evening and guessed it was a trap.
Rather small rat and I hope there is not a nest in the loft insulation

I've got very squeamish about killing anything these days - except whitefly on my climbers. I even moved a young slug off a plant yesterday, but didn't kill it - which is nuts. When I was young I used to kill poultry. I didn't enjoy it but it was part of farming like taking animals for slaughter and then eating them later. Odd.

If the wind drops I shall be spraying weed killer today. I'm waiting to hear from a gardening company (I refuse to call them landscapers as you can't "Landscape", except for parks and gardens in towns) who I hope will remove most of the huge Buddleia and dispose of it. then give the yard a tidy, clean the tiles that sort of thing.

I don't like killing any creature either MD but when I have vermin inside my house, poison bait has to be the answer I'm afraid.
I won't kill small insects and spiders, I am more inclined to catch them and put them outside. Spiders don't worry me at all.
I can only remember ever killing an animal with my hands and that was an injured pigeon. I pulled its neck and burried it, and I didn't like doing it.

If I had rats or mice in the house I'd be going for poison bait and traps that kill fast. Not that I like or enjoy killing but here we can get hantavirus off mice which can be deadly to humans so any small rodents gotta go fast.

The trap you showed LLL seems very suitable for a quick kill, that I can stomach, but having treated so many animals that have been poisoned, some of which recovered I can't bear the thought of putting poison down.
So calle "humane" traps meam youare left with a live animal to dipose of, do you release it elsewhere to be a nuisance to someone else?

There was a chap in Ibiza who was doing humane removal of wasps. He simply vacuumed them up and told his clients that he released them in woodland. I was the first person to question whether this was in fact humane and how did he rehouse the workers and importantly the Queen, since most of those caught would be killed by the vacuuming process.