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Hi Annette I am not sure how this will work in reality, because by removing the heat from the muck heap, you will halt the breaking down in the centre of the heap which is what generates the heat. Hmm - circular sentance that hopefully makes sense. Once you have pulled the heat out of the heap, rest...

There is a Christmas fair in our local town this coming weekend, but having been to last year's all this is in fact is the lcoal farmer's market held on a Saturday and not a Wednesday, 2 stalls of locally grown veg, 2 or 3 local cheese sellers, a hat and glove man, a hunting jumpers and fluro dog co...

Fortunately it has stopped snowing, unfortunately the temperature has dropped to -7°C and is sticking there.

Fortunately I discovered a fantastic pumpkin muffin recipe, unfortunately I can't stop eating them.

Struggled to feel anything remotely like sympathy for someone who manages to earn upto £500 a week. If we manage to earn £500 a month we consider ourselves blessed.

Just been out for a walk in the snow with the dog, 10cm accumulated while we were out in the hour and we have a metre forecast by the weekend. Love the snow, just hate having to drive out in it to get to work.

local folkloric weather predictions has it as a very cold winter this year - but not necessarily long.

We ditched the UK for the Self Sufficient dream in the Auvergne region of France in 2006. We have no regrets, our life is the physically hard working, family orientated, healthy, relaxed and self sufficient-ish lifestyle that we wanted. But beware - French red tape is in a league of its own, some mo...

I have made a few china cup candles and not had one explode yet. Be sure to always have your candle container on something like a cork mat to withstand the temperatures and not scar wooden furniture, particularly if using something like treacle tins because they get very hot on the outside and you c...

I pickle my surplus quail eggs in red wine vinegar to make them go pink, leave them for a month and then eat them as aperitifs with cured ham and gherkins.

We moved to rural France 4 years ago with just my GCSE French from several years ago, now our teen is happy to consider herself French, both my OH and I work in the local community, we socialise with french, dutch and english families here, take part in community projects and generally love it here.

I love all those little things that are indicators of all the big good things in our lives. A warm bath towel which means that our Heath Robinson homemade heat exchanger works, eating a meal cooked from the ingredients from the garden, my daughter sitting reading a book next to me on the sofa, seein...

I have seen this version of Robin Hood, and for an American production it was not that bad - American's didn't win the war at the last minute, nor was every bit of dialogue explained three times in words of two sylablles or less, nor did anyone's clothes inexplicably fall off.

To be fair if you are both out at work and want heat on demand for cooking a wood burner is not for you. They need to be lit in advance, and take time to get up to temperature. An old gas fired AGA is better than a wood burning Rayburn, I don't see how you could convert an AGA to wood, normally any ...

We had fried green tomatoes the other night and very nice they were too.

It depends on how long you intend to simmer your soup for. When I am making overnight stews and two day curries, I just throw them straight in. If I am making something that only needs an hour or so cooking time, I 'quick soak' them, so I stick them in hot water for a couple of hours before using th...