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Hi Big Al, The quote we got for almost all wool (90% iirc) was really cheap, only a couple quid per m more than the really cheap horrible stuff, and my youngest is allergic to many man-made fibres, and comes up in a bad rash with polyester, so just in case we need to stay at the house before it sell...

Hello all, Thank you so much for all of your advice. You've really helped me think things through. My husband came back to France from the U.K house last night and so in the middle of the night (as you do!) and today we've been having a bit of a pow wow. We've more or less decided (for now!) that we...

Hi Clara, Yes, the house is double glazed ... probably old and not brilliant quality, but it's there. We got a grant for insulating the loft up to whatever the current recommendation is, and also for cavity wall insulation on the one bit of cavity wall. Yes, the grid-connected solar doesn't involve ...

Hi Clara, Blimey, your solar hot water cost loads less than ours did in France. Mind you we needed a new tank and all that. I should say that when I was talking about solar pv I was thinking of a grid connected system - so that the grid buys back unused energy but sells energy as usual when the sola...

Thanks again Clara. The house could be connected up to the gas main (£500) but I really don't think I can bear to do it. I guess it might come to that, though. If I'd known we were going to be thinking about selling I would've got a heating system linked up to the wood burner, but at that point we w...

Hi Clara, I hadn't realised that about electricity and heat ... duh. After reading your post it occurred to me that the guy working on the house has not yet installed the new wood block floor for the living/dining room - we bought it (off ebay!) in 2007 so it's been sitting there 'acclimatising' for...

Hello, We have a small 2.5 bed semi-detatched house in England. A series of fortunate events has meant that we also have a bigger house in France, with land, and this is now where we have decided to base the family. We bought the England house in July 2007 and since then have been slowly refurbishin...

Our dog and 2 cats are fed on a raw meat diet. This isn't the BARF thing but a prey model type diet where we give them flesh, bones and organ meat in roughly prey-animal type proportions (hope that makes sense!). It's really easy and in the U.K was very cheap using meat from landywoods.co.uk Here in...

hello again Hedgehogpie. I *have* mused on a beehive or two, but it's a whole new area of research that I don't feel capable of taking on at the mo! But it's certainly tempting, as we all love honey. :-) I worry about stings for the girls, but I know that's all surmountable. Something for the future...

Thanks Amaranth for your thoughts. We're slowly starting to make friends with French families who have similar interests, so we can start making some enquiries about the permaculture scene here. We've also got some people with other home educated kids wanting to get involved in activities ... so a f...

If you can use the chicken for your cats but somehow not cook the carcass, you'd have any dog owners who feed raw (not barf, but prey model) biting your hand off! I used to *pay* for the chicken carcasses I fed our dog.

I didn't bother to shape it before cooking it in the broth, I just cooked it whole and then sliced it up afterwards. Ah! That explains it. I was envisaging ending up with several cooked 'cutlets' of that size, and wondering what I'd do with them all as well as where I'd find a pot big enough! Thank...

Yummy, thanks for that recipe Hedgewitch. Just one other Q (sorry!): reading the instructions it says to shape the uncooked dough into several thin cutlets ... looking at your pic of it cooking in the broth, is that one cutlet - it looks huge? Or did you put all the cutlets in the broth one after th...

LOL, my husband and I 'share' being a stay at home parent. I go off to work for around 10 days every 2 months, and he does the same, the rest of the time we both work from home and juggle. I have to say that when I am away the kids get brilliantly cared for, so I do get to go away knowing that the k...

Now my Patrick Whitefield book has arrived, I'm looking into Forest Gardening a bit more deeply. It certainly seems a good way for us to grow fuel for the woodburners while also having a 'useful' garden space around it. So many thanks to Clara who first suggested it. I am still getting to grips with...