Sil-El

Dust

Also worth remembering not to leave things on view in your car, like bags of shopping on the back seat. Or a pile of gifts under a tree right by a big window or in the conservatory that can be easily seen from the road. Shame really that we have to think of such things at this time of year, but dishonest people stay that way all year, even at Christmas

You can eat chocolate and other goodies without feeling guilty.

That's lovely, I wish I'd found this website before I'd done all my shopping, I would have had a field day My husband adores our ladies, he works from home so he gets to see far more of them than I do - especially at this time of year - and they are definitely "his" girls. I think they think I'm the house maid

You find yourself buying yet another set of fairy lights, simply because they look so pretty. I have so many sets of lights now it's ridiculous. I found a set yesterday that I'd bought last year and completely forgotten about. I think it was because I had a deprived childhood - we only had one set of lights when I was little, so I'm making up for it now

Ours are definitely pets. Spoiled rotten too We've only had them for just over 2 years and we wish we'd done it years ago. They are so entertaining and such personalities and they love to "help" when I'm working in the garden. Rhapsody keeps up a running commentary on everything I'm doing and they all chat and chunter away to each other all the time. They have the run of the whole garden and if we leave the back door open they will come into the kitchen and make a bee line for the cat food - not to be encouraged but hysterically funny when it happens I was planning to put fairy lights up in the trees and bushes in the garden today - something that they would be very interested in - but it's far too windy and as I don't plan on doing a Mary Poppins, I will leave it till the weather has calmed down.

We have recently started giving porridge to our ladies and they just love it. The first time they were initially a bit cautious until Melody stuck her beak in and realised it was yummy and then the other 3 quickly got the idea. My husband put some blueberries in and that was very welcome indeed. I do like to think of them having porridge warming their tummies on cold mornings

Hi, Sorry to hear about your Father-in-Law. It might be worth finding out if the local authority where your FIL lived offers a service called "Tell Us Once" - we used this when my FIL and MIL passed away and you can do it at the same time as you register the death. Not all councils are signed up to it but if they are it makes things a lot easier. They ask for all the relevant details and then pass that on to people like the DVLA, Inland Revenue, TV Licensing,social services, the Dept of Work and Pensions etc. so they all get told at the same time, so it saves you making numerous phone calls and sending out loads of copies of the death certificate. It only works for Govt departments though, you still have to do all the faffing with utilities and banks etc. Hope all goes well and thinking of you all at this difficult time.

Thanks for the advice regarding cardboard. I've removed it! I suppose it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that chickens are like our other pets when in fact they are quite hardy. We had a severe frost last night and they were all completely fine this morning, full of their usual mischief. We let them free range most days if we are at home and they spent a lot of time today in the compost heap which is the only part of the garden that gets sun at this time of year. Also thanks for the advice on my signature, I'll go and have a play and see what I can do

Hi all, This is my first post on this group but I've been "lurking" for a while. We have 4 lovely ladies and this will be their 3rd winter - the last 2 have been quite mild so I'm also a bit apprehensive about how to deal with very cold weather. The ladies have warm porridge every morning, sometimes with a few blueberries or chopped up grapes added which they really like, and they always get mixed corn in the evening before bed time. I've added extra straw in the nest box and also lined it with old cardboard and put cardboard on the floor under some more straw so I hope they will be snug and safe. They all seem to pile on top of one another when we do a quick "roll call" after they've gone to bed each night. By the way, and completely off topic, how do I add a signature to my posts? I can't seem to find the right bit in the user profile thingy.