Better Bonfires
To make a better garden
bonfire, first excavate a shallow conical pit of a size appropriate to the
amount of debris you need to burn, and build your bonfire over it. My bonfire pit is about five feet in
diameter and a couple of feet deep at its maximum.
Wood burns best on its
own embers. With a pit, burnt material
tends to fall back towards the middle and sustains the fire. With the more usual heap on a flat surface,
embers tend to fall away from the centre and the fire loses its momentum.
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Bird Scarer
Use unwanted CDs tied
to a pole to keep the birds away from your prize peas.
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Broken Glasses, How to Avoid
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The golden rule is, in
the sink, only wash one at a time.
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Checking the Car
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When you lift the
bonnet of your car to check fluid levels, do you have to unscrew the tops and
try and peer in? Dip your finger in to
see if it comes out wet?
The fluid containers in
modern cars are generally made of polythene, so take a powerful torch with
you and shine it through the container:
you’ll see the level at a glance without having to get too close or
get your hands dirty. You’ll still
need to use the dip-stick for the engine oil though.
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Christmas Economy
Take care when removing
large sheets of wrapping paper from large presents. With a little trimming, you may be able to
preserve the paper for use on slightly smaller presents next year.
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PS The same applies to birthdays too, though
the savings will be more modest.
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Door Catch
Make a simple door
catch from a short length of wire cut from a metal coat hanger. Just put a screw in the jamb a couple of
inches from the door, leaving about a quarter of an inch sticking out, and
bend one end of the wire round it – tight enough to stop it sliding off past
the screw head. Put a small screw-in
eye or hook on the door, and bend the wire at the right length to engage with
it. Ready-made devices like this sell
for 50p or so in the shops, so think of the saving.
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Furniture Wedge
Does that
chest of drawers wobble? Does the
bookcase tilt when you load it with books?
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Separate the two halves
of a wooden clothes peg, and there you have a couple of handy wedges to
stabilise furniture on uneven floors.
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Grappling Hook
Something rolled under
the wardrobe? Dropped in the narrow gap
between the wall and the radiator?
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Get it out with a
grappling hook made from a metal coat hanger.
Simply snip the hanger just to one side of the hanging part, and
unbend the wire. There you have a long
probe with a built-in grappling hook to locate and retrieve the lost
object. Eureka!
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Happy Hoeing
When hoeing the
vegetable patch, the most difficult part is where the cultivated soil meets
the grassy (or other) surrounding area.
This is where grass and weeds will invade. If you have dug properly, there will be a
furrow at the edges, exposing deeper, firmer earth and making hoeing more
difficult.
I have started filling
these furrows round the edges with ash from the bonfire. Not only does this discourage weed growth,
but the ash itself does not compact, and stops the soil below getting baked
and hard.
Result: the hoe always glides easily around the
edges, cutting off those weeds before they have a chance.
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Kitchen Tidy
Keep an old polythene ice-cream
container on your kitchen work-top to put odd scraps of rubbish in – used
tea-bags, milk bottle tops, corners snipped off packets and cartons etc. It’ll save a lot of time-wasting trips to
the rubbish bin.
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And if you use an old
supermarket bag in the container, you can lift the whole lot out in one go
when it’s full.
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Parking Aid
Don’t waste space in
your garage or risk overshooting into the storage shelves at the back.
Position the car exactly
where you want it – normally just far enough in to clear the doors when they
close – then suspend an empty polythene container at bumper height from a
length of cord fixed to a convenient point on the joists or rafters in the
roof of the garage (these are generally left exposed). Then, when you next drive in, you will know
exactly when to stop. You will see the
cord move and have an audible warning as the container hits the bumper, but
the light polythene will not damage the car.
Perfect!
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The Perfect Poached Egg
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Click here for my recipe for the
perfect poached egg
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Picture Hooks
If you live in an older house with picture rails, (or indeed
in a new one – they’re coming back into fashion) don’t waste your money
buying loads of picture hooks.
Take an old metal coat
hanger and cut it into four inch lengths to make S-shaped hooks instead. Bend about an inch at one end into a hook
to fit over the rail and bend about half an inch at the other end (but the
opposite way) from which to hang your picture.
No need to leave those
old pictures in the loft gathering dust – show them off!
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Precision Painting
When you’re decorating,
do you find it difficult to reach those awkward corners? Is even a half-inch brush too big to cope
with detailed mouldings?
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Buy some artist’s oil
painting brushes: the long handles
will enable you to reach where an ordinary paint brush won’t, and you’ll soon
find out which size head is best for the work in hand. They clean out very easily too. You may even start to enjoy painting window
frames!
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Protect That Tailgate
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In many a garage, the combination
of an up-and-over door and the tailgate of an estate or hatch-back car can
lead to damage.
Positioning your car
accurately in the garage (see above), note where the tailgate makes contact
with the raised door. Find a piece of
suitably cushioning material (I find carpet underlay ideal), and fix it
securely to the door.
Now you can open the
rear without causing damage. (But
don’t stop the car in the wrong place!)
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Soap Saving
(courtesy of Tim)
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Wonder what to do with the
last, thin sliver of soap when the bar's almost, but not quite used up?
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When you come to the
smallest usable sized sliver of soap, let it soften in water for about a
minute until just the surface is soft, and stick it to the new bar of soap that will replace it.
You'll never waste any soap, and never have slivers of left-over soap lying
around in soap dishes.
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Sock Strings
Do you suffer from odd
socks? Do they go missing in the
washing machine? Can you never find a
pair in a hurry?
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Use Roger’s sock
strings – a seven or eight inch length of tape tied round the welt of the two
socks together before they are thrown into the washing basket. The socks will go in together, come out together
and will still be together when you need them. Voila!
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Stubborn Bottle Tops
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How do you deal with
that stubborn bottle top that won’t unscrew?
Trap it between the door and its frame and risk splintering the
wood? Use a pair of pliers and risk
breaking the bottle? Or reach for the
nearest napkin or tea-towel, only to find that it offers no grip at all?
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To provide a firm grip
with a gentle touch, find an old deflated plastic ball (the kind sold for
young kids) and cut out a hand-sized piece.
You will find the inside most incredibly grippy. Put it round the bottle top, hold firmly
and twist. Hey presto! You’ll wonder why you have ever struggled
to unscrew a bottle top.
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