Need to record mother's wisdom

My bathroom basin has one of those plugs that rests on a bar which is risen and lowered by a plunger at the back of the taps. When not in use I keep the plug on the shelf below the window as the cats pat the plug out, and I am worried about this damaging the basin. I am more worried about the plug being patted under something and never seen again for months (I found it on the hall floor one evening before I stopped keeping it in the basin).

Last week I dropped the soap down the plug hole and, when the water softened it, it must have squidged and it was making the water back up.

My mother told me to pour a kettle full of boiling water down the plug hole to melt the soap and flush it away. It worked a treat.

I am asking my mother to start writing down all the tips she has, adding any family stories that can be associated with them.

Sparrows the bosses of the drinking bowl!

I have a casserole dish which I fill with water and put in the garden in the summer for the foxes and the cats. This year I've seen birds using it too.

This morning I looked out of the bedroom window to see a sparrow drinking while a female blackbird waited her turn (though there would have been room for both to drink). When the blackbird was drinking another sparrow flew down for a drink and the blackbird gave up her turn for him.

Eventually she got a proper turn and after a drink she also had a bath.

On my cycle ride home yesterday after blackberrying I saw a lesser spotted woodpecker in the cleared shrubby area that they've put a path through alongside Orient Way (the Ruckholt Relief Road that was).

A fellow kayaker has had all the corn off his corn on the cobs on his allotment eaten - he thinks parakeets.

Successful gathering/scrounging

I have been picking a few blackberries from my neighbour's overgrown garden to eat with my breakfast cereal for nearly a week. Today on my bike ride I went up between Leyton Marshes and the riding stable to pick a soya desert tub full of blackberries. Saw several other people also picking. I made blackberry crumble - yum!

There was also some horse droppings, so I passed them, picked the blackberries and came back to scoop up the horse droppings for my compost heap.

I then turned and cycled off towards the cattle creep at the end of Coppermill Lane, passing some Prudential riders coming the other way*. Then under the cattle creep, around to the Navigation and back home.

On the way back from shopping got several bits of offcuts from a skip - when sawn up there will be about 2 hours burning.

*My friend in Plumstead is having problems as they have shut the river bridges to traffic because of the Prudential cycling event. She has had to hurriedly get her bike fixed so she can cycle all the way from Plumstead to Clapton for kayaking tomorrow (she now works for the club and is in charge so needs to be there). This is not going to encourage support for cyclists from motorists!

Starting a picnic habbit

My family used to picnic a lot when I was a child, locally in the fields or along the river, or out in the woods, moors and beaches of Cornwall.

As an adult I have often sat on a bench or on some grass with friends each eating our packed lunch, but I can remember only 2 picnics. Once was when a group of us who had done a storytelling course met up for a picnic on Hampstead Heath and the other was when a friend and I went to a National Trust house in her car and had a picnic in the grounds.

Every year my local History Society is given a talk by a local archeologist about the archeology he has been involved with the year before. Last year he had been involved with a dig at Berkhamsted Castle "a nice castle, right by the station, a short train journey from Euston". So I put a visit to Berkhamsted Castle on my list of things to do this year.

At ruined castles there is usually a lot of short grass, so I thought I would use my picnic basket (used only once before), and some of the enamel crockery I've collected and have a picnic. As there would be only me, only a simple picnic and no tablecloth.

I enjoyed my picnic sitting on top of the mote.

Being without a car and on my own limits what I can take, but I do plan to have more picnics. My recent visit to Dulwich Picture Gallery on a nice day was a missed opportunity, as the gallery has some nice lawns in front, but I will be more alert in future.

Water for foxes and cats being used by birds

In the summer I put out a little dish of water for foxes and cats. I do have a pond but it is covered by duck weed, though I've seen a fox drink out of it recently.

This year I've seen the little dish of water used several times by a sparrow and a blackbird and once by a robin. Especially pleasing as they wouldn't be able to use a pond.

In recent years the number of birds in my garden has greatly increased even though I don't encourage them because of the number of cats. There are still magpies around and, for the last couple of years, squirrels (which I think eat eggs) so I don't know what has happened to cause this but nice to see.

Preparing for winter by adding to my clutter!

Day off today and I went to the Eric Ravilious exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

In the shop I brought "The Wild City Book" by Jo Schofield and Fiona Danks.

In the book are lots of fun things for children to do and some appeal to the child in me. In particular are things to make when it snows including snowball mobiles, snow buildings, mini igloos, ice bunting and snowtem poles. Some of these need containers and moulds so I will need to start collecting these.

So a box of added clutter when I am trying to get rid of it! And London might not even get any snow this year!

Foxes "harvesting" my potatoes

I have 4 potato plants in a pot each along the path.

This morning I found the young foxes worm hunting had been more extreme than usual and a pot was overturned with the potatoes scattered along the path.

I got a paper bag to put the potatoes in but, because they were ever so slightly damp, they dropped through the bottom of the damp bag! I had to get a container to put them in and collect them all up again.

I have a recipe for vegetarian fritatta and hope to use them for that.