Search - Articles

 of its call. This year it's remained firmly hidden, but it has been rather vocal. I lay in the tent, at somewhere between 5am and 6am.  The cat slept, the children slept, but the cuckoo appeared to have just woken up. It was the first time I had heard

, but your neighbours will hate you.The news broke this week that a Plymouth resident has upset all of his neighbours by planting 16 leylandii trees in his front garden and leaving them to grow, completely obscuring the house. At one time the hedge would have

before lighting them, preferably making the pile on the day you intend to light it. If you find a baby hedgehog in autumn, take it in and keep it warm. Feed it with cat or dog food and water, but don't release it until it weighs at least 450g (1lb). Visit

blocked.For the first 18 years living here there was never a rat in sight, but within a few months of setting the chickens up in their new home, the rats arrived. As chickens become popular in residential areas I wonder if anyone else is having the same

When the swifts first returned on May 2nd there were only three or four of them. Last year we had a huge gang of about 15, wheeling in the sky and screaming down the street at top speed, just above the lamp-posts. I always take these wonderfully

and the odd really unfortunate one got into my mouth. Then they came indoors, having discovered open windows and open cat flap, and hung around the fruit bowl like miniature vultures or drowned in the chianti.They're all gone now...or so I thought. In fact

, as it takes to the wing, hearing it buzz off far into the deepening dusk.For the squeamish out there, all I can do is reiterate the proposal made by the 17th century physician, Cheyne, who said something along the lines of: God made horse dung smell so sweet

. This is in preparation for a new series that I am writing for the magazine which is planned to be published next spring. So that everything did not blow away we set up in one of our multi-spans. Of course one of my cats, in this case Basil, had to get in on the action

sink is the flowering currant with its limply hanging pink flowers. Not only is it extremely boring but the slightest contact with the leaves releases an unmistakable smell of cat pee. (I could just about accept Ribes sanguineum King Edward VII if I

A plaintive mewling took me to the end of the garden a couple of days ago. At first I thought a cat had caught a bird or had cornered a fledgling. As I got closer I realised it was coming from a tree and wondered if some strange seagull was lost