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Posts from the ‘Home Maintenance’ Category

Oct 19

sitting spiritually

Sitting Spiritually

Recently, I’ve been thinking about getting outdoor furniture to add to our garden. As many of you know, I’ve certainly become more spiritual in the last 6-7 years and have got into yoga and meditation (see Life in the Right Direction), so it will be no surprise that I took notice of a local company making wooden garden furniture called “Sitting Spiritually” (I have no affiliation with them, I’m just interested).

There were many things I liked about “Sitting Spiritually” when I first looked at their website – they are fairly local to where I live (southern England), they make bespoke furniture using local artisans, each piece is one of a kind and they aim for a beautiful finish to and exceptional standard. I decided to ask them a few questions and they we so kind to answer them well and to allow me to publish their answers here. They even sent me some of their photos to include.

Here are the exact questions I asked Sitting Spiritually and their verbatim answers. Read more

Jul 9

colourful garden bed

Colourful Garden Bed

It’s quite amazing that we have, all of a sudden, a colourful garden bed near our house. This area has been a bit of a disaster area for the past few years as we’ve had major renovations to the house, had a new patio and paths put in and only had the garden beds bordered with bricks a year ago. These garden beds were really like a war zone with labourers, brickies, scaffolders and decorators working all around them (and over them!) for such a long time. 

After the brick borders were put in last year, I got into the beds and did the first attempt to clear the weeds and I gave everything a pretty good prune. Also, in the autumn, I put a lot of the fallen leaves in the beds as mulch. It’s really pleasing to see today just what a nice colourful garden bed we have. It’s putting on a nice show (as my father would have said). Read more

Dec 30

pooltester kit

Pooltester kit – avoiding Bromine Hot Tub nightmares

When I bought a hot tub back in 2017, I decided to go with bromine instead of chlorine because I read that it was softer/milder and worked better in warm water. Well, it all started off as a bit of a nightmare. For a couple of months, I couldn’t get the water looking good and it kept going opaque and green. I was following the instructions given by the manufacturers (Hydropool) but these were inadequate and, in many cases, not good advice. After lots of frustration, I asked a friend who had a hot tub and he said he started off with bromine but switched to chlorine because of similar problems. This didn’t sound good, but I didn’t want to give up and wanted to get my bromine hot tub working properly. I did a lot of research and have sorted out all the problems now and have a crystal clear bromine hot tub. And it’s true that bromine feels less harsh than chlorine. One of the keys to sorting this out was getting a serious pooltester kit.

Read more

Nov 5

distilled water making it at home

Distilled Water – making it at home

Distilled water is pretty cheap to buy, but it comes in plastic bottles. I’m trying to avoid plastic as much as possible (see use10percentless.com) so I scoured around for simple ways to make distilled water at home, using just things already available at home. In this case, I’m using the distilled water as a base for car windscreen washer fluid which also usually comes in plastic bottles (and with a bunch of chemicals). So I’m avoiding two sets of plastic bottles.

Here’s how I make distilled water at home.

Read more

Jun 22

Don’t ever use Chronopost

chronopostDon’t ever use Chronopost

Chronopost is a French courier and mail company (part of the DPD Group) and I’ve had two terrible situations with them. This is just a warning for anyone searching for information on Chronopost – don’t ever use them!

The first problem

A couple of years ago, when I was living in France, I had to send an urgent document to my daughter in Brisbane. Because it was urgent, I decided to pay extra money (it was about 50 euros) to send it by courier. At the French post office, they recommended Chronopost. That was a bad idea. Read more