Preparedness for when

thriftwizard

Just off The Chalk here, in a river valley originally carved out of the remains of an age-old shallow sea by the great glacial outwash rivers. We have a layer of lovely rich alluvial loam, then a rock-hard layer of gravel, fossil shells & small stones. There's plenty of flint, but also nubbins of ironstone; apparently a series of meteorites smashed into that ancient sea many millions of years ago, and our ancestors found a good use for the rusty lumps. A short walk away, there's clay you can make pots out of, though I've never tried. But the name "Potter's Field" is a bit of a giveaway that people have, in the past. Quite useful geology, I sometimes think!

I was under the impression that our beaches were mostly pebbles, as we stay away from the town centre beaches & tend to lurk along the wilder fringes. However I was surprised to find out that the pebbles are actually imported & carefully deposited in strategic places every spring, to stop the sand washing away! And if that were to happen, the next town long the coast eastwards would be in serious danger of ceasing to exist...

mardatha

http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/fortwilliam/6_32/6_32_1l.JPG
My favourite beach

Karmacat

Oh Mar!!! So beautiful ...

The beach nearest to me is pebbles, on the English Channel, but I grew up on the banks of the Mersey, with (oil-covered!) sand and sandstone rocks, full of little creatures that were fun to watch. See that sand on the far side of this pic? http://i4.liverpoolecho.co.uk/incoming/article10706175.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/JS54920730-1.jpg With a lighthouse at the tip, which is where most of the rockpools were

ivyleaf

mardatha wrote: »

http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/fortwilliam/6_32/6_32_1l.JPG
My favourite beach

Oh mar, that's just gorgeous! Thanks for sharing it with us. I'm so glad you were able to go to Peebles :j High time you had some good weather!

Thanks for sharing yours too Karmacat! It's wonderful how varied our coastline is. i do love a rock pool

Cappella

Beautiful beaches I love the coast, thank you.

jk0

Not with mine though unfortunately.

One of my friends has a Wahl head shaver which he brought round last night for me to fix. I opened it and tested across the electromagnet, and found it was open circuit.

This morning I had a flash of inspiration, and wondered if I could rewind the electromagnet somehow bridging the open section. I removed the glue holding the switch wires in place where they were joined to the enameled copper wires wound round the electromagnet. One of the switch wires came away very easily, and I realised it was no longer soldered to the enameled copper wire.

The remaining piece was too small to solder, so I unwound the tape from the electromagnet, and was able to unwind one turn of enameled copper wire. This gave me enough to solder to, and then I replaced the glue with Araldite.

My mate's shaver now works!

dreaming

GreyQueen wrote: »

The old country folk used to reckon stones grew.
Soil is funny old stuff. I'm in the 9th year with this particular plot and some areas of it get cultivated multiple times each season, with foriegn materials like pottery, glass and nails diligently removed each time.
So why, after 8 years, did little bits of broken bricks never before seen start to surface everywhere? Today, I weeded one of the teenage strawberry beds and came up with two horseshoe nails and 4 pieces of glass. QUOTE]



Just this week I said to my daughter that I think the stones were growing. I have spent considerable time shaking the soil through my old garden sieve over the 6 years I have been here but putting in some new plants I have a good half compost bag full of stones in just a 4ft x 3ft area. Some of the bigger pieces I am putting next to the garage base which is planted with low growing herbs, but the smaller ones will be taken to the council tip along with the half bricks I also have unearthed. The house was built in the 50's so even then it seems builders buried their rubbish.

nuatha

dreaming wrote: »

Just this week I said to my daughter that I think the stones were growing. I have spent considerable time shaking the soil through my old garden sieve over the 6 years I have been here but putting in some new plants I have a good half compost bag full of stones in just a 4ft x 3ft area. Some of the bigger pieces I am putting next to the garage base which is planted with low growing herbs, but the smaller ones will be taken to the council tip along with the half bricks I also have unearthed. The house was built in the 50's so even then it seems builders buried their rubbish.

Its the worms I tell you, its the worms.
(A hysterical nuatha runs off down the street, wailing and sobbing)
Excuse the outburst.

Friends celebrate 60 years of gardening the same plot this summer. They get more stones out of the garden than they've ever done - and they've always sieved every spadeful. When they moved in it was hard work to lift 6 inches of soil, now they can trench at more than 30 inches. As the worms pull the compost and manure down into the soil the stones move up. (I'm sure there are for more complicated and technical explanations involving plate tectonics). A lot of the soil improvement is down to being repeatedly dug and manured/composted (and sieved) but they reckon more of it is down to the worms.

thriftwizard

I'm off to investigate some of my favourite beaches tomorrow

Taking the girls for a couple of days in Cornwall, including a trip to the Eden project, and to revisit some family favourite haunts. The weather looks as if we're not going to have to stress if we forget the suncream...

NewShadow

Where I wus brung up (Tresaith)



The house was within walking distance.