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Looks similar to Ikea Ekenaset, which is fantastic. Albeit I only have the armchair version

You can also buy these, they're called portiere rods

No offence to ridiculous design wankpieces, I have some myself

Sofas are too important to get some ridiculous design wankpiece, save that for your lampshades. Ikea is the place to get a sofa

Yes. These guys in Bristol for example.
https://cheeseproject.co.uk/

They seal up your doors, windows etc with plastic then pump air out of the house to create negative pressure. Then turn the pump off, remove plastic and use a thermal camera to show where the cold air is rushing back into the house. You get a video so you know where to seal up.

Didn't Sting's accountant steal ungodly amounts from him without him noticing for years

Not doubting you guys, just curious.

My survey came with a 'this is for your eyes only, highly recommend you don't share it with anyone' type warning, and neither insurance nor mortgage provider nor anyone else asked to see it. They never even asked if we had a survey done at all.

(In case the FBI / Nationwide are reading this - it also said my house was in tip top condition)

As it stands if you back out, without an engineer’s report saying otherwise they’ll have to put on the brochure that the house might well be subsiding. They really won’t want to do that.

Likewise this... Is this assuming you make some sort of formal declaration to the seller that you think the house is subsiding?

Using the word "subsiding/subsidence" will mean that you won't be able to get insurance until you have had a structural engineer's report

How is this the case when your insurance provider won't see the survey?

Would probably be cheaper to buy a soil pH testing kit and a few bags of ericaceous compost to dig in, than to find that your new camelia hedge is dying because the soil was too limey?

Camelia hedges look incredible - great idea

the question of where to find inspiration

6 months of Gardens Illustrated magazine plus a free book or hand rake for just over £20 here

https://www.buysubscriptions.com/print/gardens-illustrated-magazine-subscription

It's the best gardening magazine and although like most of them it mostly features enormous, spectacular gardens you can still find plenty of planting inspiration for a normal garden

Book or rake can be regifted as a Christmas present, meaning the subscription is essentially free

What do you use the lawn for? If you tripled the width of the borders, you'd be using up the muddiest patches and then you'd have enough room for some beautiful plants.

Are those leylandii? If you're not careful your whole garden will be nothing but leylandii soon!

Gardening is a funny combo of "look it grows by itself" and "after rigorous planning, measuring, budgeting and digging ...in 5 years I might have pears" :)

It's very 'teach a man to fish' right - all the work at the beginning. If you plant your tree and keep it well watered for the first summer, you'll have pears every year for the rest of your life in return for half an hour's pruning per annum.

Conference is self-fertile so you don't need to worry about that. Lots of pear info here

https://www.gardenfocused.co.uk/fruitarticles/pears/grow.php

Fabulous. That seems to make sense to me.

But, my string isn't imaginary and I know its dimensions...

A physics (I think) question... No idea how to work this one out.

I have a raised decking area in my (very sloped) garden, that gets the sun in summer until about half an hour before sunset. Which is to say, the sun 'sets' behind my roof about half an hour before it sets behind a much further away hill to the West.

The deck is about ten metres away from my house and three metres lower than the roofline. It is pretty much directly due East of the house.

The deck is also rotten and needs replacing - and it's a little too high up to sit neatly in the garden.

If I lowered the decking by, say 50cm or 100cm, how much sooner would I lose the sunshine on a summer evening?

The advice can be pretty specific and not always agreeing, depending on whether they are climbers, ramblers or shrubs. For me I'd just say as long as they are dormant it'll be fine - December to March probably, assuming this bizarre mild weather comes to an end soon

Why this advice? I presume they meant 'get it planted in the ground' not 'get it inside'. Peonies are fully hardy and don't need to be dug up and stored like dahlias.

Are you able to share who the rogues are so I can make sure to avoid?

Especially if you're planting now, the plants are unlikely to be able to use up nutrients in chemical fertilisers before they degrade or are washed away by rain. Think you're right also that they could overpower the funghi.

With manure/compost etc, there is a school of thought that mixing it directly into the planting hole means the roots do not grow outwards as well as they have all the nutrients they need too close. They then aren't able to take up as much water later, compared to if the roots had gone searching high and wide.

I would do mycorrhizal fungi around the roots (it has to be in direct contact with the roots not just generally mixed into the soil). Then mulch with compost or manure on top of the soil, all around the plants. The mulch will only very gradually break down and provide nutrients at a more gentle pace, and worms will pull organic matter down into the soil, improving the structure.

Worth noting fresh manure isn't what you want, it needs to be well rotted down first. If you can only get fresh and have space, you could stack it up somewhere to compost and apply it as a mulch in spring.

Autumn kicking in - lovely still though

I would like a built in wardrobe as much as the next guy but these prices are insane. Who knew they set you back as much as a pair of Saddam Hussein solid gold taps.

When you say noisy - like if you have it in a cupboard, is it going to ruin you trying to watch a movie while the washing machine/dishwasher is on?

Also interested in electricity bill impact - one reviewer mentions bills doubling but that sounds insane

Yep in Bristol. My house is also about 10 feet above the road level, up on some hardstanding, which the pipes must go through somewhere (no idea where - the first place it surfaces to my knowledge is all the way at the back of the house). So yeah - too expensive, too much hassle. Don't expect the water company are keen to upgrade any time soon either