Exorbitant prices at B&Q

[ARWadsworth]

I miss my neighburs free eggs:-)

[Robin]

I grew up with chickens at the bottom of the back garden but we have so many foxes here I'd never get any sleep with dozens of the bloody things queuing up to try their luck at the coop. And these are not just urban foxes; these are Hackney urban foxes and they ain't scared of no one.

[Bob Eager]

Detected my OCD then!

[The Natural Philosopher]

get em hooked on crack..

[Wesley]

I'd love to support local shops but they have all been driven out of business by the big supermarkets around here. My local butcher, which was the last traditional butcher in the area, has now become a Halal butcher. All that's now left is a small greengrocer and they are on their last legs.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Odd. That was the pattern ten years ago, but there's a huge resurgence in farmers markets and local shops here.

I think the phenomenal cost of fuel has helped - its cheaper to use the local shop than drive 10 miles to a supermarket.

[djc]

[Jules Richardson]

Surely that should be last leg's? ;)

[mogga]

they not have any at the city farm?

[PeterC]

There's a greengrocer in the next village that I'd love to use but: the produce has the same labelling as that in the supermarkest, it's definitely past its best (sorry, it's best) and also about 50% more expensive. I suspect that it gets some supplies from supermarket rejects.

[Corporal Jones]

Check where your eggs came from and how far they have traveled:

[MM]

This is uk.d-i-y, so you should be able to construct a fence that would keep foxes at bay. A double fence, if necessary. But I doubt it would be. I go for walks and see chickens a lot. Never seen any sign of weeping children over a heap of bloodied chicken remains so far. In the 1950s my father kept a poultry farm, well, smallholding and we had hundreds of chickens. Never had a fox. I'm sure I'd remember if we had, even though I was only 12 at the time.

MM

[The Natural Philosopher]

you were right the first time...

and also about 50% more expensive.

[MM]

farm gate eggs, eggs from the lady down the road, etc are NOT imported from some secret sweatshop shed in Thailand!!

MM

[MM]

I think, though, the tide is finally turning. You cannot move in our local butcher's shop on Thursdays and Fridays as it is jampacked with customers buying for the weekend. You can buy exactly as much or as little as you need, whereas the supermarkets mostly will only sell you prepacks, which are often a larger amount than needed, and the meat is second rate, anyway.

Also, in our small town a baker has opened up! Put the flags out. And there's always the street market on Thursdays and Saturdays where you can buy massive quantities of lovely new potatoes for a quid.

MM

[The Natural Philosopher]

FIL regularly loses ALL the chickens in a single night from the fox.

Last time two had 'escaped' from one bit of the garden and they survived.

The geese made it but the ducks didn't either.

Its all fenced.

He/she/it dug under

[MM]

And also the cost of parking. Here where I live parking is free for 2 hours, even on the council car park. Try driving to Peterborough and it'll cost you a quid at least, even if you only want six eggs.

My dream before I die is to see all the supermarkets as wastelands as depicted in Vladimir Manyuhin's works and a return to small, family-run shops and an end to rip-offs.

[The Natural Philosopher]

we ran out of our own potatoes so we bought a 25kg sack for a fiver - lovely red potatoes that you couldn't get in a supermarket. Best chips ever.

A chinese supermarket has reopened - well its not very super and we got a HUGE bag of GIANT prawns for a fiver.

Better prawns and less than half the supermarket price.

The polish shop that's opened in town now does better cured pork than the supermarket at half the price too..

Bread is still a problem so SWMBO now bakes it all.

Or I do.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You could caption any one of those with 'I knew we shouldn't have relied on windmills'

[Chris J Dixon]

I thought it was an ironic insertion of the greengrocers' apostrophe.

Chris