I am getting over my 85th birthday. The many posts on FACEBOOK, the cards, the telephone calls, the kindnesses. Today a birthday present arrived in the post from Margaret - a book entitled '50 Ways to Kill a Slug'. Margaret wrote inside that when she saw this book, she thought of me - and I guess Margaret meant that in the nicest way.
I have started reading the book (which comes in a delightful shade of green, what other colour could the publisher have used?) and am impressed with the excellent advice amongst the humour. On page 25 I learn that there are certain plants that slugs hate - and I am pleased to say that I grow some of these. Mint, chives, garlic, geraniums, foxgloves and fennel. I will make sure that not only do I grow these, but I will ensure that they are placed strategically around the damper parts of my estate. Slugs dislike the smell.
Elsewhere there is the suggestion that you should chuck slugs into your neighbour's garden, but I get along very well with my neighbours, so I will not be engaged in such frolics. No sir! They might throw them back.
I gather that later in the book there might be some recipes. I am not a fussy eater, but slugs are not on my list of things I would like to try before I pass away to the garden in the sky.
