Down to earth

After an exciting evening in London yesterday, it was back down to earth today. Literally. Pesky little 'velvet gentlemen' are causing havoc in our lawn. Yes, we have an invasion of moles. The grass has erupted overnight into mounds of wet soil, as the little devils burrow their way underneath it.

The last time we had a mole invasion, some years ago, we tried lots of recommended remedies to solve it. These included stamping up and down where the molehills were, banging the mounds flat, soaking them with a hose to flood the burrows, and sticking children's hand-held windmills into the molehills, supposedly to drive away the moles with unwelcome vibrations.

All to no avail. Then the neighbour of a friend in Canada told us how he got rid of groundhogs from his back yard: by having his mates round to drink lots of beer, and then peeing copiously into the hillocks. Hubby and chums tried it, and magically, our mole problem disappeared.

Now it may be time to try the same trick again. Trouble is, the last infestation was in summer, and the weather it a lot colder now!