collingbournekingston

It's my birthday tomorrow - I'll be 46. I'm the foster carer of two boys (15-17) both have lived with us for more than five years. I've just found out that neither of them have bought me even a card and, although my husband mentioned my birthday to them a couple of weeks ago, he didn't encourage them to bother.

Am I right to be upset or am I just wallowing in self-pity?

My credit card is offering 0% on balance transfers but with a fee of 3%. It is also offering purchases at 0% with no fee. If I just make a payment to my other credit card using this first one, rather than requesting a balance transfer, will I avoid paying the balance transfer fee?

My son is struggling with this course and I don't know how to guide him as I am unsure of what level of detail is required in his assignments. I've seen the grading criteria but these don't give the full answer. How long (no. of pages) would an assignment normally be? What level of detail is required? Can you point to any example answers on the web?

Thanks in advance

I heard recently about plans to set up a blood bank for pets in the UK. It made me wonder:

a) Do dogs and cats have different blood types?

b) Are they classified like human blood i.e. A+ ABnegative etc?

c) Could a cat receive a transfusion with blood from a dog?

d) If blood can be used across species, then could humans receive blood from dogs etc? Could dogs receive human blood?

e) If blood can't be used across species, how does this affect different breeds of dog? Could a Chihuahua have blood from a Great Dane? Where does the line end? Could wolf's blood be used? How about hyena's blood?

Looking forward to some interesting answers!

I've had a compost heap for about two years now. In the summer it became infested with brown slugs (some stripey). I picked off the lid one day and must have seen about 50 of them. I stayed clear for a while and then a few weeks later, I found that there were worms and slugs in it. The worms were not normal garden worms - they're reddy brown with darker rings round them. They seem to have got rid of the slugs. There must be at least 100 in there. For info, it's an average sized black plastic composter.

What sort of worms are they? Are they escapees from a wormery? Are they killing the slugs? Are they good for my compost heap?