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This was reported all last week… so check your shed…

An Oxfordshire woman has told how a Lithuanian crane driver set up home in her garden shed - without her knowledge.

The man had installed home comforts including a bed, television and even a juicer in the shed at the bottom of an overgrown garden in Banbury, reports The Times.

He even tidied up the garden and Kelly Dudley, 25, assumed the figure in blue overalls had been sent by her landlord.

The truth dawned when she spotted him emerging from the shed on Sunday morning looking as though he had enjoyed a good night’s sleep.

She was astonished to discover a single bed, a chest of drawers, a camping stove, pots and pans, crockery and a shaving mirror. He had set up a television at the end of the bed, and laid a carpet on the floor.

Ms Dudley, who is on maternity leave with her six-month-old daughter, Chloe, did not know whether to be be amused or frightened.

She later found out that the migrant worker, known only as John, had sought refuge at the bottom of her garden after losing his job and being evicted from his home. He believed that the unlocked outhouse had been abandoned.

Ms Dudley said that the Lithuanian had offered to pay her rent and do her gardening if she would allow him to stay.

“If I did not have a six-month-old daughter, I might have considered it,” she said. “It is a funny story but also very frightening - he could have been anybody.”

PC Matt Locke said: “He thought the shed had been abandoned, so he moved in. He had even cleaned up the garden. He had not committed any criminal offences but we asked him to move on, which he did, willingly.”

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Hope this is not one of my sheddies the herald reports

A garda has told the trial of a Tallaght taxi driver charged with running a counterfeit DVD and CD-making business how he found “burners” which could copy over 40 DVDs at a time behind a false wall.

The garda said that “a secret compartment” behind a false wall in a shed at the back of the accused’s home held six multiple-unit CD/DVD burners which could each copy original discs onto seven or eight blank discs simultaneously.

But it looks like a audio/video dream and potential shed of the year 2009, shame he wont be around.

He said he observed several boxes of cases for CDs in the “lean to” shed. The larger concrete-built shed transpired to be an “entertainment room” equipped with a bar, couches, optics, sound system and a TV.

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The trumpet of truth reports on this horrible story..

AN ELDERLY man died of a heart attack in his beloved garden shed before falling on a gas heater and starting a fire which consumed the building.

Newport Coroner’s court heard how 77-year-old Frederick Brown, of St Gwladys Avenue, Bargoed would often spend most of his day in the shed at the bottom of his garden.

At 10.30am on December 9, 2007 Mr Brown’s grandson, who was visiting his grandparents, was on his way to give his granddad his morning paper when he noticed flames coming from inside the shed.

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According to the mirror The rev Jamie Allen says to stay happily married you need a shed, I can’t comment on that personally , but if you sheddies agree let me know.

A vicar is advising couples who get hitched in his church to buy a shed if they want a long and happy marriage.

The Rev Jamie Allen says a man who potters around in a shed is “wisely tinkering away at marital bliss”.

He added: “The very act of being in the shed may well be helping men live happily ever after with their wives. The garden shed may give them a safe, private place to unwind and escape the pressure of modern life and marriage.”

The Rev Allen, vicar of St Andrew’s at Great Cornard, Suffolk, has launched a survey to find out why fewer locals are marrying. A winner picked at random from those taking part will get…a brand new shed.”

{Source}

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla

After installing TV cameras and removing covers during a spacewalk Thursday, the astronauts at the linked shuttle and station got ready for their next challenge: attaching a storage shed to the bus-size lab. The 210-mile (338-kilometer) construction job was set for Friday afternoon.

The lab, named Kibo, Japanese for hope, is so big that it had to be split into three shuttle missions to get to the international space station. Its 14-foot (4-meter) storage shed was delivered in March and left in a temporary parking spot. The third and final section, a porch, will be launched next year.

More from google and NASA

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Shocking story on the BBC from Derby, our feelings go out to the allotmenters , thinking about all the work they have done.

Vandals have wrecked allotments in Derby in a rampage which left almost every building on the site damaged.

They smashed more than 40 panes of glass in sheds and greenhouses and repairs could cost thousands of pounds.

{source}

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Seem to be a lot of shed fires, so be careful sheddies.

Two injured in Buckley ‘explosion’
A MAN suffered burns when a garden shed “exploded”, leaving residents in shock.

Shed Fire accidental
Four people escaped injury when flames engulfed a large shed, early this morning.

Fireball ‘went 50ft in air’ after Blackburn shed arson attack
A FIREBALL shot up to 50ft into the air when a gas canister exploded after an arsonists torched a shed.

Arsonists set fire to shed
Residents were woken by a shed fire believed to have been started by arsonists early today

also a timely reminder for Shed security

and from international news

Melton South school shed blaze
The fire destroyed an uninsured tool shed, causing up to $20000 damage.

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Well here on shedblog and readersheds have always know that sheds are special and the general media has started to pick it up again, which is good, The indypendant has a great article on how sheds are helping the current UK credit crunch.

Ten years ago, it went upmarket and became an outsourced office or library for groovy rus in urbe metropolitans; powered by subterranean cables, it featured electric lights, wall heaters, a telephone and sockets for computer, printer and hi-fi – a warm, humming, creative environment, where you could spend hours in contentedly self-delighted browsing, musing and occasional guilty bursts of playing air guitar along with Slash or Mark Knopfler.

Today, it’s become a display cabinet of technological sophistication: a home cinema, a cocktail bar, a personalised, chill-out, son-et-lumière zone of wistful shadows and ambient mood music. Some owners have gone so far as to install a chaise longue, a bed, a fridge and Gaggia espresso machine to replicate, only a few feet from their home, the feel of a very upmarket hotel room.

of course some sheds are like this, but we know a shed can be anything, as long as it’s the retreat that we all want.

read more here.

now all we need to do is get some of those posh sheddies to share their sheds for Shed of the year.

via shedworking.

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A man today told of his narrow escape after finding a live grenade in a shed he was about to knock down.

Bomb disposal experts were called to Paul Fittock’s home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire to detonate the Second World War device he found gathering dust on a shelf.

Mr Fittock, 33, only discovered the device in rafters of the old wooden shed because he was carrying out a final inspection before sledgehammering it down.

Mr Fittock, who bought the nearby house six months ago, had just gained planning permission to raze the dilapidated building to the ground.

RAF officers placed the device in a metal box and took it to a quarry to be detonated. Police briefly sealed the road off for safety.

The computer engineer told the Gloucestershire Echo: “There was no mistaking what it was so I got out of there quickly and called the police.

“If I hadn’t seen it and started knocking the building down it could have easily dropped to the floor. Who knows what could have happened?”

Next door neighbour Amanda Wiltshire said: “It’s the most exciting thing to have happened since I’ve lived here!”

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Staff at a DIY store could be facing disciplinary action after pictures showing them wearing nothing but their work aprons were posted on an internet networking site.

Videos showing workers play-fighting in the aisles of B&Q, in Hartcliffe, Bristol, were also put up on Facebook, it was claimed.

The company has launched an internal inquiry after bosses saw the images, which have now been removed from the site.

COMPOSTABLE BAG
The Co-op is launching a 6p shopping bag which can be thrown on a compost heap when it wears out.
Bosses say the bag – made of polyester and cornstarch – is the UK’s “first fully-accredited home compostable carrier”.
They say the bag’s popularity will be tested at selected stores in East Anglia before it is offered nationwide. The Co-op says stores taking part in the trial will not offer free plastic bags.

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Setting up a garden office may have ruined my bank balance but it did wonders for my ego

Giving up my outside office and relocating to the bottom of the garden was supposed to save money, but it hasn’t worked out that way, mainly because I decided to oversee its construction myself. I imported the materials to build the “cabin” from a German company I found on the internet. It didn’t occur to me until a lorry pulled up outside and deposited an enormous flatpack on my doorstep that the instructions would be in German. In the end, my mother-in-law found a man in Suffolk who’d built one before and dispatched him to Acton in his pick-up truck.

[Source]

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PA has a great story about

Five-year-old Sam Houghton has been named Britain’s youngest inventor after patenting an idea worthy of Wallace & Gromit.

The boy from Buxton, Derbyshire, had the brainwave while watching his father sweep up garden leaves.

Dad swapped between two brushes - one to clear up larger leaves and twigs and the other to catch finer debris.

In just a few minutes Sam had strapped two brooms together with a large rubber band. The result was the “Improved Broom” which can be flipped around for different jobs.

Sam, who was only three at the time, has now been granted an official patent for his invention. He is thought to be the youngest Briton yet to hold one.

He said he was inspired by his TV heroes Wallace & Gromit, the animated characters who get into all sorts of trouble with Wallace’s outlandish inventions.

[Source]

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