Try Ducks ....

 ....comes some helpful advice from my cousin in California. They apparently love to eat slugs. Now here's an extraordinary coincidence. I've just taken delivery of some ducks.

I fear they won't be much help. But they are very sweet and capture beautifully the Essence of Duckness, comical, practical and purposeful. They can't fail to cheer me up. The artist, Gary Rubin,  is from Amelia Island, Florida and I happened to drop into his gallery, when I was there last week (on which more later) saw these chaps and fell in love. Apparently they are Spanish ducks, or, more correctly, Duck, Duck Goose, as the painting is called  but they remind me of home and my old university, York, which was built around a lake where ducks abounded and much enriched our lives.