We are very stingy ecofriendly here in the Vicarage don’cha know. We use our paper shreddings as firelighters. In fact we shred every piece of A4 paper we can, because we’ve found that strip shredded paper is a brilliant base layer for getting the logburners roaring quickly. It burns easily and creates lots of air space to encourage the fire.
Recently I’ve been trying to get on top of some paperwork which hasn’t exactly been properly filed. Piled up in the utility room would be a better description. And I was getting rather fed up of interrupting the Vicar in his study in order to shred.
But happily all has now been solved by the purchase of this excellent shredder from our local Lidl for a mere £8.99. Not only was it cheaper than nearly every one we’d looked at online, but it also sits neatly on top of the shredding basket next to the woodburning stove, thanks to its cunning telescopic arm.
Just wanted to share the joy. You know. They might even have one left at your local Lidl. If you’re lucky.
The Vicar's Wife 
BRILLIANT!
One of the background frustrations in my life for the last two years has been the question of what on earth the pointless telescopic arm thing on our shredder was for. It’s like a (admittidly minor) weight has been lifted off my shoulders!
We originally tried to compost our shreddings, but when we got to two large compost bins crammed full of shredded paper it became clear that it was not a suitable solution in the long term.
Hope you use both sides of the paper first before shredding?!
Takes me back. When I were a young vicar’s son we used to burn ‘briquettes’ (not sure of spelling). This involved soaking lots of old newspapers and then wringing out all the water using a device that then produced paper bricks. These were then stored in one of the many attics in our huge Victorian vicarage. Because the paper had been soaked it meant that they took quite a long time to burn even after being dried. Think it may have even featured on Tomorrow’s World at some point. Happy days!
Hi there all. Our compost buckets are similarly overflowing as well Peter, so we have to burn burn burn.
Normally we try and use both sides Icklesis! But we also shred a lot of incoming junk mail. Very satisfying.
Lovely to see you here again Tim. Those briquettes sound like a nightmare. In fact I think we might have even had that device in our family when we were young. It’s the sort of gadget dads like to try. Shreddings are so much better. And we don’t really get newspapers – we usually read online. But we do get the E&S occasionally 😉