I just "googled" effects of sodium hydroxide poisoning. It says you can take over a month to die! Sounds like a nasty piece of work to me. I will certainly think twice about eating home cured olives from now on. My neighbour makes them by the tonne so it is going to be difficult.

Why? Does your neighbour use caustic soda? Are you sure? I got a splah on my arm and within seconds it had burned through two jumpers, a T-shirt and my skin and was on its way into the flesh.

Caustic Soda is used in the industrial production of olives because it is so much faster than salt.

To be safe I would only ever use salt never caustic soda, be safe, stay alive!

Unlike Lou p's other half

At least you'll have time to sort out your will and finances

I got the solution for the olives!!!!!!

Read carefully, I will write it only once.............................................. .............................................
bin them and buy some lovely tasting ones in jars at the supermarkets for only a bit over a 1 euro!!!!!!!!!

Sensible.

Rosemary

Never touch them myself.

The fact that all forms of wildlife from birds to insects merrily devours almost everything else in the garden and yet avoids olives like the plague, tells me all I need to know.

Yep, amen to that!!!!

Not true. Once ripe and during dry spells before harvesting, they are tackled by songbirds. I have also seen Hispanic Cabra eating them.

It seems to be true as far as my garden is concerned.
Quite a few birds around but maybe not the species you mention or maybe they don't find my olives as tasty as the various alternatives on offer.

We follow the methods recommended in this incredibly thorough paper from the University of California (we found it just by Googling "preserving olives"). http://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8267.pdf. (Published and publicly-available paper so presumably we're OK to attach this link). The recommended method of home-curing green olives works for us, i.e. (1) bash the olives so that they just split (b) soak them in water (c) change the water every day for between 7 - 28 days, depending on how bitter you like your olives (the water leaches out the oleopurine which is what makes it bitter - for our olives, 16- 20 days suits our taste) (d) drain them off and put them in the finish brine (salt, vinegar and water) as prescribed by the recipe (e) take them out when you want to eat them.
You can take them out of the brine and keep them for a few days in light olive oil with a few garlic cloves and/or lemon peel and/or chilli or whatever takes your fancy.
The learned Professors at the U of C say that with this method, you should keep the olives in the fridge once they are in the finish brine. We don't, and we haven't been poisoned yet, though I'm sure the microbiologists amongst you will say that it's only a matter of time....but we can't afford to buy all the fridges we'd need to keep all our olives!
A lot of work, but delicious olives at the end, none of which have been blasted with "lye" (caustic soda) as used by commercial preservers.

you grow olives in Cheshire?

No! Eastern Algarve.