A fairly quiet day, no particular highlights other than visiting Richard at Country Fresh at about midday, and picking up a load of stuff from him, and then going on to Alligator, as Gill had asked me to get some jelly, and they do a good vegetarian jelly. I had space for 3 bags of their biodegradable resources, and will collect more on Monday I expect.
I enjoyed some sorting out down the garden... there's still a bit of a backlog, so today's stuff stayed in the wheelbarrow but I loaded up more into the Compostumbler, and filled a couple of sacks of mature compost which a rodent had excavated from the base of one of the last heaps to be sitting on the ground. Most are now up on top of pallets, to reduce the ability of rodents to nest in the heap. They can still get in from the top, but a quick poke with the CompostMate means any tunnels collapse and they seek refuge elsewhere. So this heap will be bagged up and then the pallets raised up off the ground so it's slightly less rodent-friendly.
I had an early tea, at about 6pm, just a bowl of soup plus an avocado sandwich, and at 6.30 walked down to Heslington with our eldest, so he could have his computer graphics lesson with Simon. I chatted with Melody and shelled pumpkin seeds and read Resource Magazine. Melody told me she too had heard of a horror story about Andy S. taking advantage of a kind and generous person, and I asked her to pass on the message to this (so far) anonymous person that if she wanted to contact me, I was putting together a dossier to try to get him stopped. If any of the readers of this blog recognise the character I refer to, and has a story of him borrowing money and not paying it back, or using someone's credit card without permission, please do contact me.
On the way back home I learned about my son's adventures on Blender, and we talked about animations and some of the things we've enjoyed.
A quiet evening... blanched a load of grapes and put them to dry, watched a nice programme about Tom Petty, a musician I don't know a lot about. Liked his music though...
Showing posts with label Andy S.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andy S.. Show all posts
A fairly quiet day... I cycled round to the bread shop to get Yesterbake, and then to the Co-op to get goats milk for the people in the house who like dairy, cereal for me, margarine and paracetamol for the painful people, which today includes me, with a headache.
Stress today helped by a phone call from the school, asking where was our son? I was absolutely gobsmacked... I'd given in a letter, by hand, yesterday, explaining why he was away before Christmas and why he hadn't gone in yesterday. The communication within that school is abysmal! So my head was full of schooling problems... I really don't want to have to deal with this.... the school should be good enough to send our children to without them feeling so much fear they can't go in.
I usually feel better if I'm doing something outside the house, so I dismembered 4 waste pallets with my chainsaw and pure muscle, pulling the bits of wood apart to make stackable planks and nice long-burning cubes of wood with easy-to-pull-out nails in, once the cube is mostly charcoal.
In the afternoon, Gill had an appointment and I was just settling down for a late lunch when there was a knock at the door and there was my old friend Maggie, whom I haven't seen for ages, with two small dogs on lengths of string! She said she'd walked up to B+Q for something and had walked past our house and recognised the logpiles. She put the dogs in the back garden, tied to a bench, and came in for a coffee and chat. We got to talking about a chap we both know, called Andy S. whom we both called a friend at one time. However, he stole a bike from Maggie, and he's borrowed a large sum of money from one of my friends and not paid it back. Maggie told me about someone else who Andy had possibly hoodwinked, so I sent this person a message on facebook to find out more. What I want to do is to alert the police about this abuser so no-one else suffers in the future. I'm wondering how to get the message out without being accused of slander/defamation or getting a brick through the window.
I did a favour for Maggie who had taken out a stainless steel sink from somewhere and had it sitting in her back garden, and she asked me to put it on Freecycle. By the evening I'd had 4 replies and sent them Maggie's phone number. So I hope one of them gets it!
Anyway, Maggie stayed quite a long time and so I was unable to work with the boys as I'd planned to, after lunch, to get emails and letters sent off to family members to thank them for Christmas gifts. However, our eldest didn't need much persuasion to email some thank yous, but letter writing is a completely different thing. More stress.
Anyway, Gill came back, I did some more work outside til it got dark, and for tea I had a pile of old rice with a pool of pumpkin and parsnip soup in the centre, with some unidentified pickle on the side.
The highlights of the evening were watching a good programme on BBC4 about the brain, and finding an interesting forum called SelfSufficientish, which I joined, and read quite a few posts. The site is run all or partly by my friend John Headstrong, whom I met whilst getting involved with the (We Love The) Earth Centre thing in spring 2010, and I loved this YouTube video about the Robin Hood Tax which he's put on his blog.
Finally, I was pleased to find out today who the mystery visitor was, with the Internet Service Provider based in Buckingham. It is the spouse of an old friend whom I've known for a very long time, dealing with insomnia and getting ideas about domestic food and energy security, Transition communities and peak oil. I'm delighted to have been 'useful' and to have helped an old friend. So, 'hello' and your message made me smile!
Stress today helped by a phone call from the school, asking where was our son? I was absolutely gobsmacked... I'd given in a letter, by hand, yesterday, explaining why he was away before Christmas and why he hadn't gone in yesterday. The communication within that school is abysmal! So my head was full of schooling problems... I really don't want to have to deal with this.... the school should be good enough to send our children to without them feeling so much fear they can't go in.
I usually feel better if I'm doing something outside the house, so I dismembered 4 waste pallets with my chainsaw and pure muscle, pulling the bits of wood apart to make stackable planks and nice long-burning cubes of wood with easy-to-pull-out nails in, once the cube is mostly charcoal.
In the afternoon, Gill had an appointment and I was just settling down for a late lunch when there was a knock at the door and there was my old friend Maggie, whom I haven't seen for ages, with two small dogs on lengths of string! She said she'd walked up to B+Q for something and had walked past our house and recognised the logpiles. She put the dogs in the back garden, tied to a bench, and came in for a coffee and chat. We got to talking about a chap we both know, called Andy S. whom we both called a friend at one time. However, he stole a bike from Maggie, and he's borrowed a large sum of money from one of my friends and not paid it back. Maggie told me about someone else who Andy had possibly hoodwinked, so I sent this person a message on facebook to find out more. What I want to do is to alert the police about this abuser so no-one else suffers in the future. I'm wondering how to get the message out without being accused of slander/defamation or getting a brick through the window.
I did a favour for Maggie who had taken out a stainless steel sink from somewhere and had it sitting in her back garden, and she asked me to put it on Freecycle. By the evening I'd had 4 replies and sent them Maggie's phone number. So I hope one of them gets it!
Anyway, Maggie stayed quite a long time and so I was unable to work with the boys as I'd planned to, after lunch, to get emails and letters sent off to family members to thank them for Christmas gifts. However, our eldest didn't need much persuasion to email some thank yous, but letter writing is a completely different thing. More stress.
Anyway, Gill came back, I did some more work outside til it got dark, and for tea I had a pile of old rice with a pool of pumpkin and parsnip soup in the centre, with some unidentified pickle on the side.
The highlights of the evening were watching a good programme on BBC4 about the brain, and finding an interesting forum called SelfSufficientish, which I joined, and read quite a few posts. The site is run all or partly by my friend John Headstrong, whom I met whilst getting involved with the (We Love The) Earth Centre thing in spring 2010, and I loved this YouTube video about the Robin Hood Tax which he's put on his blog.
Finally, I was pleased to find out today who the mystery visitor was, with the Internet Service Provider based in Buckingham. It is the spouse of an old friend whom I've known for a very long time, dealing with insomnia and getting ideas about domestic food and energy security, Transition communities and peak oil. I'm delighted to have been 'useful' and to have helped an old friend. So, 'hello' and your message made me smile!
