Human Lifestyle

Up early... woke up having a dream that my eldest son was pulling my duvet off me telling me to get up.  He wasn't, but I did.

And had a good day.... did some tidying by taking compostables down the garden, and decided to dig out the Compostumbler, as I had a bit of cooked food to put in which I didn't want to put in an open heap.... as it attracts rodents.  So, I decanted about half of the Compostumbler contents into a dalek, and was delighted to find the centre was full of live compost worms.... not moving much, as some of the rest of the tumbler contents was frozen solid, but the middle had a healthy population of living but slow-moving worms.  Oh joy!  Anyway, I added the 2 bags of paper plates and party food from the home schoolers party, which has been sitting quite happily in the studio... some of the time at sub-zero temperatures. I also had a 20kg sack of chapati flour which had got wet with the studio pipe-burst, so I put quite a bit of that in the tumbler as well.

Anyway, we'd been invited to Jane's Scrabble Tournament, but Gill had said that she couldn't imagine our boys enjoying it and so she wanted to stay at home and I could go and play Scrabble.  So at about 3pm i cycled down to town with the cheque which arrived yesterday, for the 5 days of Santa in Kirklees.  I was glad to get that into my account!

Then onto Fishergate for an afternoon of Scrabble.  I arrived at the same time as Andy D'Agorne and the house was already full of a whole load of Jane's Mum's friends (Jane inherited the house when her Mum died) and our other Green councillor, Dave Taylor.  I was pleased to meet Jane's partner Dave, who's from Hull.  Later, Jennifer and Jamie arrived, and Peter, who lives less than a minute's walk away.

After a bit of chat, including talking sculptures with Jane's Dave, I had the first of two games... the first was against Jane's Dave, who won, Jamie and Tracey, and the second was against Dave Taylor (the winner), Peter and Jennifer.  I came third in both games.  Not my usual standard... but I really enjoyed the games.

There was one other Scrabble game going on, plus something similar called Upwords which I'd love to have a go with.  Looks really good!

Jane had done a load of lovely baking... apparently a new skill, or art, as actually she's an artist, and so we all got fed, and there was plenty to drink, and stimulating conversation.  A really good event.

I left at 9ish, not sure exactly, and cycled home, collecting nothing at all.  Gill and the boys were happy, they hadn't done anything, but were fine.

Another quiet day.  Our youngest was off school as it was a training day, so both boys had a computer game-based day.  Gill had planned to take them both out to see a film but eventually they decided not to go, and a friend came round and they all played computer games. 

Gill did go to town and got some clothes and perspex to continue triple glazing the house.

I did a little bit outside but generally had a lazy day inside, due to the bitter cold and deep snow. I kept it warm inside by keeping both stoves going all day.

Mid afternoon I received a phone call from Jane who was about to set out on foot to deliver her broken laptop to the computer shop on Hull Road, very near us, and she asked if she could pop in.  So she came for a wood-fired cuppa and chat, and met Gill... they got on well.

I spent a lot of the day reading, including the questions for Julian Assange about the WikiLeaks intrigue, and later, his answers.  I submitted my application to World Book Night, a plan to give away a million books next March.  I also did some cooking to add to tea... just slices of winter squash, boiled on the stove and then roasted at the same time as Gill's potato and leek quiche cooked.

So, a fairly nothingy day.  Hope tomorrow is more active.

I had an appointment at 10 to see Jane, a newish green friend who shares a love of Scrabble and has a lovely wildlife garden.  We'd met at several meetings and had tried several times to meet up, failing on at least two occasions.  But today's meeting had been in the diary for a while and it was good to meet up, attempt a game of Scrabble, and then give that up as chatting and Scrabble were not very compatible, and then had some lunch.  Our conversations ranged from bird and tree identification, oil paintings, communication in relationships, optimism versus pessimism, food and a whole lot between. 

I came back via Country Fresh where Shirley gave me the usual sack of gubbins, and then via Freshways who had a sack for me.  I got back to find Gill and our eldest had gone into town to get some glasses repaired but they soon came in.  I did a little bit of log stacking, and then our friend Maria came round to talk to us about home education, as she is a tutor who has some private students who learn mainly chemistry with her.  She had a good pile of text books and advice about resource material to get him through to GCSE in the three sciences.  Later we accepted her offer of an hour a week tuition.  Things are beginning to fall into place.

I had a subdued evening, dealt with some admin stuff and tried to write an important email which I've been composing in my mind for a week or two.  Late on I prepared some more apple and then a large pile of yellow peppers which I'll use to make sweet pepper paprika once they're dried.