Woke to hear a rumpus downstairs, REST OF PARAGRAPH CENSORED
Anyway, he went to school and school rang to say he'd arrived. Phew! Gill went to an appointment. I lit the stove and did some of the washing up I didn't do last night as I was on the computer.... bad John :-(
The day got better. I saw there was a gap in the rain and I rang Joan who lives in Tang Hall/Heworth and had an apple tree fall, and one of her neighbours or friends suggested that I might be able to help her dispose of it. Joan was in and so I cycled my electric chainsaw and extension lead round to her house to cut up the trunk of the tree. She was very chatty and we spent as long talking as I spent actually cutting up the tree. I think she probably needs the company. She certainly likes my cycle trailer and seemed amazed about how much I can fit in it, ie all the chunks of tree trunk, several branches, the extension lead AND chainsaw.
When I came home I kept the chainsaw out and did a bit of tidying in the front, dealing with a pile of Leylandii trunks which came from a neighbour I lent my loppers to. Whilst doing this I was thinking of quiz questions for next week's York in Transition quiz. Also, a friendly neighbour, Paddy, asked me if I could help him recycle or dispose of two old bicycles which have been in his garage for a while. I told him I could take them to Bikerescue down on Terry Avenue, they would reuse and refurbish what they could and then re-sell the finished bikes. This is a fab scheme as it keeps bicycles out of landfill (well, some bikes!) and out of metal skips, which although better than landfill, isn't as sustainable as repair and re-use. So I loaded my trailer with two bikes and five spare wheels(!) and took them to Bikerescue, who were pleased to see me with such a full trailer. Apparently there is a bit of a dip in the number of bikes coming to them and they need as many as possible to keep their volunteer bike repairers busy! See here for some good photos of what Bernie and Andy are doing...
On the way back I saw the door was open on my friend Anne's houseboat... and she was just putting a 'For Sale' notice on it! What a pity, they've lived there for 11 years but they aren't really near enough to their child's school and are going to become landlubbers again. So if you want to buy a static houseboat, for £150,000 and annual ground-rent (water rent?) of £5,000, in the centre of York, then contact me and I'll pass you her details or yours to her!
Got home in time to go and pick up our youngest son from school.
This morning's difficulties were put far behind us and we had a good evening. Opened one of the jars of pickled walnuts and had some of these with a bulgar wheat-based tea. I'm not that impressed with them... perhaps I've used the wrong vinegar. I'll try the other jar soon which has a different vinegar preserving them.
Showing posts with label censored blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label censored blog. Show all posts
Gill woke me up as the wonderful Caroline Lucas was on an early-morning politics show being interviewed. I am a fan of hers, and am glad that she has been elected to the position of 'Leader' of the Green Party. Now I didn't really want the Green Party to change and have a leader, although I think that the reasons to have a symbolic leader are pretty convincing. So, despite my reservations about my party having a leader, I think we've got exactly the right person. She is extremely articulate and seemingly an accomplished politician, being able to slag off the 'grey' parties extremely well (ie firmly but politely!) and remind the interviewer that being green is fun, gives a better quality of life than the materialistic capitalist nightmare which is ruining this planet. So I say 'Good Luck Caroline' and I hope you become the first of many Green Party MPs.
The rest of the day was marred by homework... well, not homework in itself, but the children's attitude to it, and their behaviour towards Gill and myself. They are incredibly resistant to actually getting on with it. They need constant cajoling, encouragement and help. And even then, there are many bouts of CENSORED...
I went to the allotment for over 3 hours, dug up loads of potatoes and onions.
The rest of the day was marred by homework... well, not homework in itself, but the children's attitude to it, and their behaviour towards Gill and myself. They are incredibly resistant to actually getting on with it. They need constant cajoling, encouragement and help. And even then, there are many bouts of CENSORED...
I went to the allotment for over 3 hours, dug up loads of potatoes and onions.
There was the predicted difficulty this morning with our eldest as he hadn't done all of his independent learning project which has to be in this morning. One of the reasons was that last week Gill's sister Linda offered to help, by writing down what he dictated and then he could copy out what he had said.. basically an amanuensis for him. So last week he took this into school and he told us that he'd told them what he'd done and they'd told him off, so he'd thrown it in the bin. So this morning I took them into school and went and explained to his teacher about him not finishing this work, and they told me a different story. He'd not been told off... he'd started to copy out what Linda had written down, and been very slow, wasting time and getting distracted. The teacher had suggested that he might want to just take the basic facts from what had been written down, in order to speed up. He'd got angry and screwed up the sheets written by Linda, and then all weekend, refused to do the required work.
We are dreading the new school's heavy homework load. He will get into major trouble if he refuses to do it and might get expelled if he continues to behave like this. We are at a complete loss at what to do. It is not possible to force a child who doesn't want to work to do the work. If we push, or encourage, or cajole BLOG CENSORED There are no easy solutions but sharing this problem with blog readers makes me feel better even though it publicly reveals information about his private torment, and ours as parents....
Anyway, I told him that I'd spoken to his teacher and all he had to do today was to do a one-minute talk about his chosen subject (Marco Polo and Genghis Kahn) and I got a kiss from them both.
Came home with a headache and went to bed. Got up at 10.30 and tried to sort out my computer glitch... justabout successfully, although I still get an error message with sending emails, even though they are being sent! Weird...
Anyway, got on with the day, did lots of housework as Gill was working hard to finish the accounts.
I picked up the boys, they'd had a good day. School have hired a skip and I asked this time if I could recycle stuff from it, and got a 'yes', which was good. So I took a load of cardboard and some metal, and a bag-full of plastic bottles. There will be more tomorrow...
Quite a quiet evening... Ben came round to see the last remaining glitch on the computer and he instructed me how to take it off... and I gave him a Yorky check for Y45 to spend on LETS members' goods and services. I expect I'll see some of it for dried fruit! We also had a visit from our 'pet' electrician, Justin, who checked out our electrical problem and diagnosed what the solution would probably be, and offered us the name of a reputable and qualified Sparky who might be able to do the job.
Gill spent most of the evening making cakes but fell asleep after midnight and almost burnt a couple of them. Just been informed that two of them have been burnt, partly my fault as I thought she'd finished and let her snooze, rather than waking her up earlier. Never mind... she'll cut the edges off and they'll get used! I feel a trifle coming on, with loads of raspberries and loganberries....
We are dreading the new school's heavy homework load. He will get into major trouble if he refuses to do it and might get expelled if he continues to behave like this. We are at a complete loss at what to do. It is not possible to force a child who doesn't want to work to do the work. If we push, or encourage, or cajole BLOG CENSORED There are no easy solutions but sharing this problem with blog readers makes me feel better even though it publicly reveals information about his private torment, and ours as parents....
Anyway, I told him that I'd spoken to his teacher and all he had to do today was to do a one-minute talk about his chosen subject (Marco Polo and Genghis Kahn) and I got a kiss from them both.
Came home with a headache and went to bed. Got up at 10.30 and tried to sort out my computer glitch... justabout successfully, although I still get an error message with sending emails, even though they are being sent! Weird...
Anyway, got on with the day, did lots of housework as Gill was working hard to finish the accounts.
I picked up the boys, they'd had a good day. School have hired a skip and I asked this time if I could recycle stuff from it, and got a 'yes', which was good. So I took a load of cardboard and some metal, and a bag-full of plastic bottles. There will be more tomorrow...
Quite a quiet evening... Ben came round to see the last remaining glitch on the computer and he instructed me how to take it off... and I gave him a Yorky check for Y45 to spend on LETS members' goods and services. I expect I'll see some of it for dried fruit! We also had a visit from our 'pet' electrician, Justin, who checked out our electrical problem and diagnosed what the solution would probably be, and offered us the name of a reputable and qualified Sparky who might be able to do the job.
Gill spent most of the evening making cakes but fell asleep after midnight and almost burnt a couple of them. Just been informed that two of them have been burnt, partly my fault as I thought she'd finished and let her snooze, rather than waking her up earlier. Never mind... she'll cut the edges off and they'll get used! I feel a trifle coming on, with loads of raspberries and loganberries....
Slept in til 10ish, which was lovely.
However, got up immediately and got ready to have a day out with the family. We'd seen a piece in the Press about there being an 'Insect Week' event at Wyevale Garden Centre in Poppleton, so as it's on the Number 10 bus route which goes past our house, we decided to get the bus out there to see the display.
We got the after midday bus all the way to Poppleton and wandered round the garden centre.. which when it was Challis's, Gill worked at, and I also worked at the nearby Challis Plant Factory, where lots of little plants came in, and ceramic bowls, and mainly went out with three plants in a bowl... a tall one at the back, a stubby one at one side and a trailing one towards the front. I spent nearly two years there. Anyway, Challis was sold and it became Wyevale. It is a lot more than a garden centre, it sells all sorts of stuff including fish and pond stuff, all sorts of outdoor things.
We asked about the Insect Week display but nobody knew anything about it, however it didn't matter too much as we had an interesting time.
Then walked into Poppleton, and as it was beginning to rain, went to the Lord Collingwood pub for a bite of lunch and a drink. They had run out of the vegetarian option for lunch so we just had a portion of chips each and I had a perry (seemingly now called 'pear cider'), Gill had a black coffee and the boys had a fruit juice. We ate in the garden, under an umbrella on a picnic bench in the rain, and had a sandwich too, which we'd brought with us. It was a good little trip out, and we all enjoyed it.
I popped down to Country Fresh immediately we got back, before the shop closed, and bought some veg and picked up a box and a sack of compostables. Richard reminded me about the Falling Spikes gig tonight in the Edinburgh Arms.
When I got back, Gill asked me to go to the Co-op to buy some bread and dairy stuff, and when I got back there was a phone call from K, which was inconvenient. The children were playing havoc during this and when I came off the phone, I went into the room they were in and asked them to please be a bit more respectful towards their mother, whom they were disobeying and ignoring. One of my boys was very angry with me and when I went towards him to tell him to calm down and behave, BLOG CENSORED Parenting is not fun at the moment and our children don't often think about how they affect us. The initial fuss was apparently about homework which we want them to do and they do not want to do.
I went outside to let things calm down, and spent an hour weeding the front garden whilst thinking about how I could respond better to my son, and how to be a better parent generally. When I came back in, all was reasonably calm and I was able to tell my boys that I wasn't happy with my response to CENSORED, and I didn't respect myself for my reaction, nor their behaviour towards their mother or me. I apologised to Gill too, as I should really let her sort out the boys by herself if they are playing up... I shouldn't wade in and try to protect her. But it breaks my heart to hear/see her being treated so shabbily and I find it just about impossible to not come in and try to help her. Very difficult. What I'm supposed to do is to come in and ask her if she wants any help.
I had something to eat and did some computery stuff and at 9.30 went to the Edinburgh Arms to arrive just in time to catch The Falling Spikes do a brilliant set, an hour of loud multilayered guitars, 60s-style synth, drums and vocal... reminiscent of my favourite band, Spacemen 3. My friends Rich, Ivana, Dave and Andrew were there, and I chatted with a friendly woman called Tonya. Had one pint of cider.
Home just after 11, spent some time with Gill and at midnight, had a chat on Skype with K which helped us with our differences and difficulties.
However, got up immediately and got ready to have a day out with the family. We'd seen a piece in the Press about there being an 'Insect Week' event at Wyevale Garden Centre in Poppleton, so as it's on the Number 10 bus route which goes past our house, we decided to get the bus out there to see the display.
We got the after midday bus all the way to Poppleton and wandered round the garden centre.. which when it was Challis's, Gill worked at, and I also worked at the nearby Challis Plant Factory, where lots of little plants came in, and ceramic bowls, and mainly went out with three plants in a bowl... a tall one at the back, a stubby one at one side and a trailing one towards the front. I spent nearly two years there. Anyway, Challis was sold and it became Wyevale. It is a lot more than a garden centre, it sells all sorts of stuff including fish and pond stuff, all sorts of outdoor things.
We asked about the Insect Week display but nobody knew anything about it, however it didn't matter too much as we had an interesting time.
Then walked into Poppleton, and as it was beginning to rain, went to the Lord Collingwood pub for a bite of lunch and a drink. They had run out of the vegetarian option for lunch so we just had a portion of chips each and I had a perry (seemingly now called 'pear cider'), Gill had a black coffee and the boys had a fruit juice. We ate in the garden, under an umbrella on a picnic bench in the rain, and had a sandwich too, which we'd brought with us. It was a good little trip out, and we all enjoyed it.
I popped down to Country Fresh immediately we got back, before the shop closed, and bought some veg and picked up a box and a sack of compostables. Richard reminded me about the Falling Spikes gig tonight in the Edinburgh Arms.
When I got back, Gill asked me to go to the Co-op to buy some bread and dairy stuff, and when I got back there was a phone call from K, which was inconvenient. The children were playing havoc during this and when I came off the phone, I went into the room they were in and asked them to please be a bit more respectful towards their mother, whom they were disobeying and ignoring. One of my boys was very angry with me and when I went towards him to tell him to calm down and behave, BLOG CENSORED Parenting is not fun at the moment and our children don't often think about how they affect us. The initial fuss was apparently about homework which we want them to do and they do not want to do.
I went outside to let things calm down, and spent an hour weeding the front garden whilst thinking about how I could respond better to my son, and how to be a better parent generally. When I came back in, all was reasonably calm and I was able to tell my boys that I wasn't happy with my response to CENSORED, and I didn't respect myself for my reaction, nor their behaviour towards their mother or me. I apologised to Gill too, as I should really let her sort out the boys by herself if they are playing up... I shouldn't wade in and try to protect her. But it breaks my heart to hear/see her being treated so shabbily and I find it just about impossible to not come in and try to help her. Very difficult. What I'm supposed to do is to come in and ask her if she wants any help.
I had something to eat and did some computery stuff and at 9.30 went to the Edinburgh Arms to arrive just in time to catch The Falling Spikes do a brilliant set, an hour of loud multilayered guitars, 60s-style synth, drums and vocal... reminiscent of my favourite band, Spacemen 3. My friends Rich, Ivana, Dave and Andrew were there, and I chatted with a friendly woman called Tonya. Had one pint of cider.
Home just after 11, spent some time with Gill and at midnight, had a chat on Skype with K which helped us with our differences and difficulties.
Gill took the boys to school and I got up slowly. I then let Gill sleep for the morning and I did a load of phone calls re Fiddlesticks bookings and preparation for the Northern Green Gathering which is at Lime Tree Farm near Ripon.
Received a comment about the anonymous comment yesterday, from regular reader Annabelecowarrior, a fair comment but once again, if you were a fly on the wall, you'd see how this family works, and there is no way that it is possible to understand that just from what I put in my online journal. As for my son damaging my laptop... what can I do? I left it in a place where he could get at it, I know he suffers terribly from his anger, and regrets it afterwards. Punishing him just makes things worse. I do not want to do anything which exacerbates his negative feelings about himself or increases his anger towards everybody else. He knows he damaged my property, he feels guilty about that. As we do not have lots of toys/gadgets etc, we cannot 'ban him from the X box' (no X Box!) and I'm very loath to put him in his room, grounding him, as this just doesn't work (CENSORED) If someone has no experience of an angry pre-teen, they will just not know how difficult it is. Interestingly, my visitor yesterday was very sympathetic as he has a difficult child who has particular needs and associated behavioural problems. It was good to have that understanding!
Did some gardening in the afternoon... potted up a pepper, a couple of tomatoes, pruned out sideshoots on the big tomatoes, now as tall as me. Then, as usual, all too soon, 3pm came and I had to go to school to pick up the kiddies. Just for once, to appease my critics, I'll tell in more detail than normal what I did re childcare/parenting. My youngest son is very tactile and likes to poke me, push me, and this afternoon I messed around with him, picked him up, gave him piggy-back rides etc. My friend Andy and I chatted, as his daughter and my eldest son are both capable of coming out very late. His daughter came out crying as she'd had a difficult occurrence just before hometime, and so between us we tried to cheer her up. The Green Thumbs Gang stall was in the playground, selling spinach, lettuce, chili plants, and potted marigolds with packets of lettuce seeds. I suggested to Andy's daughter that she come and see the stall (distraction technique) and she fell in love with the marigold/lettuce combo. However it was £2 and Andy only had 60p... so with his permission I lent her the money so she could get the marigold. My eldest son had come out and I took his school bag and asked him to get his lunchbox. Then he wanted to play kickaround with his friends so I asked him to decide whether he should stay and play or come home immediately. He said stay, so I said he could have 10 or 15 minutes, I chatted with a mum and played with my youngest on the climbing equipment.
On the cycle home I chatted to my eldest about his project, which is a pretend business based on coconut products. We had a good conversation. When we got home we continued some conversations about this and other issues. I cooked tea on the woodstove... boiled basmati rice with turmeric, cumin, asafoetidia and home-made sweet paprika, fried the marinaded tofu until tough, as it's nicer that way rather than soft and squidgy, and fried some onions, and grated carrot, added sweetcorn from a tin, peas from the freezer, put the cooked rice with that and added some cubed fresh tomatoes (rescued from the compostables!). So tea, eaten all together, was a bed of rice and veg, marinaded sweet and sour tofu with home-grown oyster mushrooms, garnished with cashew nuts. All of the family loved this and all complimented me on my cooking skills, which was kind of them. Pudding was fruit and ice-cream. Then coffee for Gill and myself and the boys requested a stint on the computer each, we negotiated 40 mins each.
A fairly typical family evening. Bathwater heated on the woodstove, both boys had a bath. I did more apples for drying. I sorted out my sister's bag of dried fruit which she asked for a long time ago. The boys headed for bed. Gill fell asleep and I watched a crap 1970's film.
Received a comment about the anonymous comment yesterday, from regular reader Annabelecowarrior, a fair comment but once again, if you were a fly on the wall, you'd see how this family works, and there is no way that it is possible to understand that just from what I put in my online journal. As for my son damaging my laptop... what can I do? I left it in a place where he could get at it, I know he suffers terribly from his anger, and regrets it afterwards. Punishing him just makes things worse. I do not want to do anything which exacerbates his negative feelings about himself or increases his anger towards everybody else. He knows he damaged my property, he feels guilty about that. As we do not have lots of toys/gadgets etc, we cannot 'ban him from the X box' (no X Box!) and I'm very loath to put him in his room, grounding him, as this just doesn't work (CENSORED) If someone has no experience of an angry pre-teen, they will just not know how difficult it is. Interestingly, my visitor yesterday was very sympathetic as he has a difficult child who has particular needs and associated behavioural problems. It was good to have that understanding!
Did some gardening in the afternoon... potted up a pepper, a couple of tomatoes, pruned out sideshoots on the big tomatoes, now as tall as me. Then, as usual, all too soon, 3pm came and I had to go to school to pick up the kiddies. Just for once, to appease my critics, I'll tell in more detail than normal what I did re childcare/parenting. My youngest son is very tactile and likes to poke me, push me, and this afternoon I messed around with him, picked him up, gave him piggy-back rides etc. My friend Andy and I chatted, as his daughter and my eldest son are both capable of coming out very late. His daughter came out crying as she'd had a difficult occurrence just before hometime, and so between us we tried to cheer her up. The Green Thumbs Gang stall was in the playground, selling spinach, lettuce, chili plants, and potted marigolds with packets of lettuce seeds. I suggested to Andy's daughter that she come and see the stall (distraction technique) and she fell in love with the marigold/lettuce combo. However it was £2 and Andy only had 60p... so with his permission I lent her the money so she could get the marigold. My eldest son had come out and I took his school bag and asked him to get his lunchbox. Then he wanted to play kickaround with his friends so I asked him to decide whether he should stay and play or come home immediately. He said stay, so I said he could have 10 or 15 minutes, I chatted with a mum and played with my youngest on the climbing equipment.
On the cycle home I chatted to my eldest about his project, which is a pretend business based on coconut products. We had a good conversation. When we got home we continued some conversations about this and other issues. I cooked tea on the woodstove... boiled basmati rice with turmeric, cumin, asafoetidia and home-made sweet paprika, fried the marinaded tofu until tough, as it's nicer that way rather than soft and squidgy, and fried some onions, and grated carrot, added sweetcorn from a tin, peas from the freezer, put the cooked rice with that and added some cubed fresh tomatoes (rescued from the compostables!). So tea, eaten all together, was a bed of rice and veg, marinaded sweet and sour tofu with home-grown oyster mushrooms, garnished with cashew nuts. All of the family loved this and all complimented me on my cooking skills, which was kind of them. Pudding was fruit and ice-cream. Then coffee for Gill and myself and the boys requested a stint on the computer each, we negotiated 40 mins each.
A fairly typical family evening. Bathwater heated on the woodstove, both boys had a bath. I did more apples for drying. I sorted out my sister's bag of dried fruit which she asked for a long time ago. The boys headed for bed. Gill fell asleep and I watched a crap 1970's film.
Woke still with a runny nose and thick head, still feeling low about having to censor my blog.
Had bad-tempered morning, as one child was at home as he'd had a bad night and I resented his noise. I feel justified to mention 'a child' rather than saying which one, as it does give some degree of anonymity, and enables me to say why I was feeling grumpy.
I went into the garden to escape and Gill took him into school at lunchtime, so I came in and did some housework, including preparing a load of red peppers for drying to make sweet paprika.
I picked them up from school, and after a family conference (censored) I did some wood stacking. I had tea at 6pm, eggy bread using some out-of-date loaf collected on Sunday evening.
Did more work outside during the evening. Still not in a very good mood.
I did my blog and started going through old posts and asking Gill whether I should take stuff out, or leave it in. It was difficult for her to decide, so she suggested just leaving what is already written and being more careful phrasing stuff in the future. I feel better about this.
Had bad-tempered morning, as one child was at home as he'd had a bad night and I resented his noise. I feel justified to mention 'a child' rather than saying which one, as it does give some degree of anonymity, and enables me to say why I was feeling grumpy.
I went into the garden to escape and Gill took him into school at lunchtime, so I came in and did some housework, including preparing a load of red peppers for drying to make sweet paprika.
I picked them up from school, and after a family conference (censored) I did some wood stacking. I had tea at 6pm, eggy bread using some out-of-date loaf collected on Sunday evening.
Did more work outside during the evening. Still not in a very good mood.
I did my blog and started going through old posts and asking Gill whether I should take stuff out, or leave it in. It was difficult for her to decide, so she suggested just leaving what is already written and being more careful phrasing stuff in the future. I feel better about this.
Felt like a real holiday day today! Lie-in til 9, kids quiet, all had breakfast together and then they went to play in the loft, with the model railway, so we were able to slip back to bed...
Got up an hour later and very soon there was a huge rumpus upstairs, our eldest had broken the 'Virgin' passenger carriage which his brother had bought with his birthday money. This behaviour and noise completely spoilt the good levels of endorphins we had been experiencing beforehand. DESCRIPTION OF INCIDENT CENSORED. I asked the younger one to wait upstairs and eventually got up there and mended his carriage, which fortunately wasn't broken, just popped apart.
When all was settled, I went to the Co-op to get some groceries, and came back via a ripe skip which yielded a pasting table, a wine rack and an unopened box of polyfiller compound, as well as some burnable wood and reusable wood.
After lunch I did some emailing and booked a cottage in Wales for the first week of October, which is a little holiday I'm having with my friend from America. Makes it more real, she's already got her ticket, and I'm already feeling guilty about contributing to a plane journey. However, the next thing I'll do is to look at offsetting (whether it's worthwhile or not) as it will reduce my off-green conscience. I do have such a low carbon footprint, that the carbon cost of half the plane trip won't make my annual footprint as high as the average in the UK (which is apparently 11 tonnes, mine's part of the household footprint of 1.4 tonnes, ie about 0.7 tonnes). But still feel bad about it, but will enjoy seeing my friend again.
After this, Cycled to town and popped in on Cycle Heaven to check on the progress of my new bike, then to CVS to book the room in September for our CRAG meeting on transport, and the one in November on insulation and home heating. Then to collect recyclables from Out Of This World, and posted some letters before popping in to my building society. There was a problem here, as my two books had been sitting next to each other in my bum-bag, and thir numbers had got mixed up when the computer scanned them. Weird, and it took a long time to get it sorted out.
Home via another 2 boxes of compostables from Martin's Urban Perishables.
Put them on the current heap, picked the first of the Bramley apples for making blackberry jam, and windfall James Grieves apples for drying on the stove. Made mixed veg soup, mostly on the stove... carrots, pumpkin, onion, celery... the only thing which was paid-for was the celery.
A warm evening making jam and drying assorted fruit.
Got up an hour later and very soon there was a huge rumpus upstairs, our eldest had broken the 'Virgin' passenger carriage which his brother had bought with his birthday money. This behaviour and noise completely spoilt the good levels of endorphins we had been experiencing beforehand. DESCRIPTION OF INCIDENT CENSORED. I asked the younger one to wait upstairs and eventually got up there and mended his carriage, which fortunately wasn't broken, just popped apart.
When all was settled, I went to the Co-op to get some groceries, and came back via a ripe skip which yielded a pasting table, a wine rack and an unopened box of polyfiller compound, as well as some burnable wood and reusable wood.
After lunch I did some emailing and booked a cottage in Wales for the first week of October, which is a little holiday I'm having with my friend from America. Makes it more real, she's already got her ticket, and I'm already feeling guilty about contributing to a plane journey. However, the next thing I'll do is to look at offsetting (whether it's worthwhile or not) as it will reduce my off-green conscience. I do have such a low carbon footprint, that the carbon cost of half the plane trip won't make my annual footprint as high as the average in the UK (which is apparently 11 tonnes, mine's part of the household footprint of 1.4 tonnes, ie about 0.7 tonnes). But still feel bad about it, but will enjoy seeing my friend again.
After this, Cycled to town and popped in on Cycle Heaven to check on the progress of my new bike, then to CVS to book the room in September for our CRAG meeting on transport, and the one in November on insulation and home heating. Then to collect recyclables from Out Of This World, and posted some letters before popping in to my building society. There was a problem here, as my two books had been sitting next to each other in my bum-bag, and thir numbers had got mixed up when the computer scanned them. Weird, and it took a long time to get it sorted out.
Home via another 2 boxes of compostables from Martin's Urban Perishables.
Put them on the current heap, picked the first of the Bramley apples for making blackberry jam, and windfall James Grieves apples for drying on the stove. Made mixed veg soup, mostly on the stove... carrots, pumpkin, onion, celery... the only thing which was paid-for was the celery.
A warm evening making jam and drying assorted fruit.
