Crossing the Blues
Showing posts with label redcurrants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label redcurrants. Show all posts
Quite a good day... up at 9ish and Gill had already gone to her physio appointment, to see if her leg pain can be cured.

I had the usual muesli and emails... I'm pleased that since paying for extra Tiscali email space, the number of spam emails has dropped hugely. Now I need to contact them about the occasional bounces possibly caused by my sending emails out using the Phone Co-op but with a Tiscali address... Ben has tried to explain this to me but so far the problem persists.

I also got a letter from a friend who I thought I'd lost contact with, but she's a poet and her publisher contacted me inviting me to buy her latest book. I did so, but put in a note to pass onto my friend. I'm glad she's well and is now more easily contactable as the violent man she was hiding from has died. Previously I had to write to her mother who passed on the letter... or not! My last letter (4 or 5 years ago) was not answered.

I got busy outside and continued shredding the holly that Gill took out, and then did some quite radical pruning myself, taking out a lot of dead clematis and honeysuckle from a pergola, and then cutting back a hedge with privet, beech, a shrub with pink blobby flowers and quite a bit of bramble... all shredded! Some of this I used immediately but I also bagged some up for future use.

Then I took the electric 50m extension flex up the garden to the front and did a good load of chainsawing. I heard another chainsaw somewhere near and cycled round trying to find it, n case of some more logs becoming available, but I didn't find it as it kept on stopping. So I visited Debbie to see how she was and then picked up a couple of logs from the nearby woodlands where logs are often dumped.

I dealt with Melody and Simon's redcurrants and later, Gill and I made jelly out of the juice.

A nice relaxing day in many ways... didn't do much in the morning but after lunch I cycled down to see Simon and Melody who have a glut of redcurrants, and invited us to make them a Yorky offer for a couple of punnets. From here I cycled through the University to Heslington Road, popped in to Richard who had a sack and a half of gubbins for me, and then down to town as I wanted to see the YUMI festival, and I picked up a half sack of halved lemon peels from the lemon juice stall.

I was impressed with YUMI Celebrates event. A good proportion of Parliament Street had stalls with food, crafts and activities from local people who originate from all over the world. York is much more of a multicultural place than it was when I arrived in the 1980s. I had an Asian friend who visited with her European boyfriend, and I have memories of them walking through Newgate Market holding hands and all the market traders staring, and me being embarrassed by this. I grew up in Leicester where inter-racial relationships were common, and the attitude of people in York was very different. I'm glad York is more cosmopolitan now.

I chatted with a volunteer steward called Penny and she expressed a desire to volunteer with YUMI, and a couple of minutes later I spotted Sasiki so I introduced them to each other.

I also went into town to see the city centre cycle races, and I was there as the under 14s race got underway. It was good to see them really going for it! I popped into see Sarah and Matthew in their 'Gluggles' shop, and then cycled home via Freshways who were happy to let me have two sacks of goodies.

I came in for a coffee and then got busy in the garden, coming in at 7pm for something to eat. I was pleased that my suggestion that the boys help in the garden was taken up... I asked if they could smash up an old pallet which they did with gusto. Excellent!

I found more interesting stuff in the pond-to-be area.... another clay pipe and something which might be ivory. It's going to be fascinating to see what else we unearth here.