Weds 21st March 07

A busy day as we're having the BBC round tomorrow, so Gill spent lots of time and energy sorting out the house, and I got the garden ready... digging out the bay-window radiator raised bed which will be a composter tomorrow and will be an Ethical Coffin...

I got the children from school and as soon as I got home had recieved a call from the Abbey National. So rang back the pleasant woman from the complaints department, and had to wait ANOTHER 20 minutes to speak to her. The simple but infuriating message was that she'd been in contact with the York office and they couldn't find any record of our account. They've lost it. She suggested going in to the shop and giving them my date of birth as this might help them trace the passbook which they've supposed to have sent back to me. Without it, YorkLETS cannot open its new Co-op Bank account, so it's really important I get it back. I will write to them and hand deliver the letter, as I don't want to wait in the shop for 15 minutes like last time. I may also send a copy to the Financial Services Authority as I'm really annoyed by Abbey's cock-up, and I don't want other organisations to be inconvenienced like we are being. I might email BBC Watchdog too, watch this space....

I then cycled to Out Of This World for my midweek compostables pick-up, via my reliable Building Society, Nationwide, who have my Fiddlesticks account, and got a cheque made out to Unicycle .com for the repair. Mustn't forget to send it off!

Worked in the garden until about 7pm, then had a large slice of Gill's nutloaf.

Emails this evening included confirmation from Community Care Magazine that they'd like me to be their new green columnist. The Editor had done a fab job of editing my long column into a shorter one to fit the available space. The mag has 64000 subscribers and is a weekly. I have been offered a column every 3rd week plus a weekly blog, so I had a few questions for the Editor, Graham. I'm not getting too excited but I am very pleased.

Less pleased with my email package 'Outlook Express' which keeps on going dead on me and 'not responding'. Not sure what to do as 'Windows Defender' I downnloaded hasn't seemed to sort the problem. I'll have to ask my friend Simon, he can fix any computer problem! Thank goodness I know an expert I can bribe to come and help me.