Sat. 7th April 07.

Went to the lottie in the morning, to prepare for the spuds going in. I wanted to take both my boys as Gill wanted to pop into town to get some 'little fiddles' (as she calls presents) for the boys to put in their reusable papier-mache easter eggs, to go with their Dubble 'fair trade' chocolate ones. However, our 9 year old refused to come with me, and I don't like taking just the younger one as he gets bored by himself, won't help on the lottie and needs lots of management, and then whines or cries. He's only 7 and still quite babyish in many ways. If they both come, they play together, sometimes spend a few minutes helping with something and are generally easier to deal with.

So I 'laid down the law' with my bigger bolshier one, and, much shouting later, he grumpily went to bring his bike to the front, as I'd got it out so he could come. He found it had a flat tyre so he couldn't come. So they both stayed at home, and because of the shouting at me, they won't get any extra presents tomorrow. Gill mended his tyre, she's getting good at it.

On the lottie I didn't manage to do much prep for potatoes. I cut back lots of old dead brambles and chopped them up onto one of the compost heaps (always a priority with me!) and did some digging out of dandylions and clumps of grass in the place where I thought the spuds could go. They probably still can, but not yet. More work to do.

One brilliant thing, though, I found a Morel, a rare fungus which in theory is edible, except this one had been alongside a weed and was damaged and covered in soil particles. It's the first Morel I've ever found. I brought it back and will try to identify it, whether 'common' or 'edible', except they are both edible and apparently delicious.

Home for lunch, house smelled lovely as Gill was making leek and sweet potato soup (yesterday's compostables included a large pile of leeks with some slightly yellowing leaves, the stems were fine!) and she'd done the bike, just needed help getting the tyre back on.

The boys wanted to go to the woods where Simon had taken them a few days ago, so we three set off and they took me to beyond Heslington, past the 'Outgang' and down a track to a small patch of woodland. The dens made by Simon's son were there, one a 'lean to' of sticks against a tree and the other a 'bender' with interwoven sticks. We played a bit, and I picked up a load of beer cans which had been left lying around, so I could bring them home for recycling.

When we got home, the Press had been delivered and I was in it with my Lloyds TSB rubbish bag story and photo. Then there was a phone-call, a woman wanting to remain anonymous, but congratulating me on 'doing the right thing'. She said she was nearly 80 and regularly picked up litter for recycling, and was right behind me with my direct action. How nice of her to ring with her support! She said that she expected me to get some flack over it, so she was ringing with 'a bouquet'. Later, when I went to the front door, tucked up against it was a box with a pack of four fruit and yoghurt deserts. They'd been left there, as a gift. Was this the same person? Was it someone else, with a positive response to the media report? Was it unconnected with the Press article... We may never know!

The sweet potato and leek soup was stupendous, with olive bread and toasted cheese. Followed by Strawberry flan and raspberry trifle and one of the fruit desert things, once again Gill said, 'don't we live well?' This always makes me laugh, I'm glad she's happy. We all are, it's the real 'Good Life'.