Friday 8th June 07

As Gill's legs still hurt following the physio, I took the boys to school.

The morning was mainly concerned with creating a placard for Santa to carry whilst unicycling on the World Naked Cycle Ride. Gill and I finished the poem, which was started with help from our eldest son:

OH, OH, OH,
How will I cope
With not enough snow?
It won't be as nice
With much less ice.

Ho, HO, HO,
A solution I like
Abandon your car
And get on your bike
Take the train or bus
Or travel my way...
Unicycle or reindeer sleigh!

This was carefully written on a large piece of cardboard and the backs of posters found outside the Lloyds TSB, put for landfill!

Also did various bits of housework and garden jobs. Early on our Polish roofer Artur arrived to repair the tarry sheets on the studio roof, which had perished. Some of the wooden batons underneath have perished and will need replacing, but he reckons that it will be ok for another 10 years.

Next door are having scaffolding erected to replace soffit boards, finish their loft conversion and do some repointing. Good banter with Lee the scaffolder, who has a stove for sale. Contact TB scaffolding for this!

During the middle of the day Ken our neighbour popped round to tell us we had a swarm of bees in our garden... infact it is 8m up a conifer in the other next door's garden, overhanging our garden. Barry, friend of Ken, suggested putting a box with honey smeared inside, and a hole or two in, which might attract the bees so they could be taken away and rehoused, but by nightfall they had not found this and were a tight ball in the tree.

At 2, a lady who advertised in the back of the Press came and had brought round her son's 2 yr old bike, suitable for a 10 yr old. Our eldest who has wrecked his bike needs a new one so we bought this for £30.

I took it down to the school (pushing it whilst riding mine) and he was delighted and promised to look after it. Came home with D and J, friends of our boys, as their mum is unable to pick them up until 5pm, which she did.

I left shortly after this and took my unicycle on my trailer, plus costume and placard, and parked in the Out Of This World car park, and unicycled to the Memorial Gardens to get dressed up as Santa Claus. Lots of seminaked and bodypainted folks, and minutes from leaving lots of people went totally naked for this local expression of a global protest/celebration. The route was fairly gruelling for a unicyclist in a Santa outfit, quite a sauna.

Afterwards went for a pint at the King's Arms, which was lovely and refreshing.

Home and I created a quick tea of onions, vegetarian black pudding and goat's cheese, with rems of quiche from yesterday. Ate this at 10pm, collapsed after and watched a bit of TV, then did a quick email and blog, and watched Joolz Holland with Paul McCartney and Bjork.