Thursday 21st August 08

Woken up fairly early and decided that as the weather was reasonable I'd try to finish the job I started the other day, helping Joan in Tang Hall deal with her fallen apple tree. I cycled my quiet electric shredder round in my trailer and spent about an hour feeding all the huge pile of twiggy bits through plus some of the smaller apples. This resulted in four sacks of shreddings, perfect for my composting. Also a pile of sticks for kindling (in a year or two!) and some bigger logs.

Gill took the boys into town on the bus, to take back a computer game that our youngest bought (create a monster) which the person in the shop said didn't need internet access to use... but it does so it's getting taken back. Their computer doesn't have internet and Gill's laptop (second hand) doesn't have Windows XP, the programme needed for the game. I suppose they could run it on my laptop but I'd prefer them not to! They walked back from town, getting in as I was having lunch.

Gill wanted to go to town to have a hair cut so I persuaded the boys to cycle to the park with a football and a frisbee and we spent over an hour there, playing together on the seesaw and swings, and I found some of my favourite mushrooms, the 'fairy ring champignon' (Marasmius oreades) which is very tasty and quite meaty although small. I picked a hatful.

Came home with these plus three long branches sticking out of my trailer, and when we got back the boys played on the trampoline, making a hell of a noise whilst I picked a load of blackberries and cut a hedge. I had rescued some pears from the veg shop a day or two ago and cut out the bad bits (mostly less than 20% of the available fruit) and stewed these pear slices on top of the woodstove with the blackberries... totally yummy.

During the evening, our youngest child felt unwell, with a tummy ache and loose bowels, and at bedtime whilst doing his teeth, 'passed wind' and also some bloody mucus so I rang the out of hours doctor and asked what we should do. The doc rang back, and after the usual set of questions advised me to bring him to the hospital to the out of hours doctor service, next to the A+E department. We got him dressed and I got a cushion for my bike back-rack, and he sat on this, holding onto me and we cycled down the cycle track all the way to the hospital's A+E department. This seems to have been refurbished... not to quite palatial standard but it is very nice, as was the doctor who saw us. She took his temperature and palpated his tum... and suggested that as he was quite cheerful, he didn't have a bacterial infection but probably a viral inflammation. The advice was to take him home, encourage him to have plenty of liquids and he'd get better soon. If he got worse, contact them again...

We got home just in time for me to see the last installment of 'The Man Who Cycled The World' which was really inspiring. Late night watching programme on how humans abuse the seas especially sharks, whilst typing away...