Thursday 25th September 08

I took our youngest into school and Gill had a lie-in whilst I lit the stove, did the washing up, wrote invoices and emails and when Gill awoke, I took bathwater up for her.
Tried to get my column finished but had so many phone calls including one from Kate Lock who was going to give a talk at the Food Festival this afternoon but cannot do it now and has asked me to do it... she was going to promote her book 'Confessions of an Eco Shopper' but her daughter had been sent home from school unwell, so she couldn't do the talk.

Well, I did it! I picked up Kate's veg bag and her notes which she'd prepared to guide her through her talk, plus her home-made beauty products, and went to the York Rotters stall which was supplying a cut-out compost bin, bokashi bins, compost caddies and compost info fridge magnets from WRAP. By 3pm there were about 10 people wanting to hear the talk and as I was doing it, others arrived. Also, a lady representing Swale Organics came, bearing a Swale Organics veg box so I included that into the talk. Kate gets a veg box from Goosemoorganics and they'd supplied a £10 sack of veg for display, so I included that in my talk too. One of the things about a veg box is that it produces less packaging waste and Kate had collected a bag of packaging from Tesco where she had bought the equivalent veg to the £10 Goosemoorganics bag, which has minimal packaging, and most of it is compostable at that.... I finished the talk with a piece on composting, bokashi, wormeries and the help that York Rotters offers to would-be composters and existing compsters to encourage them to compost more...

I delivered the bag of veg to the Peaseholme Centre for the homeless as asked, delivered Kate's bag of packaging and her home-made beauty products back to her, and cycled home via Country Fresh and picked up two boxes of compostables from them.

Gill had created tea... home grown potatoes and cauliflower cheese, and a slice of bread. Simple but good. At 7 our babysitter Sarah arrived and we went to the Secondary School Cheese and Wine Reception to meet the teachers and other parents. Home soon after 9, boys had been exceptionally well behaved and Sarah had had an easy time. I gave her a copy of Kate's book as she refused payment in cash.

Finished my column, emailed it in. Watched 'Easy Rider', one of my favourite films....