Thursday 9th October 08

I took our youngest to school and came back via a logpile and therefore with a big load of dry and ready-to-cut logs...

Spent a couple of hours chatting to Gill who seems to be slowly recovering from her tooth abcess, and did emails and writing. I have been asked by BBC Radio York to do a piece on reducing food waste for their website, so this took an hour or so. Then went out to wrangle logs... excellent!

Lit the stove as a child needs a bath. Enjoyed my lunch, my good mood seems to have reappeared, thank goodness! This was compounded by a phone call from ITV 'Britain's Got Talent' as I'd been spotted on the local news unicycling at Harrogate Car-Free-Day, and the ITV lass invited me to apply to be on Britain's Got Talent. I haven't seen this programme so she explained what happens, and I asked her opinion about whether she thought my show/skills etc was suitable for the expected 3-minute format. Once I'd put the phone down I couldn't stop giggling about this... I found it absolutely hilarious to think of going on the show. But I've decided not to bother. My entertainment career doesn't need any help, I don't want to win any money and it sounds like a bit of a bear-pit audience-wise. But it was good to be asked!


Went down to school at 3.15 to help out with Green Thumbs... I took a group of 6 or 7 kids and about 10 ceramic pots which had been painted by children last week, showed them why a crock was needed over the hole in the base (they went to find stones etc for this and placed them in) and used compost from the planters which have had crops growing in them all summer to half fill these pretty pots. Then they placed 3 or 4 Narcissus bulbs in each pot and filled them up to the top with more growing medium. Then they watered them and that was the 45 minutes taken up, and I cycled home via the logpile I've recently discovered, near some new development where some trees have been taken down.

I had a brief time at home and then went into town to meet a friend and had an interesting evening, we ate at El Piano and walked down to the Millennium Bridge and then up to the Youth Hostel. I've learned quite a lot about historical re-enactment, and how in the 'Dark Ages' people had to make their own clothes and cutlery (for instance) and this means that objects were valued more than in today's society, and being in a re-enactment group helps you learn skills which in a 'greener' world, we'd be doing more, not just relying on being able to buy stuff so easily and replace stuff if it goes wrong or breaks. I'd never thought of this 'by-product' of being a re-enactor. Infact I'd not given much thought to the whole re-enactment scene at all!

On the way back to home after the pubs shut I picked up four huge sacks of leaves which had been tidied up from roads (I think!) and just left for the binmen to pick up... so my leafmould pile 2008 is starting today.