Tuesday 11th November 08

Woke feeling substantially better than yesterday, got up and got busy, lit the stove and put hot water on the washing up, and got a phone call from my CRAGger buddy Robin... St Nicks had offered me a big sack of sticks last week but I'd been unable to collect them, so they'd offered them to Robin, who also didn't want them (lack of space for storing) so he brought them round to me in his trailer on his way back from B and Q, where he was looking for a way to make his woodstove-fired central heating system 'Building Regs compliant' ie, gravity driven, not pump driven. He said he'd worked out how to do it, using 'only' £200 worth of copper pipe! But having a Dunsley Yorkshire woodstove, which burns smoke free and is therefore allowed in smoke control areas, AND which heats radiators, is such a beneficial thing, that it's worth getting the plumbing right.

Robin stayed for nearly an hour, chatting and drinking tea and admiring our Clearview Vision 500 working well. Just before lunch the SUMA order came, just stuff for us and one other family (sorry, 'member of the Cossham Food Co-op'!) such as laundry liquid, soya milk, muesli base, olive oil and Bulgar wheat.

Enjoyed having lunch with Gill, she then went out to take some grown-out-of shoes to the charity shop and I did emails and blog in front of the hot stove, looking out at the cold and windy weather.

I took a cycle trailer load of flour, Fentimans Cola and assorted nuts down to our friends and came back with our youngest, who'd had a good day.

I sorted out the big sack of sticks delivered by Robin, and our eldest came home. He'd forgotten to go to a meeting of invitees to a University-based computer game try-out, based on identifying plants I think, and when he realised, he was absolutely mortified, and spent at least an hour beating himself up about it. We really need to get him a mobile phone, so he can let us know when he's going to be late, and so we can remind him to attend things he needs to go to which are outside of his routine, which is how he forgot this event. We were really sad for him, he was looking forward to it SO much. I'm going to try to see if it can be re-arranged in some way for him, not through the school, but direct with the University.

I had an early tea (Bulgar wheat etc) and got ready for work. My gig this evening was with the Dunnington Brownies, a lovely group of 20 or so 7 to 10 year old girls (and one boy!) plus 5 adults... I did a shortened version of my show, then a throwing/catching/memory game, and then a one hour free-play workshop. A second one next week, when some of them will earn their 'Circus Performer Badge'.

Home soon after 8.30, quite exhausted, so had a pint of perry and sank into the sofa and watched an interesting Horizon programme on mental illness. A quiet evening.