Tuesday 4th November 08

I got up just before 8; Gill had been up since before 6 with our son, still trying to get his homework finished. He finished most of it at 8.20. I took our youngest to school at 8.30.

I got home and had a short while with Gilly before my meeting with Ali at the station. We first checked her return journey times and then went on into town to try to find a pen which writes in italics for her project, and ended up in a pen shop in Fossgate where the woman inside was very dismissive of the difficult access into her shop. She didn't apologise for the lack of ramp, just made some feeble excuse about most people not needing it or something like that. Neither of us felt we had the time or energy to stop and explain that as her shop wasn't very accessible, she wouldn't have that many wheelchair users coming in......

Onto El Piano for a hot chocolate and some filming about the list of words plus much tangental chat. Then on to the City Art Gallery which had let us use the Studio for the interview with Dexter and me. Ali and I had lunch... soup and a panini for me, Ali had quiche and salads. A nice little cafe. Then at 1pm we were able to move into the studio and set up... Dexter arrived soon after 1,30 with his partner, good to meet her properly. Dexter explained about the start of his interest in graffiti, 'retrograffiti' and reminiscence art. He'd brought along a small piece of his Dexterworld artwork, based on the life and work of Andy Warhol and some postcards and other reproductions of his larger pieces. We talked about my ideas about having the words different sizes and colour coded.

Ali got a train home soon after 3 and I bombed home. Early in the evening a housebuilder called Clive knocked on the door offering me some joist ends for the stove, and telling me about the green building group he's joined.

I went to the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel meeting at Tang Hall Community Centre which I'm 'acting Clerk' of, and four of us looked through and discussed at least half a dozen planning applications, several of which were enlarging houses from 2 bedroom to 6 bedroom, almost certainly for student houses. There was also a huge pack about the new University campus, too chunky to look through in the hour we have, so one of the group will look through it and we'll have another meeting next week about that.

Home to a warm house, children peaceful, wife sleepy, I set to writing my paid blog which I'm happy with.