Wednesday 14th January 09

I cycled into school with our youngest, and in the playground had a nice chat with a new Dad, Peter from Taiwan. On the way back I collected lots of litter from Windmill Lane... mostly aluminium cans but also plastic bottles... all will be recycled (well, I'll put them for recycling; what the council and metal merchant do with them is their business!)

Gill went to her art class and I was a good househusband and continued the tidying she started yesterday and washed up. Went to Thomas's and bought their excellent value 'yesterbake' bread... two loaves, four packets of rolls, 4 danish pastries and some flapjack offcuts... all for £3.75. Excellent! This is stuff which didn't sell yesterday, and the shops all send the unsold things back to the Tang Hall Lane shop, where it is sold at half price and two for the price of one... so actually, quarter price. So a loaf selling yesterday at £120 would be 60p, but you can have 2 for 60p. Excellent, and they don't have to be the same item, so today for instance, I got a white loaf and a seedy loaf and four different packets of rolls. Good on yer Thomas's of York!

Gill came back soon after 11 and we spent some time together trying to plan the next few days... Gilly got on with some cooking and I got on with something else before Neil the Thomson Local rep came to discuss my advertising package for next year. He was very nice and we went off at a tangent/off topic on several occasions, but we eventually got to agreeing the words and signing the document.

The rest of the afternoon was spent sorting out a new woodpile outside the front door AGAIN... but hey, we've been very cosy during this cold patch and not used any more fossil fuel than we normally do. Just loads of logs.

I picked up our youngest, and as usual managed the compost bins I've installed at school to recycle some of their stuff they throw away and don't bother to recycle themselves. However, children are often really wasteful themselves and throw away fruit they don't want to eat, rather than take it back home to face their parent/carer who would (perhaps!) sternly say 'Why didn't you eat that?' So I often find uneaten bananas, apples, pears and sometimes unopened packets of crisps or dried mango. This is my reward! I bring the fruit home, wash it and mostly dry the stuff for my cereal... or the kids gobble it up as they love the dried fruit so much! I leave dried fruit out on the racks and it just disappears. I've told them they don't ever have to ask to take it... and it just goes. Great!... I bring more home just about every day to slice up and bung on the racks above the stove, and this snack is much more healthy than sweets or biscuits (although they sometimes have these as well).

I went to visit Richard at Country Fresh and he gave me a huge load of seconds tomatoes, so I'll sort them out and make soup for the coming couple of days. Yummy!

Popped in to Freshways too... and oh no, they had tomatoes as well. So, I wish I had a cauldron. I might make a batch of soup-base and freeze it... A busy evening awaits.

Did have a busy evening. The boys kept busy too, on their computer (thank you Uncle Tom!) but somehow the screen went upsidedown and enlarged. I wanted to laugh but had to appear concerned, serious etc or there would have been an outburst. I offered to help but my solution didn't work, so I rang Simon and he talked our eldest through it... and solved it! Well, I think so...
Enjoyed 'It's Not Easy Being Green' but I don't think this series is as good as the first. Not enough Brigit!!! Hahahahaha...