Monday 23rd February 09

A fairly uneventful Monday morning. I cycled our youngest to school and on the way there saw that the developers of the new University campus had trashed a stand of trees... what used to be a nice little woodland is going to have a road through it. Most of the trees had been cut and removed, the smaller bits shredded, but on the way back I had a look around and got a trailer-load of logs to take home. What a shame. I wonder what has happened with the trunks and big branches?

I enjoyed the good weather and did quite a bit of work outside, including an attempt to do something like Alastair Heseltine's fantastic arty logpile, called 'Seasonal Sculpture':


My attempt was obviously a lot smaller and only had a small amount of patterning, but it's a start. I also ran out of uniform logs which was not helpful. I hope to add another layer and make it pretty. My attempt is crap compared to this wonderful sculpture, but I'm pleased with it as my logpiles have always looked nice, and now I have something even better to aspire to!

During the afternoon I made some carrot soup... well, I started making it last night and finished it this afternoon.

So, a creative and fulfilling day... I picked up the little one at 3.15 and another load of trashed woodland on the way home. Not enough to continue with my sculptural logpile.

I cleared up my mess from chainsawing etc before going down to town to put a cheque in and pay the water bill... but I arrived a minute after the bank had closed. That'll teach me to stop and chat to Steve the Roofer! So came home feeling silly, but picked up a load of compostables from Freshways so it wasn't a completely wasted trip.... I'll do it first thing tomorrow, before the Irish Radio station rings me to discuss low carbon/low cost living. That's at 11.30ish on Shannonside.

After tea, which was the carrot soup and a slice of Gill's cold pie left over from yesterday, I went down to town again (no stopping the bike to chat this time!) and attended the York Green Festival planning meeting, at the Golden Fleece, which was loosely chaired by Martin our treasurer. This meeting didn't last too long... finished before 9 and we had some jovial chat before and after.

I got home to a quiet house, and did some washing up and tried to make space to dry some more fruit. I have too much fruit and not enough drying racks...