Saturday 14th February 09

A slow start to the day and spent a chunk of the morning doing the washing up, it seemed anyhow. Got a phone call from Don who's a tree surgeon friend, asking me if I wanted a delivery of logs. I said 'of course' but asked him to deliver after the York in Transition Clothes Swap, at perhaps 4.30.

So, to the clothes swap event at St Nicks... Gill sorted out a couple of bags and I took these down with the 3 carrier bags of decent clothes left over from the Blue Peter Bring and Buy sale. So, added these to the piles of clothes already there but I didn't take any as I'm not really interested in clothes... as long as I've got some which fit and are functional, that's mostly what matters.

I managed to sell a few Carbon Detox tickets and had some nice chats, including a pre-arranged meeting with a Chilean chap called Jean who's very interested in how local currencies could, in theory, solve the Credit Crunch and re-invigorate the economy. I invited him down to the next LETS meeting, where I said he could have a 10 minute slot to put his idea/s forward. He's approached the Council and Hugh Bayley our MP, but not really got anywhere. He was passed onto me as the contact person for the existing LETSystem.

Came back from St Nicks via a logpile and Freshways, who had three sacks of compostable veg resources for me, including a vast load of bananas, which I'll try to make space to dry.

Don arrived with his four-wheel-drive and big trailer full of a load of quite thin Ash trunks... nothing over 15cm diameter, plus some hefty chunks of softwood, and an assortment of other stuff including some well-died Elm... perhaps half a tonne or so in total. I asked him if he'd like something for it... some dried fruit, or cash, or just a heartfelt 'thank you' and he opted for a £10 note which I think was very reasonable. But this is the first time I've paid for woodfuel for a couple of years!

Then did a bit of tidying in the back garden until it was dark at about 6pm. Loaded up several cake-racks with bananas on top of the bathwater saucepans... plus some apple rings too.

Not a very easy evening, having to work on my patience.