Tuesday 3rd February 09

Our youngest had a disturbed and feverish night and Gill decide to keep him off school. I had breakfast and at 9.40, cycled down to the Jorvik Centre to meet Chris, who's in charge of the Viking Festival and has asked me to perform on the opening night, on 17th February. We discussed costume, the fire show and what I would do for the audience mingling/participation bit of he event.

Home via Country Fresh and had a nice chat with Shirley, and collected several kilos of apricots which are past their best.

Came home and within the hour the SUMA lorry arrived and I helped the driver unload the soya milk, washing liquid, nuts, seeds and other bits that we and our friends have ordered. Gill did the paperwork, ticking items off the list and doing the cheque.

Then had some lunch and after that did a bit of work in the garden, cutting back yet more brambles and some dead wild dog roses and using this woody stuff as an aerating layer in the current compost heap. I measured the temperature of the heap... 43 degrees celcius and the ambient temperature just above freezing. So, it's a warm heap trying to be a hot heap!

After tea (pasta) I took my laptop round to Ben as the screen has been intermittently poorly, and he offered to take it apart and see if it has loose a connection or something... He does this for a job-lot of dried fruit. Brilliant bartering! Later he brought it back and showed me how to defragment the disc and is going to get me some extra memory for a tenner.

Alison came round and collected her SUMA stuff and I watched a bit of TV, and made notes, which will help me with my book... when I regain my creativity and enthusiasm for it!