Sunday 22nd March 09

A really good day in any ways, starting with a not too early start, breakfast and back to bed for an hour or less. Because of an outbreak of 'What do I do now'-ness, we rang round various friends but no-one was in or available, so there was a bit of frustration and disruptive behaviour, but we got through it like any parent has to.

I had a very productive day, including visiting the Co-op and stocking up on cereals, visiting Country Fresh and buying spuds and a cauliflower, and bringing back about 5 boxes of compostables, coming back via Freshways and collecting another 2 sacks of compostable stuff plus about 20 loaves which I'll dry next to the stove until crisp and fuel-like, re-built a large pallet bin and lined it with chicken wire salvaged from the skip in Tang Hall last week, cut down yet more brambles, shredded them and put layers of this with layers of the fruit/veg 'resources' in the new pallet bin, and did some weeding in the raspberry area, prior to top dressing with compost. I also did a bit more riddling of the contents of a dalek bin, which so far has resulted in 4 sacks of compost/loam mix, which will form the basis of this year's tomato/cucumber crop. At one stage during the day I persuaded one of the children to actually help in the garden; he pruned a load of ivy which was taking over the fernery. Good work!

This evening I did a load of washing up and more fruit for drying, another load of apples and pears. At about 11pm, Gill told me she'd got a DVD out when she had taken back an old one to Blockbusters... she'd got 'WALL.E' out, as she and the kids had seen it at City Screen in town and she thought I must see it, as I'd like the theme of recycling... Well I have kinda half watched it and yes, I do like it, to some extent. I'm not particularly into animation of the kiddie kind but I'm glad that I at least know what it's about!

Spent some time exploring the new improved vyouz network, which include vskips, the virtual skip site where things can be offered and requested, to stop them going to landfill, and bornrecycling, which enables people to 'give away, swap, sell or request all manner of baby items from cots and cribs to bottles and bibs'... what an excellent idea! I posted a couple of offers on vskips: compost, and paper sacks. The vyouz network is worth exploring as it has more than just these websites.

So, a busy day! My hands hurt with blackberry prickles and fruit juices...