Saturday 20th June 09

A work day, so up early to get myself ready for the York Cycle Show on the Racecourse.

I got there on the dot of 10.30 with my trailer overloaded with the box of jugglestuff, four Pedal-Go things ('four-wheel unicycles') two Fun Wheels ('two wheel unicycles') and four real (one wheel) unicycles. And my sandwiches.

The weather looked ominous but held off for an hour or so, and my position, near the entrance to the central compound was a good one as had loads of punters wanting to have a go on the various unicycley things.

My old friend Dawn found me, how lovely to see her again; she'd come over on the train with her folding bike from Sheffield. I met loads of other people too, far too many to name individually, but a few who stood out were Rachel, now 18, and a Fiddlesticks fan for years, now not a child and a bonny young woman with a huge smile; R, a very keen child unicyclist whom I met last year and we bonded, and amazingly, Gill and the boys appeared, I hadn't expected to see them.

The weather decided to make my job much harder by raining hard and rendering the firm grass into a soft muddy area, less convivial for unicycling. But I continued where I was, as the Racecourse had sealed off the covered walkway where I have worked on previous years.

I didn't stop for lunch but had bites of sandwich between helping people with their unicycling technique. I worked til just after 4 and then packed up, went to see the HQ tent, and cycled home. I had to spend the best part of an hour cleaning my assorted unicycle equipment as it was covered in mud.

I then went round to Maria's as she was having a birthday party, and Gill, boyos and Dawn were already there. I had a veg kebab and nutloaf, and a good chat with a newly married couple Mark and Sarah, I think. We spent some time discussing Optimists v Pessimists! A relaxing evening.

Got home at about 8pm and planted sweetcorn, nearly too potbound but hopefully will now grow huge and give us some lovely cobs...