Wednesday 22nd July 09

Lovely late start... not surprising since Gill and I were up til 3am getting the accounts sorted out. Gill was determined to do it before the Summer Holidays started so we weren't rushing to get them finished for the tax deadline in Autumn.

I had to cycle down to town to put in a pile of cheques, pick up the basket of fruit from Country Fresh (prize for LETS event raffle), pick up the Rotters display stall in my trailer and get back home in time to have tea before the LETS event. I got back in good enough time to make a tomato sauce with totally free ingredients... including the basil I've grown! OK, I bought the olive oil! But not the onion (it had a small area of mould on one side) the rather wrinkled red pepper and the 8 large tomatoes, some of which had damage, easily cut off.

At about 6pm I got together 5 bags of mixed dried fruit, two dozen little quiches which Gill made this afternoon and a packet of balloons just in case, and set off for the St Hilda's Church Hall on Tang Hall Lane. Lynn had put a huge amount of effort into organising this Healthy Living Event, and there were several Complementary Therapists there... Michael the masseur, Rowena the homeopath and Joyce the essential oil lady... There was a trading table with loads of books and videos, a food table with cakes, chocolate crispies, Gill's little quiches, tubs of frozen soup, fresh lettuce and bundles of green beans. The event wasn't very well attended, most of the non-LETS people who came were Lynn's friends, but Roger the ward councillor turned up, the new vicar Tim, and several people off the street.

The raffle was popular, although I've never bought a ticket (or placed a bet or even participated in a tombola) so I didn't join in. All Gill's quiches sold, at 20 pence each or one Yorky for 5. All my bags of fruit sold too. I spoke to 7 people with my Rotters hat on, four non-composters and 3 already composting. All in all, a quite successful evening. Finished at 10pm and I came home with two choco crispies for the boys.

During the evening, sorted out some grapes for blanching and making into raisins.