Saturday 10th October 09

Up reasonably early as had to be ready for David to come round at 9.30am as he's doing the last of the photos for my new publicity leaflet. I really wanted to get a shot of the devilstick balanced on my nose, taken from above, looking down along it's length. So I got changed, got the big ladder out and took it down the garden to the orchard where there is a bit of open space. The light was perfect to begin with... diffuse and misty but 10 minutes later the sun burned through and the lighting got more difficult... a brighter sky meant I couldn't look up as easily without squinting. But, after a bit of manoeuvring and trial and error, we got some good shots.

Then we cycled down to the Novotel which has some good red walls which David really liked when he did the photos last Christmas, so we asked permission and moved pictures off walls and moved a light and tables to get to the right bit of wall. We spent over an hour there, and had a break with a coffee each after which we got some excellent shots.

I had a brief early lunch and got down to St Nicks for Apple Day, where I'd been booked to do Apple Juggling... and to help with announcing (I've a big voice which I can project) and operating the apple press. It was an excellent do, well attended and lots going on. Nettlefoot Kate did her storytelling, popular as ever, the 'Apple Olympics' had apple and spoon races, Andreas did a winning apple peel of about 180cm, and there were lots of some delicious cakes, crumbles and sauces... all made of apple. And juice... the St Nicks staff and volunteers had done a load in the morning and continued crushing and pressing apples all through the afternoon too.

Gill showed up with the boys plus their friend who is spending a lot of time with us, and there were lots of other lovely people there. It wound down around 4pm but I helped sort out various things and didn't leave til 5. I arrived home exhausted.

But after a brief sit down I did do a 45 minute session of compost loading before settling down to some lightweight telly and a delicious pasta-based tea.

A quiet evening... I did consider going to the Green Party music night, a band called Fusion with my drummer friend Keith Jackman, at the Winning Post on Bishopthorpe Road, but I was feeling like a quiet night in just playing Scrabble on Facebook, dealing with fruit on the racks, chatting with Gill etc etc. It was a good evening which couldn't have been better really.