Friday 5th February 10

Gill woke me up at 8.30 as requested, and I was breakfasted and dressed by 9 which was good as Carolyn was on time, to come and 'triage' the wood that I've got to decide which is good for building bee hives and which is fit just for burning. The wood which came yesterday from Hull also had some pieces which seemed OK for beehive construction... very opportune that they came yesterday and the wood was needed today!

So Carolyn cycled away with some, and I'll take a trailer full down to St Nicks at lunchtime, after my next visitor.

On the dot of 10am, Lizzie arrived. I met her through a email discussion list we're both on, and she asked if anyone who fitted her criteria would be willing to help her with her dissertation. This is an undergraduate linguistics degree, and Lizzie is wanting to study how people tell stories about their life, or 'narratives'. She's less interested in the content, the story, but more into analyzing the language used. So I messaged her and she sent me the consent forms, and today she was visiting a friend in York, so this morning she walked up from Walmgate and arrived, as intended, at 10.

The study took about 2 hours, and she recorded nearly all of it... only switching off when I went to make a coffee or load the stove. Her questions were fairly general, things like 'Can you tell me about one thing that stands out as a memory from your childhood?' and 'tell me about four important people from your life', and a string of similar questions. I enjoyed telling her about these bits of my life, I am naturally a 'sharer' and I'm not shy or at all private. So it was good for both of us. I'm looking forward to learning what she does with the transcript, and what interesting linguistic stuff she pulls from it.

Lizzie then left to walk into town, and I loaded up my bike trailer with all the planks which Carolyn had sorted out as 'good for building a beehive with', and cycled down to St Nicks, where Carolyn and I popped them in the lock-up. She's making a first one as a test, and then on 20th Feb, there's a public beehive making meeting/workshop. This fits nicely with a series of workshops about bee keeping I've seen advertised, the first one is this Tuesday, and I think Peter's going on it.

Home for lunch... and after lunch felt very tired but I kept going and did various bits and bobs around the house.

I popped into to Country Fresh on the way into town, and picked up one sack of mainly cabbage leaves. Then onto my building society where I took out cash and then went to top up our 'Suma' bank account with a cheque from a friend on our food co-op, my cash, and I did an electronic transfer too... so that there is enough money in that account to pay for next week's Suma order. I also paid out water bill. Then I came home, but decided to deliver the cabbage leaves to the St Nicks compost area, where I occasionally put excess materials. They have ample sawdust, dumped there by a pet shop, so I always cover up the fruit and veg with the sawdust. It is quite convenient.

On the way, I met my friend Sue, who is a priest, and we often have some interesting conversations. We talked for about 20 minutes, covering a range of subjects.

Then I went to put the compostables on the sawdusty heap and and as I was doing that, David from St Nicks told me I should have asked first... I thought I just had to inform the staff I d added to the heap, not ask permission. So I had a chat with John, and agreed that I would turn this compost over the weekend. A kind of penance? Well, a voluntary act of trying to make things better...

And back home. A very quiet evening. A fair bit of chatting with friends on facebook and email.
Lots of angst about the changes that facebook have made to celebrate their sixth birthday, but I'm sure we'll get used to it.