Monday 29 March 2010

Monday 29th March 10

Woken by screaming and yelling at 8am. I feel so sorry for our neighbours. I came down to see if my quiet presence might help smooth the exit off to school, and it did, with one child. Great!

However, there was an absolute refusal from our youngest so I quickly got dressed and got my bike out and Gill and I plonked him onto the pannier rack and took him to school, and he was not late. Hooray. (and, when he arrived home at 3.40, he reported having a brilliant day, so it was worth it)

I had a lot of assorted paperwork to do and Gill did a vast amount of sorting and tidying upstairs. I was doing the washing up after buying bread before lunch and she came down, beaming at me, told me she loved me, and pulled my left hand towards her, and slipped on my long-lost wedding ring. This went AWOL at least two years ago... I had taken it off as I was getting eczema underneath it and put it 'safely' in a pot on the sideboard (so I thought!) and that was the last I saw of it. I wondered if it had slipped off into one of my compost heaps, or had disappeared somewhere else.. but I had obviously put it safely somewhere, just forgotten where. It was on the dressing table in our bedroom; this hasn't been tidied or cleaned for, ahem, some while!

After lunch I cycled round to South Bank to visit a Freecycler who had advertised some logs on Sunday. I'd emailed him and said I'd be unable to come on Sunday but if there was anything left on Monday, that would be good. So, as there were some logs left, I popped over and picked some up. The householder, John, had moved in less than a year ago and had just finished doing up the house, and was starting on the garden. There had been a row of huge bushy Leylandii, two collapsed apple trees and a selection of other trees. I was the seventh visitor to take some wood... most of the apple had gone, and so I only got a few chunks of that, but I took a trailer full of Lilac sticks up to 7 cm diameter. We had a chat about fruit trees, compost and conflict resolution... the usual range of conversational subjects I have with strangers!

From here I recrossed the Ouse on the Millennium Bridge and cycled into Fulford to my agent's house, as I had a booking letter from him I needed to get back to him. And from him through the University back home.

I had a quick tea... mashed potato, pastie and peas, and set out on my second Freecycle trip of the day. Someone else had offered a load of bricks... so I thought that I'd add to the bricks for the wall, and get a trailer load. I managed to get 37 in one load... 6 in each pannier and 25 in the trailer. The Freecycler didn't have time to let me go and pick up a second load, but an extra 37 'clamp bricks' for nothing is worth having.

Despite the rain, I did an hour of shredding before it got too dark to continue. I came in and helped with some homework, cut some fingernails and settled down to watch Newsnight and do more washing up.

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