Monday 8th March 10

Woke at 9ish feeling somewhat better and mid morning I'd got both the large cans of water warm enough for a bath... the first one in some while! Shave, hair wash, lovely!

I felt much better after this, not that low mood is necessarily connected with grubbiness...

I did lots of washing up after this and after lunch, did some work in the garden, including a job I've been wanting to do for a while but not had the enthusiasm. I've been chainsawing logs on the front garden on top of a large tarpaulin sheet, to catch the sawdust and other bits... the sawdust is my compost toilet cover material, the largest bits and bobs are bagged up and dried for kindling, and the medium sized bits, wet bark and small twigs etc are a useful 'carbon rich' constituent of my compost heaps. So I got the large flat riddle up to the front garden and put it on a bedsheet, and started riddling the large pile of sawdusty twiggy barky stuff... I filled two paper potato sacks with kindling-sized bits, 3 plastic sacks of sawdust and 3 plastic sacks of compost additives. I am perhaps a quarter of the way through the job, but there is several months worth of cutting and splitting frass which needs putting to good use. Anyone want a sack or two of compost toilet cover material?

At about 4pm I loaded up my trailer with our old television which has been going on the blink over the past few days, and has finally stopped working. I took it down to the repository for dead electrical equipment, the 'WEEE table' at Hazel Court. I also took two loudspeakers that I rescued months ago and didn't find a taker for, and a plastic bag of metalwork from the stove (mainly nails from pallets) and some metal from various street-skips. I had no hassle whatsoever from the nice skip-site workers, who obviously don't give a damn that i use my bike trailer to deliver recyclables to the right place. I approve of this attitude.

From here I picked up a few logs from where tree surgeons had dumped stuff and also a sack of compostables from Freshways.

After tea I cycled round to my Freecycling (and soon to be unicycling!) friend Mark, who had responded to my Freecycle request for a TV. His Mother in Law had upgraded her system and was going to chuck out her old TV and freeview box... so he said, no, I'll put it on Freecycle and someone will be very happy with it. And indeed we are. It is slightly bigger than our previous one, which was £20 from Woodlands MS Respite Care Centre, and had a scratched screen. This one has a really clear picture, good colour and no scratch! Brilliant, thanks Mark. One unicycling lesson as and when you want it!

After I delivered this home, for Gill to install, I went to a friend on Melrosegate who had some sticks for me,and I brought those back home. And I did some more after-dark riddling too, before coming in and sorting out hot water for yet more washing up....