Saturday 29th May 10

Well, Gill and I slept in, after a very long drawn-out game of Scrabble til 3am, which Gill won.

But I'd already arranged to meet Sarah or Sarah's housemate Jasmin at midday at the Scarcroft allotments with a trailer load of compost, so I had to get my skates on and have a quick breakfast, go and get the compost from down the garden, and loaded 7 sacks into my trailer. I also got 4 carrier bags of riddled compost for Country Fresh.

My other reason for heading into town today was to try to get a recharger lead for my beard trimmer. On the way into town, I met Ben and Jill and Ben had a quick dive into his room full of cables but found nothing... he suggested Argos, or failing that, eBay.

So, I dropped off the riddled compost at Country Fresh and got to Scarcroft Allotments on the dot of midday, and Jasmin was there waiting for me. It turned out that she is the daughter of a friend of mine, and has memories of having a Fiddlesticks party as a little girl. So I dropped off the compost and visited her allotment, and helped her pull out a bit on encroaching couch grass.

She invited me round to her house, actually a shared house owned by another friend of mine, in order to pay me for the compost. We had a cup of hot chocolate and a chat, and for someone so young, she has a really wise approach to life. She takes after her mother in this respect. I was really pleased to have got to know her a little bit.

Then I cycled into town to go to E. Roy, who has a tiny shop near the market, which sells all manner of electricals. But they didn't have the 240v to 3v dc converter with the 3.5mm jack, and he said I wouldn't be able to find it anywhere. I looked in Argos... but they only sell complete sets, minimum price is £20 for a new beard trimmer.

Called in to Country Fresh on the way back and they had a surfeit of bananas, so I now have a full box of ripe bananas to deal with.

I did a bit in the garden as it wasn't raining too much, and after a pasta-based tea, I went out to see my favourite local band, The Falling Spikes.

They were playing at a night called The Fuzz Club at City Screen. The first support band, Mon Mon, were not to my liking as there was too much shouting. The second band, Insect Guide, were better, with an interesting start. The guitarist got his iPhone which had a recording of a commentary from an Apollo mission or something similar, and he pressed the iPhone against the strings so the recording played through the guitar pickups. He used his effects pedals to do things with the sound too... very inventive! I also liked the fact that they had made their own backing video, which was projected onto the band. But I couldn't hear the female singer's words and I wasn't moved by this band.

However, The Falling Spikes, which is a six-piece... Rich my greengrocer buddy on drums, Moz on synth, 3 guitarists and a singer, they blew me away. I love what they do. There is so much going on... a wall of sound and lots of polyrhythms, an assault on the senses. This has the effect of making me very happy; it transports me to a different level of consciousness. At one stage, all the band walked off, leaving guitars up against the amps, giving shuddering feedback mixing with the synth playing some early Eno-esque or perhaps Kraftwerky noise. Brilliant.

I was pleased to meet Jan whom I met many years ago at Cafe No 8 on Gillygate, and Jenny, who looked happy with Moz, and filmed the whole gig on her mobile phone!

I got home at about half midnight. Tired and needing sleep.