Friday 25th June 10

Another good day... Up early enough to help the kids get out of the house peacefully and then persuaded Gill to spend some time with me which was really nice.

Later, we were downstairs and we had the conservatory door open and we heard a pretty distinctive noise, so we looked outside and yes, it was a thrush breaking a snail shell on the path, to get a bit of escargot lunch.... that's a first right outside the back door. Over the past few weeks, we've had a family of blackbirds coming into the conservatory through one of the top-light windows, which have been wide open... and they've been eating assorted fruit which I've brought back to the house for drying. The first one to come in was a young one with a big bald patch on it's back and a lump on the side of it's beak, and it has brought the rest of the family with it, so we've had up to 4 in there at once! The nicest thing is, that one of them sits and sings loudly in there! We feel so lucky with our wildlife-friendly garden.

After lunch I decided to go to Country Fresh to get fruit and veg... but as I'd be halfway to Cycle Heaven, and I was rung up about them having a leather saddle with springs in the shop for me, I decided to go and get that, as my plastic saddle has begun to seriously fall to bits. The busy people at Cycle Heaven couldn't find the black Brooks saddle mentioned in the phone call... but found me a brown one which was old stock and therefore cheaper! Yay! Still expensive though, but it ought to last for years. I was told that it might be uncomfortable at first as it moulded to my shape, but it wasn't, it was fine. I'm very pleased with it.

I did some work in the garden, assorted compost-based stuff, until 3 when Gill went to school, and I got ready to go to St Nicks for a meeting with John and Edward to catch up with the progress of rehabilitating me into York Rotters, as the current situation is still causing me anguish. Yesterday I attended a private meeting with a friend and two of his neighbours, but was told beforehand that I wasn't allowed to be a volunteer Rotter, but to go as 'John the Composter', because I am currently banned from doing the core Rotters work of giving home composting information to groups as I upset a couple of people at a stall we had late last year with my over enthusiastic and inappropriate humour. It is important that York Rotters is seen to be a professional group offering mainstream messages, and talk of compost toilets or composting funerals is strictly a no no. So today was an update on where St Nicks had got to in helping me back into the role I'm really good at, and due to some staff changes, they haven't got very far in finding me a 'buddy', but they have set a date for some 'diversity training' which will help people understand about disabilities including Aspergers, which should be interesting. Also, the Rotters newsletter has got a section 'meet the Rotter', a chance for people to introduce themselves, a mini autobiography . I've submitted mine and I sincerely hope they will print it word for word, as I was very careful to put stuff in which will help people understand my, ahem, 'special needs'! There was also a suggestion that I should perhaps concentrate on my (paid) John the Composter work, rather than the voluntary York Rotters role. However, Edward saw how passionate I was about the group and the work we do, and how proud I was about how successful it is, and he made it clear that he could tell how much I really love York Rotters, which I hope helps the other managers and volunteers welcome me back soon.

I added a small sack of goodies to the public composting area, which hasn't had any deliveries of sawdust from the pet shop for a while, which is a pity, and cycled home. I then spent a good two hours dealing with an old heap which has had 'visitors' and I bagged up all the mature compost and will rebuild the structure in a way to make said visitations much more difficult, ie on a pallet with a solid base, and up on top of another pallet to make lodging underneath less attractive.

I came in after 7pm for tomato soup. Then went and spent an hour doing Ben and Jill's compost bin, scooping stuff out from the base and putting it through the rotasieve, removing uncompostable 'contraries' and putting uncomposted sticks and bits of Yellow Pages back in the top. I'll get paid in Yorkys for that, which is nice.

I spent most of the rest of the evening with Glastonbury Festival on BBC2, and it brought back really good (albeit hazy) memories of 10 Glastos I attended or worked at when I was younger. Those were the daze!