Friday 10th September 10

Up early despite a late finish last night.  I had been booked by Tara to help finish off her water butt installation, using the drill bit 'borrowed' through Freecycle.  This was achieved by saying in the WANTED post 'Wanted for drilling just three holes in plastic waterbutts, on one day only'.  When the lovely John the engineer contacted me, I said I'd be very happy to return it, which I intend to do early next week.

So, I set off at 9.30ish and got to her house on the dot of 10am... this time, she was yawning and not quite ready.  But at least she was dressed.  The water butt installation was actually very easy, the most difficult bit was cutting through the plastic downpipe to insert the diverter.  But all three went in and as it was a wetish day, we saw that they worked.  I did a little bit of couch grass root removal and explained how to prepare this for composting safely in a cold compost heap.  She has a lot of work to do, as the lawn is just a mass of couch grass and she wants to make a vegetable patch.  But I predict that next spring she'll have at least some of it ready for planting.  We also dealt with her beech hedge and wove some twiggy bits into a new fence.

She fed me sandwiches for lunch, and gave me two chocolate muffins as she's started a diet today.  I expect my boys will like these.  I also got a tub of highly fattening Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  I'll eat it slowly.  I should be aware of my waistline too...

And then away, zooming into town to call in on the Council Offices to find out about the fate of the Hull Road Ward funding applications I put in, and to try to find out about what the role of a 'sponsoring organisation' is, for future reference.  I met a senior officer but he didn't know the details of individual applications, so I got an email address and need to write to that officer.

And to home, via Country Fresh where I was a bit shocked to see that Rich had been in hospital with a cat bite on his finger.  His whole hand had swollen up and he'd been admitted overnight. Poor Richard!  However, had he not contacted NHS Direct, who told him to go to the drop in, who told him to go to A and E, who said, we need to admit you overnight, he could have lost a limb, or even lost his life.  Blood poisoning can be very very serious. He was given antibiotic injections into the afflicted area, and oral antibiotics, and was today pretty well recovered.  I picked up a couple of sacks and a box, and came home.  There was more, so later, I returned, did some shopping and picked up the remainder.

I had a relaxing afternoon, weeding the pond area, loading a compost bin, recovering fruit for drying.

In the evening I did that fruit management, jarring up a load of dried pears and refilling the racks with wet fruit.