Saturday 4th September 10

A really productive and excellent day.

After breakfast I needed to clear the decks a bit and wash up, but there was a saucepan full of waste eggs which I'd rescued from being lobbed out, and hard boiled... about 25 of them. So I went to buy bread and got a couple of bottles of clear vinegar too. I spent 40 minutes shelling the eggs, not easy as old eggs don't peel easily, and put them in 3 big peanut butter jars and poured vinegar over them... pickled eggs. I occasionally have one of these sliced into a sandwich with mayonnaise.

Then I did a bit of sorting out, washing up etc, and after lunch did some work in the garden, just an hour. Then I loaded up the trailer with a 25 kg sack of brown chapati flour, which I'd rescued some weeks earlier, as I'd found a taker, someone who really likes chapatis! Her housemate wanted some compost to top-dress the garden, so I got 4 large bags of that too, and then slowly cycled across town with this heavy load and delivered it. I got paid for the compost but the flour I gave as it hadn't cost me anything other than hauling it out of a skip and cycling it home. Very satisfying.

Then I made my way to Rowntree Park where Dylan, Mick, John, Steve, Ali and others were setting up for tomorrow's York Peace Festival. I helped move chairs and tables, and then helped Peter from Classic Marquees (I think!) and some Polish guys (I'm assuming) to erect the stage marquee.

Then I came home via Country Fresh, where I picked up two sacks and three boxes, just before they closed. More hot compost on the way!

I had a low key tea, a hommous sandwich, coleslaw and cheese sandwich and some dolmades and potato salad, followed by an out of date yoghurt and flapjack offcuts.

During the evening I needed to find a way of using up the stewed mirabelle plums, so I made a flapjack out of them. I took two scoops of muesli base and two little packets of 'hemp hearts' which I rescued from one of the retailers I service, some home produced pumpkin seeds and some maple syrup, this purchased! I chopped up some dried apple and tipped in some home-made stove dried raisins, then several big scoops of plums, mixed well and pushed into a baking dish, with home grown hazelnuts pushed into the top in a regular pattern, so each cube of flapjack got one whole fresh hazelnut! Baked it in the oven on Gas 4 for 25 minutes, and scored the slab as soon as i took it out... Can't wait til tomorrow to try some!