Thursday 9th September 10

A very productive day.  I got up fairly late but was busy soon, did some housework and after lunch, did a load of fruit picking.  I started with the plums as they are very ripe, many have fallen and others gone mouldy on the tree.  I took the ladders down and picked quite a few, about three quarters of a bucket full, and then asked my neighbour if I could take my ladders down his garden to reach the rest of the plums in our tree from his side of the hedge.  He had no problem with that... they have two similar plum trees which were equally loaded.

So I ended up with a whole bucket full of plums... what will I do with them?  My neighbour also told me that I should be taking the opportunity to pick the apples from our tree which are accessible from his side, so I moved the ladder and picked a large box full of James Grieve, a delicious and fairly early eating apple. We have a Cox apple tree too, this ripens later in the year.

So, lots of fruit to process.  I had some quiet time and sat and cracked shells off hazelnuts.  We have a really good nutcracker, with a spring which opens it up after squeezing it, and the nut goes into a conical chamber which copes with all sized nuts (well, not coconuts!) (looks a bit like this).

I also did an hour or so chainsawing and log stacking, on the right of the front door as you look out.  This means we are now using the stuff on the left which has been there all summer.

I had a quick tea at 6.30, reheat rice and some tomato sauce Gill made, and microwaved green beans, perhaps some of the last from the garden.

Then at 7 I went down the garden and found 4 sacks of compost for Suki, Ann's housemate, and took that round on the way to the York in Transition meeting.  It was Peter's birthday and he, Edward and Andreas were drinking coffee and eating doughnuts... they'd had a Directors meeting which I'd missed, but the Steering Group was from 7.30.  I took minutes.  We finished just before 10pm.

Then I came home via Freshways, picked up a couple of sacks of limp vegetation, and lit the stove to keep the plums drying.  I cracked more nuts whilst watching Lorenzo's Oil, a moving film.  I chatted with an American friend on facebook called Sheila, who sent me a recipe to use some of the plums.

Bed ridiculously late again!