Tuesday 19th October 10

Woken at 6am by banging, shouting and screaming.  I groggily tried to help with the situation .

I was woken again at 9 by a phone call from a nurse or public health professional called Jenny, who is presenting something about bacteria and the importance of washing hands to a reception class tomorrow, and is looking for some balloon models to represent the different sorts of bacteria.  She said she'd like to come and see me on the way into town, so I got up and washed and dressed and breakfasted... she arrived 45 minutes later and brought with her a sheet of paper with some cartoon images of different bacteria.  I agreed I'd have a go and she said she'd be back at 4pm.

Just before she left, there was a delivery from Cozmic Balloons, £85 worth of mixed colours Qualatex 260s, some clear 260s and a bag of Bee Bodies.  What a co-incidence!

I went to buy bread and medicines for the house full of ill people.

I decided to do the sculptures after lunch, and think about what to do in the meantime..

However, after lunch Gill asked me to get some bits and bobs of shopping and I thought I'd put in a cheque in and get a cheque out, and I went into town via Sainsbury's.  However, when I got to the building society I discovered I'd left my pass book at home.  Duh me.  I decided to call in on Alligator to pick up their unwanted resources, and they had just had a delivery of wonderful looking purple cauliflowers, so I brought one of those home...   Via Country Fresh, who had 3 boxes for me.  Lots of composting to do!

I got in sometime after 3 and immediately got busy with the balloons.  I made some Bee Bodies into an apple shape but hid the stalk in the middle, to make a series of roughly globular Bacillus.  I inflated 3 caterpillar balloons with sad or angry faces, and tied their knots all together and then twisted all 3 together so it looked like a load of rod-shaped cells, the top 3 with the faces on.  I tried to do a virus with some heart balloons all tied together and a pair of legs, but it wasn't that successful.  I also did another couple, I've forgotten the name of the bacterium but I used three 260s twisted together into lots of small bubbles and twisted these all together into a load of cells all together.  Jenny arrived at 4 and was happy with all of them apart from the virus-type things, and suggested that I use a caterpillar balloon and give it four legs, and this was really good!  She paid me £10 for doing these... a fun challenge!

After which I decided to chop up the pallets I'd rescued yesterday, and I brought some bits of old pallet up the garden and a plastic bucket which has 'kicked the bucket' and needed to be binned.

In the evening I jarred up a load of dried apple rings and chopped up 15 large juicy pears and balanced them on the racks for drying.  I watched a good HG Wells adaptation 'The First Men in The Moon' which I enjoyed, as when I was a teen I loved HG Wells books, but then watched a second film which portrayed his life 'HG Wells: War With The World' which I really enjoyed, as I felt some kinship with him.  Gill and I both watched this and she looked him up in her Cambridge Guide to Literature; it was a very stimulating programme.  Later still, one of my friends contacted me, needed to talk, as someone she knows and cares about was seemingly preparing to kill themselves, and my friend needed to talk about it, and I'm not sure if I was able to help or give any advice, but I'm glad I was available for this person.  What a sad situation.