Saturday 5 February 2011

Friday 4th February 11

Up early, at about 8, in order to go round to Maria's with our eldest, as Maria had asked if I would help with emptying one of her 3 compost bins in return for teaching our boy science.  Gill went to school in a taxi again, as getting our youngest on a bike first thing in the morning or on a bus even earlier is neigh on impossible.  Gill stayed at school to learn how to run the shop.  She came back after her 9 til 10 shift.

I spent 90 minutes digging out the compost heap, sorting out uncomposted sticks to put on the current pile, and uncomposted bits and bobs like twist-ties, nylon pyramidal tea bags and assorted other plastic, and a few stones, and some broken pottery too.  I filled 13 sacks, but have another half of the cubic metre of compost to do, perhaps next week.

At 10.30 we walked back, talking about energy, today's subject.  I cleaned up and at about 11.10 set off to go to town to meet James Houston in El Piano.  He wanted to talk to me about two aspects of
The Galtres Festival... the possibilities re composting, and what Professor Fiddlesticks could add to the event.  I heard what has happened about waste and recycling in the past, and then outlined four scenarios for what could happen.  The Fiddlesticks chat was a lot simpler and shorter, but it looks like I'm going to be booked to do one or both roles. However, I've got to write an email summarising the compost options.

I cycled home via Alligator and picked up a trailer load of goodies... including a huge butternut squash which had a couple of small patches of rot, so later I washed it, cut those out and made a big pan of butternut squash soup.  I was planning on attending a campaigning workshop with Adrian Ramsay, the deputy leader of The Green Party, but there was such a huge pile of washing up after my being away yesterday that I lit the stove, washed up, did the butternut soup, and made a nutloaf instead.  I had that all done by 5.30, so I then went to the University to hear Adrian Ramsay give a talk on what the Greens would do instead of the awfully damaging ConDem cuts. 

I was pleased to meet Adrian, who was just finishing off his evening meal in the canteen, and I told him about Jillian Creasy's comment about how Mozaz always challenged people, including her, and that this was a valuable role that gritty irritating people had.  We then walked over to the lecture theatre and I was pleased to see Kate Lock, so I sat with her, but there were quite a few of my Green Party friends, and People and Planet friends, and the meeting was well attended.

Adrian was a good speaker, and presented a fairly short overview of what the Greens would do if they had the chance, and then there were a wide range of questions.  This easily filled the hour allotted.

I came home and had a slice of nutloaf with baked beans and some slices of fried home-grown squash left over from a few days ago.

Later in the evening, I had a long phone call (one hour forty one minutes, according to our phone!) with Emily who was Mozaz' friend.  We'd chatted a bit on facebook but the chat thing wasn't working too well so I said she could ring me if she wanted.  What a lovely person, I think I've got another friend there.

No comments: