Wednesday 31 August 2011

Wednesday 17th August 11

I enjoyed today as I had no particular things to do, get to, or any obligations, but I got a lot done. During the morning I interspersed watching Concrete Circus on 4oD with various jobs in the kitchen, but it was good to catch up with this programme which Gill watched on Monday night, whilst I was at Just Do It.  I'm a big fan of Danny MacAskill, and enjoyed his part of the film most... but all the 'urban sports' performers were good. 

Gill went to Malton with our youngest to buy two young female guinea pigs, which he's wanted to have for quite a while, and are his birthday present.  They came back after lunch with them in a travelling pet box, one is mostly ginger brown with some white bits and the other is mostly nearly black with some other colours.  Their names have yet to be decided but Fudge and Toffee might stick (haha!)

I got a message from Rich to go and pick up from Country Fresh and I did do, and got some eggs and veggies too, and some stuff for Debbie.  She had her daughter's friend Vicky there and we all had a nice chat.

I got a phone call from a woman who attended a recent Fiddlesticks gig, with her son, who had some very extrovert behaviour which made him stand out from the rest of the audience.  I had dealt with him in my usual way, made sure he was included and I didn't tell him off, but did explain a couple of times about how the audience was supposed to behave in a live show.  At the end, she apologised for his behaviour, and I said something like "no problem, he was great, and anyway, I have Aspergers so I know what it's like to be a bit different".  I had no idea what a profound effect this comment was to have on her.  She rang me to thank me for doing the show, and to tell me her son had loved it, and that she'd like to book me for his birthday party.  She has had several people suggest that her son has got Aspergers Syndrome, and she was quite mixed up and confused by it, as she's had quite a bit of negative reaction from some teachers who couldn't cope with the boy's intelligent questions and unusual ways, and my comments had really given her hope and some sort of positivity.  Actually, I don't really know what I did or said that had such an effect, but she was profusely grateful.  We spent quite a bit of time on the phone, and then chatted on the internet later, and her feedback made me very happy.   

I did another big pear tree pick, and got about 6 kilos of lovely Jargonelle pears, which will mostly be dried, as this concentrates the flavour and dried pears are my favourite dried fruit.  I got my 9 metre ladder fully extended and then climbed into the tree off the top of it, it felt quite dangerous and exciting.  These pears do not keep at all, most of them go bad in 24 hours, so drying is the best way to preserve them.  The ground underneath the tree is thick with fallen pears, wasps and Red Admiral butterflies, so I needed to harvest what I could.

The only other useful things I did were to do loads of washing up and help prepare tea. Oh, and load up lots of wire racks with halved pears.....

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