Friday 24th March 17

An excellent day.  I'd arranged to meet Michelle at El Piano at midday, but I woke up at 11.17 so I quickly chucked some muesli down, got my bike out and loaded what I needed for after Michelle, and arrived at El P at a minute to midday, just before they opened. Michelle appeared 3 minutes later and we had a tea and a mocha - and the usual excellent chats. She really is one of the most sensible and sorted people I know, although she might not see this about herself.

This wound up at about half one and I cycled over to Bishy Road to see Ben, who'd asked me to come and do his compost bin, a Komp 250 which was nearly full. I removed the top half of material and put it into bin bags.... probably about 80 litres, and then dug out the rest using a Compost Mate and a trowel, and filled 6 bin bags, so maybe 120kg, and popped those in my trailer. The fresher stuff then got thrown back, along with some dry autumn leaves. The job took just under 2 hours and Ben paid me £30 which we were both happy with. I'll be able to mature the material he didn't want (although I did put about 10kg on his garden) and it should make good compost. It was one of the cleanest batches of compost I'd seen, with very few plastic 'contraries' compared to many bins I deal with. I did find a tea spoon though!

So I cycled home with that and decanted it into a barrel I use to mature nearly-finished compost in, and then topped it with some really nice material from a dalek which had rotted down to 25% of what it was 2 years ago. 

I then chopped up some sticks from a pruning job I was doing yesterday to reduce tree/hedge height near my raised beds, as they were too shaded last year. I put those in wooden fruit boxes to dry for a few months.... they should be ready to use for kindling by next winter.

I came in at 7pm as it was getting too dark to work, and had some salad and a vegan pastie Gill had made.  I got the stove going and by midnight had got enough hot water for a bath and hair wash.  Bed before 3am, as have the Edible York event tomorrow, and a Fiddlesticks gig.