Wednesday 2nd November 11

What a wonderful day.  Although I was woken by teenage shouting, and I came downstairs at 8, the day got better.  Gill took the boys to school on the bus and I had breakfast and my usual diet of facebook and emails.  Gill came back and I spent some time with Gill before she went out to the Dentist.

I had to stay in as I was expecting the Yellow Pages chap; I'd said to him last week that I needed to spend less on advertising as I was earning less as during a recession, people spend less on entertainment than when there's more spare cash around.  So he came and sorted out a package with me which he said would double the amount of work I was getting, but would cost more.  He said it would more than pay for itself.  I said I needed to check it over with Gill, and was unable to sign for that package there and then, and I wasn't happy that although I said I needed to spend less, he'd actually given me a more expensive package.

Anyway, he came back today and spent some time re-doing my advertising so it was reduced in size and cost less, and I signed for it.  The chap was interested to see the garden so I quickly took him down... I think he was a bit mithered about his posh shoes getting a bit of mud on them!  Nice enough guy though.

Anyway, I then could think about planning the rest of my day.  I needed to take my bike into Cycle Heaven again, as the dynamo stopped working, or rather didn't work when I got on it at Ginnie's yesterday night.  I needed to be at CVS for 3pm as Melody had asked me to be there to accept an award for YorkLETS.  And then I needed to be at the Scoop Shop at Wentworth College at 6pm.  I decided to have lunch and take my bike into Cycle Heaven and leave it there whilst I was at Priory Street.

Over lunch I got 3 phone calls, all Fiddlesticks bookings.  One was from a woman at a Mosque in Batley, wanting to book me for a show this Sunday for Eid.  She also invited me for lunch.  Then I got a December booking for a nursery party in Meltham, near Huddersfield.  Finally, a chap whom I'd met on a train rang me and said he wanted to book me for a private workshop with him and his girlfriend, learning basic balloon modelling.  He too was in Huddersfield.  Oh, and Rob from Robin Hood's Bay rang and I confirmed that I was able to go up with the family for their Victorian Christmas event, in exchange for 3 nights B+B in a hotel. So a flurry of pre-Christmas bookings which is good.

I went out at about 2.15 to take my bike to Cycle Heaven, so Ash could try to solve the 'spooky dynamo' problem.  I walked up to Priory St and waited for Melody at CVS, and at 3 went to find her in the big room, which was hosting the Annual General Meeting.  One of the items on the Agenda was the Colin Stroud Award.  Colin was the Chief Executive at CVS for 23 years until last year when he stepped down, and the staff wanted to do something to acknowledge his input and dedication.  So they decided to have a weekly or monthly collection of a few coins from all the staff, and then present this money to a worthy cause at the AGM.  YorkLETS had been suggested as a worthy recipient and it was chosen to receive £500 to spend on anything it wanted to! Amazing!  The chair introduced the award and Colin said a bit about YorkLETS, and then handed me the cheque and shook my hand. I thanked the meeting, and said I was especially moved by this as the money didn't come from a big donor giving out £500 here, £10,000 there, but was from the staff and others connected with CVS, and in my eyes, was all the more valuable because of this.

I walked back to Cycle Heaven after this, picking up several aluminium cans to take to the metal merchants when I eventually go.  Ash had found the source of the problem: a wire had worked itself free of some insulation and was shorting on the frame.  The dynamo was fixed!

And I needed it as my next trip out was to the University at 5.45, to be at the Scoop (Student Co-op) meeting at 6, with a sample tray of pears and dried apple and dried pears. The meeting was to decide how best to sell this produce, and the price.  After quite a bit of discussion, a price of £1.70/kg of fresh pears was agreed, and 70p/100g for the dried fruit, and Scoop will add 5p to that to help them cover breakages, leakages and food that they're unable to sell (for instance if it goes out of date).  These prices were based on a bit of research I'd done in Country Fresh and Alligator, and my desire to give the students the best price possible. At the end of the meeting, all the remaining pears and dried fruit was sold, and I'll take a load in next Wednesday morning.  I'm really pleased with this as there's no way I can eat all the pears myself... even if family members join in!

Which for tea, they did!  I had some soup, garlic bread and veggie sausages followed by a fruit art explosion made by our eldest.  We all had a bowl of carved orange slices, pear, ginger biscuit and chocolate drops.  Nice!

I had a nice evening after this doing more fruit, watching telly and chatting.

Thursday 27th October 11

Well a bit of a frustrating day in a way, as I spent quite a long time sorting out my laptop, or trying to... I plugged it in near the WiFi box and plugged in the Ethernet cable, and Ian talked me through how to let the machine complete the process of installing the new Ubuntu version, which had got stuck... possibly because my computer switched itself off because of it's problem wobbly jack-plug.  Anyway, Ian got it back to a working computer, but the plug was so wobbly that I still cannot use it and I messaged Ben to ask if he'd sort it out.  I will pay him handsomely when he fixes it, which is probably just a 20 minute job.

At midday the Yellow Pages guy came back, with his colleague who I think was a more senior chap, and had re-done an advert for me with two versions, neither of which I liked.  I like my existing advert, which looks like a bulls-eye, but I said I was happy for him to tweak it to make it stand out more. They spent quite a long time working out a trial Google Ad Words thing for me, and I was prepared to try a 4 month trial at £39.50 per month, but when it came to the crunch, they asked for my bank account number and I don't pay anything for my Fiddlesticks work from my bank account; I use a dedicated Building Society account, and I do not do any Direct Debits.  I said I'd pay for the full 4 months in advance, by cheque, but they apparently can't accept cheques for Google Ad Words.  I said either they should change the rules or I'd have to put £39.50 from my Building Society into my bank to have the DD go out of my bank, and I wasn't prepared to do that.  So I said scrap the Ad Words idea.  They were here for 2 hours, but eventually left as they couldn't get the form to work that they'd have wanted me to sign.  I didn't want to sign today anyway as I wanted to ask Gill about this cost.  He said he'd call tomorrow but I'm going to ring him and ask that he comes next week.

I popped out to get two cheques made out, one for the glass I put my hand through at the gig in Poppleton (cost me £40), and one for my National Insurance contribution.

I made some soup, out of the pumpkin bits I was given yesterday.  I put in onion, butternut squash, a cooking apple, some carrot, and flavoured it with herbs, Balsamic vinegar and a bit of soy sauce.  I had it ready for when Gill and the boys came back at 7pm.  They were glad I'd done that!

The other annoying or frustrating thing today was that I tried to contact someone who has provisionally booked me to work this Saturday in Ashton-Under-Lyne near Manchester.  I'd rung the number which is in my diary, and got a message through to the answerphone, and he'd rung me and left a very fuzzy message on there, and crucially not left his contact number or email address.  In my message I clearly ask that people leave their phone number if they want me to get back to them.  I phoned the number I have got about 30 times during the day, and each time it was engaged.  When I went out to buy bread, ARGH he phoned and once again didn't leave a contact number.  How incredibly frustrating.  I am available to work on Saturday, but I need to know where it is, what it is, and how much I'm going to get paid.

Gill came back at 7 having had a really good time in Norwich with her sister.  The boys were happy too.  I then went out, at about 7.45, to see my favourite local band The Falling Spikes.  I had a lovely evening, one of the tracks they played had me in tears it was so wonderful.  The band they were supporting weren't nearly as good, for me, and I left halfway through their set.

Wednesday 8th September 10

Another late start... I've got into the habit of going to bed in the wee early hours (was after 3am last night) and then getting up late. So I had breakfast when some people would be having an early lunch, and then I got dressed just in time for a mid afternoon appointment with Lucy from Yellow Pages and Yell.com... and I agreed the same package as this year for advertising Professor Fiddlesticks. I've dropped Thomson Directories and I might drop the BT Phone Directory too... I don't know. But Lucy and I didn't just talk business... we covered peak oil and diet, amongst other subjects. I promised to send her a couple of links via facebook, and later in the day she 'friended' me and I sent her a link to the peak oil article and also one to a nutloaf recipe I wrote yonks ago in the Community Care blog I wrote.

I responded to a Freecycle offer of a drill bit which Tara asked me to find so we can do her water butt on Friday. I cycled round to meet John, a chap of mature years who has a lovely engineers workshop in his back garden. He showed me a Sterling engine he'd built... but lamented that it didn't work very well.

Gill went to town and found a second-hand desk in the Banana Warehouse for our youngest to use in his bedroom. It was delivered, and Gill and I took it upstairs and it looks great there. Our son was pleased with it.

After this, I collected a load of windfall fruit from the garden (apples, pears and plums) and spent some of the evening sorting these for drying. I also dealt with a lot of hazelnuts. I am inundated with hazelnuts. A bucket full of them takes a LOT of time to process. I have only just started, perhaps a fifth of them, probably less than this. Maybe this is why I'm not sleeping much, I have too much to do.

Thursday 27th September 07

I got a lie-in til 8.30, as the noise levels increased downstairs as Gill tried to get the boys ready for school, so I came down and chivvied them out of the house. It's amazing how much more quickly an 8 year-old boy will put their own shoe on when you offer to help them do it... they then have to prove that they don't need help and actually get on with it!

I was due to go to town and do various jobs before my little holiday next week, but I had a very leaky nose and felt grotty, then I looked at my diary and saw that Simon from Yellow Pages had booked to come and visit me regarding my advertising with them, so I lit the stove and got a coffee and did some washing up, Gill went out as she has more stuff to do in town. I did my emails to find out if my friend had landed, but there was no message, so I wondered what had happened.

The Yellow Pages rep recognised me from the telly programme last week, and we took some time to get onto the subject of advertising Professor Fiddlesticks. I didn't want to spend any more money with them, but was persuaded to have a listing with Yell (dot) Com and to afford this I am not having a one-line listing in the Leeds directory, which has not given me many returns. Apparently the Yell advert will give me a better coverage. But Simon did his job well and I'll be paying more next year than this!

I got an email from Community Care saying would it be possible to get my column in by this afternoon? I did some online research about Ethical Investment, which I don't know much about, and continued writing my 350 words.

Then I got an email from St Nicks saying that they would be sending someone over to pick up my apple press and crusher at 2pm, for use at Apple Day on the 6th of October. So I had to excavate that from the studio, all the time sneezing and snuffling and blowing my nose, and feeling rubbish.

I got my column typed in by 3pm and cycled down to school to pick up the boys. My youngest asked if he could visit one of his friends, so he went one way, and I came home with the eldest, who only noticed we didn't have his brother once we'd got home! On the way home I chatted with a friend of mine, who's a chemist and very well informed, and she's not convinced that the paint on top of the sleepers will stop the creosote coming through, and she said if she felt brave enough, she'd raise it at school at a meeting tonight.

Once I got home I felt so poorly I went to bed and fell asleep with New Scientist in my hand. I was woken by a phone call from my friend, who had sent me some emails since landing at Manchester Airport, but they'd not got through to me. I was pleased she was safe and sound.

I made my own tea, finishing up the weird-tasting mushroom soup and putting some pasta in, left over from Gill's tea, and heating that on the woodstove, plus making some eggy-bread the same way, using a discarded organic loaf with the crusts cut off. It was very filling and dirt cheap, a good thing considering that I'm about to spend a large amount on a new bicycle.

After tea, before it got dark, I did a bit of putting stuff on the newest compost heap, and cut a bit more hedge. Then came in and sorted out the stove, got enought hot water for my boy to have a bath. Then I refilled the pans as I want to have a bath later. Gill and I enjoyed watching Carol Vorderman on BBC's 'Who Do You Think You Are?', about ancestry and family origins. We had a game of Scrabble and I won, again.

Enjoyed my bath at midnight.