Wednesday 31st March 10

Up at 8.50am when Gilly came upstairs saying she had to get washed and dressed, so she could take something into school which had been left behind. I told her that I would do it, and quickly got washed and dressed, got my bike out and delivered the thing to school by about 9.10.

Then Gill and I sat on the sofa, chatting whilst I was doing email stuff, until about 11, when I needed to get ready to deliver my compost to Rich and Moz... and have lunch with them. I also needed to get a shopping list together as I was planning to come back via Sainsburys. I set off with 4 sacks of very well matured compost at about 11.40, slowly as this was perhaps 70 or 80 kg, and I used the cycle track to get over to Burton Stone Lane where my buddies were waiting for me, and happy to show me their new house. They have a small yard with some pots of old soil in, and mainly dead plants, and the compost is to pep up the existing soil to enable them to grow a few crops and flowers to brighten up the yard.

I met Alex, who's the new singer with The Falling Spikes, who was visiting and writing songs with the more long-standing members. We chatted and listened to assorted tracks, on Spotify and YouTube... and then at 1.30 pizza materialised and that went down a treat.

Moz and I walked up to his ladyfriend's house, and Jenny was expecting us... she'd invited me to give her some advice on ground-elder removal. I was unable to give her good news on ground elder, apart from it being edible... which she knew anyway.

I left at about 2.45 and bombed into town, through to Sainsburys to get margarine and bread, and I was tempted by a bottle of cheap Baileys.

When I got home at 3.20, another visitor was waiting... Sue, whom I'd met at St Nicks a few days ago, had said she'd be coming sometime between 3 and 4, to collect some 'tiger worms' to start off her wormery. So we chatted a bit and when the restof the famly came in, we went down the garden to pick up some worms. Many of my compost bins have quite tight fitting lids, and worms seem to like sitting in the lids, which makes collection or harvesting very easy. So we collected quite a few... certainly enough to start one or two small wormeries. Sue also wanted a carrier bag of riddled compost, so altogether I'd had a good day of sales and info-sharing.

I had meant to get into the garden to sort out some compostables, but I got a email from some people in Bradford who wanted info on community composting, and this reply took some while.

And then tea was ready... a really thick tomato soup, and a slice of tasty nutloaf with fried mushrooms. Yummy!

And then it was soon time to go to the Black Swan for a World Naked Bike Ride planning meeting. Good to see Tony and Hugh... we more or less finalised the route, and discussed various other issues.

I got back soon after 9 and watched some of the 'Canoe Man' drama, washed up, played Scrabble on facebook, and did more washing up.

Saturday 24th May 08

An early start but the taxi arrived at 9 and we were ready...just! We got the 9.44 train to Leamington Spa... the Bournemouth train, and it was quite busy. We were in the quiet carriage but it was far from quiet... a chap near us was talking very loudly to the ticket person (are they still called conductors?) and we could hear that he wanted to go to Sheffield, but our train was going via Leeds, Wakefield and then Chesterfield, by-passing Sheffield. The chap seemed agitated, and before Leeds loudly announced that he was completely deaf and wanted to go to Sheffield. Everyone else had heard that to go to Sheffield, people should change at Leeds. So Gill found a sheet of A4 paper and a felt-tip pen (we carry these to give the boys something to do if they announce 'I'm bored') and wrote on it "You need to change at Leeds" and I took it to the chap who then shouted 'B****r Off' at me! So I sat down, and another chap got up and approached him and signed something... and he got similar treatment. There was quite a bit of a stir in the carriage because of this! The chap didn't get off at Leeds but we think disappeared at Chesterfield and presumably travelled back North again to Sheffers.

At Chesterfield though, a group of perhaps 6 young women got on and it was obvious that they'd been out the night before 'on the lash' and were either hung-over or still drunk and very loud and girly, and off to a festival or some type of camping trip. It took til Derby for them to notice that it was the quiet carriage..by this time my rather intolerant child was getting ready to say something to them. I was reminded of my festivaling days, and was a bit distracted by their short skirts and long legs. Fortunately I didn't spot something that Gill told me about afterwards, that one of them was flashing her see-through knickers! That would have made it an even more interesting journey! They got off at Birmingham New Street and a quiet chap got on near us... I had a chat with him; he was just finishing his degree on Sustainable Architecture, his dissertation was on sustainable interior design. We had a good conversation and a bit of a laugh about various things.

Then we were in Leamington and Katharina and her two boys met us at the barriers and we walked to her house through the town, passing through a lovely park with a bandstand which I remember from years ago when I performed at the Leamington Peace Festival. There was a Farmers' Market and I bought 4 little bottles of perry, locally produced. Katharina's house was another 15 minutes walk through the town, on the Kenilworth Road in a very large house, now split into several smaller residences.

My boys were very happy to see their old friends, and Katharina was pleased to show us her new house which they've had re-vamped, with new flooring (following removal of dry-rotted wood) and a wonderful new woodstove, apparently partly inspired by seeing ours. Katharina and Ulrich have liked the idea of a woodburner for a long time, as in Germany they are more common, but they've lived in rented property since living over here. So they have bought a HWAM 'Beethoven' with Soapstone surrounds, which slowly heat up and keep the heat really well! It is a very stylish, having a curved glass door and it's a lovely grey colour. It's a smoke-free model.... Ulrich had been wanting the version which heats water, but it's not legal to have it in a smoke control zone.

I felt very tired and very relaxed, and as the boys all sat on one of the futons playing with a computer game, I went to sleep on the other! Just for a few minutes though, nothing too antisocial. I heard Ulrich come home and soon roused myself and was more sociable. However it is lovely being 'on holiday' and with people whom I feel very relaxed with.

We had a simple tea, pretty late, and a game of Scrabble with everybody else doubling up in teams, and me by myself... but their partnerships obviously hampered them and I won! Gill and I slept on a futon in front of the stove, which was wonderful!