Friday 8 February 2008

Friday 8th February 08

Soon after Gill got back from taking the kiddies to school I went with her round to Sarah's house, to install a compost bin for her. I wanted Gill to meet Sarah as she has offered to babysit for us if we want her to... so the first stage of the process was for Gill to meet Sarah.... and if all was well, then for Sarah to meet the boys, which will be next week.

Installing the bin was easy... swept up loads of leaves and stuff from her yard, and put it in the bin which is standing on slabs in the yard, then a layer of shredded hedge from my huge pile of hedge materials, then a 'seeding' colony of semi-rotted compost teeming with worms and other beasties and fungi, and then Sarah put in several bags and containers of collected stuff which she's been putting by since the time she came to put a load of stuff on one of my heaps.

Then a coffee, chat and looked at the Press Website and watched the York Rotters vid which was good.... certainly better than what I was able to do!

After this I cycled accross town to visit a friend I haven't seen for some time, and came back past Martin's to pick up a large sack of shop stuff.

Enjoyed a peaceful lunch before having to make a phone call to someone I may have upset. Such are the problems of being hyperactive and not perfectly socially skilled!

However the phone call went well and I was told I had responded appropriately to something, I thought I'd put my foot in it! But I didn't know, I still feel that many aspects of life are an experiment! I apologised for any indiscression and poor communication and this was accepted. Thank goodness!

During the afternoon, before going to school and picking up the boys, I got the new(ish) compost riddle out and rolled it down to a compost heap which needed riddling and I did a good hour of it... wonderful! I really enjoyed it, and the pile of fine and riddled material looked lovely when I'd done! The stuff which passed through the cylinder needed sorting into throw-aways, re-compostables and oversized particles/clumps which could either be used as mulch, re-composted or put through the riddle again after a good stir, which would break up some of the lumps. A good piece of kit, will save a lot of time.

Got the kids, they were looking forward to half term.

I did a little bit more riddling but at 5.15 came in to get ready to welcome a much wanted visitor, Ben from Freecycle and LETS, who's a real whizz with computers and volunteered to sort me out with my hard and software. He dived straight in and got the broadband fixed, email sorted, skype installed, webcam (which had been thrown away!!!) plugged in and a microphone attached... so I feel as if I'm truly in the 21st Century! In return he has asked me to move some stuff with my trailer on Monday... which I'll do most willingly!

A good tea with the family, spaghetti veganaise.

Enjoyed watching dolphins on the telly with the boys, then watched my old secondary school, Lancaster (Boys) School, Leicester which has a new choir... and it felt weird, knowing I was in the LBS choir in the late 70's.

Did quite a lot of computery stuff. Had a quick chat on Skype with my friend in America, then got soundly beaten by Gill at Scrabble, whilst watching 'The Birds' from 1963, which we both had a good laugh at because of the corny special effects, lack of real plot and rubbish ending. However I still think it was pretty good how they (Hitchcock et al) got the birds to do what they did.

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