Thursday 29th September 11

Not too bad a a day.  Had some time with Gill... good that the boys are being more independent and giving us some time together again.  Most welcome.

Got a phone call from Robin Harford, who's in York to run his foraging course.  He wanted to visit, so an hour or so later, he turned up, on his friend Atul's bike, and I gave him a tour of the garden and we had lunch together.

I did some work in the garden during the afternoon... mainly compost stuff, but also preparation for tomorrow when I'm off to The Pizza Farm to do a series of talks on compost to some schoolkids.  I also worked out where I was going using Googlemaps.

After 5pm I got ready to go to work; got to David's just before 6pm and took him to City Screen to meet up with Lotte, also met Esther Lilley (whom I know from when she worked at Lord Deramore's school) and her husband to be, Daniel, and we all had really good chats... I got on very well with Daniel, with a shared interest in architecture and sustainable buildings.

I took David back to have his tea at about 8, with Lotte who left her bike in David's yard, and David and I worked out my hours and monthly payment.  Home via Country Fresh, where I picked up some waste furniture.

I did quite a bit of washing up and fruit preparation, played Scrabble and other laptop-based stuff.

Saturday 28th May 11 The Crucible at The Theatre Royal

A good day, I woke at 9.30 and had a fairly lazy morning, watching YouTube videos of Gil Scott Heron, Rest In Peace, and thinking about an artwork that I'd like Dexter to do, based on a list of words from my first 40 years. Explored word clouds and typography.  Oh, and a little bit in the garden and chopped up a bit of fruit.

But my main appointment was at 1pm at David's, for lunch with him and Lotte. I'd received a message during the morning about the Green Day at York Minster, so I went early to say hello to assorted friends... Mark and Bernie at Bikerescue, Kate on the Rowntree Park stall, Jenny Hartland, and Ben from Freecycle, others from York Rotters and St Nicks.

I couldn't spend long there as I needed to visit the shop on Stonegate to explain about the bill for cleaning the inspection chamber, and then on to David's.  The owners of the Stonegate gun and knife shop wee OK, didn't attack me.  The chap said that he'd find out the ownership of the lane behind his yard, which he thought was a shared ownership. I'll go in next week to find out what he's decided.

Lotte had made a thing she called a tortilla.but I would have called a Spanish Omlette.  It was chunks of potato, asparagus and peas in a load of whisked egg... cooked in a circle like a quiche (although I suppose quiche can be in any shape!) which is what I originally thought it was.  We had this with some slices of ciabatta bread.

For 2pm we headed down Stonegate, saying hello to Purpleman, and went to the Theatre Royal.  We made ourselves known to the staff... as we needed to be taken round the back to get to the Theatre in the Round Stage.  We waited, David bought a programme and I read it.  I knew nothing about The Crucible, but the programme was a basic introduction to the Salem Witch Trials, which I did know a little bit about.

A lovely lady took us to the rear entrance which is wheelchair accessible and our seats were right on the edge of the stage.  I was very impressed with the production; it was very well done.  The story, especially at the end, left me thinking about injustice and the ridiculousness of religion and dogma.  At the end I was quite shocked and emotional.

It finished at 5.30 and I took David home, made him some tea (OK, microwaved a meal!) and we worked out my May hours.  He felt like going out so I took him to City Screen where he met a nice couple from London whilst I was getting him a coffee. We didn't stay long, went back, he gave me my cheque and I cycled home, getting in at 8pm.

I had difficulty loading and playing the little films I'd made with the headcam, although the position on the cables on my handlebars is better.  The sound and images don't match, with the images going slower than the acoustic track.  Also, the files no longer load onto the computer as I'm allegedly missing some sort of codec and it closes down on me.  BUT I can go to 'My Computer', click on Removable Disc E and find them there, and then copy them to a file in My Videos.  So, do-able but not brilliant.

A peaceful evening, with a really rubbish film on TV which I didn't understand.