Thursday 14th April 11

An early start as Peter Tatham came to pick up compost soon after 8am.  He was heading for a 'trailer training' session at 9am, held just down the road in Lawrence Street.  So, I gave him a quick tour of the garden and showed him the Scheppach soil sifter and the rotasieve.

He had come for a load of potting compost, and took 5 large sacks, plus 6 smaller sacks of unriddled compost, a large sack of riddled leafmould and a very heavy sack of loam.  He gave me a sack of spent hops from a brewery, and I swapped this for a loganberry plant, one which rooted last season.  He'll work out how much he is able to give me for this load and then I'll invoice him. 

I had a bit of time inside and then did more work outside, riddling a load of material out of last year's containers, a large volume of peat-based growing media from the thrown-away pansies etc that I rescued from Country Fresh over winter, and several buckets-worth of fresh loam/leafmould/compost mix. This yielded two big sacks of potting medium and I'll use a mixture of this and the 100% new stuff to grow this year's crops in pots.

I had work, with David, at 2.30; we went to the bank, and then Marks and Sparks, where by chance we met Carolyn, and we arranged to go to have a coffee with her.  She suggested the other M+S which has a cafe, so I pushed David there and then he waited at the table whilst I queued, then Carolyn rolled up so I got 3 coffees and we spent the best part of an hour there, chatting.

On the way back to David's flat we met Lynn, which meant that soon after we got in, my two hours was up and I got my bike ready to go home.

Gill was getting ready to go out, as she was attending a focus group about ethical consumerism out on the Tadcaster Road.  I split a few logs and had a rice-based tea, then watched a nature programme with both boys which was really nice.

Gill came in just before that finished, I made the boys' supper and a very good-natured and peaceful evening was had by all.  I planned bits of my weekend, most of which is going to be very full, and made time to play a few goes of Scrabble.

Tuesday 28th December 10

Another late lie in... I'm going nocturnal, as is usual when I'm not forced to get up at a sensible time.  However, I had a busy day.  I went to the Co-op to get cereal and marmalade... Gill cannot live without Seville marmalade, apparently!  But the Tang Hall Lane Co-op didn't have the crunchy cereal that I like, so I went to the Hull Road Co-op, which did.  I popped in on Debbie, who was not yet a Grandma.

A bit later Gill said she was going to go to Marks and Spencer in town to spend her £40 voucher given to her by her sister Linda; yesterday she'd spotted that they had a DAB radio which would enable her to get Radio 7 which has various things on which she'd like to listen to. I said that instead of her buying yet another bus ticket, I'd cycle down and get it.   BUT I wanted to see if there was an energy efficient digital radio, as I'm aware they use quite a bit more power than analogue radios.  So I found this page about DAB radios, and this list of energy efficient DAB radios. Fortunately it had one of the models Gill had seen yesterday in M+S, a PURE ONE Mini, for £45. This only uses 2w when in use, and 0.8w when just left plugged in.  Obviously when unplugged or switched off at the wall, it uses no power!

So I cycled down to Country Fresh and bought a bit of fruit and veg, and picked up a small box of compostables. From here I went on to town, handed over Gill's voucher card and a fiver and within 30 minutes was back home.  Gill was delighted.  Now all she needs to do is to learn how to use it!

At about tea time we got a text message from Debbie; her son had become a father to a little boy, so Debbie's a Granny!  She'll be over the moon!

Gill was putting a load of washing on in the washing machine in the conservatory, and said she could hear running water in there.  But nothing was obvious.  Later, she heard it again and suggested I go and check the studio, which has a flush toilet and my compost toilet.  I found that a pipe had burst in the freeze and was now flowing freely into the little room which has both the (unused) flush loo and my commode which is the 'business end' of my compost toilet set-up.  I switched off the stop tap which is in there and spent an hour clearing up, pulling up the carpet, moving stuff, and by 11pm had put the dehumidifyer in there to start it drying out.  What a bummer.  However, this will force us to declutter in there, which it desperately needs. I know we're not the only people with burst pipes, and we're lucky it's in an outbuilding.