An odd day as we have decided to home educate our eldest child, as of today. Gill spent quite a bit of time doing the required admin with the Local Education Authority and the school, and we'll be contacting the local home schooling group which is very active. I've done a party for them, and I hope we can get involved in this group.
I'm not brilliant with major changes like this but I expect I'll get used to it. Between us, Gill and I have a lot of expertise and learning, and we have a lot of contacts who could do some specialist teaching. I am extremely disappointed that the school has been unable to accommodate our child's needs and has been unable to deal with the dreadful behaviour of some of the other pupils.
Anyway, we look forward to exciting and positive times ahead, and most important, happy times.
I did quite a bit of work outside... stacking logs, filling the leafmould pile, a bit of compost heap management, taking down bean vines and bringing in more dry beans. I even found a meal's-worth of potatoes. I had an appointment with the GP practice nurse for an asthma check and flu jab. On the way back I collected a large sack of gubbins from Freshways.
In the evening I had a use-it-up meal and did some more apple prep for the dried apple production line. I watched a great programme on the ultimate environmental absurdity, bottled water. I had an email enquiry from a Tesco marketeer asking me to do a blog post about how Tesco is green. I could hardly believe it! I'll consider writing this up over the next few days.
Showing posts with label Tesco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tesco. Show all posts
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Sunday 19th September 10
Raining today so my work today wasn't looking too hopeful; I'd been booked by the Charity bit of Tesco to come and do some entertaining at their Charity Market. There is an awning-covered walkway at the side of the store, but it's quite narrow, so I didn't know if I'd be able to work there easily.
Anyway, got myself ready to leave the house at 9.30am and I got to Tescos before 10, and Duncan, my handler, found somewhere for me to do my stuff. I got changed and got busy, offering free circus workshops to anyone who would have a go.
The day went smoothly until a woman, in her 50s or 60s perhaps, decided to smoke quite near me and the children so I asked her to move. She did move but was about the same distance away, so I asked her to keep going. She was rude to me so I went over and said to her that it was wrong of her to smoke so close to children, and could she just walk a bit further away. She refused and was rude, and I tried to put her cigarette out by flicking it. Her husband appeared and started verbally abusing me, at which point I withdrew back to the kids. Then the Tesco people arrived and told off the smoker and her incandescent husband for abusing me and smoking. Half an hour later, the Tesco people came to me and said the woman had rung the store, complained about me and the staff, and had threatened to call the police as I had allegedly assaulted her!!! They told me that although I'd been very good with the children, I'd better go as they didn't want a scene if the police turned up. They paid me in full, apologised, and said go! So I got changed and went, arriving home at just after 3, when I should have worked til 4.
So an hour relaxing and recovering, before setting off for Sheffield, where I was due to help my sister with running a ceilidh. I got a train at 5.40 and when I got into Sheffield at half six, got a taxi to the Broomhall Centre and helped set up and then sat with Douglas dealing with the tickets. The band were called The Well Dressed Band and they were good, I enjoyed the music. I'm not good at following instructions so I cannot do line dancing/barn dancing, but I loved watching. Anna and Douglas were able to have a few dances because I was sitting on the door. I enjoyed chatting with Sarah, a Freegle moderator. The event was a Freegle social, and might have raised some money for Sheffield Freegle (almost the same as Freecycle) so they could get stalls at events, etc. There was a bring and share meal, which was lovely, and Anna had a spot on the stage to explain about the way Freegle works, as she's a moderator too (and might be the chief moderator!)
At 9.45 I walked back into Sheffield and got to the station in good time to get the 10.21 to Leeds, where there was a bit of a wait until the York train. But I got back into York at 12.10, and cycled rapidly home.
Anyway, got myself ready to leave the house at 9.30am and I got to Tescos before 10, and Duncan, my handler, found somewhere for me to do my stuff. I got changed and got busy, offering free circus workshops to anyone who would have a go.
The day went smoothly until a woman, in her 50s or 60s perhaps, decided to smoke quite near me and the children so I asked her to move. She did move but was about the same distance away, so I asked her to keep going. She was rude to me so I went over and said to her that it was wrong of her to smoke so close to children, and could she just walk a bit further away. She refused and was rude, and I tried to put her cigarette out by flicking it. Her husband appeared and started verbally abusing me, at which point I withdrew back to the kids. Then the Tesco people arrived and told off the smoker and her incandescent husband for abusing me and smoking. Half an hour later, the Tesco people came to me and said the woman had rung the store, complained about me and the staff, and had threatened to call the police as I had allegedly assaulted her!!! They told me that although I'd been very good with the children, I'd better go as they didn't want a scene if the police turned up. They paid me in full, apologised, and said go! So I got changed and went, arriving home at just after 3, when I should have worked til 4.
So an hour relaxing and recovering, before setting off for Sheffield, where I was due to help my sister with running a ceilidh. I got a train at 5.40 and when I got into Sheffield at half six, got a taxi to the Broomhall Centre and helped set up and then sat with Douglas dealing with the tickets. The band were called The Well Dressed Band and they were good, I enjoyed the music. I'm not good at following instructions so I cannot do line dancing/barn dancing, but I loved watching. Anna and Douglas were able to have a few dances because I was sitting on the door. I enjoyed chatting with Sarah, a Freegle moderator. The event was a Freegle social, and might have raised some money for Sheffield Freegle (almost the same as Freecycle) so they could get stalls at events, etc. There was a bring and share meal, which was lovely, and Anna had a spot on the stage to explain about the way Freegle works, as she's a moderator too (and might be the chief moderator!)
At 9.45 I walked back into Sheffield and got to the station in good time to get the 10.21 to Leeds, where there was a bit of a wait until the York train. But I got back into York at 12.10, and cycled rapidly home.
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Saturday 17th April 10
Woke feeling a small amount of joy and slightly more anticipation... I'm helping with some research to see if there's any correlation between waking and dream emotions, in fact I'm not sure what it's about, but it's a student from University of York and I have to fill in an emotions thing when I wake up and just before I go to sleep. I found out about it through a facebook friend and I messaged the person and she sent me the forms in yesterday's post.
So my anticipation levels are quite high.
I got a phone call in the morning from Rich at Country Fresh, as all but one of the bags of compost have gone, so he requested some more.
I went down to town after an early lunch (via Country Fresh, to deliver compost and met 2 delightful young ladies, called Chloe and Gita) to try to find the beer that Pugwash Convention have requested for this evening, but couldn't find it. I did get coffee from Oxfam and some nice bread at Sainsbury's, and the wine the band wanted.
A lovely day, warm and sunny. Wish I wasn't rushing around!
I went on the net to find the York Beer Shop's contact details, as they might have had Cropton Real Ale. They didn't. I went on the Cropton Brewery website and rang them to ask where the nearest place was that I could buy some of their bottled goodies. Apparently it is on sale in Tesco. My heart sank... Tesco is a place I don't really want to go to (here's why) and it's the other side of town. But I really wanted to get the beer the band wanted, so I found the Tesco website and rang them... they said yes, Tesco at Askham Bar had it in. I then rang Tesco at Askham Bar to check that they did have it in and I asked them if I'd be able to collect 8 bottles from somewhere easy to get in the store... and they helpfully said yes, come to Customer Services and it's £2.08 a bottle.
The time soon arrived when I had to pack everything up and zoom off to the other side of town to pick up this expensive beer. I got to Tesco at 5.35 and back to Priory St at 5.55... and I didn't have to open up as John the Caretaker, who's quite a character, was already there and sorting the place out.
The next hour was quite hectic... moving tables, setting out chairs, welcoming the band, welcoming stallholders... and quite soon, people started arriving so I was on the door, checking names against a long list who pre booked (£3) and those who just turned up (£4, £3 concessions), and telling people about where the film was and inviting them to buy a raffle ticket or a strip of tickets, or to leave their contact details if they wanted to get our newsletter online....
I was surprised by the numbers of people who came, and not 'the usual suspects' but ordinary people here for a dance. The band got started and yet more people came to get in. If anything, we had too many people... a far better problem than too few! I took a break and had some of the food that the Steiner School had brought.. a nice couscous salad with a bread roll and a veggie sausage, for £2.50. Reasonable, and what I needed. I had a piece of cake afterwards and then went back to my 'organiser' duties.
At one stage, when the band were taking a break, I did a little bit of balloon modelling as there were a handful of children there, and some older folks had one too, including a nice lass called Rachel who I keep bumping into and she is very friendly with me... well she seems to laugh at me a lot. That's OK... far better to laugh at me than to growl and frown....
Towards the end of the break we did the raffle and that seemed to go down well... there were loads of prizes so lots of people happy.
I kept busy during the second half, clearing up bottles and cans and cups and paper plates... everything recyclable I collected to take home. This ended up as two sacks of cans and bottles, a large box of the same, a bag of paper plates, serviettes and food, and a few other things too.
Id taken some compost down for sale on the LETS stall but it didn't sell so i gave it away at the end as I didn't have space in the trailer to bring it back.
Right at the end, when we had cleared up, and after we'd left the building, I had a discussion with a woman called Vicky who seemed to not like 'labels', and I got a bit annoyed trying to explain that I was comfortable with the sciency way of describing things, but I just think she was trying to antagonise me. She succeeded. I cycled home hoping that my bedtime filling-in of my mood forms wouldn't include the negative emotions I was having about the conversation I'd just had... and seeing Gill again did put that all behind me. She'd had a quiet and peaceful evening thank goodness, and was happy to see me.
I was happy that we'd had such a successful event and that everybody had enjoyed themselves so much, and that we raised awareness about Transition and quite a bit of money. I think we ought to do that sort of thing more often.
So my anticipation levels are quite high.
I got a phone call in the morning from Rich at Country Fresh, as all but one of the bags of compost have gone, so he requested some more.
I went down to town after an early lunch (via Country Fresh, to deliver compost and met 2 delightful young ladies, called Chloe and Gita) to try to find the beer that Pugwash Convention have requested for this evening, but couldn't find it. I did get coffee from Oxfam and some nice bread at Sainsbury's, and the wine the band wanted.
A lovely day, warm and sunny. Wish I wasn't rushing around!
I went on the net to find the York Beer Shop's contact details, as they might have had Cropton Real Ale. They didn't. I went on the Cropton Brewery website and rang them to ask where the nearest place was that I could buy some of their bottled goodies. Apparently it is on sale in Tesco. My heart sank... Tesco is a place I don't really want to go to (here's why) and it's the other side of town. But I really wanted to get the beer the band wanted, so I found the Tesco website and rang them... they said yes, Tesco at Askham Bar had it in. I then rang Tesco at Askham Bar to check that they did have it in and I asked them if I'd be able to collect 8 bottles from somewhere easy to get in the store... and they helpfully said yes, come to Customer Services and it's £2.08 a bottle.
The time soon arrived when I had to pack everything up and zoom off to the other side of town to pick up this expensive beer. I got to Tesco at 5.35 and back to Priory St at 5.55... and I didn't have to open up as John the Caretaker, who's quite a character, was already there and sorting the place out.
The next hour was quite hectic... moving tables, setting out chairs, welcoming the band, welcoming stallholders... and quite soon, people started arriving so I was on the door, checking names against a long list who pre booked (£3) and those who just turned up (£4, £3 concessions), and telling people about where the film was and inviting them to buy a raffle ticket or a strip of tickets, or to leave their contact details if they wanted to get our newsletter online....
I was surprised by the numbers of people who came, and not 'the usual suspects' but ordinary people here for a dance. The band got started and yet more people came to get in. If anything, we had too many people... a far better problem than too few! I took a break and had some of the food that the Steiner School had brought.. a nice couscous salad with a bread roll and a veggie sausage, for £2.50. Reasonable, and what I needed. I had a piece of cake afterwards and then went back to my 'organiser' duties.
At one stage, when the band were taking a break, I did a little bit of balloon modelling as there were a handful of children there, and some older folks had one too, including a nice lass called Rachel who I keep bumping into and she is very friendly with me... well she seems to laugh at me a lot. That's OK... far better to laugh at me than to growl and frown....
Towards the end of the break we did the raffle and that seemed to go down well... there were loads of prizes so lots of people happy.
I kept busy during the second half, clearing up bottles and cans and cups and paper plates... everything recyclable I collected to take home. This ended up as two sacks of cans and bottles, a large box of the same, a bag of paper plates, serviettes and food, and a few other things too.
Id taken some compost down for sale on the LETS stall but it didn't sell so i gave it away at the end as I didn't have space in the trailer to bring it back.
Right at the end, when we had cleared up, and after we'd left the building, I had a discussion with a woman called Vicky who seemed to not like 'labels', and I got a bit annoyed trying to explain that I was comfortable with the sciency way of describing things, but I just think she was trying to antagonise me. She succeeded. I cycled home hoping that my bedtime filling-in of my mood forms wouldn't include the negative emotions I was having about the conversation I'd just had... and seeing Gill again did put that all behind me. She'd had a quiet and peaceful evening thank goodness, and was happy to see me.
I was happy that we'd had such a successful event and that everybody had enjoyed themselves so much, and that we raised awareness about Transition and quite a bit of money. I think we ought to do that sort of thing more often.
Sunday, 19 July 2009
Sunday 19th July 09
Another work day... shouldn't complain! Lucky to have it!
So, started with a shower as yesterdays hour-and-a-half cycle back from Barmby Moor against the wind had rendered me reasonably fragrant. Gill didn't mind of course, but my employers today would have done and I like to try to make a good impression.
So, got to the station for about 10.20 and bought a ticket to Hull and was on the 10.40, where I wrote out my invoice for the day's work. This was for a community event organised by Tesco Extra in the St Stephen's Centre. As it was raining, I decided not to attempt working outside where the rest of the stalls were, so after I got changed, I set up my stuff in the centre against the Tesco window, and immediately was engaged by some youngsters who wanted to see me ride the unicycle (people often assume that I can't!). About 10 minutes later a security man approached me and told me that cycling wasn't allowed in the centre, so I didn't do any more unicycling at all. So, from 11.55 til 3.50 I worked constantly, except for about 7 minutes to eat my sandwiches at about 2pm. I did mainly devilstick workshops and juggling, and had some lovely successes with this with people who said 'I can't do that' and then, with a few minutes coaching, could. At one point a chap came along who was good with the diabolo, so I let him use Derek and that was quite fun as I was able to talk to Derek with someone else making him do tricks... and misbehaving, as usual! It was an instant 'double act'. There were other entertainers around, including stilt walkers, costumed characters, another balloon modeller, facepainters and various others. So it was a fun day.
The Tesco people seemed to like what was going on and were happy to let me go shortly before my official 4pm finish, as my train was due to leave at 4.01, the next one not being til 5.25.
So I was back in York quite soon, and as I came up to my bike, there was an old chap looking intently at my bike in the station racks. He was obviously admiring it, not trying to steal it or damage it, so I explained about my asking Cycle Heaven to build the strongest bike they'd ever built, and we chatted for a while.
On the way home I picked up two sacks of stuff from Country Fresh... and when I got home and got changed, I put a load of this in the compostumbler with a sackful of the shredded material I prepared last week.
I didn't eat until after 7pm, a plate of rice and vegetables, followed by a raspberry, loganberry and gooseberry crumble. Berry tasty!
I was just finishing off my email/facebook session when there was a huge crash outside and Gill, sleeping on the couch next to me, lept up. I immediately knew it was a logpile falling over, but it was quite a spectacular noise. Gill went back to sleep and I spent 20 minutes partly re-doing it and clearing the way for our neighbours to use the shared passage between the houses. Glad it decided to collapse when I was around to sort it out. It may have not coped with several big rainstorms today... Gill says there was a violent hailstorm here today.
So, started with a shower as yesterdays hour-and-a-half cycle back from Barmby Moor against the wind had rendered me reasonably fragrant. Gill didn't mind of course, but my employers today would have done and I like to try to make a good impression.
So, got to the station for about 10.20 and bought a ticket to Hull and was on the 10.40, where I wrote out my invoice for the day's work. This was for a community event organised by Tesco Extra in the St Stephen's Centre. As it was raining, I decided not to attempt working outside where the rest of the stalls were, so after I got changed, I set up my stuff in the centre against the Tesco window, and immediately was engaged by some youngsters who wanted to see me ride the unicycle (people often assume that I can't!). About 10 minutes later a security man approached me and told me that cycling wasn't allowed in the centre, so I didn't do any more unicycling at all. So, from 11.55 til 3.50 I worked constantly, except for about 7 minutes to eat my sandwiches at about 2pm. I did mainly devilstick workshops and juggling, and had some lovely successes with this with people who said 'I can't do that' and then, with a few minutes coaching, could. At one point a chap came along who was good with the diabolo, so I let him use Derek and that was quite fun as I was able to talk to Derek with someone else making him do tricks... and misbehaving, as usual! It was an instant 'double act'. There were other entertainers around, including stilt walkers, costumed characters, another balloon modeller, facepainters and various others. So it was a fun day.
The Tesco people seemed to like what was going on and were happy to let me go shortly before my official 4pm finish, as my train was due to leave at 4.01, the next one not being til 5.25.
So I was back in York quite soon, and as I came up to my bike, there was an old chap looking intently at my bike in the station racks. He was obviously admiring it, not trying to steal it or damage it, so I explained about my asking Cycle Heaven to build the strongest bike they'd ever built, and we chatted for a while.
On the way home I picked up two sacks of stuff from Country Fresh... and when I got home and got changed, I put a load of this in the compostumbler with a sackful of the shredded material I prepared last week.
I didn't eat until after 7pm, a plate of rice and vegetables, followed by a raspberry, loganberry and gooseberry crumble. Berry tasty!
I was just finishing off my email/facebook session when there was a huge crash outside and Gill, sleeping on the couch next to me, lept up. I immediately knew it was a logpile falling over, but it was quite a spectacular noise. Gill went back to sleep and I spent 20 minutes partly re-doing it and clearing the way for our neighbours to use the shared passage between the houses. Glad it decided to collapse when I was around to sort it out. It may have not coped with several big rainstorms today... Gill says there was a violent hailstorm here today.
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