Saturday 21st January 12

An enjoyable day, as no 'agenda' or timetable or appointments.

However, I was quite busy, did quite a bit of log stacking, including another split-round which I stacked in its original shape, in the logpile next to the front door for its final drying before the stove gets it.... it makes the pile look arty and nice.

And I did some chainsawing and splitting too.... not much, about half an hour.

Gill went to town to get assorted kids clothes and ended up getting a bra, hat and boots for herself.  She was really pleased as she rarely buys anything for herself.

I took our meter-readings for The Carbon Account, and sent a message to my friends on The Carbon Account suggesting that they updated their graph...and two of them messaged me and told me off!  Oh dear, I'm not always that good a communicator, and I certainly didn't mean to upset anyone.

Monday 16th January 12

A very quiet day, although as our youngest didn't go to school as he wasn't feeling well, by the afternoon he was back to normal so we had an hour of science lesson.

I did get out later in the afternoon and build some logpile, making a very attractive looking stack which when I've finished I may get around to taking some photos of, as I incorporated several split rounds in their original round shape.

But most of the day was doing things inside, including cooking potatoes for tea, making coleslaw, and later, boiling a large pan of beetroot and then when done, topping and tailing them and peeling them, prior to pickling some and making soup out of some. This took ages, as I estimate there were about 30 little beetroots to deal with...

Wednesday 2nd March 11

Gill had offered to sort out a blocked drain at the Steiner School today, as we have a good set of drain rods.  However, I couldn't see how she could get them to the school safely, as she doesn't have a trailer or panniers.  So last night I said I'd cycle to school with our little one and take the rods and do the drain clearing.  But this morning he wasn't very well and so didn't go.  However, the drain was overflowing and needed doing asap, so I cycled over anyway and did it. 

I couldn't get the drain grate up with my hands, so I went back to the office and Maurice took me to the cellar where there were a selection of tools, and I selected a couple of potential levers which looked as if they might work.  One of them did, easily, and then the drain rod plunger did the trick pretty easily.  There was a horizontal drain flowing into the bigger drain, and I shoved four rods up this too, as it seemed to have a lot of muck in it, and that was a good thing to do too, as a lot of muck came out!  A good job well done.

I took advantage of the fact that I was near the waste-land sycamore logs and branches and brought another load home! 

I spent most of the rest of the morning doing some work in the front garden, and continued my attempt at doing an arty logpile.  Then I came in for a couple of hours over lunch and continued outside afterwards.  At about 4pm, my eldest son came out and helped with the logpile art project, which was really nice.  I worked til after 6 and came in as at 7, I was going to go to Cafe Scientifique with my boy who likes that meeting, but he wasn't feeling well enough so we stayed in.

I had a fairly quiet evening, punctuated by a phone call from Nomy about meeting up next week in Manchester, and I also did some planning for the forthcoming Community Composting Network Conference and AGM in Sheffield over the weekend.