Thursday 28th January 10

Up relatively early compared to recent days, and by 10 was doing housework and being busy. A bit later in the morning I went to do some work in the garden, which was lovely as the sun was shining. I did more of the annual bramble pruning and some more compost heap construction.

Gill had an appointment in town so I went to our youngest son's class assembly, where the class puts on a little play or show. I didn't realise that my lad was the compere! He introduced the 3 different groups (Eboracum Romans 2000 years ago, Georgian ladies and today's schoolkids) and at a couple of intervals he helped explain the plot. He has a lovely clear voice and did it with confidence. I was really proud of him. But then he wanted to go to drama club, and be picked up at 4pm. So I cycled back home, did half an hour's sawing with the bowsaw, and cycled back. We then walked home together, which was nice.

I did a little more outdoor work but had a Fiddlesticks enquiry, and some interesting emails to deal with. Catherine from York Rotters started a facebook page for York Rotters, which is great, and I invited lots of my friends to join that. I also saw that my blog counter had gone past 20,000, which is pretty amazing. That's since Sept 08.

We had a small tea, Gill had made some rissoles with the rice from yesterday and she made 'burgers' with them, one each in a roll. Bits and bobs of salad, was very nice.

So, during the evening I had a lot of computery work to do, I did this whilst half-watching the TV and keeping the stove going as it has gone cold again. Brrrrrr.....

Saturday 9th February 08

Got up at the normal time but went back to bed for a half hour whilst the children were playing in the garden. At 10ish I went outside and did some more work with the motorised riddle, attracting lots of attention from several robins. Came in at 1pm for lunch but had to break off to tell both boys off for over-reacting and being provocative, and not doing what their parents tell them.

However after a strained lunch, I offered to take the boys out to the park, where they could play with a helicopter toy and not lose it over a hedge and wave sticks around (both of them are very attached to a staff/gunstick/pointystick/weapon thing) and have a bit of a game of frisbee with me. I knew they'd get bored with the 'organised' activities fairly soon so I took my bowsaw to help demolish a fallen tree which has been left for folks to take.

We had a bit of fun with the frisbee and helicopter toy and then they went to explore so I did a bit of woodchopping, alongside a chap with a petrol chainsaw who was friendly but got exasperated with it being blunt, and seeing that my bowsaw was quicker!

Gill popped into the park to check we were allright and we came back with her. I did some more riddling and came in at 6. Tea was a reheat stew thing on top of some pasta.

A quiet evening, did some Facebook stuff, chatted on Googletalk, went on the CRAG website, visited a good blog and did some surfing. Bed rather late, after 2am.