Thursday 18th March 11

An early start... but not a good one.  Gill forgot to set the alarm and she woke at 8, and then was in a panic about getting to school as she was setting up the shop.  I got up with her and made our youngest's breakfast and lunch, and then made breakfast for our eldest.  They were both awake before us and apologised about not waking Gill when there was a no-show at the normal time. 

However, despite the short time to get ready, they were waiting for the taxi when it came and apparently weren't more than a couple of minutes late into school.

I went round to Maria's with our eldest for his science lesson, and I got busy in the garden.  There was minimal work to do with the compost, and Maria asked me to take out a tree stump.  I found a really good 'trenching spade' which I've never had cause to use before, and with this I was  able to dig a trench round one side and under the bole, and the roots were fairly rotten so the spade went through these, and by 10am, I'd got the trunk tipping over, but it was too heavy for me to lift out by myself, so I'll wait until Johan is around and we'll heave it out together, I should think.

I came home and gave permission to our son to do exactly as he pleased until Gill came home, as he'd started early at Maria's and worked hard.  I did my emails and then went in the lovely spring sunshine and started to prepare the composting area for the re-erection of a pallet compost bin, choosing the pallets to use carefully and wiring them together securely too.

At lunchtime I came in and watched the news and did emails etc, and bought my train ticket to Bristol next Tuesday, as Tracey Smith has invited me to go and help with the Wipe Out Waste Awards.

I did more work in the garden, getting the chicken wire into place and starting to fill the new bin with the contents of the old one which is full.

Had a freegan tarte thing for tea, and then went to the new University Campus for a sort of presentation about the future of energy in the UK.  This was quite good but I didn't learn a lot... except that petrol cars are just 25% efficient, and big diesel lorries are about 35% efficient at turning fuel into motion.  I sat with Carolyn and Geoff, which was interesting.  Came home via a log which was too big for my trailer so I stopped off at Paddy's house and picked up his prunings, as requested.

Thursday 3rd March 11

I woke early with a sort of sense of urgency... not sure why, although I did have several meetings today, and I'm awareI haven't got 50 sacks of compost ready to be collected next weekend and I really need to get that done!

But I didn't dive into the garden, as I had various things to do inside.... lighting the front room stove, as we had a meeting scheduled in there, and the back room stove, as it was cold and we needed washing up water.

Then I washed up.  At 10.30 we were expecting someone to visit, one of their roles was to see how our eldest was getting on with home education.  She didn't turn up... and then we got a phone call... she was expecting us to go there.  However, she hadn't said this.  She came in a taxi, with her guide dog, as she is blind, and spent well over an hour talking with us.

I had another meeting at 1pm, so I grabbed an early lunch and bombed off into town.  After this one, I went to the Steiner School to start the compost bin build.  I leveled some ground a bit and placed two pallets at right-angles against a wall which was also a corner, so forming the other two sides to the heap.  Maurice said he'd bring in a drill with a selection of masonry bits... I'd then choose the right sized bit for purchasing (or finding!) a screw, hook or one of these plus a rawplug to help it stay in the wall.  This will allow the pallets to be fixed to the wall, for safety, as Steiner Kids are all brilliant at climbing and will definitely try to climb on the compost bin.  However, I did sort out a bit of stuff for the base, some assorted twiggy bits.

After this I had a conversation with Angela, one of the teachers, who has a pupil in her class who is trying to learn the 'walking ladder', and has asked me if I'll go in and give them some feedback.  I agreed, despite not being able to do the walking ladder myself!  So that's on Monday.  Should be interesting!

I came home via Alligator, and the Waterstones, where I picked up my 48 copies of Mark Haddon's 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' for World Book Night. Later, I got an email with the 48 unique codes of my books, so I wrote them out in the back cover, so that wherever they end up, my book can be traced back to me as a giver.  However, I had real problems trying to log into their website. 

I enjoyed today, was a good one.  Tomorrow promises to be just as busy!