Sunday 10 June 2007

Sunday 10th June 07

Sunday, and a fairly leisurely morning with breakfast in bed, time with Gill and time in the garden where I planted some beans in the relatively unused circle bed at the bottom, plus another layer of compostables on one of the sit n waits. Then at about lunchtime I had a bath to prepare for today's gig, leaving on the 1.33 train to Doncaster where I'll change trains and get the Bridlington train to Cottingham.

But it didn't work out like that. Once I'd locked my bike up and unloaded my unicycle and bag o bits n bobs and got tickets, I saw the train I was due to get was running 10 mins late and I only have 10 mins turnaround time in Doncaster, meaning that it will be a bit tight. I asked about this at the info stall and they said that nowadays trains wouldn't wait for connecting services. They were curious about the unicycle and how I got on it, and I showed them. Anyway, got the train and whilst on this asked which platform the Bridlington train left from so I wouldn't have to stop and ask or look at info boards. So when got to Doncaster, ran to platform 8 only to see the Brid train leaving. I swore and ran to the station entrance where there was a taxi waiting... and asked the driver how much it would cost to go to Cottingham. He radioed in to his base and came back to me with a quote of £65 so I said go for it. This would mean that I would do the gig but not make much profit, but this would be far better than giving up and going home and letting them down. Whilst heading out of Doncaster, discussed with the driver whether to go to Hull, or to Cottingham, and I used his phone to try to contact my client but her phone was just taking messages. So, because of the 90mph driving and the ability of my driver, I got to Cottingham station 5 mins before the train arrived, with a cost on the clock of £68.80... I gave him £70 and thanked him profusely.

The birthday girl's Dad picked me up and was glad that I'd made it.

The party went as expected, a short circus demo with a go with feather balancing and then a full session of balloon modelling, which we all enjoyed, and then when I was taken back to the station I was given a cheque which was a bit more than I'd expected, which helped cover the train fare. My train came on time and I had a pleasent ride back to Doncaster, and then managed to get an earlier connection than expected and got to York soon after 7pm.

Popped into Out Of Date World and brought a sack of potatoes home, which were sprouting and therefore unsaleable. Also some tofu/veg sticks which had the box damaged but ok apart from that... had them for tea.

After watching Big Brother for a short relaxational while, I went to Martin's Country Fresh (this at about 10pm) and picked up two bags of veg bits, and took then to the lottie for composting there as I'm running out of space at home! On the way to the lottie, met my friend Y2 as I will call her to protect her identity, and we had a very frank talk, as usual, about our life experiences and what worried us and what we did with our lives. I suggested that some voluntary work at St Nicks might help her to sort herself out and help her self esteem, as doing something like that can help you feel as if you are doing something positive and helpful. We walked to the lottie and she watched me do the layer of veg on the current heap, and we walked back to Hes Rd and spent at least 30 mins chatting there...

Back home later than planned but no probs.

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