Sunday 11th November 07

A very pleasant day, as had a reasonably good lie-in, and the children just got on with their thing and didn't disturb or pester. Can't remember what I did in the morning, but it was out in the garden, came in for 11.30 to watch Countryfile and have lunch. However I do remember I did wash and blanch a lot of grapes, and set them to dry on top of the big stove to make raisins. I also popped round to Ben and Jill as they had offered me some wood for the stove, so I came home with that and chopped it up in less than 5 mins.

Sometime after lunch, our friend Alison rang and said that she'd like to donate a chair to us, she doesn't want it anymore, and her ex-boyfriend Jonathan was coming to pick up either one of us to go and decide if we wanted this armchair. Gill opted to stay in, and sent me, which was good as I was able to have a rare conversation with Jonathan, one of my best friends, and when we got to Alison's, and I'd said an enthusiastic YES to the armchair, I helped her sort out her compost bin (which I installed last year) by carefully scraping out the bottom layer from under all the younger stuff, removing the few twigs for recomposting, removing the few non-compostables for the bin, and fluffing up the good composted stuff for overwintering in a couple of black plastic bin bags, which I had brought with me as I knew they were doing some hedge trimming as well. Once I had done with the compost bin, I helped with the hedge trimming, firstly by gathering up the long woody twigs, some over 1 metre long, and bagging them up so they'll go through my shredder, and then wielding the electric hedgetrimmer as both Jonathan and Alison had done quite a bit. We did 3 hedges, two privet and one leylandii. I only brought the privet home with me, as leylandii composts too slowly and is a bit of a nuisance, so that was stuffed in the council green bin for them to process. Jonathan then drove me home with the armchair and 5 sacks of privet cuttings. Gill was delighted with the chair, it will replace a very old falling-to-bits one which I now have to remove and dispose of. Later this week, I expect.

It was dark when I got in, so did some washing up and ate the tea which Gill had invented, a cottage pie using a load of sweet potatoes from Out Of This World yesterday and the tomato and leek sauce I made yesterday. Plus assorted vegetables.

Lit the small stove in the front room as it is a very cold day, it's only the second time this Autumn I've done this.

I watched a good drama with Gill, about learner drivers, and I shelled loads of pumpkin seeds at the same time, then went online and did blog and emails.