I've done no studying this weekend. On Saturday I had a quiet day and caught up with some seed planting; yesterday P and I went to Selby to visit my in-laws, cook lunch and say happy mother's day. Then we came home again.

This week I will mostly be working on ... my second sustainable technology assignment. I haven't had a chance to check up on my soil experiment - I might be able to do that tonight.

Can you tell I'm excited? I've just started my first chemistry experiment for my course. I have dug up some soil from the garden and put it in a jam jar. Filled the jam jar 3/4 full with water, then put the lid on and shaken it vigorously for a full minute. It's now sitting on the kitchen windowsill. This time tomorrow I will be able to see what makes up my soil :)

You might have gathered from the lack of posts that the perkiness wore off ;) It's been a long week at work and I'm glad it's over. But there is good news - our new sofa has arrived at the warehouse and could be delivered next week! The rest of the furniture will be a little while longer.

I'm feeling really perky this morning, since P and I got up early and went for a swim before work. It was the first time I'd worn my contact lenses and goggles whilst swimming and I had my first clear glimpse of the underwater world in ages!

P was out on Friday evening and as it was just me for dinner I made Experimental Lentils, which I made up based on an idea in Nigel Slater's Fast Food book and the contents of the fridge. I cooked some brown rice and while it was boiling I fried an onion and a clove of garlic in butter until they were soft, then added half a can of lentils and a glug of olive oil and let that cook for a few minutes together with some dried herbs, and a good splash each of soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce. When the rice was done I drained it and added it into the lentils with some chopped up leaf beet leaves (spinach or anything similar would work here) and some cress and cooked it through until the leaf beet had wilted. At which point I ate it. Yummy, and very hearty!

For my course this morning I've done an energy survey of our house (with the help of a computer program which does all the tough bits). We came out with an NHER rating of 7.1, which is above average and very good for a house of this age. I think this is primarily due to the funky new heating/hot water system we put in last summer which we love to bits and which is very efficient. And our almost compulsive use of low energy lightbulbs!

One of the neighbourhood cats has used one of my tubs of garlic as a toilet. This despite the fact that its a small tub, raised on bricks, and was frosted over at the time. I have repaired the damage as best I can and stuck in some skewers to make the tub and the one next to it less attractive. But be warned, cats, this means that the amnesty is over. Next time I see any of you in the garden I will be spraying you with nasty cold water!

Found it!

I've also lost the video I now need to watch for the same course. I've searched all morning and I can't find any trace of it. Damn.

But my mood has been somewhat lifted since I received the result for my Life in the Oceans course and I got 93! Which I imagine is a percentage, but apparently I will receive more detailed feedback on my performance shortly.

I am somewhat demoralised having come home to a score of 71% in my first sustainable technology assignment. Hopefully I'll feel better about it in the morning.

Nothing I have heard or seen has convinced me of the necessity of a war against Iraq at this point in time and I remain against it.

However, we are now at war so we all need to face up to the reality and do as much as we can to ease the suffering of innocent civilians.

Oxfam are one of the groups which will be attempting to do this and they will need as much of our help as we can give.

I've had a very busy week working on my first chemistry assignment, but it's finished YAY! I posted it off this lunch time.

P and I had a very productive weekend, clearing out junk and doing some work in the garden. I also sorted out all the paper work which had been piling up and planted some more seeds - salad leaves, radish and beetroot.

In other news, the vermiculite is working - the seeds planted in vermiculite are staying completely fly free and 4 of the lettuce seeds have germinated!

It's been a hectic day, collecting money for Comic Relief. I sold 500 raffle tickets and all the seedlings I took in, and raised over £200. Other people at work did other things and as a company the final total will probably be in excess of £600!

I picked the second chilli pepper yesterday afternoon as we were planning on having stir-fry for tea. We didn't, so it's in the fridge at the moment. That was Pickles's chilli. Perky is growing its second pepper and Pinky is growing its first :)

The OU have sent me the video I requested of the tv programmes I missed. In fact, the video has the whole series on it, so I don't need to worry about videoing the last two. Phew!

I've just been called into work for the first time ever - to do a virus alert. The virus analyst on duty did all the hard work, he just needed some help putting it all up on the website, since he'd never done that before. So, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: W32/Deloder-A!

Before that I was planting some more seeds. I've cleared everything which hadn't germinated out of the first propagator and the new seeds have gone in there. This time I've planted them in vermiculite which is completely soil free and hence should not attract the dratted fungus gnats. The tomato, leaf beet and pepper seeds which are still likely to germinate are in the second propagator.

After 2 days of junk food (Thursday was a Crispy Duck day after a severely yukky afternoon at work and Friday was KFC before the concert) it's nice to have just eaten a big home cooked meal. We had aloo chana, which is basically chana masala with diced potatoes instead of half the chickpeas. Very yummy. And P made the first smoothie he's made for ages - a can of raspberries, a can of mangoes and orange juice all blitzed together - a creation he has named Furious Milly. No, I don't know why.

I went to my second-ever concert last night. The last one was 10 years ago. I should think it will be at least another 10 years before I go to another. I'm not really cut out for dealing with big crowds, lots of noise and lots of smoke. Feeling decidedly not well today.

I've been thinking about what I'm going to do with all the lovely vegetables I'm planning to grow this year (currently only wishful thinking, but we may start working on the garden soon). Searching for interesting ideas on the internet, I came across the Fresh Food Cookbook, which is a searchable recipe site designed for people who get veggie boxes delivered every week. But there's no reason the rest of us can't use it too! You type in the name of the ingredient you have and it comes up with lots of recipe suggestions. It has recipes for some more unusual things, like chard, too.

Latest odd searches which have resulted in a hit here:

lingerie male
"lebanese porn"
squeaky windscreen wipers
download Vilmorin The Vegetable Garden book
starting giant crimson radish seeds
my broken leg, pictures, bicycle
free viola piece- happy birthday
Millet-pillow

Anyone want to try and write a story with that lot???

I'm going to go down in history as the worst organised student ever - I've forgotten to video the next two chemistry programmes as well. There are only 2 left! But I have an excuse - I feel rotten :(

Got a bit snuffly cold and not really up to much.

We've just had the ceremonial eating of the first chilli pepper. I cut Perky's big fat pepper off and gave it to several willing victims here at work.

The verdict? The pepper flesh is tasty and the seeds pack quite a punch! The chilli heads thought it was pretty good!

(Sounds like I will be safe eating the peppers if I avoid the seeds ;)

I'd mostly given up doing quizzes, but this one (which Amethyst pointed me towards) is pretty funny:


congratulations. you are the kiss my ass happy
bunny. You don't care about anyone or anything.
You must be so proud


which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

So I've sent off the form to the Open University to lend me a copy of the programmes I should have taped. Don't know how long they will take to arrive. I was supposed to go to a tutorial this morning, but didn't. Instead, I helped Pete repopulate his wardrobe. Since then we've been clearing junk out - 4 bin bags of stuff and a couple of boxes of breakable things have been taken to the charity shop :)