This week’s trip to the Love Apple inspired more weaving. Not flyers this time though, oh no. Ginger beer cans.

I made some warp (the upright bits) and weft (the across bits):

And the results are after the “Read more” oojie.
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I usually just have leftovers or ramen noodles for my lunch these days for the cheap and easiness factors but since we went shopping last night, today I had cream cheese and red jalapenos on a halved, then toasted floury, pavé-style french bread thing. It looked and tasted great. The jalapenos were very sweet, like spicy pickled peppers, and their subtle spice and not so subtle tanginess set off the creamy cream cheese very well indeed. I wish that I had taken a picture to remember it by AND made double the amount.

Well, it’s exactly a month since I officially finished work and it has been pretty much entirely awesome.

Amongst other things, I have:

• got much better at juggling (as long as I’ve got room to walk about)
• worked on a whole multitude of different projects I’ve been meaning to do for a while
• relaxed a lot
• babied my vegetables in the garden (aside from the slug damage, all going well)
• set plenty of time aside for reading since I don’t do it on the bus now
• got a bargainacious haircut at the local tech college – £2!
• not been bored for more than a few minutes at a time because there is always something interesting to do
• written some stuff
• invented two new great nickname for Carla – “Tubitha” and in relation to her current conjunctivitis gack, “Sticky-Eye Ay”
• protested against George Bush Snr’s visit to Yorkshire
• made bread on a few occasions
• taught my tastebuds to like sunflower seeds
• been grateful that I’ve not had commute and the like on the hot hot days of the last few week
• started making some plans for the future
• annoyed the cats by sitting in their favourite day-time sleeping spot
• sorted out loads of old stuff to ebay
• listened to a lot of music I’ve not listened to for a long time – and saw Gomez live again for the first time in years
• slept a decent amount every night and woken up in my own time (which makes for a far better mental state for the day)
• got better organised
• appeared in the local paper promoting Recycle This – and generally been pretty pleased with how Recycle This is going
• spent time reading about ways to make my life more sustainable so I, hopefully, won’t have to return to full time work
• been a whole lot happier

Today has been a fun day.

This afternoon I managed to combine three of my joint loves: recycling, making a noise and shouting at war criminals — we went to Harrogate to shout at George Bush (Snr) and his comrades at a Business Conference (he was talking, they were fawning), and made some rattles out of tomato/bean cans and out-of-date dried peas to shake while we were there (they were pleasantly noisy, just not as loud as the samba band that was there).

Then after a long, long traffic jam journey back south, we ate nachos and made merry before going for a curry. Mmm, curry on a belly full of nachos.

Then we went on a walk and a play in Heaton Woods in Bradford – John found a rope swing at the top of a scarily steep slope, and later on Gianni and I stepping-stoned across the stream and had to fight the evil bridge keeper (Kev) with our staves in order to be allowed back over to the main side of the woods. (There were many role-playing/MMORPG jokes made re: the staves. Only John and I got them, and I think John was faking to seem l33t.) Funny photos to follow.

A smashing day.