My vegetable patch this year

The purpose of this second postis to try to insert a photograph. I have managed to upload a picture of myself - very unflattering, taken by me holding up the camera. So let's see if this time (third attempt at this) I can manage it.

Doesn't look good - a load of gibberish above this, which I hope will translate into a photo when I "publish" it.

This was a fairly typical day's picking from the vegetable patch (and I didn't harvest every day). Luckily I live on my own and have a good lunch at work.

Autumn has come!

This morning my north facing, single-glazed bathroom window had condensation. My north-facing double-glazed bedroom window was steamed up, but my other windows were fine (forgot to check the conservatory windows).

I left on my bike at 9am in a long-sleeved top in a thick material, but was glad I had put my winter bike jacket in my saddle bag, as I soon stopped to put that on, plus the gloves in the pocket. Back by 10.30, and, although much warmer, I didn't feel hot.

My garden at 8 am looked as if there had been a heavy dew. By the time I got to the Lea Valley, along by the west side of the old Essex filter beds, the grass in places was white. The Navigation was steaming - so the water was presumably warmer than the air. There didn't seem much rubbish in the water. Denis at my kayak club claims it sinks in cold weather, and I suspect he is right,

I went down the Navigation, half way along the Hertford Union, round the east of Victoria Park and back, a route I haven't done since the Spring.

The leaves are beginning to turn, but no real autumn colour yet.

Price of logs generally high, not just mine!

Out with friends today, and one, Tina who live in Sudbury, Suffolk, also has a wood burning stove. She got a load of logs for £125 this year, much more expensive than last year. So my £195 - also much more expensive than last year - is probably only the usual London price.

Hopefully as more and more people have wood burning stoves installed, the managed woodland providing the wood also increases - we can't rely on tree surgeons!

I've got visitors next Sunday and plan to have the stove lit for the first time this winter then. Nice in the sunshine in the middle of the day, but chilly mornings - I'll be waiting for the water to run hot for my morning wash from now on! Light frost on the edge of London (Chingford) this morning.

Green connections

Went to a Transition Leytonstone evening on "your money or your life". This was a follow-up to the talk by the blogger Stoneleigh where I had been very depressed by her predictions of a depression worse than the 1930s because of the housing bubble. As someone without sellable practical skills and savings the outlook if she is right isn't good at all!

Yesterday did not cheer me up ref the financial situation, but I have got an application form so I can join the local Credit Union (as a depositer), I met Sarah and we discussed our vegetable plots, and she told me about a very sweet plant and the name of the nursery I can get it from. I was able to get some advice about the replacing of my window where the seal on the double glazing has gone (don't bother with triple glazing). And I met and chatted with several other people I know from Transition Leytonstone and other green events.

Solar powered flats

The two blocks of 3 storey flats behind my house are having solar panels fitted. One is having them on the south roof, the other on the west roof. I haven't gone round to check, but from the scaffolding it looks as if the flats with the panels on the west roof are not having them on the east roof to catch the morning sun.

Logs for stove arrive

Last 2 years it has taken me 2 hours to take logs through house and stack them.

Today I had to take the logs through the house and leave them to go for a boden session (which I didn't make due to the Victoria line being suspended - and they think signal failure is not going to happen during the Olympics?!). This took me an hour. Then when I got back it took me 2 hours to stack. The pile looks bigger than usual, but I think this is because the logs are much more of a mixed size, so the pile is not so neat.

In my hammock in October

Both yesterday and today (Sunday) I have spent time in my hammock, in the shade under my neighbours' overhanging ash tree. And in a short-sleeved t-shirt too.

It is said the greenest thing to do is often to do nothing, so I have been very green!