At the moment I am trying to get all the ingredients for Gordon Ramsey’s cookalong on Friday. Could not get any rhubarb at all! Will try Waitrose as they have the illusion on their website of the rhubarb season lasting to mid-November, but blimey, the rhubarb in the allotment has all died down now, on the neighbour’s plots as well. This is from a chef who has called to outlaw out of season produce! There is no rhubarb in Morrisons, none in Lidl, Somerfield or anywhere in Edinburgh.

The worms are all happily settled in now. All 4000 of them! None of them escaped anymore and there weren’t any more on the top of the lids and only two or so in each of the sump trays. They also seem to start eating the tea bags put in for recycling – they seem to like the peppermint ones in particular – and the worm treats seem to be gone already, too. Micah put some of his burnt and cold toast in; I am wondering if that will work. Nearly every book, leaflet, website and user seem to list different ingredients suitable for vermicomposting and there is quite some contradictory information out there about what can go into the worm bins for recycling and whatnot.

This morning I found the first dozen or so dead worms which committed suicide by escaping from the worm compost bin onto the dry floor. I left the other layers off the worm compost bin as I was worried it would squash the worms but now put them on top to prevent any more break-outs. The other issue I want to keep recorded is that the lid of the can-o-worms does look upside down very much like a tray, and I accidentally thought it was the bottom tray. I hope that when I flopped the whole contents out of the lid into another tray it did not matter that the cardboard used as a mesh did fall into pieces and couldn’t be used anymore.

The first two wormeries arrived today and it was fun putting them together. The Can-O-Worms seems to be rather more useable than the worm factory because the worm factory has its legs actually only clipped on and I am a bit scared that it isn’t secure enough if the weight of the compost and the worms increases; also that it could go brittle after some years. Anyways, Danni and Charlie are going to test out other wormeries which are cheaper, but have no legs like the EcoWormery; and the Executive Wormery is not only green but also UV-light resistant so it should be doing well on a south-facing balcony.

Came back to Scotland in the middle of August and it was quite full-on from then: I got a bit ill with flu-like symptoms, and because I had a tick bite some weeks earlier I was warned to take tetracycline antibiotics if this would happen – of course it could have also been the change into the very cold, grey and rainy Scottish autumn which caused all the headaches and sniffles. But then I got even more ill because of the side-effects of the tetracycline and was again lying flat and sick for over a week. With the Edinburgh festival, we had also about five guests or more staying, apart from that I was applying for jobs, heading for interviews, try to get the dissertation going with my tutor suddenly retired and away, getting the whole MOT car service and yearly renewals out of the way, fetching the guinea pigs and selling on the spare cage, hutch and run now that they moved all in together.