Well, I am beginning to get into my stride on Twitter. My "tweets" (how cute) are coming thick and fast. They won't win any prizes for being earth shattering but they draw a picture of my life. I am slowly picking up more people to follow too, which is good and very interesting. Naturally, my first stop was Lance Armstrong but I have subsequently added George Hincapie and Floyd Landis. Floyd was busted out of the Tour a couple of years back after doing one of those amazing rides that only the Tour produces where you watch levels of suffering that ought to be illegal under the Geneva Convention. He made up an awesome amount of time and shortly after, tested positive for testosterone at absurdly high levels. So out he went, various appeals (lost) later and he has served his ban and is coming back into the pro sport. So this year is shaping up to be most interesting, bikewise. I may add more people as I think of them. I am open to suggestions, and of course if you tweet, please let me know - alternatively you may want to "follow" my tweets (if you were really desperate for news!).

This evening, we watched a programme taped from last night - featuring Jamie Oliver on pork production. Basically, it was an expose of the appalling lack of welfare in the rest of Europe, a plea for us to buy British but an exploration of how labelling makes that difficult and some encouragement to eat a wider variety of pork cuts. Along the way, we saw pigs being born, being castrated (currently done without anaesthetic), AI for pigs (both harvesting and insertion), being killed and a variety of living regimes. The recent furore over carcinogens in Irish pork revealed the difficulty in singling out British meat. Generally, we buy only British pork for us and I look for "outdoor reared" and the red tractor sign in shops or better still buy at the farmers market from the producer. However, we do occasionally buy Continental cooked meats such as Parma ham or German salami, and I regularly buy cheap processed ham for the dogs. We buy very little processed food these days but will review as we go. Fortunately our local butcher does excellent home cured bacon from local farms, and we get Porkinsons sausages (outdoor reared) or again ones from the farmers market. It was however quite depressing viewing at times to see intelligent inquisitive animals confined in horrible stalls without being able to turn round or see daylight or express any natural behaviour. Jamie made the point that the public sector in the UK should be leading the way in buying and supporting British pork and bacon. He highlighted the Treasury and the Met police. I would be very interested to know what DEFRA does and also the Welsh Assembly. I wish local Councils would do more on this issue. think of the number of staff canteens and restaurants that local Councils operate.

Afterwards, continued stitching a snowdrop sampler I am working on. Off to bed shortly. I am still feeling tired and under the weather after having this cold although I am much better than earlier in the week.