Yesterday I went with Pam Dorr, an outreacher from last year who is staying on this year doing housing work, on her weekly visit to the girls detention centre, where she has been making a vegetable garden for the last year. Great fun pulling sweet potatoes and other produce, the last of the year before it is ploughed up for winter crops. The girls are fun and boisterous, and nicknamed me 'Miss England'. It's a non-secure centre where they are sent for good behaviour but their crimes range from grand theft larceny downwards. One said she had been thrown out of every school in her home county. The day before, three girls had tried to run away, despite one being only a week away from her release, and they had been sent back to the lock-down prison.

We took home masses of sweet potato and aubergine (sorry, eggplant) which made a really good dinner...


Afterwards, we went for beers at the Shack, a redneck bar outside Marion. Very redneck: cans of Budweiser and peanut shells all over the floor, a jukebox of country music and the presidential debate on the TV. No prizes for guessing who they all will vote for.


Today was Saturday, which for me meant getting up super-early to go to all the shops I wanted to before they all close at lunchtime (hardware store, thrift shop, flea market). Then it was a big work day at Beacon Street with lots of noise and dirt: Charles power-washing the floor, me building a kitchen worktop, Phillip building a planter on our front porch, and Cara-Mae making beautiful bread with pomegranate seeds.