Friday 7th September 07

A good day! Gill walked the boys to school and I got a bit of a lie-in... however went downstairs at 8.25 and they'd gone already, so I did the washing up with some warm water from last night, made up my muesli with Suma Muesli Base and lots of home-made dried fruit and pumpkin seeds rescued from unwanted pumpkins. Then we watched the Yorkshire Air Ambulence programme again, cuddling on the sofa.

Gill spent some of the day sorting out our youngest son's room, tidying and vacuuming, and re-aranging his bed. I did more in the garden, digging out a compost heap and putting it all back.

Gill brought the boys back from school as well, which gave me space and time I really wanted/needed.

In the evening, I went to the Critical Mass Cycle Ride, which meets at the Minster at 5.30, leaving at 6pm. I was pleased to meet Dave, who used to run a cycle repair place on Terry Avenue where Bikerescue is now situated. He is brother of my friend Debbie who lives over the road, so interesting to meet up with him. Also there was a social work student called Sarah and a lady called Kay who is involved in quite a lot of things in York... about 20 on this Critical Mass. We set off and headed up Gillygate, as a 'peloton', or group, which is traditional Critical Mass behaviour. Then to Wigginton Road and Kingsway North. Whilst we were going towards Clifton Green, a car which had been slowed by our peloton overtook, mounting the pavement of the opposite side of the road, and coming back onto the left side of the road at the traffic lights, with the front half of his car in the cycle box. Cyclists caught up, and surrounded the car, I slipped in front of him in the cycle box. One of our number had a word with the driver about his driving, and the driver was rude, threw something at the cyclist and said that if any cyclist got in his way, he'd run them over. Another cyclist berated him for being in the cycle box, which must have wound him up more. When the lights went green, I moved off and the car came up behind me and pushed against my trailer, which overturned as it was pushed aside by the idiot driver. I got his registration and immediately after getting my trailer off the road, wrote it down. As I was doing this, a local resident who'd witnessed the whole thing came out of his house and offered me his name and phone number as a witness. I wasn't hurt, or much shaken, and in truth, I don't blame the car driver 100% as our actions must have aggrivated him. However I do think he shouldn't have contacted the trailer and crashed into it, and he should have stopped as he'd been involved in an accident. I decided to report the incident to the police when I next had time. The rest of the ride went off without incident and was pleasent and good humoured... lots of people waving at us, and some car drivers hooting to support us, with thumbs up signals. We have a habit of moving aside for public transport to get through, as we are pro-public transport and our 'issues' are with drivers of private cars, some of whom behave as if they rule the road. They don't, of course, as car drivers need a licence to use the road.

We all met up at the Ackhorne pub off Micklegate afterwards, and had a wide-ranging discussion and some good natured conversations.

A good evening, and I felt I had learned a lesson, viz not pissing off car drivers over much and not to inflame the tempers of drivers of 2 tonnes of metal. Our lives and machines are too precious to lose in order to make a point. I'll be more careful in the future!

Home before 10pm and had a good evening. Gill had recorded a programme on C4 called The Great Green Debate, so watched that whilst blogging and answering emails.