Friday 11th July 08

I took the children to school... my buckled front wheel still went round, but with a weird noise, so I carried on with what I had arranged to do, which was to continue down to Fulford and meet up with Scott the Scout leader, who was working with a team of volunteers at the Fulford Scout Hall, behind Fulford Social Hall, to 'do' the garden, and had requested my pro-composting, anti driving-stuff-around knowledge, so that was good to be able to help them to decide to have a wild area/composting area.

Then went to Cycle Heaven to get them to sort out my wheel... which they'll rebuild. Then came back home on one of their lovely 'sit up and beg' bikes, and got ready to go to the nearby Catholic School who have booked me to do two one-hour shows. A 'fun' based one for their Reception group and for the older ones, aged 5-7, a circus show/workshop with a smattering of science and maths. I would have cycled had I got my own bike, and would have walked had it not been raining... but rang a taxi because I didn't want everything to get wet and wanted to get there in good time...

The shows went like a dream! The audiences were fantastic and we all had a brilliant time...

I walked back as it wasn't raining too hard, and got back shortly before Gill and the boys.

I had an early tea, went down to Cycle Heaven to pick up my bike... which had got a new wheel and repaired brakes, quite an expensive fall, will have to be more careful when collecting aluminium cans! So came back via a deli on Bishopthorpe Road for goats cheese for Gill, and Country Fresh for potatoes and compostables, and got home soon after 6.

Then went to the Greenspeak meeting which was about carbon footprinting. Ellie Dawkins from the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York did the presentation, talking through what it is and the different definitions, how it's measured and what the results are, for countries, individuals, regions, socio-ecomonic groups, etc. She showed us some distorted maps from a website called Worldmapper, which were very revealing.. specifically toy exports and toy imports, as examples of the inequalities. Carbon calculators were discussed, and policy connected with cutting carbon footprints, and economic issues including something called price elasticity, which is how much increasing prices of different goods affect behaviour... ie some things are very sensitive to price increases, but others are relatively unaffected. It was noted that recently, car use had dropped noticeably due to the increasing cost of fuel.