Thursday 5th February 09

Gill took our youngest into school and I had a lie in... thank you Gill, I needed it.

Gill and I had a lazy and enjoyable morning.

I tried to prepare some notes for tonight but kept on getting distracted. I think that detailed notes won't actually be necessary.

Had an early lunch and then headed into town to get some money out to buy a block of 10 tickets for Carbon Detox on March 3rd at the Theatre Royal. Met up with Edward and co in the Theatre and he told me the password for the block of ten cheap tickets... just £5 each!

Home via the cycle track where a large group of workers were taking down quite a lot of trees, shredding the branches but leaving the cut up trunks. They were happy for me to take some on the trailer, and invited me to take as much as I could... there must be over a tonne. Nice!

I picked up our little one and he came back on the luggage rack, as it's still too slippery for him to cycle safely and confidently. I'm happy to, though... I've been cycling in snow and ice lots... nothing puts me off!

When I got back I did some more washing up and had a bowl of soup and a sandwich, and did manage to think about my talk to the York Pain Management Support Group tonight. At 5.40 I set off for the hospital where I had agreed to meet Jess, who is going to supervise me (!) and make sure I get my facts right, and hopefully add some of her own expertise too.

Jess appeared soon after I arrived and we had a sit down and chat, and the structure of the talk became clearer. I would first say what the talk was going to be about (Climate Change, Peak Oil, York in Transition and what we could do) and then introduce Jess and myself. The Climate section would have info about the greenhouse effect, gases and the sorts of activities that these gases come from, plus the complications from positive and negative feedbacks, and some of the possible effects of increased greenhouse effect. Then the peak oil section would be pretty straightforward... about Hubbert's predictions and how they came true, and what the post-peak would mean for humanity. The Transition Towns bit too would be fairly simple, with Jess doing her bit about inclusion and participation re the non-usual suspects, including people with disabilities. We'd talk about York in Transition and what our aims are, to probably focus on food. Finally I'd talk through some of the things that we can do to reduce our impact, including diet, reducing our resource use, recycling and composting, plus ideas such as calculating your carbon footprint. We'd invite them to get on YiT's email list and to come to the Carbon Detox show.

Then we walked over to the venue on White Cross Road and met the organisers. After 15 minutes, just six people had turned up... they usually get between 5 and 20. The cold icy weather had probably put some folks off. The group organiser bought us both a drink and soon I was invited to start. The talk went well and there were quite a few questions afterwards, and comments and anecdotes.

We left at about 8.45pm, and walked along the cycle track together... I collected a good stash of logs and then parted company with Jess. I got home soon after 9.30, and rang Ben who had rung Gill, saying the memory chip had arrived. He came to fit it... this took just 2 minutes and he went. My computer now works more quickly... it has 1.24 whatever it is now... double what it used to have!

Watched a good programme on exploring the Amazon on BBC2... a low-carbon method of enjoying the planet.