Wednesday 18th March 09

I got up quite early and put the seed potatoes I bought a while ago into egg boxes for chitting. I'll put these trays of egg boxes in the loft under window so the shoots go green and stay relatively short, before planting them mainly in the allotment when the risk of frost has reduced. If the shoots are coming through, and a frost is forecast, I'll have to go up there and earth them up to protect them.

I took our youngest to school and came back in good time to meet the first of my two visitors this morning. Marabel arrived first, then Lizzie, both people from York in Transition. Marabel is undertaking an MSc on the embodied carbon footprint of buildings compared with the energy used within them during their 'lifetime'. Lizzie is a student too, but I cannot remember what her subject is. They asked to come and see how I managed to live with a carbon footprint of about a twelfth of the UK average.

So we sat and chatted and had a 'past it's sell-by date' instant chai-tea ('just add hot water') plus dried fruit, and discussed needs versus wants, black/white and grey-areas, and a variety of other interesting conversations connected to ethical lifestyles.

We had a fairly leisurely wander down the garden and then off to St Nicks. Lizzie wasn't on a bike, so I gave her a lift sitting on the rack behind me. Initially she was a bit unsure of this but once we got going she told me she was enjoying the ride.

I did my usual tour around the Environment Centre, and then around the nature reserve, where they left to go to the North of the City, and I cycled out of the area via Freshways where I collected a bag of compostables. I was back in time for a 1pm lunch.

I did a bit of 'office' type stuff after lunch, despite nice weather outside... took a couple of phone calls and did some essential emailing. But I also did a bit of logpile building, including some of the slowly growing 'arty' pile.

I went down to school to collect our youngster but he wanted to stop and participate in the streetsports activities, cycling around the playground with ramps provided by the City of York Council's play team. He therefore stayed with a friend, and I agreed with the friend's Mum that I'd collect them both at 4.30 and bring them home, were she could collect him when she was ready. Which is exactly what happened.

I visited Country Fresh at 5ish, and Scummerfield too, on the way back. Whilst I was having tea, Anita and Bruno came round to pick up their SUMA stuff, after it had been sitting in our hall for weeks!

The boys went to bed early, after several very late nights.