Thursday 9th July 09

A productive day, although lots of it was paperwork and sorting things out. Got the train times worked out, more or less, and sent 70 euros over to the Netherlands to pay for my questionnaire to be hosted for this year... and various other bits and bobs. I visited Freshways and stopped to chat to some guys who were chopping down a load of trees on Lilac Avenue, and shredding the branches and putting the shreddings in a skip. They were happy enough for me to go and get some sacks (10) and fill them with shreddings. I also picked up some branches of the beech tree they'd taken out, and they seemed to be having some problems with their hired chainsaw, I told them that I too had a difficulty with mine. They needed a bit of oil to lubricate the chain, so I said they could have some of mine. One of the chaps offered to bring round some more sticks and collect the small volume of oil they needed. So we both benefited.

I really enjoyed my avocado sandwich for lunch.

In the afternoon I had a meeting in town and then cycled up to Cutters/Shannons with my electric chainsaw which has a loose connection, and hopefully they'll be able to repair it. From there I went to find Randy's house, as he wanted help filling in the York Green Festival paperwork. I was impressed with his solar panel set-up, designed to recharge his laptop, phone, radio and LED light they use for bathtimes and breastfeeding. Excellent... a bit complicated, but really interesting.

We spent two hours doing the forms, many of which are exactly the same as last year's, but little details have to be altered.

I got back at 8 and had a big bowl of borscht followed by Gill's aubergine and cauliflower bake which was delicious. Then I popped out to collect the 10 sacks of shreddings and more logs. I met a neighbour (Brian) who overlooked where these trees used to be, and helped him load his wheelbarrow with a huge log, and he helped me with a big one onto my trailer. There are still several enormous logs there. In by 10.15 pretty exhausted.