Monday 19th July 10

No lie in as the phone rang and woke me. But I'd got quite a bit to do so I got up.

I first worked out the train times to Harrogate and the whereabouts of the Cedar Court Hotel, as I've got my first RSA meeting tonight. I used Googlemaps to pinpoint the hotel, and drew a basic map on the back of an envelope so I could walk from the station to the hotel.

Gill was doing accounts, and we worked together on this task, mainly me interpreting scrawls in the diary! She asked me to tell her how much I'd earned selling compost, so I looked through the diary and marked things there, but also needed to check my blog, to see how much has been taken to Country Fresh, so I spent quite a long time checking this blog for any mention of taking compost down to the shop, and started listing these loads plus other compost sales. I've done April, May and June. OK, 3/4 of the year to go!!! I had two Fiddlesticks letters to deal with and one phone call. I spent most of the day doing this, until 3pm when I got dressed and had an hour and a half in the garden.

But at 4.30ish I came in as my train was at 5.17, in order to get me to Harrogate by the 6.30 meeting start time. I took a sandwich with me to eat on the train and chatted with a chap who works for the people doing the 'Scores On The Doors' website which tell users of catering establishments how good the place is from the perspective of the local authority hygiene inspectors.

When I got to Harrogate it was raining and I followed my map, but unfortunately the Googlemap had the hotel in the wrong place, and I had several minutes of being confused before retracing my steps and asking a local where the Cedar Court Hotel was. So I found it and there were already quite a few Fellows there.

I said hello and went to get a drink, a pint bottle of pear cider was a whopping £4.50, very expensive. I won't be drinking there again! The meeting was good, met some interesting people, quite a selection, although most (all but one, I think!) were older than me. We had time to chat and move around, then the facilitator, Marion Simon, introduced a gentleman who wanted to float an idea to have a regular meeting in a Community Cafe in Harrogate, to attract young people to make a difference and perhaps get better employment possibilities. He also mentioned about promoting low carbon lifestyles and low carbon businesses, which made me take more notice. I said I might be interested in getting involved to some extent, and suggested that the Transition process might be a good one to look at for inspiration. No-one in the group had heard of Transition Towns... I was flabbergasted!

There was a bit of discussion and a few more ideas floated, and then it kind of drifted into the end of the meeting, with no real way forward other than the suggestion of doing 'something' at this cafe. I look forward to the notes being sent out to see if I had a 'petit-mal' and missed a whole chunk of the meeting somehow!

A few people wanted to chat to me afterwards so I must have made some kind of good impression, a chap who knows Edward Harland and another who's about to get involved with the Credit Union.

I was offered a lift to the station in a posh car which was going in that direction anyway so I accepted.

Uneventful train trip home, nice cycle home, and during the evening I contacted both Googlemaps and the Cedar Court Hotel people about the inaccuracies in their map.

When I went on my blog to write up the day, I noticed that today I've passed the 30,000 visitors mark with the Bravenet Counter thingy I installed in 2008! Amazing. Thank you to all visitors who've enjoyed reading my diary.