Monday 9th August 10

Another good day, very busy though, despite getting up at 10am!

After my usual bowl of cereal and soya milk, I got going with stacking about 5 wheelbarrows worth of split 'green' logs, taking then down into the back garden and onto pallets where they will spend a year or more drying, ready for the stoves. Whilst I was down the garden, someone rang up wanting to talk about green funerals; she'd seen the Novaterium.com advert in The Book of Green.

But she didn't leave her number and when Gill did a 1471 call, it was withheld. She said she'd ring back in half an hour. So I worked out at the front, chopping sticks up with loppers and putting them into wooden fruit boxes for stacking and drying for kindling. Then it was lunchtime so I came in and had my usual pile of sandwiches. At 1.45 the phone rang and it was the Novaterium enquirer, Lynne from Morecambe, who was wanting to know more about green funerals but doesn't have internet access. She wanted to know if I could provide the information on paper. I spent 40 minutes talking her through the various options, explaining what the problems are with 'traditional' disposal and the new developments which should be available soon. She was enquiring as someone she knows has a terminal illness and she was hoping to help organise a greener funeral. She might send me an SAE and I'll send her some information which will help her sort something out.

Then it was 2.30, when I'd got an appointment with the volunteer co-ordinator for Woodlands MS Respite Care Centre, where I'm hoping to volunteer in the grounds, as they have lots of logs and branches which need clearing; the groundsman usually just has a bonfire, but I'd like to use some of them, by cutting the branches off the logs and taking the useful stuff away, replacing fossil fuel use with renewable waste wood. So I want to help, but with a good dose of self interest and environmental issues there too. I took my documents... birth certificate, wedding certificate, bank stuff, tax stuff and a couple of others, so I could get CRB checked. Although I'm not going to have any close contact with the guests, all volunteers need CRB checks.

On the way back from Woodlands, I popped in on Debbie, to tell her that I had a sack of dry wood for her, for Debbie Fricker's memorial, and would she like to come and choose a branch for the memory tree thing she wants to do? I had several Lilac branches which might be good for this, so she came over and chose one, and I took the sack of sticks and logs back over to her. She was very pleased.

Then I loaded my trailer up with 2 sacks of soya milk cartons and others, and Gill gave me a sack of clothing and material only suitable for shoddy, and I cycled them down to Hazel Court, where the notice forbidding cycles up on the top level has now definitely gone. I reckon the 'civil disobedience' and letters to the paper must have worked. I'm very pleased with this.

I went on to a pet shop to get fish food, then off to my building society to get out a cheque for British Telecommunications plc for advertising, and to pay a water bill at the bank. Then I popped in to see Dylan as I knew he'd have some oranges for me, and David, Debbie's brother was there so I chatted with him as Dylan was busy. I took 4 sacks of orange skins and coffee grounds, 2 boxes of mostly mouldy oranges and two sacks of plastic bottles. Then I came home, calling in on Freshways where they had a sack for me, which I had to put on the handlebars and tri-bar to get home.

Then I did some composting, fully loading up the Compostumbler and adding to the SunMar Compostflow.

I had carrot soup for tea, then set out to go to Edward's house for a York in Transition Directors Meeting. This was mainly taken up with Anna's funding stuff again, which is causing us significant problems, as she has not consulted the Directors and we hadn't got any documentation. Edward is going to have to go and chat to the Council people, and I have to write a letter to the Neighbourhood Unit about another issue connected with a different set of Anna's Ward funding approaches. However, we may be able to work with the YiT funding applications she's put in, but we'd have to see if we can find volunteers in all 18 wards she's applied to, or find a volunteer or paid co-ordinator to run the scheme citywide.

We worked on these from 7.30 til well after 9.30pm. I visited two skips on the way home for some scrap wood. Later, at midnight, I mashed all the stewed cherry plums to remove the stones, which I took out one by one with a fork. Gill made a cake for our youngest son's birthday tomorrow. Finished this at about 2am.