Monday 4th October 10

Quite a good day, despite my having a headache for much of it.  Before lunchtime I did a bit of leafleting, just an hour and a half, and met one of my Press friends, investigating a shed fire which might have been something more sinister.  I spent an hour and a half on that round, and at the end, popped into see Debbie and spent 15 minutes with her... then lunch, then assorted stuff around the house.

Probably the most interesting thing today was that I had a conversation on the phone with Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak , the inventor of Promession.  I'd found an interesting website about high speed, high temperature aerobic decomposition of food waste, called Vertal.  Susanne saw the link and wanted to talk to me about the process, and share her opinion about it, which was very interesting.  We then discussed the latest developments regarding Promession, and it's UK-based competitor Cryomation.  See this blog post for a description of some of the conference last week that I couldn't go to. I wish I'd been able to go... but I was at a York Rotters meeting.  We then had a chat about another 'green funeral' development which I'm involved with, and I was surprised with her feedback on that, but I respect her views as a biologist and as someone who's been researching biological disposal of bodies for years.  I was really glad to have this conversation.

At 6pm, my Green Party friend Will arrived, and he took a load of leaflets and went to deliver them in one of the areas of Hull Road Ward.  I had my tea, pasta and cauliflower with a few other bits, and at 7, went down the garden to find some apples and take them to the YorkLETS meeting. This was, as usual, at the Seahorse Hotel, and the attendance was a 100% increase on last month... there were four of us!  A good meeting, we made a decision about the percentage of sterling allowable in any LETS trade. I sold 3 Yorkys worth of apples.

When I got home, there was a phone call from Geoff, one of the attendees, who'd left his bag at the pub, and asked if I could retrieve it tomorrow.

Through facebook, I had a good conversation with the American woman who's developing the 'green funeral' concept, and we talked through what Susanne had said.  Fascinating subject area. Another good conversation.