Sunday 10th October 10 10:10:10 Global Work Party Day

Well, a mixed day for me.  I was very sneezy and had a running nose, especially during the first part of the day.  Also, I'd offered to take one of the children swimming to help him with that, but no, he'd decided that the cycle to Yearsley Baths was too much.  I cannot understand why a 15 minute cycle is enough to put someone off.  In fact there were several parenting issues this morning and I felt like a crap Dad, and was glad to get outside and away from the house at midday.

Today has been on my radar for some while.  I am very positive about people making a special effort to 'be green' but I do it most days, my whole life is 'greener' than most.  So I hadn't planned to do anything special for the 350.org 10:10:10 Global Work Party.  But I thought about it and the nearer the date, the more keen I became to do something myself.

I only decided to run my event on the evening of the 8th, and it only went live on the website on the 9th, so although I posted it to facebook, there wasn't much publicity.


I wasn't expecting many people to come, and in the end, no-one did.
BUT I had a really good day managing my composting operations. I had rescued about 200kg of waste fruit and veg from the landfill bins on Thursday and Saturday, and cycled it back home in my bike trailer. I'd also pruned a lot of brambles which fruited earlier this year, so I was able to build good layers on two of my 40 compost heaps. I put the brambles on first, then cardboard, and the chopped wet and sloppy fruit and veg on top of that. The heaps are contained within pallets and material kept in with layers of cardboard up against the wooden pallets.
Additionally, I dug over a builder's bag (one tonne) of mature compost, removed uncomposted sticks and lots of plastic windows from envelopes which were given to me from a school last year for recycling. The plastic will unfortunately get landfilled and the sticks went into the top of one of the heaps I'm currently adding to. The builder's bag full will get bagged up soon in 20 -30kg sacks, and will end up being cycled round to a nearby raised bed being planned by Abundance York, who grow foodplants in public places in the city.

Gill mowed the top lawn and we worked together pruning overgrown shrubs and fruited brambles. That part of the garden is looking a lot tidier now.
However, just as I was finishing my work, Melanie and one of her friends came round and said they'd wanted to do a 10:10:10 action, and decided to plant trees. However, the garden centre was closed, so they drove round to me and asked if I might have any trees they could plant. I plant tree seeds every year, so I was able to give them a Horse Chestnut about 1m tall and a Walnut about 40cm tall, and they took these to the Buddhist Centre about 12 miles East of York, to plant there. This was an unexpected extra to the day for me, and I was really happy to have been able to help.

They came just as I was getting ready to go to the St Nicks Photo Exhibition at the National Trust Shop on Goodramgate.  So I didn't set off for that until nearly 6pm... but there was still plenty of food and wine left.  I met a nice Mexican composer called Claudia, and a chap who works in the shop called Nick, and an ex St Nicks Recycler called Sophie, plus quite a few of my existing friends.  Ivana had taken most of the photos, and there were also lots of the Haikus written during the birthday celebrations. I enjoyed the hour I spent there.

So this wrapped up a mixed day.  I'd enjoyed my composting activities despite feeling low with my dribbly nose and problems with the children, and was very pleased to be asked to provide trees for this 'special' day.