Friday 22nd May 09 Transition Network Conference (day one)

Woke quite early as Lisa's family were getting ready for a normal day.

Usual breakfast, then tried to get onto the 'net to do emails, but Lisa didn't have the password for her WiFi connection so I gave up and got ready for quite a long walk. Lisa had told me which trains I could get but I decided to walk, as I like walking in London, and Lisa had printed off a map for me to follow.

So at about 9.30 I set off, crossed the railway line on a footbridge/cycle track and walked past Honor Oak, Camberwell New Cemetery. Cheltenham Road and across Peckham Rye Common. East Dulwich Road and up Dog Kennel Hill, Champion Hill, Denmark Hill and over Ruskin Park. It was very sunny and warm, I was hot with the rucsack, laptop and carrier bag. I decided that as Coldharbour Lane was pointing in the right direction to get me to Clapham Common, that I'd get a bus... and as I'd walked for 90 minutes, I was happy with the £2 bus fare to a stop within 4 minutes walk of the Battersea Arts Centre, a huge and imposing building where the Transition Conference was being held, is actually, as there is a WiFi hotspot (not that hot actually, as connection is erratic and speeds slow. But, it does work! You may be reading this on the day of the conference...)

I had pre booked and pre paid, so there was a badge waiting for me and I had an offer of my bags being put into storage, instead of lugging them around. I put my rucksack in, but kept my hand luggage and laptop with me.

The main conference hall is a lovely place, huge and beautifully lit with ever-changing LED colour spotlights. Apparently the lighting, all low energy, has been installed specially for this event. There was food available and Edward arrived and sat with me and a bunch of people from Cambridge, which is where he is originally from.

At 1pm, there were greetings and intros, which included the excellent news that Ed Miliband MP (Sec. of State for Department of Energy and Climate Change) was here in the capacity of a 'keynote listener', which raised a laugh! After this, there was an interesting 'mapping' exercise... all the tables and chairs were moved to the side, and standing up, we had to organise ourselves into 'elders' down at one end of the hall, and 'youth' at the other. I found myself in the middle, along with other not-old, not young 40-somethings. The roving Mic was used to introduce a couple of oldies, sorry, respect those elders, and some of the younger contingent. Other mapping involved looking at the size of the population of your Transition Initiative, the highest being Hong Kong with 6 million plus, and the smallest being a settlement in North Yorkshire with 400. We did geographical mapping too, which finished with a group of us from the North East and Lincolnshire, Sheffield and Gronningen in the Netherlands all getting together and doing an exercise with a sheet of paper, post-it notes and 'what went well, what is challenging and what are you looking forward to' colour coded.

When I had a look around other regions versions of this workshop, some had been much more creative with paper wind-turbines and annotated spirals and wonderful stuff. Ours was tame by comparison!

After tea and cake it was the first 'Open Space' event, and I had volunteered to do one on, guess what, home composting! I had two lovely conversations. Both very worthwhile.

I had also volunteered to help facilitate the Energy Descent Action Plan thing after tea, so I posted a quick blog, ate some lasagne (again, and not a patch on the one last night!) and just got finished before the EDAP prep meeting.

EDAP is a Transition methodology for 'doing a Transition Initiative' and it has 12 steps, which are:
Set up a steering group ans design its demise from the outset;
Awareness Raising;
Lay the foundations;
Organise a Great Unleashing (aka a launch, or if in Kirkbymoorside, a 'Springboarding';
Develop physical manifestations of the project;
Build bridges with Local Government;
Organise a Great Reskilling;
Honour the Elders;
Let it go where it wants to go;
Create an Energy Descent Plan.

These do not have to follow this order, and some may take place at the same time.

So, this evening's EDAP work was for an imaginary place 'Anytown' and was with 400 or so people and took just two hours!

Some of the things that were contained in this session:
Information from theoildrum.com such as graphs and other information;
This little film 'Peak Oil, How will you ride the slide?'



The following subject areas were used as what I know as a brainstorming as part of the 'unleashing 'stage:
Food, Transport, Health, Arts/Play/Learning, Work and Livelihood, Heart and Soul, Water, Waste as Resources (this is the one I helped facilitate), Buildings, Landuse, Local Democracy and Energy. This was really good as everyone got involved and the ideas, aimed at what we envisioned 2029 to be like, or wanted it to be like, were written on big sheets which were to form the pages of a huge book.

The physical manifestations section was presented using a film called Haringey Connections, about some of the recent activities in Tottenham, with the Wards Corner Coalition and the Living Under One Sun allotment group. Well worth a watch.

The local authority stuff was very well described by a local Camden Councillor, Alexis Rowell, who moved from being a BBC correspondent and then a businessman to having a 'green epiphany' and running for election, and becoming the Camden Eco-Councillor. He has done amazing things in Camden, and has been wholly or partly responsible for the council having a policy of installing decentralised energy in all new projects (such as 20% of the predicted energy use to be generated on site), installation of free cavity wall insulation and roof insulation for all properties, whether poor or wealthy, mandatory green roofs and grey water recycling in all new builds, free fruit trees if a sensible place is suggested in which to put them, and a real push for local food growing wherever possible. Have a shufty through the Camden Council website to see if it mentions any of these!

For the reskilling, a ball of string was used to demonstrate that there were loads of skills in the room which could be shared, that people were able to offer and teach these skills, and that there were ample takers or people who were interested in learning them. The string went from person to person, making a huge web of skills offered and wanted...

In 'Honour the Elders', a local gentleman, John Prince, born in 1928, was interviewed and told some of his life story. He was born in St Kitts / Nevis, and grew up in Antigua with his grandmother who grew all her own vegetables plus cash crops. He worked as a teacher, but since retiring has worked on his poetry.
I chatted to him afterwards and he gave me the text of the poem he read out. This was written just a couple of weeks ago.

Reminiscing on the Lea, by John Prince

I sat on the bank of the River Lea,
Pondering the global, human tragedy.
Here, once had been a paradise of earth,
Where flora and fauna balanced the beauty,
In perfect co-existence of a fragile complex ecology.
I sat on the bank of the River Lea,
Thinking of the past, remembering
When across the face of London City
We fished in rivers, which flowed freely,
Enhancing life: developing human communities.
But no more to be seen,
Progress covered the waters clean
And turned them into sewers.
No more the River Fleet;
No more the River Tyburn,
No more the River Westbourne
They are covered and forgotten;
The measure of our progress:
Exchanging rivers for sewers,
Disrupting earth's natural ecology
To inherit a toxic polluted wasteland.

Millenniums created the evolution
Of species and habitats;
But we, in centuries, created the degeneration
Of earth's harmonious ecology;
And we continue its destruction.

We need humility, a new philosophy,
To guide our co-existence on Mother-earth.
The alternative is global catastrophe;
Like the cosmos-created ice ages,
Which nearly eliminated our ancestors.

I sat on the bank of the River Lea
Thinking of the past, remembering
When across the face of London City
We fished in rivers, which flowed freely,
Enhancing life, developing human communities..


(I have reproduced this exactly as it was written on the sheets John gave me)


The big cake which had been made (I'm not sure of it's significance!) was cut up and given out and Edward and I got ready to go. A number 345 bus took us all the way to Peckham and we were soon knocking at Peckham Anna's door, whom I first met through the Carbon Rationing Action Group website and subsequently, when we were both winners of the Oxfam Carbon Footprint Competition, and we (along with Kat from Scotland) spent a day talking to MPs including Hilary Benn at DEFRA. Anna's housmate was away, which meant there was plenty of space for us both, most welcoming and comfortable. It was great to see Anna again, I love her enthusiasm for low carbon stuff.

Spent another hour and a half doing my blog!

Saturday 26th April 08

A lovely start to the day. When I did eventually get up I lit the stove to get bathwater and did some important emails which I should have done yesterday, re York Green Festival planning...

Lovely bath and hairwash, had lunch and got my bags together for my trip to London where I have a gig tomorrow with CRAGger Anna from Peckham's daughter... so going down tonight to meet CRAGger Zaria and possibly see the allotment with a £18000 compost toilet!!!

Got the 2pm train down to King's Cross and did emails and deleted stuff, also chatted with K. on Googletalk which was a bonus!

Brilliant evening meeting Zaria.

Friday 11th April 08

A more relaxed day than yesterday's rather busy one...

I took the children into school and just before I was intending to leave the playground, the Headteacher came over to me and asked me if I'd time to have a meeting with her... she asked me to go to the office where she'd meet me in a few minutes. Whenever she asks me into her office I have strong memories of when I was a schoolboy, when my disruptive and naughty behaviour meant that I was often standing outside the Head's office, and I've had more talking to's in Senior Teachers' offices than I care to remember. I even got the cane once for some misdemeanour.

However, this time I wasn't being a telling off, it was a meeting with Julia to discuss the Green Thumbs Gardening Project and the slight change of direction we are going to have to accommodate this summer, due to the possible demolition and rebuilding of two mobile classrooms, which are near the plot we have started to prepare. The new classroom may be built on the plot. So we have to do our gardening in other parts of the school premises, in existing borders and possibly in containers. We discussed the numbers of children to be involved in the club, when it will take place, the meeting last night about child protection policy and other issues.

So got back home at nearly 10am, Gill worried that I'd got into some scrape or involved in an accident. But the rest of the morning went well... mainly housework, and then I had an early lunch and went to the veg shop to pick up a couple of sacks of material... and some very good news. Ever since I started helping the shop recycle their organic wastes, sorry, not waste, resources, only one of the employees has been absolutely behind me with the separation of the biodegradable materials. The boss is also happy with the arrangement, but the other employee just wasn't bothered with the recycling, and until yesterday, just put all the rubbish in one sack and binned it. I would sometimes tip out her bag and separate out the compostables, and leave the plastic etc in the bin. But, amazingly, my mate Richard, who is very appreciative of my recycling operations, had a little word with her and she has now switched to putting the fruit and veg materials in one sack and the landfillables in another bin... absolutely fantastic! I am so pleased! If only other shops did something similar!

There is one (I will leave it anonymous though!) which has a rota of composters who collect the daily resources and take them for their gardens or allotments. But there's another greengrocers in York which throws away loads of unsold fruit and veg, I used to collect but the grotty owner thought I was getting something for nothing, or scrounging, and forbade his staff to give me anything. They were quite upset, as they liked me doing the recycling, and think that their boss is a dinosaur. I do too! He's a grumpy and small-minded.

Anyway, I took the two sacks of green potatoes, cauliflower stalks, leek tops, mouldy oranges and rotten onions and went to the allotment and did about 30 minutes of compost heap management. It started to rain but I had to stay as I had some hoeing to do before putting in my onion sets. However, the rain meant that I couldn't plant the onions so I just did the weeding and building up the compost heaps with more brambles, dandelions, nettles etc. I really want to keep on top of it this year, after last year's not-so-good results!

At 3 went to school and picked up the children... infact just one of them as the other had been invited to a friends, so when I got home I did a bit of wooding and then at 6 went to collect him via a large area of chopped logs, where maybe 20 trees have been taken out, for thinning I think, and just left logged, scattered all over the place. There must be several tonnes of fuel just waiting to be rescued... so I came home with a trailer full, and one on my rack too. Oh, I did stop at our friends' house, had a beer and a chat, collected my son and came home.

Gill had made her favourite meal, stir fry veg with noodles, which was lovely. Then watched Gardeners World on telly, which was really good as it gave me inspiration to do better on my lottie and they visited the Centre for Alternative Technology in mid-Wales, and it was lovely to see that again. I'm a life member! What they do is so important, and it was good to see the composting and wormeries there.

Had a brief Googletalk conversation with K, about CRAGs and carbon footprints and how to reduce them, for a leaflet she's going to produce to advertise her CRAG. She has asked for some help drafting it... so I asked her to email me a list of questions which I will answer, so she can put together a brief intro on her leaflet.

Had a game of Scrabble with Gill, we both got a 7-letter word down (mine was the weird 'nooning') and Gill won by one point! Very satisfying!

Sunday 6th April 08

A good day as it started slowly and gently, I had a bath before lunch and popped down to Country Fresh before getting loaded up to go and work.

I cycled off to the MonkBar Hotel via Foss Islands Road, and blocking my way on the cycle path was an overly large 4x4 Range Rover.. so large that the driver couldn't place the damn thing on the lane she was supposed to be in, but spread all over the cycle lane. So I came to a halt behind the thing and gave it a couple of good hefty bangs with my gloved palm to alert the idiot driver to where she was on the road, and the fact that she was blocking me. I then carefully pulled my trailer (with one wheel on the pavement) alongside the car and she wound down her window and started to abuse me. I'm afraid I swore back at her, at which she threatened to call the police! I told her to go ahead and do that, as I knew I'd done nothing wrong, well nothing illegal anyway!

A little later, she was in another traffic jam near the MonkBar Hotel and she saw me go into the carpark. I did not communicate with her here. I got unloaded and got ready to do my balloon show first. During my balloon show, one of the naming ceremony organisers said that there were a couple of police officers waiting in the hotel lobby to see me. So I finished my show and went to speak to them... all they wanted was my name and address and telephone number, so that if the monster car driver wanted to prosecute me, they'd come and get a statement. I briefly told them what had happened and they said that they were both cyclists and agreed that some car drivers were really bad, didn't think that cyclists should be on the road, and were generally sympathetic with my situation.

I then had something to eat, and did my circus show which was difficult as there were only 15 kids and over 100 adults, but I ploughed through it and it was well received.

When I came out, after a cider which was offered to me, it was snowing. I got wet and cold on the way home, but as there were no Range Rover drivers to block cycle paths, all was well!

Spent 2 hours answering composting questions on the CRAG website and on Facebook, a group called Organic Gardening 101.

Tuesday 4th March 08

A better day although both feeling wobbly still after yesterday's horrible-ness. There was some anger before going to school but as there was a school visit to a stadium starting at 9am, there was only a bit of misbehaviour,as more would have resulted in missing this.

We went to visit Gill's GP about the stress caused by what we are going through, and his advice was to make sure we had a 'unified front' as any differences in parenting style would be easy for the child to push apart and get between. He also suggested working out a 'long term strategy' with the people who are helping us with this issue. No short-term fixes, got to just get through it and hope he grows out of the phase...

After this I went to visit Pauline to chop some wood for her, then popped in to the Council office to pick up some Planning Panel stuff, and on the way home popped into St Nicks to pick up some posters/flyers advertising the CRAG meeting on the 15th on carbon offsetting.

Home for lunch, made a leek/tomato/bean stew for tonight's tea. During this, got several Fiddlesticks enquiries and a phone call from Oxfam saying I had won the Carbon Footprint competition and they were inviting me down to London to meet up with MPs about the issue... wow oh WOW! Amazing!

When I went to get the children, Julia who has started the Green Thumbs gardening project rushed up to me and thanked me for putting her in touch with Melody, my friend who works for CVS as a funding information person; she has told Julia that it will be easy to get a grant of about £1000 for the project, and Julia was delighted and very complimentary.

Had a good evening, including a good TV programme by Kristina Murrin, about reducing road traffic. The programme this week was about Boston, where car use is high and so is obesity. She had a tough time trying to persuade people to give up their cars, even for one day. But I respect her approach and admire her.

Monday 25th February 08

Spent most of the morning retyping in my paid blog but also got a call from a TV company wanting to do a programme on green people, and a Professor Fiddlesticks enquiry.

I got the blog done by lunchtime and spent most of the post-lunch hour or so doing washing up, recycling duties etc, then went to school to pick up the boyos who were in a good mood.

I did some composting down the bottom of the garden whilst it was still light, I dug out a builders bag of mature and ready-to-riddle material, into another builders bag, perhaps two thirds of a tonne of compost. I can't wait to put it through my motor-riddle! Just as I was coming to the end of this, Gill called me to the house as I had an intersting phone call.

It was from Oxfam who have been running an e-competition to find some people with very small carbon footprints, three of whom will be invited down to London to talk to people in Government about climate change and policies which could help reduce our national Carbon emissions. I had done the Carbon Calculator http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/index.html and they were ringing to say I had one of the smallest footprints and I might be picked to go to London. The researcher went through the calculator with me, asking me my answers and came up with an annual figure for me alone of 0.45 tonnes. This was slightly smaller than the first figure I got, as I had included the boys' computer and printer/scanner in with my calculations, whereas with the Oxfam person, we ignored these items. I'll be contacted when the 'lucky people' have been chosen. What a suprise! What a buzz!

Very soon after this I got a phone call from an Irish radio station researcher who had seen the Observer article and they'd never heard of CRAGs and were very interested, and wanted to do a live radio interview about CRAGs and my way of being green. I'll be getting another call tomorrow afternoon, and a call on Thursday morning for an interview..... very exciting! Again!

Tea was rice and veg cooked on the woodstove.

Saturday 9th February 08

Got up at the normal time but went back to bed for a half hour whilst the children were playing in the garden. At 10ish I went outside and did some more work with the motorised riddle, attracting lots of attention from several robins. Came in at 1pm for lunch but had to break off to tell both boys off for over-reacting and being provocative, and not doing what their parents tell them.

However after a strained lunch, I offered to take the boys out to the park, where they could play with a helicopter toy and not lose it over a hedge and wave sticks around (both of them are very attached to a staff/gunstick/pointystick/weapon thing) and have a bit of a game of frisbee with me. I knew they'd get bored with the 'organised' activities fairly soon so I took my bowsaw to help demolish a fallen tree which has been left for folks to take.

We had a bit of fun with the frisbee and helicopter toy and then they went to explore so I did a bit of woodchopping, alongside a chap with a petrol chainsaw who was friendly but got exasperated with it being blunt, and seeing that my bowsaw was quicker!

Gill popped into the park to check we were allright and we came back with her. I did some more riddling and came in at 6. Tea was a reheat stew thing on top of some pasta.

A quiet evening, did some Facebook stuff, chatted on Googletalk, went on the CRAG website, visited a good blog and did some surfing. Bed rather late, after 2am.

Saturday 12th January 08

Quite a good lie-in, and Gill gave the boys porridge for breakfast which they seemed to enjoy as they were very quiet afterwards...
Got up at 10 ish and rang a CRAG friend David who has been collecting biodegradables since mid December for me, and we agreed to meet at the lottie and I put a layer of very manky stuff on top of the woody bramble stems... then did some compost moving, chatted to another alltotmenteer and cut back another load of brambles which are invading.

Got back home at about 1pm, family gone into town to spend book vouchers.

A hard-working afternoon too, but in the evening we watched a funny film called 'Shallow Hal' which we enjoyed, and played Scrabble.

Thursday 15th November 07

A good day as at least two, possibly three things happened, interesting things! Firstly, at 10, as booked, a chap from the Cooperative Insurance came, Mark his name was. We were rung up last week and told he'd like to tell us about some new products.... this was the first time we'd ever been visited by someone from the Co-op, and Gill was convinced that he was coming to snoop round the house and check our smoke alarms were working, etc, and was embarrassed by the untidiness. However he was lovely. He had come to tell us about the new insurance policy and we also discussed savings and ISAs... I don't think about money much so it was interesting to have some stuff explained. He was lovely and Gill's fears were unfounded. My new bike is now insured.

I had aranged to have lunch on the allotment with Jo... whilst we chatted I dug out a working compost heap and transferred it to another New Zealand box (pallets!) and then restarted the original one with chopped up brambles. We had a good chat, she had an interesting weekend in Whitby and had a lot to tell me. Whilst there Jessica came with her wonderful digital camera and of course asked where mine was! She wants me to get some images downloaded onto my computer and onto RedBubble or perhaps even my blog... that would be good! Then Phil popped by... he's preparing for a court case as he's refusing to pay his council tax as he blames the council for the problems he's experiencing with vandals attacking his home, and he's had to board up his windows and the council have told him to unboard them. Interesting!

So got back from the lottie at 2.45 and Gill was preparing to go to school, so I did some emailing and got a comment from Annabel on yesterdays blog post, about how I am qualified to write about environmental and ethical issues. I spent quite a long time replying and explaining, but when I sent the reply, it came back as not able to be delivered to Annabel, so I hope she either sends a contact email and I'll send her the original reply, or I could explain on this blog... not sure what to do.

I went to get our eldest at 4.15 after his drama club, and one of his friends came back too which was good as it means good behaviour. Before teatime, I got a phone call from someone with an Eastern European accent, possibly Russian, allegedly called Vishka. He said he wanted to join my circus! I explained that I wasn't actually a full circus, but did circus tricks at events as an entertainer... but if he wanted to meet me or learn some skills, or find out how I organised myself as an entertainer, he could meet me. I agreed to meet him at 10.30 tomorrow at City Screen.... he said he'd be wearing a trilby! I was suspicious whether he was spoofing me, so I explained that sometimes pranksters did ring me up and try to have me on, and he assured me he was genuine. We'll see!

Gill made tea, pasta parcels and veg with garlic bread, and soon after I went to the CRAG meeting. This was really good, I learned quite a lot. Denise was from the Energy Efficiency Advice Centre in York, which is one of 46 nationally set up by the Energy Saving Trust in 1992 as a response to the Rio 'Earth Summit' which urged us all to act to combat climate change. She started with an observation about when she was young, 40 years ago, she had just 4 electrical items in the house, an iron, the telly, lightbulbs and a 'town gas' cooker (presumably electrical ignition?) Nowadays, we have several TV's, all sorts of gadgets like breadmakers, mobile phones, gameboys, ipods.... a huge list of electrical items. We got lots of facts:
UK homes responsible for 29% of our CO2 emissions,
20% of energy in the house is wasted,
UK committed to reducing domestic C emissions by 12.5% by 2010 from 1990 levels, and we are on target for this. We have made a voluntary comittment to go for a 20% reduction but we're not approaching this, mainly because of the rise of gadget use which increases electricity consumption.
She explained how the Energy EfficiencyAdvice Centres worked and why it was important, the benefits of saving energy, (not just reducing climate change but releasing money currently wasted, increasing health, effecting behaviour change, etc) and their campaign to 'Save your 20%'.
She had examples of low energy lightbulbs and a catalogue from 'Megaman' bulbs, and how much money could be saved by fitting just one low energy lightbulb (£9).
There was a diagram of where energy is lost in an uninsulated house (roof, 26%; walls, 33%; single glazed windows, 18%; floors, 15%; draughts, 11%) and lots of info on insulation.
There was one section which really interested me.... on how to insulate solid walls, as our 1930's house doesn't have cavity walls, it has solid walls, and there are 4 ways of insulating them to reduce that 33% loss of heat. There are 3 ways of internally insulating ('dry lining', using thermal board and something called perhaps 'sempatap'... I'll look it up!) and the more efficient way of externally insulating, which is what I'd like to do with out big wall on the coldest side of the house, away from the woodstoves. She even had the name of a company who fit external insulation (Wall Transform)!
Then we got onto renewable energy. tbc

Wednesday 17th October 07

Was supposed to be a relaxing day but one of the boys was off school with a cough so it wasn't.

I didn't do my usual Wednesday compostables pick up and didn't go to the CRAG meeting in the evening.

Friday 21st September 07

As Gill was feeling poorly, I took the kids to school. As it was raining, they went straight in, no standing in line this morning, and I got home before 9am. Lit the stove to dry off my clothes and went back to bed for an hour.

Then got up and got busy with some paperwork, some Fiddlesticks stuff and the usual emailing and blogging.

A quiet day really, and 3pm came oh so quickly and I went to pick up the boys.

As soon as I got back, I cycled down to town to go to pay my phone bill which took ages as the Co-op Bank computer system was down, then went to Out Of This World to give them some posters and pick up compostables, then came back via Martin's, where a present was waiting for me, two CDs of The Falling Spikes, the band which Richard drums for, and my favourite band in York, if not the UK at the moment. When I got home I played the 'commercial' one and I love it. I look forward to making time to play the rough cuts one!

At 5.15, my new friend Sarah came round, after meeting her on Critical Mass and at last night's CRAG meeting, she came to see the compost demonstration garden, and it was lovely to show her around.

During the early evening, when the boys were upstairs, Gill and I had a game of Scrabble, the first we've played for ages, since I've been blogging in the evening, and chatting on Googletalk, we just haven't had time for Scrabble, and we used to play almost every night, so it was lovely to have another game.. should do it more often. I won, but only just, by 4 points!

Later, whilst online, I got a message from the CRAG website, purporting to be from someone using the name 'Professor Fiddlesticks', which is my 'stage' name, and is protected by Equity, the performers' Union (actually protected from being used by other entertainers who try to join Equity). The message was complimentary to me, about the work I'm doing to promote sustainability, but I was upset that someone was using that name. I posted a reply, thanking the individual for their comments, and asking them to not use that username. They posted a reply, saying that they were the 'real' Professor Fiddlesticks, so I replied, suggesting they call themselves PF2, or perhaps use their real name like I do on the CRAG website. There was no answer to this.

Weds 4th July 07

I took the boys to school and then did housework and some email answers, put some info on the CRAG forum on woodstoves, about wood and its burning characteristics, including a great poem about logs, which I got from a workshop on wood fuel at Askham Bryan College a while ago.

Then at 11 am, Max from YellowTom came to pick up my cheque and we didn't spend much time together but he did demonstrate his brilliant Blues Piano playing skills. He liked out 'honky tonk' type piano and told us it sounded fine, didn't need tuning (for his type of playing anyway!)

Then I went for lunch with Jo, at her house for the first time, and was fed well and we had some good chats until about 2pm.

After lunch I zoomed into town to do my pick ups from Out Of This World and the greengrocers and got back in time to go and pick up the boys. Asked the head-teacher if ITV are allowed to film me next Wednesday doing my usual routine in the school playground after school and cycling back with the boys. I told her that the TV people would be ringing her.

Spent most of the evening trying to do the difficult risk assessment.

However did have some good communication with K. in US of A over Googletalk, which was lovely.

Friday 29th June 07

Another day which started early and with difficult children, both bolshy and shouting at me about my trying to get them to hurry up getting ready for school. Didn't need this, I was feeling grotty and a bit more short-tempered than usual but so were they, it's Friday and nearly the end of term.

Anyway, they got to school in time and I apologised for being short-tempered and for hurrying them when it wasn't entirely neccessary, and they went in a bit more reassured, I hope.

Got home and launched myself into my YGF Risk Assessment, and spent the next 3 hours doing this. It's looking good, but is tonight only half finished.

Our Dutch friend Maria came round for a pre-lunch chat, and had lunch. I went to town after and did my compost pick up and visited the Council offices to get a 'Fete' licence for York Green Festival, this allows us to have traders there. Came back via Heslington Rd greengrocers for more compostables.

Then straight to school, with a card for Wangie and Fu who are leaving to go and live in Reading, as Fu has got a Professorship (in telecommunications) at the University. We'll miss them and their lovely son who's good friends with ours.

Gill made tea for the boys, and after that I played rough and tumble with them, but got worn out and went for a sleep, being woken for my tea - pasta - at 7pm.

In the evening I was very pleased that my friend K in Georgia has decided to help form GA Carbon Rationing Action Group, the second CRAG in the US. This after I forwarded the news of the first one forming in Maryland, and their contact details. I'm so proud of her, and happy with my growing international influence! Feels good.

I joined a group called vskips, a 'virtual skip site' who want me to do a piece about my recycling activities for their website. It looks really interesting!

Didn't get much more RA done.

Thursday 14th June 07

Woke at 7 and had my cereal before the boys came down, and did my blog to finish what I started yesterday. Gill took the boys to school and our eldest fell off his bike and screamed the place down, and was rescued by a stranger who helped pick him up.

Went back to bed for a bit and we got up at 11.30... where did the morning go?

I did several bits of York Green Festival work and also pinched out sideshoots on the tomato plants and even ventured out into the rain-sodden garden, and then , all too soon, 2.30 came and I had to pack up and get ready for going to school for our youngest's class assembly. The assembly was disjointed but had some good bits.

After this I went to the University where Jo had modified the York Green Festival Stall applicating form and it is now ready for distribution, a relief for me. Many thanks to Jo for being willing to sort me out! Over the past couple of weeks I have wondered about my decision not to print, or to have a printer attached to this laptop. However now with friends with computer knowhow it doesn't matter so much. Spent 45 minutes chatting about various subjects, and felt much helped and encouraged.

Came back and made a bit of tea, tried to fry some cubed silken tofu which was a bit silly... as it's meant for making into smoothies and soups, etc. With this I had some slices of one of last years pumpkins, pasta and some very ripe blue cheese sauce... tasty! All done on the woodstove.

Soon it was time to go to my CRAG meeting, at the Golden Fleece on Pavement, and there were just six of us there. However it was quality not quantity which mattered and we had a very successful meeting. We agreed about which sorts of targets we'd use, and chose three.

So our main target, the one we'll make public and invite new CRAG members to try to work to, is a 'Matching Individual Target' of 4500kg CO2/year, which is 10% below the UK national average of 5000kg per person from home heating and transport. This excludes food and other less easily measurable emissions.

The second target is a Shared Group Target, where all our measured emissions are pooled and averaged, and again we are aiming for a group average of less than 4500kg/year. This will make it feel better for the higher emitters as their emissions will be balanced by the number of keen CRAGgers who have tiny personal carbon footprints (ie our household of four has a measured footprint using the calculator York CRAG is using, of less than a tonne, 1000kg. This is divided by four for individual emissions.)

Our third target are for people like me who have small footprints, and we can voluntarily choose 'Varied Individual Targets' which could be 10% below last year's measured emissions.

We then discussed our plans for the next few months and we decided to do some publicity at the Green Festival, a 'launch' in August and a public meeting in September about transport, a member's social/planning meeting in October, a public meeting in November on home heating and a members social in December, and probably a public meeting on carbon offset in Jan when people are booking holidays.

When I got back I tried to do some writing up on the computer but got a bit waylaid by my lovely but intense friend in America, on Googletalk. As this is not such an easy medium to communicate, she invited me to ring her at about midnight our time, and I spent an hour chatting but felt a bit of the Spanish inquisition about it, and when Gill woke up she was disturbed by hearing my side of the conversation, as I was being defensive and having to explain myself, which she hasn't heard me have to do ever before. Gill and I spent another hour talking but didn't have a fall out as such, the problem is that I spend too much time on Googletalk and this has somewhat replaced our previous evening pattern of Scrabble in front of the stove. I promised my wife that I would do my best to spend more time with her and less on the computer.

Bed late.

Tuesday 15th May 07

Another nothingy day. During the evening I was doing emails and I accidently pulled my dialup lead out in mid session and when I tried to redial I got a message telling me that 'The person you are calling is not accepting anonymous calls. Please redial without withholding your number'. Now I have never withheld my number and knew something had gone wrong. So I contacted the operator and reported the fault.

As I couldn't dialup I went through my old emails and did some deleting and replies, including to Darren who works in an ecocentre in Leicestershire, who went to school with me. He saw me on telly and has found me. His eco-project looks really good, see www.completewasters.co.uk (that's my first link I've done in this blog!!!!)

In the evening I redid the Community Care blog which now doesn't have to tally with my second column being published this Thursday, as I've been told it will be published on 31 May. I did it on community/voluntary work/groups, and on CRAG which is just getting started in York. Sent this in at 1.45am. Keen, eh?

Monday 14th May 07

Funny old day, didn't get as much done as I would have liked to, but productive enough.

In the morning went to get a cheque ot to pay for the Polish roofer 'Artur' who dealt with some water ingress problems last week, repointing some of the chimney and redoing some flashing which wasn't positioned properly. Then over lunch did some paperwork and after lunch did some seed management, watering, repotting etc and a bout of compostumbler filling.

Got the children at 3.15 and in the evening, before the CRAG meeting, collected the Out Of This World compostables. The CRAG meeting was good, talking about carbon calculators, debating whether we will be Carbon Rationing or Carbon Reduction Action Group and how we should be structured and a bit about future meetings. We agreed to have a working group to work up a proposed structure which would be discussed and agreed at the next open meeting.

Enjoyed the social drink after the end of the meeting too. We meet in the upstairs room of the Golden Fleece on Pavement, but when the smoking in public places ban comes in we'll use a level access venue, probably the Minster Inn (Marygate?) to make it accessible to all. Currently this room is next to a smoking area and several of us hate tobacco smoke that much they wouldn't consider it.

Monday 23rd April 07

A fairly normal morning for me, got up before the kids were taken to school by Gill, I had breakfast whilst she was out and then tempted her back to bed when she came back. Lucky we have the time to do this... But I had a lot going through my mind and got up soon and started writing my 'Community Care' blog, on paper first. I've been told to get it in by Weds as the new-look magazine is published on Thursday and the blog goes with my first column, in this issue.

But it's also Monday, my compost collection day, so I broke off my writing to cycle down to town and visit Out Of This World and had a nice chat with Marianne the manager, whom I'm trying to persuade to visit my composting operations some day. Also popped in on the Coop Bank for cash and Boots for my asthma medication refills. I've had asthma since childhood and it's now totally managed, so well I wouldn't know I have it... unless I stop the twice daily puffer when it gradually makes itself known again.

In York, wheeling bike and well-loaded trailer along, I met Jeremy Piercy who when I first met him in 1987 when I moved to York had just opened a shop in Goodramgate called Fairer World. Within a few years it had changed its name to Shared Earth and is now in Minster Gates/High Petergate, and he has another 6 branches all over the place. He is passionate about Fair Trade and his shops support quite a few communities in far-flung places. He told me of his plan to do a walk through Britain next summer promoting Fair Trade, and asked if I might be interested in helping with the cyclist-with-luggage bit of the walk. He also wants publicity, I said I might be able to assist.

As it was gently raining I didn't go and plant the potatoes, which urgently need planting, but got on with my blog preparations. Enjoyed my big pile of sandwiches for lunch and got on with writing. An interuption from David the Freecycler and Vicky his friend, who have given us a couple of redcurrant bushes and returned the trowel they borrowed. Vicky wanted to see the garden so that took a half-hour out of my afternoon, but didn't mind as she was delightful and interested, and if a tour of the garden might inspire someone else to grow their own or compost their wastes, then it's worth it.

Collected the kiddies at 3 and then got on with some various activities before being fed cauliflower, carrot, out-of-date tofu sea cakes and an experimental savoury pancake made from potato flour. I like experimental!

After tea spent under one hour typing in my Community Care blog before going out to the second CRAG meeting. This is either Carbon Rationing Action Group or Carbon Reduction Action Group, apparently there's been some debate about it on a CRAG discussion forum. a good meeting, about our mission statement and aims, and some other bits and bobs.

Had two pints of Strongbow with 'lemonade top' as it isn't sweet enough for my liking without it, and the meeting was jolly and good natured and ended late.

Home in time for..... blogging!

Weds 11th April 07

A lovely day weatherwise so got started early with some Green Party local election leaflet deliveries. I went with Debbie who enjoyed the round last time and had asked that she could help again. This delivery was Fishergate Ward, but a different area, someone elses round. It didn't take long with the two of us and we visited some housing we hadn't seen before, new flats and small houses off Hull Road.

I cycled into town to do my Wednesday compostables pick up, and got some vegan ice cream for Gill who reacts badly to cow's milk products. Vegan products also have less of a carbon footprint too, as cows produce loads of methane and use lots of resources such as water and feed, which has it's own carbon footprint. The 'Swedish Glace'ice cream also tastes lovely, but is a lot more expensive than dairy.

I also visited the Yorkshire Museum with the Morel fungus I found over the weekend on the allotment. Pip Strang the expert there says she will identify it... I was suprised to hear from her that there are 18 British species, my book lists just two! She'll contact me with a identification in a couple of weeks.

During the afternoon I did a lot of riddling of finished compost, to make the stuff usable and separate the uncomposted sticks and non-compostables (stones, little bits of plastic) from the fantastic crumbly rich particles of 'humus' or biologically active carbon-rich matter, perfect for adding to growing media for healthy plants and crops. The seeds are in, I need lots of compost to add to leafmold and loam to grow them in. So I'm bagging up the riddled stuff ready for this season. My riddle is a sheet of chicken wire mounted on a wooden frame, about 1.5m square. I also have a 'rotaseive' which is smaller and has smaller holes, producing a finer grained compost.

This afternoon's York Press had our letters published, mine about the lack of response from Lloyds TSB about my offering to help them with reducing waste, and one from Gill saying she considered me an Eco-Lover not an Eco-Warrior.

In the evening I attended the first meeting of York CRAG, Carbon Rationing Action Group. This was interesting and I enjoyed it a lot. The basic idea is to help citizens to reduce their carbon emissions and save resources for future generations. This will be done by offering a carbon calculator to measure annual emissions, and setting a target to try to aim for (or under!). There will be regular meetings to inform, educate and encourage, perhaps themed to get people with different interests involved and on board. We may perhaps set a penalty for those who go over the target, a financial penalty per kilo, which would be paid into an account and used to offset those extra emissions. The offsetting could be local, such as helping to pay for insulation or energy efficient lightbulbs for a CRAG member who's finding the target difficult to attain. We're meeting in a fortnight and will debate and agree Mission, Aims and Objectives plus discuss (and agree?) the structure of the group.

I got home just in time to see the Newsnight 'Ethical Man' special, in which I featured, helping Justin Rowlatt with composting and helping Ethical Man go on his way ethically, by composting him. It was a good programme and I think was a fitting end to his year-long project. And I've benefitted as I now have a column in Community Care magazine (starting at the end of the month) and a new career begnning.

What a day!