Tuesday 18th October 11

I had a lie in til about 10am and then had a fairly busy morning trying to organise the fruit press again.  I'd given the screw thread part to Olly the Blacksmith to retrofit something, with the assumption that my day with it in Dringhouses school was next week.  I was wrong, it is this week, and so I had to contact Olly to ask that it got back to me more swiftly than expected, and also to ask Marion from Dringhouses school to pick up the press from St Nicks.

After lunch, at 2pm, a Yellow Pages chap called Stewart came, to discuss the next lot of Fiddlesticks advertising.

After this I went round to Sally's garden to finish picking apples and pears.  I got a nice box of cooking apples and 3 trays of pears.

Then I cycled down to town to pick up my prescription for my asthma preventative, to the chemist to get the medication, and the building society to get two cheques.  I popped in on Debbie on the way back and swapped some pears for a box of Weetabix she didn't want.

In the evening, after the children went to bed, I lit the front room stove for the first time since spring, to burn off the dust which always smells the first time I light it after a gap of not having it lit. I love my little Clearview Pioneer!

Tuesday 23rd December 08

Another relaxed day... woke after 9 and soon went into town to pay in a cheque and get a cheque out to pay Cozmic Balloons for a recent delivery of 1500 modelling balloons.

Also visited Pauline who had her usual festive gift for me... a bottle of Port, which is a kind of swap for several potato sacks of logs for her Clearview Pioneer smokefree woodstove. We had a good chat about her volunteering with the St Clement's Hall project and various other subjects over a coffee. Always lovely to spend time with her, and put the World to rights!

Then headed for Barnitts which has got to be York's best shop, and got several items which I will give as gifts at Christmas... including 5 litres of chainsaw lubricating oil which I hope someone will give to me! Hahahaha, always good to receive useful stuff!

Home via Country Fresh where Richard was in a jolly mood and was happy to help load me up with lots more compostables... and some stuff to dry including six bags of red seedless grapes... And then to Freshways where Raj was jolly too. Everybody's happy today!

A late lunch. After lunch I took the compostables down to the Compostumbler and then at about 4 came in to make a nutloaf for tea. I made two lots of nutloaf mix... one with grated raw beetroot in, and the resultant loaf was in two layers, one a lovely red colour.

Jonathan arrived at 6.30 and we all ate together, Jonathan very impressed by the nutloaf, and happy with his present of dried bananas too! He had to scoot off fairly quickly as he was meeting his girlfriend to go and see a film.

Gill had spent some of the afternoon learning how to make something on Spore and I was curious to see some of the assorted creatures and buildings the rest of the family had made, although I have no desire to join in... I'd rather play Scrabble or build a carefully constructed logpile! Spore is clever, though, and I can see how much fun it is!

Friday 19th December 08

Quite a relaxed day in many ways... although due to a family visit we did have some tidying up to do. I took our youngest into school and came back to help sort stuff out... I found a large sack of bananas which I was able to salvage and lay out on the cake-racks on the stove, and also helped with vacuuming, ready for Gill's sister Jane and hubby Mike to visit, due at 2.30.

About lunchtime I was rung up by the local free magazine 'Local Link' who are going to do a feature on composting, and they wanted a how and why conversation to form an article, so spent an hour chatting through allsorts of stuff, being careful to differentiate between the York Rotters advice and things which I did, which I'm supposed to try to keep separate from Rotters stuff. For instance, with my Rotters hat on, I'm supposed to not go on about composting roadkill... so I am going to be sent the article before publication so I can check I'm not going to get into trouble, and that the facts are correct!

Jane and Mike had come to visit several folks in York, drop off presents and pick up presents for their family gathering, as they have offspring and grandchildren visiting them over the holidays. They arrived slightly early and we had a good chat before our eldest came home and then I cycled down to school to pick up our youngest. They stayed a bit later than planned, to see the children who were on best behaviour, fortunately!

I left for town as soon as they went, to deliver paperwork for the council, the Planning Panel stuff, and to post parcels to Taunton and Shrewsbury and a small pile of letters/cards to lots of other places. I also picked up two sacks of orange halves and coffee grounds from Millers Yard, and a sack and a box from Country Fresh. Home by 5pm.

I had the leftover macaroni cheese and cauliflower from yesterday plus dolmades (stuffed vine leaves) which are one of my favourite things, quite a treat as they aren't cheap, even buying in bulk from Suma. A good evening with the children, we watched a bit of telly and I got a cuddle... not something I often get from my eldest!

A warm and cosy evening turning logs rapidly back into the carbon dioxide the trees sucked up not so long ago, releasing their stored sunshine into our living room and into the water to enable us to wash our pans and plates, and driving moisture off waste bananas to preserve them for future muesli... I love our Clearview Stoves!!!

Wednesday 3rd December 08

I took our youngest into school, and then had a quiet day mostly inside doing paperwork and e-paperwork. Wrote to The Maudsley with some forms filled in, and sent that off with a 'signed for' extra cost. Got bread. Did a Facebook 'Event Page' for York Green Festival. Chainsawed and split a few logs, and built the beginning of a logpile outside the front door of dry and ready-to-use fuel. Tidied a pile of paperwork to find out what time tomorrow I can give blood. Found a cheque I received about 2 months ago, and phoned the sender to apologise for not cashing it quickly, and to tell them I'd do it tomorrow... Read my electricity and gas meters for
The Carbon Account and inputted my new data, my graph is pleasingly slim (trying to ignore my adopted massive aircraft spike last month) and I found my old buddy Dave Mansell is also recording his carbon footprint on the site. He's one of the top recycling managers in the country and I really admire him. If I was more organised, I'd like to be doing what he's doing!

Gill did most of the childcare stuff but I spent time with them when they came in from school as Gill had gone to the shops, so I took an interest in their 'Spore' game and cuddled before and after tea.

Later, got a message from Dave 'top recycler' Mansell telling me what he's been up to since leaving York... I'm really pleased to hear he's ok. Currently working for the Somerset Waste Partnership where it looks like he's in top management. Good stuff!

Kept both stoves going, they both make a reassuring clicking sound as they expand and contract over each burn cycle, so they are 'clicking away' which I like.

Tuesday 11th November 08

Woke feeling substantially better than yesterday, got up and got busy, lit the stove and put hot water on the washing up, and got a phone call from my CRAGger buddy Robin... St Nicks had offered me a big sack of sticks last week but I'd been unable to collect them, so they'd offered them to Robin, who also didn't want them (lack of space for storing) so he brought them round to me in his trailer on his way back from B and Q, where he was looking for a way to make his woodstove-fired central heating system 'Building Regs compliant' ie, gravity driven, not pump driven. He said he'd worked out how to do it, using 'only' £200 worth of copper pipe! But having a Dunsley Yorkshire woodstove, which burns smoke free and is therefore allowed in smoke control areas, AND which heats radiators, is such a beneficial thing, that it's worth getting the plumbing right.

Robin stayed for nearly an hour, chatting and drinking tea and admiring our Clearview Vision 500 working well. Just before lunch the SUMA order came, just stuff for us and one other family (sorry, 'member of the Cossham Food Co-op'!) such as laundry liquid, soya milk, muesli base, olive oil and Bulgar wheat.

Enjoyed having lunch with Gill, she then went out to take some grown-out-of shoes to the charity shop and I did emails and blog in front of the hot stove, looking out at the cold and windy weather.

I took a cycle trailer load of flour, Fentimans Cola and assorted nuts down to our friends and came back with our youngest, who'd had a good day.

I sorted out the big sack of sticks delivered by Robin, and our eldest came home. He'd forgotten to go to a meeting of invitees to a University-based computer game try-out, based on identifying plants I think, and when he realised, he was absolutely mortified, and spent at least an hour beating himself up about it. We really need to get him a mobile phone, so he can let us know when he's going to be late, and so we can remind him to attend things he needs to go to which are outside of his routine, which is how he forgot this event. We were really sad for him, he was looking forward to it SO much. I'm going to try to see if it can be re-arranged in some way for him, not through the school, but direct with the University.

I had an early tea (Bulgar wheat etc) and got ready for work. My gig this evening was with the Dunnington Brownies, a lovely group of 20 or so 7 to 10 year old girls (and one boy!) plus 5 adults... I did a shortened version of my show, then a throwing/catching/memory game, and then a one hour free-play workshop. A second one next week, when some of them will earn their 'Circus Performer Badge'.

Home soon after 8.30, quite exhausted, so had a pint of perry and sank into the sofa and watched an interesting Horizon programme on mental illness. A quiet evening.

Wednesday 30th April 08

Quite a serene start to the day, I took the boys in as Gill wasn't feeling up to it and then went on to visit Anna's pile of vegetation... I cut a load of sticks out of it and came home with them, and will do a load of shreddable materials next... possibly taking them to the James St depot for the green waste skip...

Home in time to fill in our feedback form about the 'Strengthening Families' programme, which is being assessed by Warwick University. Then off to the Heworth Family Centre for the final meeting of the parenting course, where we gave feedback to Richard from Icarus, who will do a report about the various families and parenting courses which have been trialled in York over the past year and a bit, and then City of York Council will know which approaches work and which give value for money...

Then at midday we all headed over to Meltons Too on Walmgate for a meal. I went via the Council offices on St Leonards Place to give in the planning application responses from last night, and still got to the restaurant before any of the car-borne people...

Lovely meal, I had leek and potato soup, a little on the salty side, with bread, which was also salty (perhaps it's because we don't add salt to anything?) and then a baked mushrooms with cheese sauce and breadcrumbs dish, and tiramasu... what a treat, very filling and delicious!
We had certificates presented and a card given, it was good to chat away and exchange stories.

Raced home well after 2 to go to the veg shop and get back so I could pick up the kids!

I got soaked on the way to school and came home with three little chaps, two of them eager to go to Martial Arts.... Gill took them there but it had been cancelled, at least no-one else had turned up so they came back and I phoned our friend Maria to say not to pick up her son and ours from there but to come straight here.... and when she came, we had a good chat whilst I peeled pears to dry them... school had thrown away about 15 small pears (no idea why!) so I am making use of them and doing a pile of pear halves.

After tea... not a huge lot as I was still full from lunch... I did a load of emailing and got two messages on this blog in my inbox on 27th and 28th Feb 07 asking me about where Clearview Stoves can be purchased/installed from... So, a message to Alan the Lumberjack and Lindsay, who know Pauline, you should contact 'The Stove Gallery' (also known as Pete the Sweep) which is at:
41-43 High Street,
Starbeck near Harrogate,
tel 01423 887799
e: http://www.thestovegallery.com/
They have quite a few stoves on show, including the wonderful Clearview range, and provide friendly and professional installation, servicing and advice. They recommended getting our chimneys lined with insulated concrete, and we used 'Chimneycrete': http://www.chimneycrete.com/frontpage.htm and are very happy with the performance of both flues.

Despite recommending Clearview Stoves and The Stove Gallery to literally dozens of people, I have never been offered a discount and I could never say that they are cheap.... but I trust their knowledge and ability so continue to use them. And Clearview Stoves are widely recognised as being the best smokefree stoves available: http://www.clearviewstoves.com/index.htm
We have two Clearviews, a Vision 500 flat-top which gives up to 8kw of heat, and a Pioneer 400 flat-top which gives up to 5kw. These give us enough heating and cooking to make our other fuel bills tiny... an annual gas bill of about £50 and our annual electricity bill is about £230, paid to Good Energy Ltd http://www.good-energy.co.uk/ who supply 100% renewable electricity.

Thursday 17th April 08

A reasonable day... A slow start but at 10ish I got up as at 10.30 was expecting a visit from someone from The Stove Gallery/Pete The Sweep to fit a replacement 'Turbobaffle' which is the part of the stove which makes it smokefree. It sits in the top of the firebox and takes air from an inlet beneath the stove and the air is channeled through a long labyrinth within the baffle which heats the air up. The air then enters the firebox through lots of tiny holes, giving jets of fresh hot air, causing much turbulence and complete combustion, high thermal efficiency and 'smokefree' status. But an expensive bit of kit. The old one had somehow become overheated and had become mis-shapen and wasn't functioning at full whack. Will have to treat it with more respect. I will have to tell Gill NOT to leave the bottom-air open as this makes the stove too hot and can damage the turbobaffle. She often forgets to close it down after opening it up to ignite fresh fuel, and I come in to find it open and her getting on with whatever, having forgotten to close the spinner at the bottom....

So I waited for the stove person and got a phone call saying he'd be late. I split logs and cut sticks. Then the chap came, he was really nice and wrestled with the stove for a long time, eventually putting the turbobaffle in, replaced the rope-seal on the door and was interested to read my latest column, published today in Community Care, on 'Healthy Hobbies'.

Lunch and all too soon it was time to go to school. Gill got the boys, I attended the first AGM of the Green Thumb Gang and we agreed a constitution, all over in half an hour. I whizzed along to St Nicks to attend a sustainability surgery and give composting advice. This was followed by the Hull Road Ward Committee Meeting which was very quick.

Home for tea.

Friday 4th April 08

Up at a civilised time and got dressed pretty sharpish as we had booked Pete The Sweep who's based near Harrogate. We use them as they fitted our Clearview stoves and they do replacement parts... which it turned out we needed. The back firebrick had almost completely worn through in our biggest stove, the one we use every day. When it was taken out it fell apart. The 'turbobaffle' is also shot after more than 10 years almost continuous use and will also need replacing, but the shop doesn't have them in stock so that will be installed within a couple of weeks. And when they swept the chimneys, one of the wire 'anti-bird' cowl thingies came off so they offered to replace them with ones which are tied firmly on and can cope with a sweep's brush coming up.

The good news is that there was hardly any soot in the chimneys, as the stoves do burn really cleanly, and this small volume of deposit is evidence of that. So they went back to Starbeck to get replacement firebricks as they don't have them in the van, so it has turned out to be an expensive morning, both financially and in terms of van-miles, but as there's a cold-weather warning for the coming weekend, we really have to be able to use the back room stove, and it's not usable without the firebricks.... so they used their lunchhour to go and get what was needed.

So they returned and finished servicing our heating system, and will bill us through the post. An expensive day... but not expensive compared to the cost of most peoples' fuel bills. I still keep on thinking of our winter gas bill of £12!!! And this because we don't use any central heating and cook mainly on the woodstove.

A quiet afternoon, boys occupied and happy enough, I did some work outside and also made a nutloaf.

At 5.30 I went into town to attend the monthly Critical Mass Cycle Celebration, which was good, several new faces and friendly chats. Not a lot of aggro from other road users this time which was good.

Had nutloaf when I came in, and when the kids were in bed, had a game of Scrabble with Gilly and beat her soundly... a difficult board and she did get lousy letters. I got most of the high scorers and it showed in the final tally. A good evening.

Thursday 19th April 07

Gill had offered to support one of our friends whom had herself volunteered to support a woman who faces deportation, so Gill went to court with our friend to meet up with the woman who feels she will be killed or persecuted if she returns to her country of origin. Therefore I got up at 6.30 to complete the children's morning routine and take them to school. Feeling tired and grotty, have not been getting enough sleep and have a runny nose, probably connected.

However, have to make best use of the day and lit the stove, got hot water together, did lots of washing up and soaking labels of bottles, glass in recycling and squashed the plastic ones so more fit in the recycling and sorted accumulated stuff whilst listening to a good programme on symmetry on R4.

Contemplated returning to bed!

Did return and read my Growing Heap magazine, journal of the Community Composting Network. I have a mention because of my Ethical Man composting. Also part four of 'Composting in Schools', a subject close to my heart!

But didn't spend long as had a carrot and pumpkin soup to make, and more housework.

Lunch was with Jo, a new Rotter who seemed almost as keen on composting as I am, and I invited her to ring me and invite herself round. So she did and she was very interested in the various systems. We talked about loads of things over a sandwich and spent an hour and a half together, I hope we'll meet again. She helps run a scout group so she may get to see me as Professor Fiddlesticks as scouts are a speciality!

Phone call from Gill and our caring friend, they are taking longer in court than planned so I'll not expect them back and I'll pick up the boys. When I picked them up they were invited to go and play with a friend so I cycled home alone, picked up a giant log and when I got back, Gill was just home. A harrowing day for her, but fulfilling. I had several bits of good news... I found out that Dr Sentamu is going to be the patron of York Credit Union, I have been contacted by a professional coffin-maker and green burials person about possible compost burials, and one of the teachers at school has suddenly realised that the school isnt doing much recycling and is now my ally. All these positive things for the future make me happy.

Picked up the boys and they came home for tea, I ate some soup and sandwich and went to bed and fell asleep til 7 when Gill woke me to watch 'It's Not Easy Being Green', and spotted a Clearview stove.... they're catching on!

Lots of computery stuff, mostly googlechat with my re-ignited flame in America. Early night!

Weds 18th April 07

A nice day. Was rung quite early by a Press photographer wanting another photo, because they're going to run a story about composting human bodies, so I said that now was fine and in 20 mins the chap was here. He got a series of photos and was off in 30 minutes, and then it was time for me to go to my dental appointment next to the Minster, a brief clean. I was very happy to hear that I am looking after my teeth well and they required less scaling and polishing than usual, and was told to rebook in 6 months.

Home via Sainsbury's (got a new toothbrush and a 3 for 2 toothpaste offer!) and then Richard at the fruit shop, lunch and a good chunk of afternoon in the garden, more riddling. 3pm came oh so quickly, so picked up the kids and they cycled home very quickly. Then went into town again to see Pauline and go to Out of This World. Pauline had asked me to come and try her new Freecycled bowsaw out on some skip wood she'd retrieved for her Clearview stove, and the saw turned out to be very good... it had a blade protector and was sharp and quick to cut. I also helped her with a couple of composting jobs, and was rewarded with a delicious Magnum ice cream and our usual friendly banter. OOTW had about 15kg of stuff for me and it went on the trailer no problem alongside Pauline's prunings.

Home again, had a good tea of pumpkin and cauliflower with cheese sauce plus two past sell by date 'sea cakes', tofu and seaweed thingies from you know where... another cheap and fulfilling meal cooked entirely on the woodstove (well, all the stuff I cooked).

Made up my muesli, using organic muesli base from the 10 kg bag from Suma and a generous mix of home-dried apple, banana, pineapple, nectarine, kiwi and raisins, home grown pumpkin seeds toasted and popped on the stove, and brazil nuts, supporting sustainable forestry in Amazonia, and a treat, yoghurt-covered raisins.... what a delicious muesli. I eat this twice a day, first thing and last thing...

Monday 19th March 07

Another chilly day but I got up early to help my friend Pauline stay warm.... she's the only person I regularly supply with logs for her Clearview Stove. She has a 4kw smokefree and sometimes runs out of fuel, and during this cold snap she has had to resort to coal, which burns clean on these stoves but is a fossil fuel, and as a Green she doesn't enjoy using this.

So I took the kiddies to school and cycled on to Pauline's to deliver two sacks full. Then onto Out Of This World to pick up quite a lot of compostables and bombed home, as I've a gig at lunchtime. However I got back before 10 so I utilised a load of organic but unloved/unsold bananas and ditto limes to make an experimental fruit-leather. I halved and squeezed about 10 limes and peeled and popped into the blender about 15 bananas with the lime juice and some of the pulp. When it was well liquidised I poured it into my finest seive and pushed it through with the back of a 'last lick' rubber spoon, and poured the liquid into a non-stick swiss-roll tin, and placed this onto a wok stand on top of the stove. To prevent it burning I use a fan which uses the hot stove surface to make electricity and this makes the fan blades spin round, blowing air over the drying fruit. This 'Caframo ecofan' is sold as a method of helping to circulate air round the room but the hot stove creates it's own powerful convection currents, so it's really just a gimmick.... unless you use it to speed-dry fruit!

At 11.30 I set off for Manor School to do my Professor Fiddlesticks circus training, today diabolo and unicycle. The session went very well and the children enjoyed themselves, as did the teacher! After this I visited my old friend Jean who is always pleased to see me, as life in an old people's nursing home isn't good. I'd only been there 5 minutes when some staff came in and told her that her room was going to be cleaned so she was moved into the common room and we sat together there. It's not a pleasant place as one of the incumbents shouts and another, sitting next to Jean, repeated everything I said, well the last few words of it, as if in a trance. One lady looked like 'The Scream' and another rocked and shook continuously, mouth open and eyes shut. Not a good advert for old age. Jean gets one other regular visitor, a brilliant old lady called Joyce, who cycles around with an anti-war notice on her bike. So Joyce turned up, as promised in Jean's appointment diary, and I left them to chat.

I cycled home with the wind mainly behind me blowing snowflakes, and got in just as Gill was setting off to pick up the boys. I did some emails and blog and ate tea which Gilly had created, a lovely and filling bulgar wheat and veg mix.

Then some more work outside, despite the cold wind and snow flurries, and back in to get ready for the talk I had agreed to give to York Co-operative Members Group about YorkLETS. I picked up some LETS info and membership forms on the way into York from Stephen our Membership person, and got to CVS in good time. i think the 10 or so people enjoyed the talk and two took membership application forms.

Back home in time to watch an interesting programme on farming, selective breeding, genetic modification and cloning. Interesting.

Whilst Gill watched ER, which is too graphic for me, I went on the computer again and was pleased to find an email from a ?cousin Jenny Cossham who I found during a Google search, and I was able to leave her a short message which she replied to. She's into various aspects of sustainability too, which is great!

Thursday 15th March 07

Another good day. Got into the garden to enjoy the good weather and did some tidying, composting, shredding and weeding. Retrieved some carrots from the throwouts which seemed fine, and prepared some carrot soup. At 1pm had a Freecycle visitor, Jules, who I've had an email chat with re stoves and logs. he came to see the stove in action (cooking carrot soup) and had a tour of the garden. If I'm lucky I'll recieve a load of logs from him on Saturday, as the place he works at had several trees fall in the high winds earlier this year. After lunch I got going with the electric chainsawing and processed a large pile of logs into splittable lumps.

Continued this after picking up kidos from school. However had a rather interesting interruption, a phone call from Sara, the producer of 'Ethical Man' who wanted to talk to me about her plans for the 'Death of Ethical Man'. Justin Rowlatt wants to kill off Ethical Man and recycle the cadaver (pretend, honest!) and I'm sure you know how he wants to do it! Anyway there are plans to film this in our garden next week. This blog will reveal all as and when it happens, and then the Great British Public will see the result on Newsnight the following week. How exciting!

Tea was the most delicious carrot soup, flavoured with corriander leaf, and a chunky sandwich. Soon after tea I had to go to town to attend the CrUST/Green Festival meeting at the Evil Eye on Stonegate. We got moved from the top room as it had been booked, and then rather aggressively moved from where we were put after that, as we were allegedly blocking a fire exit. However a good meeting and we are getting closer to being able to have a well organised Green Festival.

Wednesday 14th March 07

Woke feeling just a little sad at last night's email from the Yorkshire Post, but glad I'd responded politely as I like to keep options open and not burn boats.

When I was offered my column I contacted my friend Kate who writes a column for the York Press and asked her if she'd give me some tips and advice. In return, she asked me to help her with her compost bin which she's had for just over a year, and needs some management. Of course I was happy to help with her composter, and even if she now no longer needs to give advice to this non-columnist. I dug out the bottom of the dalek, the material was mostly well rotted and will need a short while maturing before it is used in her garden. The plastic and unrotted bits were taken out and put in their respective places (dustbin and top of compost pile) and the semi mature stuff put in a polybag for revisiting soon, when I'll Rotaseive it, a hand-powered mechanical riddle which separates small particles from larger sticks, etc.

I didn't have time to sit and have a coffee or a chat about the gutter press, as I was due at Askham Bryan Agricultural College for a short course about trees, evaluating the amenity value of trees and evaluating the different calorific value and burning quality of different types of wood. This latter issue is close to my heart, as all these blogs are written in front of my 4.5kw Clearview smokefree woodstove, which heats the front room and the bedroom above. So I learnt less from the second worksshop, apart from some numerical stuff such as how many BTUs (British Thermal Units) are in different species of tree's wood, fresh cut, air dried and kiln dried. The amenity value evaluation was completely new to me, a rather complicated and not very precise set of calculations called the Helliwell Method. However we were novices and if done by someone who knew what they were doing, it is a reasonable way to calculate an objective value of a tree from factors which are mostly subjective. Different people value trees for different things... an artist will see the shape and form, a biologist will see the ecological value, a timber merchant or woodburner will see something else. The method also enables a value in pounds sterling to be made, for compensation claims perhaps. We went into the grounds and attempted some amenity evaluations, then retired to the classroom to ccompare notes and discuss. Very interesting.

Then bombed back into York and filled up the cycle trailer with compostables and got home in time to meet up with a zoologist/entomologist from the Yorkshire Museum, who had been very interested in my find of some Minor Stag Beetles in a partially rotten log which I'd split. Often I put obviously rotten logs under a hedge in the garden so that beasties get a chance to live and breed, but this log didn't appear that bad, as it was mostly sound and would be good for burning. However when it split, a load of juicy woodboring beetle larvae fell out, plus a couple of adults, easily identifiable and in my book, rare and not found north of Nottingham. Pip the bug lady told me that they had actually been found as far north as Edinburgh and were found in the York area. Still a nice record for them, and Pip enjoyed the stroll down the garden and was pleased to see our Goldcrests which love the trees above my fruit-fly infested composters, and feast on the little blighters. How nice it feels to take materials which would otherwise be landfilled and lost for ever, and turn them into Britain's smallest bird plus a material which traps carbon into the soil and helps us grow delicious squashes and sweetcorn.

Our garden also has good populations of blackbirds which enjoy turning over mulches and flicking them around, also pecking at unsold apples which I often deliberately throw onto the lawn for them, and robins which love it when I move bags of compost around and reveal worms and other invertebrates which they hop down and eat. When working in the garden I always have their company. I'm not good at identifying other birds, but Gill has identified Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, House Sparrows and Dunnocks, Blue/Great/Long Tailed/Coal Tits, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Siskin, Starlings, Collared Dove and Wood Pigeons, Magpies, Wren, Treecreeper, Redwing, Blackcap Warbler, Fieldfare, a Kestrel (swooping towards the bird table) and Mallard Ducks visiting next door's pond.

It is very satisfying to have so much life enjoying our land, of which we are temporary stewards. The garden looks messy to people but is a haven for animals, plenty of nesting areas and ecological niches.

Monday 12th March 07

A good day, although woke early, too early for my liking, and as is usual, I cannot go back to sleep, so I got up and breakfasted and helped my wife get the children ready for school.

The good day really started when I rang the Yorkshire Post, re their offer made provisionally last week offering me a regular column. Yes it's amazing, but my 'low impact lifestyle' and ethical approach is of interest to readers of the Yorks Post, according to the Associate Features Editor. She rang me back and confirmed that they'd like me to do a fortnightly 500 - 600 words for their Wednesday 'Life and Style' supplement. I asked a lot of questions and am satisfied with the arrangement. As well as a fee, I'll get a subscription to the YP so I can see what's in the paper and make my column current and topical. I read out the 30 or so subjects I could write about and she seemed pleased I'd already thought about it. I suggested an introductory column, setting out my stall, and then emailing a 'bank' of a few pieces for them to choose from.

It will be a lot of work initially, and my blog might be a bit thin for a while, as I'll be concentrating on work!!!

However, nothing should stop me doing my regular compostables collections and today was no exception. After picking up the boys I went to visit my Bishophill friend to drink her coffee and chop her woody bits she gleans from neighbours and skips for her small Clearview Stove. Then my usual Out Of This World pick up, and then the Hes Rd pick up, lots of lovely sad veg and unloved fruit to put in the Compostumbler.

I made pumpkin soup earlier in the day and I had this along with a potato and veg pie with a cheesy scone top that Gill had invented. Great. Vegan ice cream and banana and home-made chocolate cake for pud. We're well-fed here!

Hopefully an early night to compensate for the over-early morning.

Plenty of writing to do.... exciting times ahead. I'll do ANYTHING to promote sustainability!

Saturday 3rd March 07

Ah, nice to have a day when I'm not expected to do anything in particular. My boys were up early and the noise meant no lie-in, so I got up too and as they had lots of energy I invited them to cycle down to school with me, so I could pick up the plum logs I chopped on Thursday night. Whilst down there, I did a bit of gardening, tidying up, pulling out a few nettles etc, whilst the boys played in the grounds.

I spent some time later in the day building a logpile, I put a pile either side of the front door to fully dry off before they come in and sit near the stoves. For me, logpile construction is a bit like an adult jigsaw puzzle, as it has to fit together and stand up, and cope with some shrinkage as it dries. It is common for the pile to shift and lean over, and it's quite an art to build a good one. I use a varity of logs in these 'final' woodpiles, taken from several 'single type' woodpiles of ready wood. Different wood has different burning qualities, some burns easily and very hot (ie hawthorn) and some burns quickly and with low heat output, such as poplar. Some pine and most dense wood like oak will stay in overnight, and enable the stove to be lit on the embers in the morning. Split logs dry better than whole ones, and burn better too. This knowledge is important if you cook on the stove, boil kettles, and choose not to use central heating (runs on gas). I love Clearview Stoves, but this week will ring Town and Country Stoves, in Pickering, to see if their model tested recently was deemed to be 'smokefree'. I had a good chat with the son of the MD recently, who told me lots about the testing process that enables a particular model to have a certificate enabling it to be labelled smokefree.

In the afternoon I prepared my seed compost, five parts riddled leafmold, four parts loam from upturned turves and one part garden compost. I then looked for my pepper seeds, and Gill told me that sometime over the past few months, during a clearup (I'm very untidy and chaotic!) she'd put all of the veg and flower seeds in a large airtight plastic box. Unfortunately she'd also put in some onion sets. The moisture from these had cause the whole box contents to rot, including the majority of the seeds. The only ones to remain dry were the ones in foil/plastic sachets, unopened. This was dreadful, as most of our seeds are now no good. However, in a way it was a good way to 'weed out' the old ones which would have had poor or no germination anyway. Fortunately, the most recent seed order from the allotment store was not in this box, it was sitting (untidily) in a bookshelf in an envelope next to envelopes of bean pods and last season's pumpkins. So they were OK, and they included some peppers. So they got planted.

In the evening my LETS friend David called, asking if I could cut a sheet of woody material to size for him, for an art project. I went for a walk with him, as I'd noticed a ripe skip with a holly tree (combustable logettes and compostable twiglets) and some unpainted planed wood and several pallets for building another compost bin, New Zealand type, to replace one which is itself turning into compost. I loaded up my bike trailer and again reduced our overburdened landfill.

Later, gazed at the lunar eclipse with binoculars, totally wow.

27th Feb 07

Today I had booked my bike into Cycle Heaven on Bishopthorpe Rd for a service, but as they didn't open til 10.30 I popped into Pauline to saw some floorboards for her. Years ago, when she saw my Clearview Stove, she was so taken that she bought one too. It's the smaller cleanburn model, the Pioneer 4.5kw, and she's always on the lookout for wood. She's got a friendly joiner who drops off bits and bobs, and she sometimes calls me to attack the oversize planks with my bowsaw. In return she plies me with coffee and, this time, gave me some reclaimed lego for my boys and a squeezy bottle with nozzle for making a jet of water which I'd requested on Freecycle. I wanted it so I could wash out my ears, something I've done since childhood, and my usual squeezy bottle has had the top lost by one of my family members.

Anyway, a useful, and as usual, lovely time with Pauline, then off to the cycle shop. When I take my 'Dawes Streetwise' for a service, Cycle Heaven always offer me a replacement bike to use during the time they've got mine. This time I had a new experience, a load carrying 'Filibus' bike was mine for the day. It has a platform in the front of the handlebars, and the front wheel is under this, connected to the handlebars via a connecting bar or rod, rather than being under the handlebars. It was a good ride, not much different to a 'normal' bike, and fab gearing, making starts and uphills very easy.

I cycled home. When I got home Gill told me that our eldest son had left his gloves at home, and he was due to undergo his first cycle training, and being a cold and wet day, he needed them. I volunteered to cycle them down to the school for him. I made best use of the Filibus and brought a huge log back, from an immense beech tree which was felled a while ago, and sliced up so that locals could take it away. The bike handled really well. I have fallen in love with this bike!

When I got back, Cycle Heaven had phoned to tell me that my heavy use of my Dawes had worn the back wheel rim through with the braking and all the loads I lug around. I need a new back wheel, and I need one building as if I buy one 'off the shelf' it won't last long. So that means collecting my bike tomorrow, not tonight. Never mind, I'll enjoy going back to school to pick up the kiddies, as there are a number of bike enthusiasts who'll be interested in the Filibus. And I'll be able to pick up another giant lump destined for the stoves.

During the day I'd gone onto my emails to check Freecycle, and someone was offering a CD player, so I emailed and told the offerer about my son's desire to have a CD player. During the evening, the offerer, Daphne, phoned, and said we could have the CD player. Brilliant! So tomorrow morning I'm going to pick it up.

I cooked tea for my wife... pasta (bought, wholemeal), tomato/onion/pepper stir-fry (all out of the rejects!) and carrot and cauliflower (free also), steamed. All cooked on the stove-top, all without fossil fuel. What a life, I love it!

22nd Feb 07

How nice to have a lie-in this morning. My wife Gill nearly always gets up early and breakfasts the children and cycles with them to school, and I do the collecting at the end of the school day. So I woke shortly before 9am, had my habitual branflakes and home-made muesli, and went back to bed for an hour. Luxury!

After I got up I cycled speedily to town via St Nicks, to see if York Rotters would pay my £10 fee for next weeks Community Composting Network event at Offshoots in Burnley, on Food Waste Composting. Keely, our project manager, said yes, so long as I make notes and give her and several other interested parties a talk about it the following week.

I collected one potato sack's worth of sad veg and unloved fruit from Out Of This World and cycled home for lunch. After sandwiches I processed some dried fruit I'd started last night. I'd taken some some previously dried pear slices, made on my Clearview Woodstoves on cake racks, and immersed them in lime juice and a second batch in orange juice. These were then re-dried, making a fantastic tasty snack. I've experimented with apple rings in blackberry juice and have used squishy raspberries this way too. It's a little fiddly but the results are just amazing, dried pear with citrus overload. And of course all the ingredients are more or less free, I give my favourite greengrocer Richard (from Martin's Country Fresh on Heslington Road) a penny per sack for unsalable fruit, cauliflower stalks, green potatoes etc etc, and compost most of it in my garden. However, some fruit is worth drying, and as I have woodstoves going much of the time, I dry apple rings, bananas, melon slices, pear halves, and make dried tomatoes which I then put in extra virgin olive oil, for 'woodstove-dried tomatoes' .

I spent a few minutes splitting logs for the drying pile, and my neighbour came out and complained that it was making his house shake. I suppose it is annoying, but I've never complained about having to inhale petrol fumes when their cars start-up from cold in the morning. I've never mentioned to him how this makes me feel, and I wonder which has the worst long-term health effects, breathing in Benzene or a bit of banging now and again? I'll try to stick to using my electric hydraulic logsplitter, although this increases my elecrticity bill and it takes time to get it set up and put away again.

As I was leaving for school my friend M phoned. She was stuck in traffic, and would I pick up P if her hubby hadn't made it into school by hometime, and bring him home. P is good friends with us, and although his behaviour has been difficult on some occasions, I have never found him to be particularly different to other children. However, problems at school and certain behavioural traits have led his parents to get a diagnosis, and he has Autistic Spectrum Disorder. When all the children came out, so did he, expecting to see Dad or Mum and to be taken home for his usual Friday after-school routine. I told him that his parents couldn't make it and Mum had asked me to take him home, where he would be collected. He ran back into the school screaming. He was obviously completely unconsolable and refused to come home with me. My boys had some extra time cycling round the playground, as I reasoned with P. Several staff members got involved, and were very understanding, and were gentle with him, explaining the situation. He still refused to budge. Several phone-calls were made and it was agreed to leave him at school to be picked up by whichever parent arrived first.

His recent diagnosis helped me understand this unusual behaviour, and seeing the behaviour helped me understand why he had recieved the diagnosis. I got a phone call minutes after getting home, mum thanking me and saying she'd arrived soon after I'd gone and P was allright now, and happily back in his expected routine. Poor old P, I'm very fond of him and now I feel I understand a little bit more about him.