Thursday 23rd October 08

I took out littlest to school and had a brief chat with the headteacher who popped into the playground when all the children had gone in. I told her I was pleased, very pleased, to see the Japanese Garden had been re-done, with the illegal treated sleepers taken out and replaced with untreated ones. She said that she was the most pleased it had been sorted out... I said I was even happier than her since I'd pointed out the error in the first place and therefore had 'caused' the kerfuffle. I also asked about the site of the new classrooms and it looks very much like they'll be partly on the site of the plot we dug over last year, so Green Thumbs will have to find another place to have a garden. I didn't have time to have another go at getting recycling on the agenda.

Did some more log stacking in the morning before heading off down to town to meet an author called Donna who's got a book about to be published, an autobiography, and we had a hot chocolate at El Piano together for an hour's chat.

After lunch I took my quiet shredder round to Phil's just up the road and helped him feed a pile of pruned out sticks and small branches through it... in return I'll get a small pile of the thicker sticks and a suprise gift, which will be a suprise!

I got our littlest from school and as Gill was out, didn't help with Green Thumbs... but it was OK as they were inside and doing pumpkin monsters, but when I got back Gill was in. I helped scrub potatoes for tea, Gill made a hotpot with a veggiesuet pie crust... lovely!

A good evening, did a lot of washing up to make space for washing and blanching grapes, as I've brought back about 30 punnets of red seedless grapes, which are unsaleable as some of each punnet is going mouldy, although over half of them are fine. Once blanched, to prevent mould, they dry quite quickly in trays on the woodstove and make excellent raisins.

Wednesday 22nd October 08

I took our youngest to school and came back with four sacks of leaves.

A quiet day in the house mainly... more chores whilst Gill went to Art in Osbaldwick, proudly showing me a lovely 'negative' artwork when she got back. They'd been given a couple of chairs to draw, but had been told to draw everything but the chairs, so the gaps between were there but the chairs themselves were just silhouettes.

Before and after lunch I spent a good long time cutting back this year's fruited loganberry canes and tying in the ones which have grown this year and will fruit next year. This is a tricky job, gloves would make it completely impossible so I used bare hands and secateurs, but quite a few of the tiny prickles and spines found their way into my hands, so I spent a bit of time during the evening chopping them out like I do with splinters, using my very sharp penknife scissors.

Continued with the work I'm doing for Ali's project, which will convert into a 'Dexter' artwork. It's a list of words from my first 40 years, memory joggers. I need about a thousand, so only another 800 to go then!!!

I met up with Julia from Green Thumbs at 3.40 at Country Fresh, so she could buy and take away 20 pumpkins which the youngsters will make into creatures, rather than carve with sharp knives which we think wouldn't be a good idea from a safety point of view. I'm grateful to the guys at Country Fresh for the very reasonable deal on the pumpkins!

A cosy evening with Gill once the boys were in bed, which took time as the homework situation had caused a lot of anger.

Thursday 26th June 08

Another day... I took the boyos to school and Gill headed off to Leeds again. I went through town with a delivery of compost for Jo my cycle shop friend, who has a lovely little garden with lots of plants in pots and 3 raised beds crying out for something to fill them. She's collected several sacks of soil, and will mix it with the compost and use that.

I then cycled to school with four sacks of soil/compost/leafmold mix to fill the small planters... and although they are small, the four sacks of growing medium only filled three out of the six pots. Julia agreed that I should make up another batch to fill the last lot of pots!

As I was doing Green Thumbs, the lovely Melody agreed to take my boys for the hour and I'd pick them up later. However Gill arrived after her Leeds day to collect them, but I sent her home as I knew it would be easier for her to be at home by herself to sort out tea rather than have the boys around, and I brought them back once they'd had their play with Melody's child.

After tea I had a York Green Festival meeting, collected the Space 109 keys first and and less than 10 people turned up, but we had a good meeting.

We finished before 10 and I decided not to go to the local hostelry as I had stuff to do at home...

Wednesday 18th June 08

A very lazy day... Gill took the boys to school and I spent the rest of the day with Gill, in the house, doing stuff on the computer, paperwork re Fiddlesticks, housework re tidying etc etc.

I picked up the boys plus one friend and I then took two of them to Martial Arts, then down to Country Fresh to pick up recyclables and some food. Home to spend a few minutes in the garden, had tea with the family including all having a large serving of home-grown oyster mushroom which I harvested today.

After the boys were heading for bed, popped down to school to fill the large pots with the soil/compost mix I created last night, ready for Green Thumbs tomorrow. Did this in the rain.

Came home for a game of Scrabble with Gill.

Tuesday 15th April 08

A good day as the kids were ready to walk to school this morning as they are going on the bus this afternoon straight from school to the Dentist in town.... so having bikes at school would be daft. They enjoyed walking with me, I pushed my bike with their bags in the trailer.

At 9 I had a meeting with Julia to decide on where the gardening club is to do its thing now the original plot is not available, as it may be built on. We are going to use some existing borders and ask for planters/containers to be donated. Julia is happy for me to supply the matured compost to mix with soil off the plot. I'll give her a blank invoice and see what donation she can come up with. I'm really glad that I'll be able to have some of my compost used for the school project.... a very good use!

When I got in I decided to respond to a request by my friend James to go and help him with a small gardening task. When I arrived he was in the middle of a visit from his friend Lynne whom I have met but didn't know. We all had a coffee and a chat, although James was a bit difficult to understand as he'd been on the vodka. His carers came, checked him and made him a sandwich, and went. I did a bit in his garden and went. I may be helping Lynne with her composting soon!

I popped into the Post Office on the way home to pick up a Presentation Pack of the 'Insect' set of stamps. I don't get every set of stamps but when I was younger I got lots of First Day Covers and Presentation Packs, and I still get occasional ones.

Lunch was lovely and afterwards Gill and I spent some time together and at 2.45 she went to school to pick up the boys, and I spent some time in the garden. I dug out two builders bags of mature compost and filled one other with this material... I'll riddle this cubic metre of compost and take it to school. Will this be enough I wonder?

For tea I had pasta and a hunk of cauliflower cooked on the stove, covered by a sauce made from yesterday's leek soup (basically a roux wit some cheese added then most of the soup stirred in) which was really good. We are very lucky with our food.... whilst watching TV with food shortages in many other parts of the world, and today this country putting biofuels in our petrol tanks, much of which is made from food. The only sensible solution is to drive less, consume less fuel, and to eat less meat which is so incredibly wasteful on finite resources. But how we arrive at this more sensible way of living I do not know....

A peaceful evening, with the woodstove ticking away and drying off my plum leather.

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!

Thursday 10th April 08

A good day, Gill went out and I got a lot done on the computer ... did a lot of deleting from my inbox of over 1000 messages whilst offline and then, when online, dealt with some more composting enquiries through Facebook and looked at the first results for my questionnaire... so far just 12 answers, but some good quality answers with some really interesting info. I feel very pleased with the way the results are presented.

I got a phone call from my friend Pippa whom I've known for well over a decade but only get to see every two years on average... and she's coming up to visit us, which will be really good. She'll stay in a B+B for a night towards the end of the month.

I had lunch and then Gill came in and she had hers, we chatted and it was 2pm very soon... I had planned to go and plant some onion sets but there wasn't time as I also had to do some more digging at the Green Thumbs plot at school. As I arrived, the head-teacher came out and asked me into her room as she had something to tell me. The news is that the plot we have prepared may not be where the garden ends up, as the two mobile classrooms nearby are due to be demolished, and the new classroom may be built where the garden now is! So there's to be no more work on the plot until the surveyors tell the school where the classrooms are to be. Therefore she asked me to dig over an area next to the playground, where we might plant some stuff. I cut away some dead twiggy bits and removed lots of litter which had accumulated, mainly the dreaded assorted plastic. That didn't take long so I did some compost management of the school compost bins.

Then the children came out and Gill came down from home to pick up our boys and a friend's son... and I gathered the children who are part of the Gardening Club and took them to see the plot, along with Nigel who has offered to survey the area and make a computer-aided-plan of it. At about 4pm Kate from CVS who I'd invited to give us advice on making a Child Protection Policy arrived and three of us met with her and she talked us through what we should do, our obligations, the training we can get etc etc. But I had to rush off as soon as she was done, as I had my second meeting to get to.

I had a brief tea and went into the garden to collect samples of various types of compost, leafmould etc for my third meeting later, plus the rotaseive which I'll need.

I cycled down to Fulford Road where a Rotters enquiry has come from. A couple who moved in over a year ago and have a single dalek bin in their garden, which had been well used by the prevoius occupants and was full and pretty solid at the base. They'd watered it and added more stuff at the top, but hadn't managed to get it to go down at all. This I found was because it was almost full of mature compost... so I used my Compost Mate corkscrew thing to extract a huge amount of really good compost, the whole of the base of the heap, whilst they watched and picked out contraries (bits of plastic!) from the mature and fibrous mass. I think I must have pulled out about 100 litres of compost... they were well pleased, and will top-dress their borders with it. They were even more pleased when the bin contents settled down and I broke up the rest of it so there was plenty of space to add more stuff. That all took about 40 minutes and I then shot off to my third meeting, at the Scout Hut on Lorne St in Southbank.

My friend Jo was there, getting the two big old compost bins ready for the 'Panthers' (A type of cub/scout person) to have an 'activity' with. She'd brought her wormery and I'd brought a selection of composts and leafmould, also some very well rotted humanure/sawdust compost. I took half of the group and did a short talk on composting, then got them to have a go with the riddles (Jo had got her rotaseive too) but the job was difficult as firstly the heaps were mainly grass mowings and some layers were not rotted down at all, they were anaerobic and smelly and looked like sileage, and the rotted stuff was a little too moist to riddle well. The groups swapped over and I did it all again. That all came to a stop just before 8, I got packed up and shot off into town for my fourth meeting.

Which was at the Black Swan where I met my friend Chinky, propping up the bar and being jovial, as usual. The meeting was a group of five other earnest chaps, members of York Eco Action, three were from the student group 'People and Planet'. We had an agenda writing session and then spent a couple of hours going through, discussing various things including climate camp, the Fairtrade movement, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Kingsnorth Power Station, Heathrow, the Northern Green Gathering and quite a few more things. A good meeting, always lovely to be with Graham and Richard, and I think I've made another friend from P+P.

But glad when it finished as I was whacked! Knackeronied! Virtually shagged even... and when I got back I wanted to relax and watch Johnny Vegas in 'Ideal', my favourite current TV series, but also had got a Skype chat booked with K, who likes to be regular, every other day, to keep up with what's happening. I only just lasted the hour we have negotiated we have... and fell into bed so willingly afterwards!

Wednesday 2nd April 08

Up early as had a long day at school, marking out the plot for the Green Thumbs Gang Garden, taking turf off it and digging the soil to remove roots of the trees and hedges.

I got there at 9, with spade and fork, loppers and secateurs, string and sandwiches. Julia was already there with her children, but she'd lost her purse the previous night and had to go and look for it, so she went and we got to work, marking out the plot and starting the turf stripping.

Other people arrived, notably Geoff with his Granddaughter, and then others. There was a lot of work clearing the area next to the dug plot, to free it of scrub and litter and stuff.

People worked really hard. I worked really hard... took 20 mins off for lunch and then worked through til 5pm.

Knackered.

Tea was lovely, pitta bread and salad, then went to do a final barrow-load of compost riddling with the motorised riddle before putting it away.

Tried to have an early night.

Monday 17th March 08

A good day, on the whole. I took the boys into school with minimum resistance, although the youngest refused to cycle so I gave him a lift on my pannier rack.

Did a bunch of paperwork in the morning, for the Student Loan Company, asking them to again defer the repayments I incurred in 1992, 3 and 4 as I do not earn enough to fall into their 'repay now' category. However they need lots of proof that I'm on a low income, which is a bind. But better than having to pay it back.... and anyway, I believe that education should be free and I don't agree with loans.... and my Environmental Health degree has not got me anywhere or earned me any money!

And so to some housework and other stuff, sorting out various bits and bobs.

I got the children and then went to Martins Country Fresh for a few vegetables and the customary sack of compostables. Also did some chainsawing to make the front more tidy as my neighbour has complained that the logs look untidy. I made no comment about his car looking ugly to me, for what it represents and what it is capable of doing. I just listened and promised to try to tidy up a bit...

At 7.30 I attended a meeting at the Deramore Arms in Heslington with a fairly large group of the Green Thumbs gang.... to discuss the structure of the project, who does what and when things happen.... a good meeting.

Back at 10pm and tried on various outfits Gill had got together in order that I look smart for going to London and meeting the MPs. Watched some TV with her and then had a go on the computer but Gill felt rather alone so I came off untill she wanted to go to bed and I came to finish off the Green Thumbs emailing and complete this blog....

Tuesday 11th March 08

A fine start to the day... Gill awoke me at 8am and I got washed and came down, saying 'good morning' to the boys and told them that I'd be taking them to school in 25 minutes and I got on with my breakfast, and then when it was 22 mins past I reminded the whole room that I'd be going in 8 minutes. One child was still reading and I asked him to get dressed, which resulted in huge anger, as Mum had told him that he could finish his chapter.

Anyway, that resulted in my not being able to take that child in, so I cycled with the other one and Mum said she'd bring the other. I had to get to school as I had a 'Green Thumbs' meeting at 9.

It was a good meeting, although I was worried about how Gill was coping and wondering if she'd got our child to school. The meeting was to decide where the garden plot was to be, and some other issues, and we decided this during a walk around the school grounds, looking at 4 or 5 possible places. Two were dismissed as they were likely to attract vandals, and one or two areas were too close to the football pitches. We chose an area which is enclosed by a hedge and is not very visible from the outside. One tree will ideally have to be pruned back to give more light, but there's a Dad who's a tree surgeon and we will ask him if he'll do it!

I got home at 10.45 and found out that Gill had managed to get things calmed down and our boyo into school at just after 9am. A sigh of relief!

The rest of the day went smoothly, did quite a lot of cleaning and sorting things out and tidying... and at 2.30, our final 'external insulation expert' came to survey the house and then get back to us with a quote.

I went to pick up the boys, the youngest wanted to go and play with a friend so I came back with the eldest and one of his friends came back with us.

I did some work in the garden til just before 6, when I came in and started to prepare tea... cauliflower and pasta... I made myself an onion and cheese sauce.

A peaceful evening, thank goodness!

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.

Wednesday 27th February 08

Well the news is full of it... it was the strongest earthquake in the UK since one in Wales in 1984, which Gill experienced, and that one shook her out of bed and when she stood up, she fell over...

But it was my first and I was really shaken up, if readers excuse the pun. It was very frightening, weird, freaky, and left me full of adrenalin for an hour afterwards and it was difficult to go to sleep. Amazing! I feel very 'educated' as no amount of tv footage can really explain what it's like and how massive it feels. For all of my life I've felt that the earth, the ground, was still and stable and solid... and last night's earthquake puts that concept in the bin. It helps me begin to have empathy and understanding for the people who experience earthquakes in 'proper' earthquake zones. What an experience!

Had a very busy day. Was rung up first thing by my gardening friend Beth saying that the composting help she's asked for will be tomorrow morning. Then at 10.30 we set off for our Parenting Class, which was good as we heard two peoples' 'biographies' based on some props which included some old family photos and a book on Tarot and a crystal on a string.

I left immediately after lunch as I had to get to the Theatre Royal for 1pm for my first Equity AGM Northern Area, although I've been an Equity Member for well over a decade, I've never managed to get myself to an AGM. Met my friend Anneliese who writes poetry and plays and takes photos of insects http://www.thebigbuzz.biz/ whom I suggested should join Equity last year, so it was good to see her there. Also spotted Tony Morris, not sure where I know him from but probably the Black Swan Folk Music nights, and my colleague in Kids Entretainment, Henrietta Rabbit (aka Stephanie) http://www.henriettarabbit.co.uk/page.php?domain_name=henriettarabbit.co.uk&viewpage=home but she was concentrating on the meeting and didn't notice me.... a very good kids entertainer when in her pink hair though!

I had to leave a few minutes early as I had to bomb into school to attend the meeting of the Gardening Club, except it's a bit more than just a gardening club, as it also was about a 'business' that the children are going to run, using produce from the gardening club - named Green Thumbs - and incorporating a cooking club and a finances section.... ambitious and long-term. I only really want to be involved in the gardening, but the concept seems good.

When I got home, and went onto the computer, I had a message from Green Thumb on my Facebook page... and I thought it was Julia (head Green Thumb!) but it was actually a gardener from North America.... what a weird co-incidence!

Had fried egg sandwiches for tea, using some eggs that were a few days out of date I found in a skip.... in their box with last week's date on... perfectly ok, as usual! Also had coleslaw with home-made raisins in, yummy!

Later on, whilst playing on the computer, discovered an excellent website with some interesting videos about eco-renovating old homes, see:http://www.sustainable-energyacademy.org.uk/index.html