Saturday 23rd July 11,

A really good day until I heard the news after work.

When I woke up I realised I had a sixth wasp sting, on my right arm, which I hadn't noticed yesterday.  Today it is red, swollen and itchy like the other 5.

I set off for town at 11.45 as I was working for David at midday.  We'd planned to go to Rowntree Park as I thought that the 90th birthday celebrations were going on today... however, that was last week.  But we went anyway.

On the way there, at the Arts Barge, we met David and Claire Kennard, and chatted with them, and David Bellis and Barry Male, and had a quick hello with them too.

At the park we wandered round the assorted fitness and activity stalls.  Pushing the wheelchair on grass is a great fitness activity, for me at least!  We visited the bandstand end and then made our way back, spotting June Tranmer pushing imaginary things around, Tai Chi style.

We had lunch in the cafe... David bought a sandwich and I had a selection from home.  Then on to the Millennium Bridge where we watched canoe racing.

Up into town along New Walk and Blue Bridge, and a stop off at City Screen.  Here we met Richard Shiels, then Scilla and David's friend Elizabeth, then we were joined by someone else... but David wanted to go.  We walked on to Museum Gardens where  my lovely friend Jenny Borrett said hi, so we chatted with her.

Then back to David's house, where I left at 5pm.

When I got in, I made a nutloaf, and prepared water for a bath, as work tomorrow.  When Gill and the boys came in, they loved the nutloaf.  I had a bath and hair wash after midnight.

Sunday 22nd May 11

A very hard-working day but a real goodie! I got up at a fairly normal time and did my usual thing of breakfast and laptop, and I lit the stove so that I could have a shave and bath before work.

I was all washed and lovely by midday, and due to be at Museum Gardens by 1pm, for the annual Colitis and Crohn's fundraising walk, which has entertainment available for when the sponsored walkers return from their 3 miles around York.  There was a good band  which I enjoyed devilsticking to, and I did a load of unicycling round, hopping off at intervals to make balloon models for assorted children. At 2pm, the band had a break and I was asked by my handler, my friend John Gray, to try out a radio mic, which is something I'm not really used to.

However, it worked well, and I needed it as the audience stretched up the grassy bank quite a way. The strong wind would have made my voice, strong though it is, pretty inaudible for the 'back row'. I sped through the show, doing most of my activities but keeping it to about half an hour.

We finished at 3pm as all the walkers had returned.  There was an estimate that £10,000 had been raised.

I cycled home, and had a fairly short time before my second appointment, with David at 6pm.  However, I did make time to go down to Country Fresh and pick up a trailer full of resources which would have otherwise gone to landfill.

David wanted me to sort out his radios and tune one into Radio 4 (the one on the right of his bed) and one into Radio 3 (on the left) and he also asked me how to work his Pure DAB radio, which I couldn't work out but promised to research on the 'net for him.  We then went out to City Screen and met a nice couple, both Council employees, but as usual we didn't stay a long time, and I took him home to make his tea, and I got off at 8.10.

I had half an hour in the garden, loading up today's stuff into the Compostumbler and the current sit and wait pile.

A quiet evening, the highlight of which was getting my headcamera fixed to my bike helmet, and watching one of my favourite films, Inside I'm Dancing.  I found the info about the Pure Sonus 1xt radio very easily and will show David how to work his radio soon.

Sunday 23rd May 10

Working today, at the Colitis and Crohn's fundraising walk. So I had a fairly quiet morning, got my bike and circus gear ready and had an early lunch. I cycled down to the Museum Gardens in costume as it is close enough for me to do that, and I didn't want to have to get changed there, in the Hospitium. John Gray the organiser was there, pleased with the huge turnout. There was a really good band playing, the Brampton Community Band based in Chesterfield.

My role was to do a bit of entertaining whilst the band played, then at 2pm do a 30 minute performance, and then whilst the band did a second set, give out balloon models. John gave me a NACC teeshirt, which is red like my costume, so I exchanged what I had on for the more appropriate themed tee shirt. I did some unicycling and then a load of devilsticking to the nice boppy music, then it was my turn. I got some children to move a bit closer and then did the first half of my show/workshop, which went well. Then I had a half hour or more of kids queuing for balloon animals. When the event finished, I stayed back to pick up all the burst balloons from the finish line, to bring them back for composting.

I was pleased to learn that this event had raised about £13,000, which will be spent on research into the condition/s.

I came home via the lemonade stall at the bottom of Parliament St, to collect their halved lemons, Richard at Country Fresh, for a box of stuff, and Freshways for whatever they had, which was just one small bag. But they did have two other bags of fruit/veg, been put into the skip, so I left them but made a mental note to return later.

Was glad to get home and have a cool-off, took my laptop upstairs and played a bit of Scrabble and answered a composting enquiry on facebook, on the 'Organic Gardening 101' page. At about 5pm I popped back out to collect the sacks of resources from Freshways, and found about 40 packets of biscuits in the bin. Not sure what I'll do with them but I think they'll come in useful for something... cheesecake base anyone? Then I had tea, a burgery thing in a bap, made from yesterday's grain mixed with beans and fried in a burger shape, made with a hommous pot mould.

Then I worked in the garden til 10pm, potting up more plants for the conservatory, another layer on the compost heap, enjoying birdsong and the relative cool of the evening.

Thursday 27th August 09

A good morning because all the children were playing happily together. However we were planning a trip into town so we set a time to stop playing and get ready to go out.

So, into town and we ended up having pizza in Museum Gardens, which was fun and very unusual for us as we hardly ever eat out.

All back home and at about 6pm our lovely relatives went home. We will miss them as we all get on so well.

Over the past few weeks we've become aware of a wasps nest quite near our back door, in the ground in amongst the plants in the border. Initially we decided to ignore it, as we are not anti-wasp particularly, and know they perform a useful ecosystem role of eating caterpillars and fruit flies etc. However, the numbers had increased to levels which started to ring alarm bells when hearing about a chap recently who disturbed a nest and was stung so many times he died. Also, quite recently, both Gill and our youngest got stung (one at a friend's house, one whilst on the train) and it was unpleasant so I decided to destroy the nest.

I wondered about just covering it up with a large pile of compost, during the night when they were less active. I cut the plants back a bit to reveal the hole and soil, and then at midnight a few nights ago, I poured a large bag of compost onto the hole and surrounding area, and watered it in.

The following morning, they had re-excavated the hole and were just as busy as before. I considered pouring a large volume of boiling water into the hole, again whilst they were mostly asleep. But Gill suggested they might go berserk and to check on the net how to do it properly.

There were lots of suggestions about using chemicals, and petrol etc, but the one which took my fancy was the glass bowl method. This looked like a better way than just covering up the nest entrance with soil, as the darkness means they just dig their way out. The glass bowl trick means they think the hole is open to the air but of course, cannot actually get out to collect food for the grubs in the nest. The bowl is left in place for several weeks and they gradually all die.

So we found a big mixing bowl and the composty area I'd so carefully put on gave a really good base to push the basin into, again, whilst it was dark. I put a bit more compost round the edge and watered it in for a good tight fit. All of today there was a lot of activity inside the dome, and only a little bit outside it, from insects which hadn't been in the nest when I capped it. However, another suggestion off the 'net was to put an industrial vacuum cleaner next to the nest entrance and suck them into the vacuum cleaner... So I used our old Dyson and spent several short sessions sucking in stragglers, just a minute or two about 5 times. This definitely reduced the numbers of confused wasps outside the dome.

I feel this method, chemical free and not dangerous (I haven't received one sting) is a good one. I'll report on it's longer term success as the weeks roll on. If the nest had been elsewhere in the garden, I'd have left it, but right outside the back door was a poor choice of position for the little darlings.

Saturday 7th February 09

A good day on the whole. At 10, as agreed yesterday or the day before, David rang and we confirmed the meeting in Museum Gardens to do a final(?) photoshoot for my new flyer.

So at 12.50 I set off, in costume, and with some of my circus gear, and got to the Museum Gardens just after 1pm. We did a variety of shots... including some of me standing on top of a box and doing the diabolo around my foot, some of me with devilstick on my nose, taken from above (using the stairs at The Hospitium) and some unicycling action shots and juggling portrait ones. It was very cold so i was glad to keep moving. We spent about an hour doing these... during which a little boy whom I'd met last week ran up requesting more Fiddlesticks activities... so I let him play with some equipment whilst we got on with the photography.

I did a lot of logpile building during the afternoon, and a little bit of chainsawing and compost heap construction.

So a pleasant day. Gill also had a good day, taking the boys into town where they spent pocket money on a computer game each.

Soup for tea... hooray, we've finished it!

Sunday 2nd November 08

A nice quiet morning... watched Countryfile as usual and did assorted emaily things.

Soon after 1pm I got myself on my bike and heading over to see Barry Potter and his orchard... he's right on the other side of town but I bombed along and arrived in just under 30 minutes very hot and sweaty, but not late!

Quite a few others turned up, all local and all interested in apples, orchards or cider making... or all three! Barry's garden on Knapton Lane, like many other areas just on the outskirts of York (including our garden) is on the site of an old orchard... planted at least 100 years ago, and with many of the old trees still standing and fruiting.

Barry has got quite a big garden with at least 6 large apple trees, and he's carefully pruned them and kept them in good shape. We learned a little about different sorts of pruning and what it does for the tree, and management such as tying long shoots down to horizontal to get fruiting buds to grow. He showed us how he keeps his harvest and his grafting experiments. There were three sorts of graft he's succeeded with... bud grafts where just a tiny bud and bit of bark is transplanted, a stick graft where two twigs of a similar size are put together, and a rather wonderful experiment where he'd grafted many twigs onto a large existing tree, onto the trunk and into cut ends of large branches... amazing! He also showed us a pear he's grafted onto hawthorn stock and explained about the various rootstocks available and the different vigour they confer to the scion, or bit grafted onto it. I was transfixed... I'd love to have a go at grafting and may do next summer. But this winter I have to prune all my apples!

Then we moved to Jane and Tony's garden... on first look it's just an ordinary semi but behind is a large 'market garden' which has taken over much of the interior of the block, and they have loads of greenhouses and beds, all very productive. My Vigo fruit press and apple crusher had been installed into one of the greenhouses with a display of apples, all named, and some delicious apple cake, apple and tea bread, apple pie and apple flapjack. A group of us set to and chopped the apples for juicing in two and popped them into the crusher, which when held down by two or more people, can be operated by another person rotating the wheel and toothed rollers. Soon the press was full of pulp and I got the boards on top and the screw-threaded ratchet thingy going round, gradually increasing the pressure and squeezing out over a gallon and a half of juice.

I left before it got dark as I wanted to see how the crop of sweet chestnuts was getting on outside Manor School. There were some down, but it's just a bit early and this year they are a bit smaller than in previous years. Still managed to collect about a kilo of them... good for a nutloaf. Came home via Museum Gardens where I was too early to see the illuminations but I may pop down later after tea, if I feel like it...

And I did... after 10 I made myself go and see the artworks in Museum Gardens... and I'm so glad I did. See Ross Ashton's website for an idea of what it was like. The piece was about 15 minutes long and was a trip through some of the collection of objects and artifacts in the Yorkshire Museum, from fossils to tapestries, masks to stuffed animals, plus images of DNA and magic numbers like Pi, lightning, computer code, books, and LOADS more... all set to music, strange sounds and poetry. Two screens were used, the front of the Yorkshire Museum and the ruins of St Mary's Abbey. I do wish I'd been able to persuade my children to come and see it.

Thursday 22nd August 07

Didn't get a lie-in as at 9 we were expecting our friend to bring her son to spend the day with us as she's working. So we decided to go to the Yorkshire Museum's 'Wild Wednesdays' event in the Museum Gardens, which was a natural history event, with minibeast searches, and aquarium, moths caught last night, and more.

Gill went down on the bus and I cycled, as I had a pick-up to and something to find for my eldest's birthday tomorrow. Gill had got him a walkie talkie, and last night we tried it out and it was rubbish, it was supposed to be able to communicate 'up to 60 metres' but it didn't even do 6. We were not happy, and National Geographic, the sponsors of this kit, should be ashamed for such a waste of resources.

We met up in Museum Gardens, Gill handed over the kiddies to me and she went to get her money back for the next to useless walkie talkie, whilst we boys enthused about insects and minibeasts, including a bug hunt (Gill arrived back in time for this) and a visit to the observatory, where I learned about a chap called Goodricke who discovered a variable star, and I think worked out that it was two stars rotating around each other. There was also internet pictures of the Sun from the SOHO satellite, wonderful stuff. Boys mostly loved it.

Gill took them back home on the bus, via a bakery for a spot of lunch. I cycled off to Out Of This World for a compostables pick up.

Then I went to 'E Roy' in the little street near the market place, and they had a very usable walkie talkie system , with a range of 'up to 5 km', he said it would work just fine for our needs, however it was £50, ie not a toy but a useful gadget. I bought it, I'm not sure my son deserves it, but it'll be useful to all of us, hopefully.

Called in on Anita on the way back and had our usual coffee and chat. Then onto Hes Road for another couple of boxes of stuff.

I made my own tea, rice and beans with some tomato stuff out of the freezer, to make room for fruit.

Long computer session in the evening, various searches on the net, good chats with K in America, as usual. Intense, but worthwhile.