Tuesday 22nd November 11

Bit of a lie in, and a fairly relaxed day. I was supposed to take my bike into Cycle Heaven in the morning but I didn't get it together til mid afternoon.

Ash told me that they had this one last Weber hitch left, and their supplier couldn't get any more.  However, I'm not that happy with the Weber trailer hitch, as it wears through (with the hammering I give it!) really quickly... this last one has lasted about a year.  So this one might be the last one that Ash fits, and he showed me another trailer hitch which might be more suitable for my needs.  However, he doesn't know if it comes separately from the trailer that it's attached to!

I left my bike and trailer at Cycle Heaven and walked into town to pay our water bill, get a cheque out for my Leeds Yellow Pages, and put two cheques in.

That didn't take long, so I walked up to see Pauline, who was in, and seemed glad to see me.  We chatted for half an hour and then I walked back to Cycle Heaven, paid for my trailer hitch and cycled home.

Had a quiet evening, didn't do much apart from turn out the pear leather from it's tin onto a non stick sheet to continue drying.

Friday 9th September 11

A good day, although very busy... cycling over to Bishopthorpe Road with my eldest son first thing (8.30am) and then calling in on Country Fresh to pick up compostables.  Richard gave me a bag of green beans which I made into a soup with an onion and a butternut squash, also a 'second' as it had a hole in it, making it unsaleable, but not inedible. For tea, Gill modified the soup by putting half of it into a pan with a tin of tomatoes, cooking it and whizzing it and putting it through a sieve.  The boys liked it, and when I eventually got in, I did too!

So during the day I did a few more pears and a bit of paperwork, until 2pm when I shot out, put in two cheques to my building society, one cheque into the bank, then on to Millers Yard to pick up oranges, and on to Pauline who'd responded to my request for a working toaster, as ours had gone phut.  She also gave me some plates and a lovely saucepan.  The house she manages has new tenants and they want it completely unfurnished.  Her compost bin needs some attention so I'll do that for her soon.

At 3.25 I cycled to Bishy Road to collect our son and we cycled home together, which was nice.  Then soon after 5 I set off for town again to meet up with David and Graham from the Minsters' Rail Campaign, which I've joined and want to help. They want to open a railway between York and Beverley, linking Stamford Bridge, Pocklington and Market Weighton.  This would also probably make it easier to get from Hull to York.  We had a good meeting and I agreed to make a facebook 'page' for the organisation.

Then, just as that meeting was drawing to a close, my new friend J arrived, and we had a good hour and a half chatting about all sorts of things.  Very nice to meet someone new whom I get on with really well. I got in at 9pm.

At 11.30pm I unhitched my trailer and bombed down to town to see the start of the Friday Night Ride To The Coast, which I was considering gong on but realised that my weekend was too busy to do everything.  I cycled with them until we got to our house, where I stopped and watched all 37 of them disappear up towards Hull.

Did more pears and watched News 24.

Tuesday 7th June 11

Woke at about 9am and Gill had taken our youngest to school, and I spent quite a bit of the morning on the computer and doing housework.  Gill suggested we take he tent down, before it rained.  As we finished doing it, it started raining!  Good timing.  Will came round as I was typing up the LETS minutes, and I told him about David, whom he said he'd like to meet.  I suggested that we could meet up this evening at City Screen.

I had an appointment at 3pm with Pauline, who had asked me some time ago to help her get rid of a pile of stuff from Clements Hall and take it to St Nicks.  Pauline had her great-granddaughter with her who was cute, and I went into kids entertainer mode and was a bit daft, which didn't chime with Pauline's mood.  However, we walked round to Clement's Hall and I carefully packed all the gear into my trailer and panniers, and went to the Environment Forum meeting.

This was in a small room at the Council offices at St Leonard's Place, and we had several presentations about renewable energy in York.  The most interesting one was from Jacqui Warren the Sustainability Officer, about the potential for different sorts of renewables, but the other presentations contributed to the picture. It is clear that York could generate significant amounts of low carbon energy if it had the political will, and it needs to if it's to achieve any of the targets it's agreed to.

After this, which finished at 6pm, I went to David's to take him to City Screen for our regular coffee and chat... and this time to meet up with Will, who has a new found enthusiasm for art, literature and history.... all David's subjects.  They got on well.

At 7.30 I took David home and cooked his tea and by 7.50 I was finished, so went home and Gill made me some tea.

I did quite a bit of admin/paperwork in the evening, two invoices and some other bits and bobs.  I also had a good chat on the phone and downloaded a load of WNBR photos.

Sunday 24th April 11

I had a bit of a lazy morning but after lunch got busy in the garden and I put more material in the current New Zealand bin, and in the Compostumbler, and I did a bit of riddling and weeding in the soon-to-be potato area

At about 4pm I came in and rang Pauline, who had asked me if I would help with setting a York stone flag into her garden... and she was lacking a spade to break the compacted soil.  So I took a spade round and sorted her stepping stone, setting it onto a bed of sand.  She had some scrap metal she wanted me to take to Hazel Court... it just fitted into the bike trailer, with a plastic kitchen bin which she'd been using as a compost bin... except she's now got a proper one which I think will be much better.

I had a glass of juice and a chat, and at 5.40 pedalled off towards town to go and see David, for my 6-8 work slot.  He was pleased to see me and we had some discussion about what to do... and we plumped on a walk up towards Clifton, along the river.  However, next Friday there's a showing of The King's Speech at City Screen, and David has already got tickets, so he invited me... and we popped into City Screen and I got a ticket.  Then we headed up Lendal, and down to Dame Judy Dench's Walk next to the old Water Tower, and slowly up river looking at the assorted boats, and eventually right up to Water End.  Here, David had a choice... turn around and return, cross the bridge and go to Leeman Road and back to York, or back via Clifton Green and Bootham.  We headed back to City Screen and had a coffee... and just as we were thinking of getting back to his flat, at about 7.30, his friend Lotte came and said hello, and we went over to say hi to her and her friend Jonathan, and we chatted for half an hour.

So we got back to David's place and I microwaved the meal which had been plated-up by one of his other carers, and got away just after 8.30, and was back home (via a box left for me outside Country Fresh) at 9pm.

I was ready for tea... Gill had made pastry; a pie with carrots and onion and sweet potato, with potato and cauliflower alongside.  It was really delicious!

Bed soon after 2am....

Wednesday 17th March 11

I got up early as Gill was taking our youngest to school in a taxi, and I got up to do some work with our eldest on elements, and then I had a confirmation from a facebook contact in Lahore, in Pakistan, that he wanted to have a Skype conversation this morning with me about how to present his forthcoming Master Composter course.  We'd discussed it previously and suggested that this morning might be convenient.

As I'm currently using Safe Mode on my laptop due to it not working in normal mode, it doesn't have sound, so I got my son to set Skype up on Gill's laptop, and I was able to have a conversation with Kurt and Nimra from Waste Busters and Sustainable Pakistan. Although I couldn't hear Nimra, just see her instant messages appearing, but I could chat with Kurt initially.  The Skype connection was not brilliant, and I'm not sure I got the group call thing worked out properly.... but we spent over an hour, and I hope that I'll have helped them with their Master Composter scheme. 

Then it was nearly time to go to the Feed the 1000 event at Vanbrugh College at the University of York.  I'd been an initial link in this event, as Bryony Pete from Love Food Hate Waste had contacted the University with the idea and been rebuffed.  She'd then approached the recycling team at the Council, and they suggested that I might be able to help.  I introduced Bryony to the wonderful People and Planet group, and that opened doors.  None of the People and Planet crew had heard much until at the beginning of the week, there was information about the event today.  So, there was waste food, rejected by supermarkets and manufacturers, and a team of cooks making it into meals, and a 'TV Chef' doing cooking demonstrations about how to use up leftovers, and the Love Food Hate Waste stall with information.  I arrived and found Bryony, who was chopping onions, and congratulated her on the fantastic event.  I later found out they'd fed 2000 students; I wonder what the final figure will be?

But I didn't get any food as I'm not a student.  I didn't mind.  I really like sandwiches for lunch, so I cycled home again and had my usual peanut butter and marmite, plus a hommous and thrown-away red pepper.

Just in time to go to St Nicks for a York Rotters management meeting, which was as usual really good.  However, I first helped put together a new wormery which needed two people to do it.  I contributed most to the ongoing discussion about producing a video or videos, and by the end of the meeting, I had a couple of jobs I had to do. These included emailing several seed companies to get quotes for promotional seed packets, and sending Catherine info about carbon footprints and composting.  I was pleased to see Jo (the second-most enthusiastic composter in York!) come into the centre and the conversation which ensued resulted in my promising to take in some leafmould tomorrow, for some kind of display or workshop.

I came back home and spoke to Pauline on the phone; she'd requested some emergency logs to tide her over til her next delivery next week, and she was available from 5pm til 6pm.  I volunteered to go and see her just before 6, and then go round to Clement's Hall with her and twiddle my thumbs for a bit before the People and Planet meal at El Piano at 7.30.  She was very glad of he 2 sacks of logs and a small bag of coal.  We walked round to the 'recycled building' as she calls Clements Hall, and she worked in the office whilst we chatted and I read Resource magazine.

At about 7pm I cycled down to town and went to El Piano, and waited for the lovely P+P people... we had a £10 meal, which was a lot of tapas selections.  Good conversations, laughs, food.  Very enjoyable.

And back home.... couldn't resist a visit to a supermarket skip and got some goodies which will be consumed over the next couple of weeks.

Another full and interesting day.  I emailed about 10 seed companies last thing and look forward to their replies.

Saturday 30th October 10

Not a brilliant start to the day.  Something is whirring round my mind, a situation I want to resolve and make better and I'm feeling quite annoyed and angry about it.  But I got on with the day, did some wooding; a neighbour came round and asked if I'd like their shed which they'd taken down... I went to look but most was painted, and I don't burn painted wood.  But there were a load of floorboards and structural timber from inside, so I came away with a trailerfull. I chainsawed this up and quite a bit more. 

Mid afternoon I set off for Pauline's house, as she too is preparing for winter with her Clearview Stove. She's getting a bit old to chop logs and relies on a few willing volunteers to help.  In return for doing a bit of sawing, I get what can only be described as 'good counsel' and the benefit of her wisdom, although I'm sure she would deny that she has much of that.  I would argue strongly that she is someone who I trust with all sorts of difficulties and issues, and she always has something worthwhile to say.  I really value her opinions and observations.  Today was no different, as I shared my dilemma, and she picked out the crux of the problem, looking at it from the point of view of a mother and woman of mature years... just the perspective I needed.  She helped me see that anger and frustration were not going to get me anywhere positive with this, and to be gentle, measured and apologetic would probably have the better result in the long run. 

Our coffee and stollen and conversation finished at about 5pm and I cycled down to the Millennium Bridge, through the allotments (I had a quick peek at the YUMI plot) and along to Simon and Melody's house, as they had invited us to a party.  I arrived about 3 minutes before Gill and the boys rolled up in a taxi; Gill had made a cake with a spider's web design on and a pumpkin pie made with bought flaky pastry.  She'd spent most of the afternoon trying to find a costume for our youngest to wear, no time for making pastry therefore.

I was pleased to see Natalie, their daughter, who has come back from her first term of Fine Art at Oxford.  She'd made a very good pumpkin soup which was delicious.  Gill's pie was nice too.  There were fewer visitors than usual, Lee and Christine came and I had a nice chat with Christine who works for English Nature and knows our friend Sarah Woolven.  The children seemed to be happy and occupied, and near 8pm started to get excited about Merlin on TV.  I came home via a woodpile. I do not get excited by Merlin on TV, and was glad of a TV-free evening when I got in.

I enjoyed a facebook chat with my friend Loony who is staying with my sister in Sheffield.  Loony and I have a similar sense of humour and outlook on life, but of course, I'm not as loony as she is!  I'm glad my sis is having a good time with Loony, and will be doing Halloweeny things tomorrow with our niece and nephews.

The partygoing family members came in well after 9pm, closer to 10; they'd walked back.

Did fruit and washing up, and was awake when my laptop clock went from 1.59 to 1.00. 

Tuesday 30th March 10

A very smooth morning... excellent. Wonder why some mornings are filled with tears and difficulty, whereas others are really easy? Weird!

Anyway, a good day followed. Gill and I continued to sort out the upstairs rooms... I rehung a door which had been bashed off it's hinges, and Gill had refilled the screw holes with plastic wood and this seemed to hold the screws pretty well, and the door is back on.

Once I'd done this I spent some time in the garden getting some compost ready for delivering to a friend tomorrow... and when I came up to the house, the Suma delivery had just been and Gill was signing the cheque.

At 1pm I went to the Black Swan and met a new friend, Maxine, and had a coffee and a chat. I think she'll come to the next Green Drinks. I'm happy to promote sustainable lifestyle choices with individuals, groups, or to people I've never met, like through this blog or using journalists. And I love meeting new people.

From here I cycled on to Bishophill, to see Pauline and help her with her renewables. A few days ago, she was down to her last log to feed her smokefree Clearview Pioneer, but she did manage to get a few off another friend... enough to last til today, when I arrived with my bowsaw and chopped up assorted lengths of timber she's acquired over the past few weeks. And in return, I had a very nice cafetiere of coffee and a relatively short chat. But at 3 I had to go... via Country Fresh, picked up 3 boxes of recyclables and a bag of groceries.

When I got in, Gill had gone to school to pick up our youngest and I stayed in to wait for our eldest... but he didn't appear and came in quite late after going to drama club, which we were happy to hear about. A bit later, Sarah, whom I know through St Nicks came to pick up her share of the Suma stuff... and she was happy to have a tour of the composting demonstrations, which she found inspiring, I was glad to hear!

Rice-based tea, assorted phone conversations, lots of emailing, and rounded off the evening with an excellent film called The Flying Scotsman, about a rather quirky cyclist, Graeme Obree. A good day.

Thursday 3rd December 09

A good day.... I got up in time to make my muesli and have breakfast and take my damaged trailer to Cycle Heaven (I managed to break a couple of spokes with a badly aimed attempt at a narrow bridge... the wheel slipped off and I kept going, buckling the wheel). I delivered that and then went to see Pauline, to give her a few more logs and to get my regular bottle of Port, my annual present from her. Mind you, I haven't actually finished last year's bottle yet! That's how little I drink...

But lovely to see Pauline. She had some very good news for me, potentially very good news but I promised to keep it completely confidential, so oh, blog readers, you will just have to wait. But I am very happy.

I then went to the bank, was surprised how little money we have, went to the building society and took a wad of notes round to pump up our account. Then back to the bike shop... and the chap assigned to my wheel was still wrestling with it, so I said I'd collect by the end of the day.

Cycled home and sorted out a large pile of envelopes for composting and put some cheques in the post, assorted memberships (Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, Equity, Garden Organic).

I finished making the tomato soup in the afternoon, and washed up and did bits and bobs of housework, plus computery stuff.

Then at 4pm, back into town to pick up my trailer and popped into see Dylan at Millers Yard to pick up his unwanted orange halves and chat about York Green Festival. We had a lovely chat and I got a second piece of very good news... but again, this is embargoed until it is ready to be made public. I cycled away happy but with a very heavy load of compostables.

I had soup and an avocado sandwich for tea, and then looked at my emails to try to find out where this evening's York in Transition meeting was. No mention of the venue whatsoever! It could be St Nicks or it could be The Stables, or even someone's house... i cannot remember and it isn't in my diary nor is it in any of the email communications... So I stayed at home and watched an excellent programme on BBC1, called The Human Power Station, a Bang Goes The Theory Special. This is available on iPlayer for a week... it's a must watch! The experiment was to install an average family into a house wired up with cameras and all the normal mod cons... and to ask them to live normally for a day. However, they didn't know that the house was switched to being powered by a bank of 80 cyclists, each on a stationary bike with a dynamo, capable of producing 100 watts if going normally, or up to 200w if pedalling really hard. The cyclists could see a dial with how much was being used versus how much was being produced... and it is a very exciting and interesting result. I loved it anyway, and decided to start a facebook 'fan' page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Human-Power-Station-Bang-Goes-The-Theory-Special/216787805126?ref=ts

So, a happy and productive day, despite my foolishness in breaking a wheel and having a reasonable bill to have it repaired.

Friday 20th November 09

I got up in time to get to Pauline's for 10am. But whilst I was eating my breakfast I was watching the news, about the 'freak' rain and devastating floods in Keswick and Cockermouth in the North West of the UK, I heard someone say that this was a 'one in a thousand year event'. The floods which affected the same region in 2005 were apparently a 'one in a hundred year event'. So I changed my facebook status to:
2005 'one in a hundred year event'
2009 'one in a thousand year event'
c'mon folks, when are we going to understand that something is going on?

I just hope some good comes from this horrible time, with houses and property trashed, four bridges swept away, at least one life lost. If it takes a tragedy to get people to realise that we have to change our ways, or suffer much much more of this kind of thing, then it is worth it. But we have a long way to go before we can reduce our CO2 levels back down to 350 parts per million, which scientists suggest is a 'safe' level which will only increase our average global temperature by about two degrees Celcius. However, the level of CO2 today is 385 ppm, up a third since pre-industrial revolution levels of about 280 ppm. The current level of CO2 will give us an increase in temperature of possibly 4 degrees, and as the levels of CO2 are still rising, we might expect an increase of 6 degrees, which would probably give us runaway climate change due to amplifying feedback loops. This CO2 count isn't the only greenhouse gas which is increasing. Methane is probably the best known 'other greenhouse gas' but there are quite a few others, see green living tips for a good simple overview, and Micheal Bloch's other website carbonify has lots of information too.

Anyway, I cycled round to Paulines to help her remove her exuberant potato vine tree, as requested. Her delightful 4 year old great grandchild was there, and she helped in a cute way. As per usual with Pauline, I was rewarded for the work by a good 'real' coffee and soya milk plus chat. I regard Pauline as one of the 'wise women' in my life as she often gives me sound and sensible advice.

I came home via Country Fresh and Freshways and had lunch. As it then started to pour with rain here I did a wash up, and went outside once it had cleared up a bit. I split the logs I collected yesterday and then, as I wanted to stack these, I needed to move the bricks that the chimney removers had left where my logpiles normally are. There were about 60 whole bricks, most of them with mortar still attached. If we're going to reuse these bricks, they have to be mortar free, so I found a hammer and did about 45 bricks in an hour and a quarter. Four of them broke but these might still be useful as hardcore in the wall/fence build foundations. But, as my concentration perhaps wandered towards the end, I hit my thumb nailbed with the hammer, and although it broke the skin, it wasn't painful at first. But a couple of hours later, the pressure under my thumbnail was very painful. I think the nail might come off.

But a happy family evening with good food (yummy fruit salad!) and telly watching together.

Started a game of Scrabble with both my lads... both of whom look like they're going to be good players. I was pleased with how well they did. We didn't finish the game though, but left it on the table to finish tomorrow.

Later, had a lovely long phone chat with a friend whom I've met through facebook, not in 'real life', and it was good to do this. We may never meet but that doesn't mean the friendship is any less enjoyable.

Monday 9th November 09

Woken by anti-school noise but children did go to school.

However, this got me up and I did some moving of broken bricks from our shared driveway down to where the wall/fence is going to be built.

Pauline rang following an email conversation over the past few days and I agreed to go round today and pick up the Freecycle-request credit card holder she has found for me, and to help her with her wooding. So I got 3 sacks of logs together as this is my 'traditional' seasonal gift to her, loaded up my trailer and cycled round for 12.30.

I helped her stack the logs in her outhouse and then used her bow saw to chop a few bits of wood for her Clearview Stove, and brute force to smash up an old chair she found in a skip.

This didn't take long and at just after 1pm I had my sandwiches and Pauline made me a coffee, and we caught up on assorted news. I didn't stay too long as I had to go to the Building Society to put in a cheque from the weekend and take out a big cheque to pay off the last of our Council Tax, which I then went to pay. I cycled back via Country Fresh where I met some fairly old people trying to ineffectively break up a pallet outside the shop. They were happy to accept some help... and I showed them how to do it, by slamming the pallet down on one corner and then on another corner til it falls apart... which i was very glad it did, because it made me look like a veteran pallet smasher (which of course I am!!). Picked up two sacks worth of compostable items and some dryable ones too... includung four 'dragon fruit' which are very expensive and weird, not brilliant to eat but do make an interesting addition to a bag of dried fruit. I'm now thinking ahead to the LETS event in December where I'm going to do a very large number of bags of fruit, and try to do a bit of a clearout.

Got home in reasonable time to load up two of my tumblers with a load of stuff.

For tea I had a veg stew that Gill had done on the woodstove plus half the last slice of quiche and three slices of roast squash. Very filling!

At 8pm there was a meeting at the Yorkshire Terrier on Stonegate to do some planning for the Towards Carfree Cities Conference. This is going to be the 9th international conference run by the World Carfree Network, and it is to be at the end of June 2010 in York. My friend and Green Festival colleague Randall is heading this up (he's been involved in this organisation since their first conference) and Ivana and Richard met in Prague whilst working in the Carbusters office, as far as I gather. I also met Graham Titchener from Cycling City York and Andy from my favourite cycle shop, Cycle Heaven. I think I'll be doing some volunteering with this event, although I don't know exactly what yet.

Home at nearly 11pm, went straight onto the computer to sort out emails and record a good day.

Monday 15th June 09

Quite a busy day.. Both boys feeling poorly so they stayed at home. I had to go to a meeting in town and after that popped into Pauline's, and got back at midday, via Freshways. I sorted out their compostables before lunch, and rescued some leeks and tomatoes, spent half an hour preparing them and made a large pan of what turned out to be soup. I also did some logging, chopped a load of the ones John Bibby gave to me, and split them, stacked a few round the back. I did a lot of washing up... loads of jars for refilling and recycling, also soya milk cartons.

During the middle of the afternoon I cycled down to Foss Islands Road to 'Staples' as my eldest needs a new school bag with no logo. I did find one the right size, right number of pockets, only a small maker's logo, for £35. I bought it.

Probably the most exciting thing to happen today was getting a message via vskips from a York person who was responding to my offer of compost, and wanting to have two tonnes for a new raised bed. I can probably oblige, as this amounts to between 2 and 3 cubic metres of compost, and I'm sure I have this, dotted around. It'll release a lot of space... I hope it happens! Quite a big job, though, bagging up maybe 100 sacks of compost and taking it up to the front. Will take all day. Keep me fit.

Or maybe the most exciting thing was a thunderstorm whilst I was working in the garage?

Loved my tea... leek and tomato soup plus Polish bread, this also just past it's sell by date but made excellent hommous sandwiches to go with the soup.

Worked outside til 10.30pm. Then came in and switched on to Ideal, the last episode. I'll miss it... it is so surreal and funny. I'm not a massive fan of Johnny Vegas but I've grown to like him as Moz, the hero of Ideal. I really hope they make another series.

Wednesday 27th May 09

Another nice 'n' late morning, I'm loving these holidays, not having to get the little darlings up and ready for school.

So, up after 9 and phoned Pauline as there was an outstanding invite from her to go and cut up some old Xmas trees for her little stove. I said I'd be along later in the morning.

So got up and out of the house after 11, and zoomed over to Pauline with loppers and bowsaw to do a few minutes woodchopping, collecting a pallet from a skip for her, and a builders bag so she can turn out her fabric compost bin and refill it. Then I had a real coffee with her, and a very good in-depth chat. She is such a caring person, concerned about a mutual friend and discussing how best to help a complicated situation.

I arrived back home bearing a magazine called Living Woods which she has subscribed to, as she has dreams of owning a little woodland. It looks excellent! I look forward to having time to read it...

I sorted out the sacks of goodies I brought back from Country Fresh, including 3 big red peppers and about 17 big tomatoes. So I washed and trimmed the tomatoes, nothing seriously wrong with them, just some physical damage, so had to reject the equivalent of about 4 of them. The rest I added to a big saucepan with a finely chopped onion, 3 garlics (also thrown away!) and a stick of celery, and stewed this all on our faithful logburner. When simmered for half an hour, I added some basil and bouillon, and Gill whizzed it to make a pizza topping. Gill made pizza dough and then two pizzas.

Immediately after tea, I zoomed off to the Merchant Taylor's Hall in town to give blood. As I hadn't booked in, I had an hour's wait... perfect, just perfect for reading Living Woods, which I really enjoyed. And when the time came to donate, I managed to do my pint (?) in 4 minutes 56 seconds! Fast! And a fast cuppa and biscuit, I cycled home, finding a large willow log at St Nicks and naughtily lifting it onto my trailer. My puncture wound did not explode! I also picked up a couple of sacks from Freshways and was home before 9, feeling great.

Gill gave me some cake and a coffee and I settled down to try to write my last column for Community Care. I am very good at getting distracted, though!

Sunday 19th April 09

Another busy day, but most of it around and about.

My first job, apart from making a couple of sandwiches to take with me for lunch, was to carefully load my trailer with a sack of drinks cartons... mostly soya milk which we've used, but also some of our fruit juice cartons, and some smaller drinks cartons from the school bins, as they don't bother to recycle. Then various electrical equipment... a video player which got the video stuck in it, and was thrown away by someone near Country Fresh, and the AVP computer tower, monitor and assorted cables, a bag of scrap iron from various places including nails from the stove and Pauline's stove, some batteries and a wok I found in some bushes...

This I cycled to the Council-run recycling 'dump' (Hazel Court) where I now know that 'officially' bikes are not welcome. There are limited recycling facilities for pedestrians and cyclists at the gate, but not for scrap metal, waste electrical equipment or drinks cartons. So I again ignored the rule which I think is stupid and was delighted to be welcomed by two staff members, who joked to each other about whether I'd applied for a permit for my trailer... I shouted back that my application had been refused. I put all my potentially recyclable items in the right place and cycled off, thanking the staff and feeling really good that I'd been treated with respect and like an ordinary punter wishing to use the facilities like anybody else. I decided to not reply to the letter telling me I do not qualify for a trailer permit, and that bikes are not allowed in the compound. I think that my occasional use of this facility, maybe once every month or two, will continue and that I'll just risk the potential of being told I'm not welcome, and in this eventuality, having to decide to ignore the person telling me I'm not allowed in, or to comply and dump the stuff on the ground at the gate, which is what I've been advised to do! What a complete farce!

Next I headed over to Country Fresh where Richard was just opening up the shop, and he had a small box of compostables for me, which I took up to the allotment and made a layer on the latest heap of mainly bramble stems and dandelion plants with parsnip-sized roots. I met one of my new neighbours, Caroline, who works at St Johns and is doing an excellent job on her plot, and at midday we walked down to the Low Moor Allotment Association Annual General Meeting.
There were about 25 people attending and it was a low-key affair really, just reports about the past year with the new shop building, the seed and potato order, the number of plots available and the waiting list, the kids allotment and various other bits and pieces. I gave out some Age of Stupid leaflets. I chatted to an American couple, Californians with unusual names that I cannot remember (!) who wanted to pick my brains about their composting attempts. They've been using bokashi and putting the material in a fabric composter and they'd brought this to the lottie today to start a compost heap on their plot. I helped them get it up to their allotment and they'd made a couple of pallet bins so I enthused and helped empty the compost out.

I spent another hot hour on the lottie weeding and preparing the soil for onion sets and potatoes.
At 2.20, zoomed off to Bryony's house in Fulford, where Barry was waiting too. Bryony wasn't around, so we waited for her and 15 mins later she arrived with her Mother after a trip to a Freecycler which took longer than usual. We had an hour discussing the meeting on Tuesday, the York in Transition Fulford Credit Crunch Discussion meeting at The Bay Horse. I'm presenting info on LETS, and we needed to work out the order to do stuff in, and who did what. Bryony has done an excellent job organising it.

I then cycled to Pauline's to remove a load of ivy she's taken off a shed. She had four sacks full and some 'matted sheets' of ivy stems from the side of the building, which is being taken down. I loaded my trailer and realised I had a flat tyre. I pumped it up but it didn't last long, going flat in less than 5 minutes. But I got most of the way home with just one stop to re-inflate. But at 2 mins from home the whole tyre/inner tube came off and the inner tube shredded when it wrapped itself round the axle. Very annoying, and I'll have to get a new tube tomorrow.

Shredded the ivy in my lovely Mountfield quiet shredder, a task I really enjoy.

Gill made spaghetti and beans for tea, home grown (dried and soaked) beans! Boys watched Robin Hood on their computer before bed time.

Thursday 5th March 09

Gill woke me at about 8 to help her make a costume for our youngest's 'book day' at school. Several days ago, Gill asked him if he'd like to dress up for the day (school encourages them to dress like their favourite literary character on book day) and he declined. She offered to make a costume which would make him look like Twig from The Edge Chronicles, but he wasn't bothered. This morning, at 7.45, he said he WOULD like to go as Twig. So Gill got to it and found a fleece-like woolly jacket which needed the arms cutting off and cutting down the front and the blue stuff at the bottom taking off, and she came up to ask me to do it as it would take too much time, when she was getting them ready to leave the house... I asked her to hold the garment, stretch it, whilst I wielded the scissors. 2 minutes later, the costume was ready! The only difference between Twig and our son now is that Twig's hair is in small tufts, and to get our boy's hair into tufts would definitely take too long!

I went back to sleep for an hour, much needed after some very late nights and busy times...

However, when I did get up after 9 I had a good session of washing up and did my Carbon Account readings. At midday I went out to visit Pauline who had requested a wood-chopping session in exchange for a lunch and coffee. We had a lovely chat and I processed a pile of scrap wood for her. She's trialling a compressed sawdust briquette product and has also tried a paper briquette product, which is made locally by people with learning difficulties.

After Pauline, I popped into the bank and then Oxfam for £15 worth of coffee and Kyi Po for a chat with Matthew and I bought some delicious lemon-grass flavoured mayonnaise but resisted all of the large selection of organic booze they have in now... lovely though it may be!

Then onto Sainsburys for bread and Ribena and marge and some other bits and bobs.

I came home via the cycle track where I picked up 3 chunky logs, and when I got in at 5ish, I did a bit of chopping and stacking before having tea with Gill. The boys had already had tea and were happily playing with a friend, who is staying the night.

A peaceful evening with nothing notable.

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!

Sunday 7th December 08

Quite an early start as had a full day's work ahead of me. Packed my usual Fiddlesticks gear and costume and cycled along to Monk's Cross Shopping Centre, arriving before 10.30 and finding the information place where I met my handlers and was shown where I was to work. I was on a walkway between a coffee shop and a sweet stall, facing an enormous car park. Not my kind of place really, and this was my first visit here. However, I was twiddling my Devilstick by 11am and saying 'hello' and 'morning' to the first trickle of shoppers, and soon I had a lot of interest, mainly youngsters trying out the four-wheeled unicycle and quite a few wanting to learn to juggle... I was extremely busy til just after 1pm, and then managed to pack up and have a lunch break and warm up for half an hour, as it was bitterly cold and I was in my shorts and tee shirt, as I'd thought it was inside, like a shopping centre with undercover walkways and shops off these... but it is a load of shops and partially covered pavements, open to the elements.

So continued to be busy and buzzy and happy to work with allcomers, giving out balloon models to anyone who participated in the circus workshops. Loads of teenagers, some University students too... lots of fun, and I finished at 3.30 as contracted to do. Got changed back into warmer clothes and came home, to a lovely warm house.

However, this evening was the York in Transition Solar Buyers Club first meeting, at Anna's house. I loaded up three potato sacks of seasoned logs for Pauline and got to Anna's for just before 6pm, followed by about 30 more. The 'bring and share' food table wasn't big enough, and Anna's front room was packed for Robin's talk about how his solar water heating system works.

Then there was a short talk from a chap, possibly an Andy, who works for a local firm of solar water installers, but he wasn't the boss and some of the questions were deflected to 'when the boss was back' and we didn't get to talk much about a bulk buying deal. However, the system which Anna has put in, which is from J Lister Electrical Ltd who install Solar UK LaZer2 evacuated tubes was viewable... an amazing looking cylinder in her bathroom which stores the heat gleaned from the tubes on her roof.

There was a leaflet from another supplier, YorkshireEnergySolutions but as they didn't send a speaker to the meeting I have no idea how good they are... but I've no reason to think they may not be competent, and they offer all sorts of different renewable energy solutions!

After this meeting I walked back to Pauline's with her and helped her put the logs in her shed, and had a coffee and chat, but didn't stay long as Pauline was tired and isn't often up late.

Home via Country Fresh to a warm house. Entered a SUMA order via their website.

Tuesday 25th March 08

A good day as the boys were lovely and we all got on really well. I started the day by typing in my paid blog post which I'd written several days ago but not been able to type in... it is on my experiences in London last Wednesday. Then Gill and I spent some time preparing for the new door being put in tomorrow... Gill moved stuff from inside and I removed the logpile from outside... and then I cycled down to the Credit Union to get a cheque out to pay the door installers tomorrow.

After that I popped in to see Pauline who had requested several paper potato sacks for use transporting wood offcuts from a nearby renovation job where they have said that she can have any offcuts for her stove. And the very good news is that her new neighbour, Alan ( a friend I know through the Green Party) has offered to saw her wood as a sort og 'useful workout' instead of going to the Gym... nice one Alan! More good news is that a relative of Pauline's has recently become quite a lot more empathic and warm towards her, after Pauline helped out with a family event... over and above what she had to do. This has made Pauline very happy. She also showed me an article in a glossy magazine about a chap who's decorated and fitted out his basement flat using mainly found and reused materials. I speed-read the article and said 'it's a perfect example of Permaculture' and Pauline agreed and said she was pleased that nowhere in the article did it say 'eco'... even though it was more 'eco' than many of the so-called green makeovers with loads of gadgets and expensive power generation stuff.

Came back via Martin's country Fresh to buy potatoes and cauliflower, and collect 3 sacks of compostables which I despatched into a tumbler with some shredded twigs as soon as I got home.

During the evening I did a huge pile of washing up and had a game of Scrabble with Gill who beat me... just! I also made time to squeeze 7 lemons (no idea what was wrong with them!) and then soaked some dried pear slices in the lemon juice, and also squeezed 15 limes and soaked the other half of the jar of pear slices in that juice. I particularly like citrus pears... the sweetness of the pear goes so well with the tangy flavour of the lemon or lime. I'll redry them tomorrow after an overnight soak.

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.

Sunday 27th January 08

Up at a very respectable 10am... no hangover or negative effects from last night's outing.

Made up my muesli and had breakfast and watched some telly, and lit the stove so I could have a coffee which I had halfway through Countryfile. Also did emails and some computer organising whilst watching Countryfile. A nice, slow easygoing morning....

A good lunch too, then cycled to Cycle Heaven to have my bike sorted out... it needs a working front light and the chain comes off when I move the bike backwards in the highest gear, and the stand is loose. They said it might take over an hour so I went to visit Pauline and we had the usual good chats and coffee along with woodchopping... some offcuts from local builders and a couple of pallets, so she'll have a few toastie evenings on renewables! We talked about the project she's co-ordinating, St Clement's Community Hall, and psychology/ personality tests and various other things. I left at 3.30 and collected my bike, feels like new!

When I got home, we needed some provisions so I went for a walk with my 10 year old to the Co-op and that was good to do... and when he got back he went to finish his homework, which was about World War Two and Hitler. Quite a tough subject for a 10 yr old!

I made myself some tea, mostly yesterday's, reheated. Got ready to have our babysitter and go out with Gilly, something we don't do very often, so it's a real treat.

Simon came at 7.15 and we got on our bikes and went to the Pivo Bar in Patric Pool and attended the first 'No Miles High Club' for people who have not flown during the past year and are committing not to fly for the next 12 months. Members get a discount at some local shops, and tonight got free drinks. One member won a Eurostar ticket! We met up with some of the CRAG folks and Green Party people. We had an interesting conversation with a farmer who grows Miscanthus, a fast-growing grass which is harvested annually and is sold to Drax Power Station to add to the coal and help produce electricity.

Got back at 10.30ish and had a relaxing hour with Gilly before doing emails and blog...

Sunday 14th October 07

Lovely day! Had a slow start and then did things around the house, Gill took the kids out, to the shops, to feed the ducks, to play in Hull Road Park.

I had lunch and when they got back Pauling rang and asked if I was coming round, as I'd said that I'd come and do a bit of woodchopping for her, so at about 1.45 I cycled round, with bowsaw and chainsaw, collecting a large log from Baille Hill for her, and did half an hour for her, as she's also got a smokefree woodstove, but finds chopping wood a bit difficult, so I go and do it now and again for her.

She rewards me with coffee and chat, often giving me good advice as she is very sensible and pretty wise. I always enjoy being with her.

I came home via Martin's and picked up 3 sacks of compostables; there's another few to pick up later. I arrived home and took my eldest son off to The Outgang, Heslington Park, where we played with the frisbee, had a kick around with a football left there, and played on the various equipment. We had a good time, and then came back via the Science Park.

Gill was creating tea, a veg stew with a suet crust top, using the out-of-date lower-fat vegetable suet from Out Of This World. This with new potatoes from the garden and peas from frozen, not home-grown. I did half an hour loading the compost heap.