Monday 19th July 10

No lie in as the phone rang and woke me. But I'd got quite a bit to do so I got up.

I first worked out the train times to Harrogate and the whereabouts of the Cedar Court Hotel, as I've got my first RSA meeting tonight. I used Googlemaps to pinpoint the hotel, and drew a basic map on the back of an envelope so I could walk from the station to the hotel.

Gill was doing accounts, and we worked together on this task, mainly me interpreting scrawls in the diary! She asked me to tell her how much I'd earned selling compost, so I looked through the diary and marked things there, but also needed to check my blog, to see how much has been taken to Country Fresh, so I spent quite a long time checking this blog for any mention of taking compost down to the shop, and started listing these loads plus other compost sales. I've done April, May and June. OK, 3/4 of the year to go!!! I had two Fiddlesticks letters to deal with and one phone call. I spent most of the day doing this, until 3pm when I got dressed and had an hour and a half in the garden.

But at 4.30ish I came in as my train was at 5.17, in order to get me to Harrogate by the 6.30 meeting start time. I took a sandwich with me to eat on the train and chatted with a chap who works for the people doing the 'Scores On The Doors' website which tell users of catering establishments how good the place is from the perspective of the local authority hygiene inspectors.

When I got to Harrogate it was raining and I followed my map, but unfortunately the Googlemap had the hotel in the wrong place, and I had several minutes of being confused before retracing my steps and asking a local where the Cedar Court Hotel was. So I found it and there were already quite a few Fellows there.

I said hello and went to get a drink, a pint bottle of pear cider was a whopping £4.50, very expensive. I won't be drinking there again! The meeting was good, met some interesting people, quite a selection, although most (all but one, I think!) were older than me. We had time to chat and move around, then the facilitator, Marion Simon, introduced a gentleman who wanted to float an idea to have a regular meeting in a Community Cafe in Harrogate, to attract young people to make a difference and perhaps get better employment possibilities. He also mentioned about promoting low carbon lifestyles and low carbon businesses, which made me take more notice. I said I might be interested in getting involved to some extent, and suggested that the Transition process might be a good one to look at for inspiration. No-one in the group had heard of Transition Towns... I was flabbergasted!

There was a bit of discussion and a few more ideas floated, and then it kind of drifted into the end of the meeting, with no real way forward other than the suggestion of doing 'something' at this cafe. I look forward to the notes being sent out to see if I had a 'petit-mal' and missed a whole chunk of the meeting somehow!

A few people wanted to chat to me afterwards so I must have made some kind of good impression, a chap who knows Edward Harland and another who's about to get involved with the Credit Union.

I was offered a lift to the station in a posh car which was going in that direction anyway so I accepted.

Uneventful train trip home, nice cycle home, and during the evening I contacted both Googlemaps and the Cedar Court Hotel people about the inaccuracies in their map.

When I went on my blog to write up the day, I noticed that today I've passed the 30,000 visitors mark with the Bravenet Counter thingy I installed in 2008! Amazing. Thank you to all visitors who've enjoyed reading my diary.

Friday 23rd April 10 'Crude' film review

I enjoyed the morning and delivered a trailer load of compost in four sacks to Jenny in Clifton, and came back via Sainsbury's, Country Fresh and Freshways.

When I got back, I had a letter from the Royal Society of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce welcoming me to the Fellowship. I am officially 'John Cossham FRSA' now. Wow!

After lunch I went and picked up three pallets from around the corner and then mended the hammer so I could break them up before sawing them up.

As I was doing this, James (Jo's son) and his friend Mary came round to return the rotaseives which I lent to him and his Scouts for their compost riddling. We had a wander down the garden and they were interested in what I'm doing, but then we chatted about Professor Fiddlesticks and Circus Skills Badges, and I think he'll get back to me with a couple of dates for me to go and do my show and workshop.

At about half past 4 I cycled down to Country Fresh again as Rich had something special for me... a huge job lot of oranges and satsumas. They are pre-packed and each pack has a couple of mouldy ones, the others are fine, but it is too much hassle for them to go through the packs and separate the good from the bad, so they are giving me the lot (ahem, selling for a penny!) and I'll compost the yukky ones and hopefully find a use for the good ones!

I had a Sainsbury's pastie and some Country Fresh broccoli for tea, and then I cycled off down to Priory St for York Green Party's showing of Crude, which I've helped Owen organise.

This film documents the legal case between the Secoya and Cofan people of Ecuador, 30,000 of them, and Texaco/Chevron the oil multinational who extracted oil for 26 years before leaving the country in 1992, handing the oilfields over to PetroEcuador. Texaco stands accused of leaving about 1000 pits of oily waste in the rainforest, which drain into the rivers that the indigenous people drink from and wash in. 15 out of every 20 babies have unpleasant skin conditions and lots of children and teenagers have cancer. Texaco says it cleaned up the pits, but some were just filled in with soil, and cores taken show the oil still under the ground, and some are still open ponds of black sticky sludge.

The cast includes Pablo Fajardo, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, Sting (from the band 'The Police') and his wife Trudie Styler, who together founded the Rainforest Foundation. It's a fascinating story, with Texaco not wanting to admit any wrongdoing but being judged by one investigator to owe $27 billion in damages.

The story is not yet finished, and may not be for some time. For news of the various problems in the Amazon region, go to Amazon Watch, and if you want to show the film to a small group, go to Chevron Toxico, who have all the resources for you to put on an event just like the one I went to tonight. I do recommend it, it's a gripping film, I learned a lot, and the money raised (£62 at our event, with room hire paid for by York Green Party, and CVS giving us discount room hire rates) goes to helping the campaign.

I decided not to socialise at the pub, but to get home to Gill and the boys, and came home via a pile of waste pallets, and picked up another two for processing into stove fodder.

Did the washing up when I got home, and settled down with the laptop and Joolz Holland on the TV.

Wednesday 7th April 10

A busy and productive day... mainly paperwork type stuff.

I cycled down to town in the afternoon via St Nicks where I picked up the box of seeds left over from the seed swap, which are destined to be donated to the YUMI international community garden on Friday, and in town I got out a pile of cheques, two for advertising (Thomson Directories and Yell), £75 of balloons from Cozmic Balloons and a very exciting one, for RSA Membership as I've been nominated to apply for fellowship of the RSA. This means, if accepted, I will be able to 'label' myself as 'John Cossham FRSA'! I also transferred cash to our current account to pay our annual electricity bill with Good Energy... this is £250 for power (5 units/day) and £60 for the daily admin charge, making our annual bill £310.

I also wrote a press release about the seed handover, and popped into the York Press office to chat to a journalist about it, and request a photographer. I spent quite a bit of time making sure all the people mentioned in the document were happy with what was said, about them and their organisations.

At 5pm I bombed down to the station to get the train to Sheffield, as I've been booked by Ali. I took the laptop and managed to get a few emails deleted from my inbox... but not many as the journey is only 50 minutes!