Friday 21st January 11

Up early but I'd have liked a lie-in, but as Gill was taking our youngest to school, I got up and ensured that our home-educated child got to Maria's on time for his science lesson with her.  Once Gill came back, I went to the bread shop for £4 worth of yesterbake bread (2 big loaves, 4 bags of assorted rolls, 4 iced spirals and 2 bags of flapjack offcuts) and I posted a big parcel of home made dried fruit to Tracey Smith, in swap for her book 'The Book of Rubbish Ideas' which she sent to me to review here!  I haven't started reading it yet, but hope to get around to it soon.

I also read our gas and electricity meters, as I'd received a gas bill and the last two readings were estimates.  I buy both gas and electricity from Good Energy, which supplies 100% renewable electricity, and the gas bill helps pay ROCs to people with solar panels.  The way I pay my bills is to pay a whole year annually in advance, and this means I can easily work out our annual consumption.  So, over the past 12 months, this household of 4 people has used 65 cubic metres of gas, which equates to 726kwh, and cost £65, with £40 standing charge... so our annual gas bill is £111.61.  We use more electricity than gas, 2009kwh last year, which is 5.5kw per day.  The national average is 10 to 28kw/day I was told.  This makes our annual electricity bill £342.84.  I will pay by bank transfer next week.

I enjoyed lunch, and after this bagged up some very well rotted (and dry and powdery!) compost from a rotating barrel tumbler.  It will need riddling but the majority of it is really lovely stuff.

Gill had already gone down to town by bus and then out to the Steiner School, and was awaiting an interview with the class teacher and anther staff member.  I cycled down, getting there just in time for the 3.45 interview.  It seems that our boy has settled in to this new school well, and has made friends and is already pretty well integrated into his class.  We need to fill in a form and work out our gross income to work out our financial contribution, but this should be relatively simple.  We were away by 5pm, Gill and Junior got the bus and I cycled quickly home and put the oven on, as Gill rang and said she'd bought oven chips in Iceland.  We don't have chips very often... maybe once a month, but now and again it's quick and easy.

At 6.45 I took our eldest down to Heslington for his computer graphics lesson.  I picked up 2 loads of wood in the intervening hour and then walked back with him after 8.

I'd been invited to a party this evening but I decided to stay in, and was glad I did as my authority was welcomed when some behaviour happened which merited intervention.    So another busy and full day.

Friday 14th January 11

A really good day!  Up bright and early as I had an interview at Archbishop Holgate's School at 9.15 with the Head Teacher.  As Gill was taking our youngest down to the Steiner School, she couldn't come to this meeting.  So, yesterday, our lovely friend Melody had agreed to come to the meeting and represent Gill, and take notes.  In meetings with teachers at her son's school, Melody routinely records the conversation on a dictaphone, so she brought one of those with her, and arrived sometime before 9am so she could walk up with me.

So, we walked up to the school and the Head and the head of Pastoral Care met us and invited us into the office.  However, they weren't happy to have the conversation recorded, saying it was 'confrontational'.  They offered a note-taker and promised to email the notes to me so Gill could read them.   I explained I wanted to set the scene and review what had actually happened to our son over the two years there, and to briefly outline what I felt the problems were within the school, with the only aim to help other pupils (and their families) avoid similar problems.  So, it was a good meeting as I'd started with this positive approach.  Both the teachers offered sincere apologies about what had happened.  They were shocked that the nice policeman who'd visited us about one incident had said that the school didn't want to admit there was a problem with bullying as they'd then have to deal with it.  But in general, it was a good meeting and it is possible that the school may make some changes to improve communication and to hopefully do more to prevent the bullies, and engender a culture of respect and love.  But maybe that's asking a bit much from today's society?

I walked back with Melody feeling happy.  Our boys are happy now they're not in that school.  Melody came home and had some lemon cake that Gill had made specially for her, as a thank you for going this morning.

I then went and did a lot of pruning, and just about finished the loganberries.  I'll need to tie in the canes which will fruit this year.  I did a bit of compost heap adding and a bit of logpile building.  Also visited Richard to get veggies and came home with a large stash of compostables.

In the evening I went down to Heslington with our eldest for his weekly Computer Graphics lesson, and came back via a logpile, cycling back again for 8pm and had a nice walk back.  Our youngest son has had a lovely week at the Steiner School, which is great!

So, a good day and hopefully now things with the children will settle down and our lives will become easier.  I look forward to not needing to mention them in this blog... it isn't about them, it's about how I live a low carbon lifestyle but recently my life has been almost completely overtaken by stuff to do with the difficulties at school.  I feel today has somewhat drawn a line under that.

Friday 7th January 11

A fairly quiet day, no particular highlights other than visiting Richard at Country Fresh at about midday, and picking up a load of stuff from him, and then going on to Alligator, as Gill had asked me to get some jelly, and they do a good vegetarian jelly.  I had space for 3 bags of their biodegradable resources, and will collect more on Monday I expect.

I enjoyed some sorting out down the garden... there's still a bit of a backlog, so today's stuff stayed in the wheelbarrow but I loaded up more into the Compostumbler, and filled a couple of sacks of mature compost which a rodent had excavated from the base of one of the last heaps to be sitting on the ground.  Most are now up on top of pallets, to reduce the ability of rodents to nest in the heap.  They can still get in from the top, but a quick poke with the CompostMate means any tunnels collapse and they seek refuge elsewhere.  So this heap will be bagged up and then the pallets raised up off the ground so it's slightly less rodent-friendly.

I had an early tea, at about 6pm, just a bowl of soup plus an avocado sandwich, and at 6.30 walked down to Heslington with our eldest, so he could have his computer graphics lesson with Simon.  I chatted with Melody and shelled pumpkin seeds and read Resource Magazine.  Melody told me she too had heard of a horror story about Andy S. taking advantage of a kind and generous person, and I asked her to pass on the message to this (so far) anonymous person that if she wanted to contact me, I was putting together a dossier to try to get him stopped.  If any of the readers of this blog recognise the character I refer to, and has a story of him borrowing money and not paying it back, or using someone's credit card without permission, please do contact me. 

On the way back home I learned about my son's adventures on Blender, and we talked about animations and some of the things we've enjoyed. 

A quiet evening... blanched a load of grapes and put them to dry, watched a nice programme about Tom Petty, a musician I don't know a lot about.  Liked his music though...

Friday 10th December 10

An earlyish start as I was due to take our eldest round to Maria, our biochemist friend who coaches and teaches, and has agreed to do science for an hour a week as part of his home schooling.  I had told him that I'd be happy to go round with him, to sit in with him if he wanted, or to stay in Maria's house.  In the end, I sat downstairs for the hour, read my NewScientist and dozed.  Our lad had a good session, mainly planning the forthcoming weeks.

I went into town to meet my new friend Lisa, whom I've had loads of chats with on facebook, and we have a shared music taste (Talking Heads, dance music, etc) but we'd never met, until today. So we went to El Piano and after that, I parked my bike and we walked down to the Millennium Bridge, and then back into town the other side of the river.  I was really pleased to meet her, and I'm happy to have found another friend.

I cycled home for a late lunch via Country Fresh, and then realised I'd forgotten to do one of the jobs I'd meant to do in town; paying in a cheque and some cash o our Suma account, as we're doing an order next week. So I cycled back into town, did the Co-op bank stuff, then went to Alligator to pick up their compostables, and by the time I got home it was dark. 

My next thing was to walk down to Heslington with our eldest, as Simon had offered to do a regular class about computer graphics, whilst his son is out at Scouts.  I came back via a logpile a student had alerted me to, and then I did another trip to it, before going to get our son at 8.  He had really enjoyed the computer graphics workshop.  He has a real aptitude for the subject, apparently.  We walked up to the logpile and collected a third trailer load, and walked home, chatting.  Nice.

Later, I collected a fourth load, then had a wood-fired bath and found my train times and destination for tomorrow.  Early start, so a bit earlier to bed than usual.

Saturday 4th April 09

Excellent day... spent lots of it outside working. Kids played, all was happy.

Our youngest went to the Yorkshire Museum quite early, with Ros and her son, to wave the 'Roman Coin' at the Portable Antiquities people. The consensus was that it was a reproduction... what a pity!

Simon came round with his son, and our eldest played with him whilst Gill and I chatted with Simon over a cuppa. I then cycled over to Goodramgate to visit Oxfam which sells big tubs of Cafedirect instant FairTrade coffee, 500g for £14.99, a somewhat better price than the Scummerfield 100g jar I got yesterday (as we'd run out!) for something like £3.40 I think. Anyway, I like to buy stuff from Oxfam. I then went on to Sainsburys and spent the same again on assorted things and came back along the cycle path and brought back sticks.

Then did a load of composting jobs... dug out a static tumbler (one which has ceased to rotate as the frame broke but I still use the drum for putting tumbled compost in, to mature) and then emptied the Compostumbler 600l machine, forking the stuff into a dalek. The children helped me with some riddling, using the Rotaseive. Did loads of this, after they'd done a couple of loads. They played on the trampoline and made mud bricks and built a wall.

A lovely but hard working day.

Saturday 7th March 09

I woke as Gill was doing something in the bedroom, and she said she was going to the garage to get our eldest child's bike out, but I knew it was kinda tangled up with other bikes, or at least mine would have to come out first, so I said I'd do it. He'd been invited to go to the Yorkshire Museum by Simon and his son, as there was a 'Portable Antiquities Open Day' event there, and Simon's son has been doing some field walking near where the new sewer has been put in between the new University Campus ('Heslington East') and Elvington... and has found lots of pottery and one enormous iron nail.

So our lad set off with just one item.... a clear glass bottle with a marble stopper and the original rubber seal ring which I found near where the University had trashed a stretch of woodland.

I got a delivery of a HUGE poster from The Age Of Stupid. I'd like to find somewhere sensible to put it up...

So, a peaceful day ensued... I did some paperwork... an invoice (on reused paper, as usual) and a couple of other bits and bobs, including watching a 50 minute film about the making of The Age of Stupid. This was fascinating... the concept was born in 2002, as 'Crude' and used a novel approach to funding, called 'crowd funding' with 'shares' being sold (the first batch were £500 each), and then the subsequent evolution of the film, with Pete Postlethwaite being invited to be the crux of the film right at the last minute. Really worth watching... I am so looking forward to seeing the film on the 15th... next weekend.

I got a phone call from a chap round the corner who had got some waste wood outside his house I was interested in, and I'd left a note saying if they didn't want it, I would be happy to recycle it for them. He rang as he was clearing out a house in Tang Hall/Heworth area where a relative had died last year, and there was some wood in the garden he was wanting rid of. So I said I would come round within half an hour and see what there was. He admitted he'd already disposed of some stuff on a bonfire. Anyway, I easily found the house as the whole of Heworth was full of the smoke from his bonfire... There was quite a bit of wood left, and I sorted out the stuff I wanted from the non-burnable wood, and advised him to get the rest of it recycled at Hazel Court. There was also a couple of rolls of chicken wire which they wanted rid of, and I was glad to have this! As I was leaving, he offered me a pair of unused wellington boots with steel toe caps... my size too!

So I cycled into town with a trailer full of wood and wire netting and the wellies too, and went in search of a beard trimmer. My research had not found a wind-up model although there are a couple of wind-up shavers available, just not beard trimmers. So I went to Boots and got a model by Remington with rechargeable batteries, costing £25.

Came home via Country Fresh, and once I got home and unloaded, I popped back down to Freshways to pick up their 'resources'. After a coffee I did an hour's worth of filling the Compostubler with a mix of fruit and veg, shredded Christmas tree, sawdust stuff which was too big to go through the riddle and unwanted bokashi bran which St Nicks didn't want, as it had got damp and partly gone mouldy.

Spent quite a bit of time preparing pears... I have absolutely loads from the collections over the past few days. I wash each one and let it drip dry on the plate drying rack, then cut it in half from the stalk to the flower remnant, take out the core, flower, strings up to the stalk and the stalk, then peel it, taking out any bruises or damage. Then I cut each half into three, lengthways, resulting in 6 slices per pair, put on the cake racks for drying. Dried pears are one of my favourites!

Our eldest son came in having had a good time cycling and playing. We had tea... home made tomato soup and a Thomas' Vegetable Pastie. Not too bad an evening, although there was noisy resistance from the children to being asked to go to bed at 10.20.

I stayed up late whilst Gill slept on the sofa next to me as usual, until the early hours when I go to bed and she comes up too.

Wednesday 24th December 08

Woke late.. well, after 9, with a certain child screaming at the top of his voice and rushed downstairs as I thought he'd been injured. He hadn't... he'd forgotten his password for a card-making website (or something like that) and was having a full-blown paddy. Really over the top... but obviously it mattered to him.

Anyway, it got me up. I emailed David who's a photographer and I've asked to take some pics for some new publicity material for me, and he wants to come to the hotel I'm working in tomorrow and get some pics of Professor Fiddlesticks. I always visit the venue beforehand to check how things are and remind them of my needs, health and safety-wise etc, so I invited David to come with me and see the venue. So went down just before lunch and met Stewart the manager, and found the whole place had been rebuilt and I have a new position to do my work in.

Home for a late lunch and a fairly lazy day... just some housework and a bit of work outside. Took the boys up the road to deliver a card to one of their friends, they walked back and I went on to Country Fresh with a little gift for Richard for his year-long generosity and friendship... he just loves the dried fruit and as he's the supplier of much of it, it's good that some goes back to him! Home via Freshways where there was a sad lack of compostables but they were very friendly and nice.

A relaxed evening, watched Willy Wonka the 1971 version with the children which was lovely! Gill had made some soup, leek and potato, which we had with bread rolls. Delicious.

Simon popped in later on in the evening to deliver his presents and collect what we've got for them. Had a glass of Pauline's Port and a good natter.

Then onto present wrapping, and a bath to tidy up for tomorrow's work.

Saturday 6th December 08

The boys had a lie in til about 9am which was a small but lovely treat. A relatively peaceful morning followed... and I cycled down to town to put in yesterday's cheque and a couple of other bits and pieces. Decided to come back via the cycle track and collect some logs, but when I'd done this I continued along the track which became increasingly icy and slippery and virtually impossible to push my overloaded bike and trailer. It was totally impossible to actually ride the bike on this ice, and so slippery that my feet didn't have enough purchase to push the bike. At one place, I had to unload the trailer, push the bike to a less slippery bit and re-load. I stopped off at St Nicks and chatted to Robin who was looking after the place and warming soup for the eco-active volunteers on their woodstove.

I did eventually get home. Had lunch and tried to persuade both boys to come to St Nicks to attend the Fungus Foray which was being led by my friend Findlay Coopar. However, only our youngest was willing to come. He had a lovely time and played with Simon's son, and afterwards, Simon and offspring came back home for a coffee, natter and play. We found a good selection of fungi on the nature reserve, many of them quite difficult to identify brackets on logs, as there are lots of enormous tree trunks dumped there, making an excellent habitat for a range of organisms. So we found hoof fungus, a type of oyster called pulmonarius, which looks like lung tissue, 'Jews Ear' on Elder trees, Common Coprinus which has a drug called antabuse within it, used to try to help alcoholics stop drinking. There were also candle snuff fungus, 'dead mans fingers, velvet shank, and Simon had spotted some Oyster on the way to St Nicks, which he went to find and bring in to show everybody. Findlay knows a lot about fungi including the encrusting ones which I don't know much about. I really enjoyed myself.

After Simon went, I put three sacks of compostables into the compostumbler and brought a load of apples and garlic back up the garden for preserving. I helped Gill do tea, by preparing some sweetcorn and home-grown potatoes, which needed a lot of work as the slugs and woodlice had got there first, but had left plenty for us as well. A good tea.

Gill and I had a game of Scrabble and I washed, halved, topped and tailed, cored, peeled and sliced about 20 apples which had been thrown away, and put these 80 or so slices on cake racks on the big water cans on the stove to dry... an excellent harvest from the bins! I won the Scrabble.

Sunday 16th November 08

A relatively peaceful morning but boys full of energy and aggression. I wasn't feeling up to much, tired and a bit headachey, so just sat and watched Countryfile and after lunch did a bit in the garden and then at about 2.30, to the allotment to dig up the last row of potatoes and remove some more brambles and lay a bit of mulch material... cardboard and a split bamboo window blind.

Came back to find Simon and his son visiting, after going to the York in Transition Eco-Freecycle-Swap event at the Friends' Meeting House, organised by Anna Semlyen. Apparently it was very successful and Simon was able to offload some spare keyboard stuff and a huge pile of butterknives found in a skip, and come back with a Christmas present for our friend Dexter plus a few other bits and bobs.

I wasn't my usual chatty self and as soon as they'd gone I went to bed and slept, coming down sometine about 8, and had a bowl of soup and the pastie Gill got yesterday. A quiet evening, although frustrating as something is going intermittently wrong with my email and internet... it keeps going off. Perhaps it's caught my bug and needs more sleep!

Later though, I was able to access the net and get emails and do this blog (but not my paid blog!) and I found a bug in my fairly new 'Feedjit' live stats tool. Previously, when I've accessed my blog and then left to see the live stats, the tool tells me that I've come onto Feedjit from my blog and has correctly identified that I'm in York. However, now it thinks I'm from Leighton Buzzard! I can tell this as when I hit the button 'remove my details' the Leighton Buzzard stuff goes. I emailed Feedjit to ask why they thought this was happening.

Friday 26th October 07

The boys declared that they didn't want to go anywhere or do anything today. So they played and I spent some time building a logpile on the right of the door (looking out) and spent a bit of time doing some work with the new 'compost mate' tool which is really good at mixing the compost heaps. My neighbour had spotted a rat so I did a lot of mixing of some sit and wait heaps, which makes them less hospitable to rats. I saw no evidence of rats though, none ran out. There are rats in the area, and I think that the neighbours are blaming my composting activities for them as a way of getting at me, because I'm different.

For lunch I went to St Nicks and said hello to Catherine the head Rotter, who asked me to help out at a green market next weekend on the Rotters stall. I met up with Jo and had a sandwich whilst hearing about her week at work, and told her about my weekend away.

During the afternoon I did a bit of emailing and a bit of cycling around, visited Martin's Country Fresh for fruit/veg and compostables, and enjoyed tea of parsnips in baked beans with the last of Gill's quiche from yesterday.

In the evening our friends Simon and Jonathan came round, Si has been helping Jonathan with his computer and when they were finished they came and chatted as Gill and I continued to play Scrabble. The conversation became very frank, as it often does with both S and J, and my odd behaviour was analysed, with reference to my forthcoming trip to the Maudsley Hospital to see if I have ADHD. My 'compulsive' composting activities are giving Gill some problems, as the neighbours find me rather odd and Gill feels she has to defend me, although she wishes I didn't do so much of it on such an 'industrial' scale. She finds herself in a difficult position as she loves me and supports my desire to prevent stuff being landfilled, but she doesn't think it is appropriate that I do so much in the garden.

Anyway, I was happy to have such an honest exchange, I didn't feel attacked, I just feel as if I'm actually quite a 'vulnerable' person in some ways, for instance, my willingness to take recyclables for certain businesses means they get the stuff recycled (not possible commercially) and for free or cheap. I have a lot of processing to do about this, and hope Gill can come down to London next month with me to voice her observations about my extreme lifestyle.

Tuesday 3rd April 07

An active day, a fair amount of housework during the morning, and a SUMA delivery. Gill and I have for several years been running a food co-op for ourselves and some friends, and we get a few regularly-used items like peanut butter, loo paper, muesli base, pasta. As we buy it in bulk it means we can afford to buy organic, supporting agricultural practices which do less damage to the environment and are better for wildlife, and fair trade, which gives a better deal for the producers.

After lunch went to St Nicks as agreed with John the Centre manager, to chop some logs. I'd suggested I could do this for St Nicks, as I sometimes take logs off the pile which is regularly added to by tree-surgeons offloading their unwanted tree wastes, and it is only fair if I give something back. A poplar had come down and been sawn up into rounds, and needed splitting.

The centre has many visitors, today it had a group of youths, teenagers, who had come into contact with the authorities through anti-social behaviour or misdeeds, and were under the care of 'Crossroads'. I know nothing about this, they seemed like fairly ordinary young adults to me, and I was assigned several volunteers to teach how to split logs and stack them. These tasks may seem simple but there is a knack to both. For instance, rounds with a side branch split best when done in line with the side branch, so it splits too, rather than at right-angles to it which can be more difficult as the knot may extend into the log. Rounds with side branches also split best from the lower cut surface, ie with the log upside-down as the branch leaves the round at an angle and having the split start where the branch begins to leave the trunk seems best to me.

Also stacking a logpile is quite an art if it isn't to fall down. The activity attracted a queue of participants, male and female, all wanting a go at smashing the rounds in two. Even the leaders had a go. We also had to use the centre's 'log grenade' too, a wedge in a sort of pyramid shape which is incredibly effective at blowing apart difficult to split rounds.

We all had a lot of fun, I gave lots of positive feedback and encouragement, and just occasional direction, mainly putting the rounds in the right orientation for easiest splitting, and getting out of the way quick. I was pleased to meet a friendly leader, Chris from Crossroads, who seemed fascinated by my lifestyle and told me he'd invite me out for a drink, I hope he does. He said that the youth service should be paying me for the help I'd given, and I gave him my Professor Fiddlesticks card as I may get some paid work with the group.

I'd cycled to St Nicks with my boys, my mate Simon and his son. Simon spent time with the three boys, playing, exploring, keeping the peace. I am very grateful to Simon for being a lovely responsible grown-up with my boys, I couldn't have done the logsplitting work without his help.

Got home and quickly made a nutloaf with bread, peanut butter, onions, rice, grated carrot and seeds, bound with egg and microwaved and then put in the oven along with a chocolate cake Gill was baking. Had this with a cheese sauce and new potatoes.

Put the boys to bed early as we've a busy day tomorrow with an early start.

Enjoyed learning about the connection between Tourettes and creativity. I have an interest in such disorders as I have many of the traits of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and I am a very active, enthusiastic and creative person. I haven't had a diagnosis but I would love to know if I do have ADHD. Lots of the people who know me think I do, and I feel more comfortable with that label than what I have previously been called, such as 'eccentric'. ADHD is thought to be connected with lowered levels of dopamine in the frontal lobes of the brain, and Tourettes is also connected with dopamine, but increased levels in temporal and frontal lobes. Interesting stuff.