Friday 1st April 11

Woke fairly early with headache which lasted all day, despite medication.

Spent the morning doing stuff in the house, including replying to my agent (which I later hand-delivered).

I went to buy bread and got a good 'yesterbake' deal from Thomas the Baker on Tang Hall Lane.  I chatted with the guy who delivers the unsold bread and rolls etc to this shop, where it's sold for half price and two for one, so effectively quarter price.  Anything still unsold after this goes to a dog biscuit manufacturer in Doncaster, I think he said.

On the way back I said hello to Jamie, who had 'news' for me... a tree had blown over in his garden overnight and he was busy chopping it up for me to take away!  He also showed me his petrol chainsaw which he is thinking of selling; he showed me how it worked, which it did first time.... but then it refused to start again. 

After lunch a BT Openreach van drew up and our next door neighbour explained that the cherry tree in our front garden had swayed around so much in the wind that it had pulled his phone line out, as the lines to his house and ours go through the tree's top branches.  The good thing is that since the tree is ours, and the damage to our neighbour's line, he doesn't get charged for the repair.  BUT if our wire comes off due to our tree, we'd get a large bill for the repair.  So I got my big stepladder which reaches up to 9 metres, and spent over an hour carefully lopping back quite a few branches so there were none brushing up against either of the wires.  Then I spent more time pruning these branches down into stove-length sticks and shreddable twigs.  The smaller sticks went into a paper potato sack where they'll sit for a year or more to dry off.

I collected our youngest son, taking his bike down on my trailer, via my agent's house which is near the Steiner School.

In the evening I cycled to the York Open Studios event at Bar Lane Studios. My good friend Jonathan, who is the artist Dexter, was showing his work, as were dozens of other people..... I met loads of my friends and really enjoyed myself.

Came home via Freshways and brought back a trailer full of compostable goodies. 

Aiming for another early night, as feeling ropey.

Saturday 4th December 10

I got up at 10ish and by the time I'd had breakfast and woken up properly, it was too late to go into St Nicks and help with their coppicing task.  I ought to have been there when things were starting.  I'll try to get to another EcoActive day task.

So I had a quiet day, with an hour or so working outside, chainsawing and stacking. I cycled round to the bakers in the morning and bought cereals at the Co-op.

Once again I had quite a lot of time on the laptop, keeping the stoves going, making sure my boys were OK, doing kitchen stuff, jarring up dried fruit.

I spent quite a long time filling in a questionnaire to help a student with research.

Monday 23rd August 10

Gill and I both woke fairly late, 9ish, as our eldest son had requested that he see in his birthday, and stay up til midnight. This meant that his little brother was also up... and they didn't get to sleep for quite a bit after that. Excitement!

So, a birthday, and we now have a teenager! He hadn't wanted to go anywhere or do anything in particular, so it was a low-key day.

I did a variety of jobs... went to get bread from Thomas the Baker, and was lucky with a good selection of Yesterbake, unsold bread from Saturday, available at half price and two for the price of one, essentially quarter price. Better for the company than having to pay to throw it away, though!

On my way back from the baker, I noticed a big branch in Hull Road Park, so a bit later, I cycled round to the 'Fast Pack' shop on Lilac Avenue which sells all sorts of nuts, bolts, tools and much more, as one of my unicycle saddles had lost some nuts fixing it to the metal shaft. I got the right size nuts and then went on to the park to chop up the branch with my bowsaw. This was a trailer-full of nice Ash logs.

Later, I used a climbing rope I found a few months ago on a road near Durham to pull the walnut tree more vertical; Gill asked me to do it as it is leaning over, and there are so many walnuts on it that it is weighed down somewhat. Oh, the squirrel trap has had it's first victim. So, more nuts, fewer predators!

I spent a bit of time pruning the tomatoes in the conservatory... taking out unwanted side shoots and the tops of the plants, so they put more of the energy into fruit. I picked about 20 tomatoes too.

I got a Fiddlesticks booking for late September at a Housing Association do, and got a reminder from Book of Green about a bill for the iPhone application.

After tea, which was a lovely nutloaf, tagliatelle, green beans and tomato sauce creation, I cycled round to Nick, a Freecycler, who had put a large television up for grabs, and we'd asked for it as our small TV in the front room is not that good for doing the Wii with... and this reason was enough for him to choose us as the lucky recipients. I took an old duvet with me and this meant I could balance the huge TV on my trailer.

Later in the evening I chopped up more pears for drying. They are SO tasty!

Tuesday 2nd June 09

I got up quite early as I knew I had quite a bit to do today, and I settled down to try to do my Community Care blog, but I failed as I couldn't concentrate. And then I got a phone call from a friend who I met at the Northern Green Gathering, who'd posted a 'status' on Facebook asking for information on 'green funeral options', and I'd replied and said we ought to have a chat. She was wanting to plan her own funeral and convey those wishes to her solicitor. So, I went through the 4 legal and available methods of body disposal, and their relative carbon costs, and social aspects, as a funeral and/or place to remember the deceased is important for those who loved that person. I ended up telling her about the 5th method, not yet available, Promession, and hopefully she'll be able to make a decision as to which she would prefer for her own body.

Gill headed off to town soon after getting back from taking our youngest to school, as she had a dental appointment. I went to Thomas's for Yesterbake bread, the Co-op for cereals and flour, and to deliver a cycle helmet, on loan, to Lynn who'd asked last night if she could borrow one. I had a chat with her... her garden was looking good.

On the way back I noticed a skip with a large amount of turf in it, some rolled up, unused and ready to be stacked up and made into loam. I spoke to the owners who enthusiastically invited me to take the lot... and said I could sort through some other items as well! I took four trailer-loads plus what could sit on my pannier rack. The other items I rescued were some unopened toiletries and cosmetics, a mirror in a gold coloured frame and an old phone which I will put in the WEEE area at Hazel Court next time I go. But the turf will be most useful to me. It did take a while to bring it back and get it stacked neatly down the garden.

Later in the day, I was getting ready for the Green Festival meeting and I realised I had forgotten the Planning Panel meeting, so I fired off an apologetic email... my life is too busy, too unstructured and I'm probably trying to do too much. I expect a telling off from my colleagues for messing them around. I missed this one because I had to book the next block of meetings at Tang Hall Community Centre, I hadn't done that and the dates had not gone in my diary. No excuse really.

So at 7 I cycled off to the Green Festival meeting at St John's, and it was a really good meeting, very productive. It now looks like we have an event co-ordinator, so in my mind, this event is now more likely to happen rather than not.

Home before 10 and Gill had had a tough evening. She asked me not to go out on Wednesday evening.

Monday 23rd March 09

Got up in time to take our youngest to school, and came back and tried to find some info on my computer about a balloon modelling workshop I'm wanting to go to on Wednesday. One of the UK's top balloonologists is doing a performance and workshop, and I want to go and learn some more... or at least get inspiration! But I found it difficult to find the info as other things kept on happening which were more immediate.

One of those was a dear friend Diane from Norwich ringing me and asking if I could do a favour. Our mutual friend G., who has some quite severe disabilities, has found himself in a tight spot financially and has no food in the house. He is expecting to receive a fuel payment on Thursday, which will mean he can go shopping, but until then, he's no food. Diane asked me if I could go to Alligator, and she'd put £20 on an account, and could I buy him some provisions and cycle them up to him? I said I could do something like that, but would ring him and ask what he wanted, and get back to her about the arrangements.

G. was surprised and very grateful and eventually got me a shopping list organised, some of which I can get at Thomas the Baker with the Yesterbake deal, some at the Co-op, some at Country Fresh, and a few bits at Alligator. I rang Diane and said that she didn't need to send Alligator any money, I'd cover the cost.

I also got a phone call from a family member who feels strongly I shouldn't ever mention about when things get difficult with family life, with bringing up children. I have already agreed to not put too many details, but I feel like I'm being blackmailed. Although this blog is ostensibly about low carbon living, I happen to be a parent, and that sometimes means I mention good times and bad times as a parent. Not everything in this diary relates to carbon emissions... there's all sorts of ethical dilemmas, and other things going on in my life which I personally feel happy to share with any reader. So I now have another dilemma... do I kow tow to someone who wishes to control what I do, someone I'd like to please and make happy... but therefore not feeling free to do as I want, or do I continue writing this blog as I want to, with occasional references to some of the difficulties which families sometimes have to face, and risk losing some of the small benefits that remaining in contact with this person might give? Do I get stressed and unhappy trying to ensure that my writing is acceptable to them, or do I keep the freedom to be myself and do what I want to do and have the knowledge that they are critical of me and don't accept me as I am, and are threatening no contact with anyone in my family because of this?

I wish they could have contact with the rest of the family and just leave me alone to do what I want to do, and accept my aspergery ways and accept me as I am. But from experience, that is unlikely. I will try to keep the blog appropriate and not put lots of details of what the children get up to but I cannot promise to 'never mention the children in a negative way' as this would give a totally unrealistic view of family life!

I did eventually find the balloon workshop info, and got train times to Featherstone which is where it's being held. I then went and did some shopping, for us as well as G.

Gill and I had lunch together and at 3.30 went to a meeting at school, which was good. Our youngest went home with a friend and eldest let himself in, and when we got in at 4.30, I collected the shopping I'd done for G. and shot off to get some fresh veg he's requested from Country Fresh and something else from Alligator. I then cycled all the way to the other side of York to deliver this to G.... but when I got there, I discovered I'd left the bread and hummus behind, doh! So I promised G that I'd come back and deliver these later.

When I got back home, there had been some interesting times. Our youngest had been out cycling around the University with the friend, but the friend cycled faster than he did and left him behind. Our little boy was then slightly lost and came over all miserable, as he didn't know how to get back to the friend's house. A lady stopped and asked him if everything was alright, and suggested to him that he find his way to a friend's house he DID know how to get to. Which is exactly what he did... and ended up at another friend's house just up the road from us. He knew that we had planned to be out, and the second friend's Mum wasn't in, so they just played. When that Mum came back, she rang and said that our boy had turned up at her place. In the meantime, friend number one was very unhappy he's lost his buddy, and his Mum was going spare trying to find our son, and was on the verge of ringing the police. So a bit of a fright, but everything turned out fine in the end.

I heard all this when I got back... and all seemed very peaceful and calm!

I did a second round-trip at about half ten, taking my trailer off to speed things up. I collected our youngest's school bag from where it had been left at the friend's house, and then cycled over the Millennium Bridge and over to G's house, delivering bread and hummus, and back over Hob Moor and home, an hours cycling exactly. Came back drenched with sweat and feeling very healthy. Whilst I'm cycling I mull over the things which have happened recently, it's good therapy, thinking time. I realised that I cannot have my life revolving around trying to please everybody, some of whom are very difficult to please! I do plenty of good things, live an ethical life - although not to everyone's liking, and I am happy with 99% of what I do. I cannot help if a few folks out there are unhappy with me. I see it as their loss and I'll live with the consequences; I will have to as I am unable to be anybody else!

Bed after 2am, as usual.

Saturday 24th January 09

A reasonable day. Gill still feeling very poorly so I did all the shopping we needed... went to Thomas The Baker and the Co-op before lunch, and Country Fresh after, to get veggies and fruit, and then Scummerfield with my eldest (shock horror!) to get goats' milk. This was really nice.

I did a bit of chainsawing, splitting and stacking AND compost heap adding.

But the antibiotics seemed to kick in and Gill felt well enough to make a pizza which was delicious. I did a big tidy up of my piles of paper, finding multitudinous envelopes and sorting them into re-usable, compostable and 'have to tear out the window-able'. I then spent some time tearing out plastic windows and crumpling the rest of the envelope into a ball for composting... Envelopes are not suitable for putting with the paper recycling as the gum clogs up the recycling process and the windows are best put in the rubbish. I could just crumple up the envelopes with the plastic window.... and then remove the window out of the finished compost. But although I've put some complete envelopes with windows into various compost bins, I'm happy to spend a bit of time removing windows first.

During one of today's outbursts, our coat stand in the hall got broken which caused tears of guilt and regret. I didn't react or say anything, I just ignored the situation, as if I'd said or done anything, it would have caused things to get even worse. Therefore within a few minutes, everything had calmed down..... a good thing! I think I'm slowly learning to be a slightly better parent. Maybe. But in my day, pushing the coat stand over so it snapped would have earned some kind of punishment. Thus I feel as if I am partly neglecting my 'duties' as a parent, to instruct between right and wrong, to encourage good behaviour and discourage bad... parenting does give rise to so many dilemmas.

Friday 24th October 08

Cycled into town with Gill, which was lovely... had a hot choc with her and visited the Futon shop to get a cover for the futon Gill got in the summer. Then I went to Cycle Heaven to book both our bikes in for some TLC next week, and I came home via the Thomas's Bread Shop to get their 'Yesterbake' deal which makes life so much cheaper.

Lunch and did a bit of work in the garden before going to get our youngest and was very pleased to see the pumpkin monsters on sale, alongside Green Thumbs Biscuits, which sold out. I couldn't help but buy one called 'Viletta, who loves compost' made with the pumpkin and four pears plus other bits of veg... and two weren't sold so I was given them, so pumpkin soup tomorrow!

Had a peaceful evening still doing the reminiscence artwork prep for Dexter and Ali.