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.

Monday 6th June 11

Another full day.... starting off with a bit of a difficult assignment.  Ian and Lyndsay had hired bikes on Saturday but wanted to bring them back to the shop on Sunday.... but were dismayed to find that the shop wasn't open on Sunday.  So, that meant either staying over on Sunday night (which they were welcome to do, but couldn't because of Ian's having to be at work) or let me return the bikes and get the deposit back to Lyndsay.  Ian suggested I send it to him by PayPal.

However, as the shop wasn't open on Sunday, and they went home last night, I needed to get the bikes to Monkgate/Lord Mayor's Walk for 9.30.  I put one on my trailer, shielding the frame from scratches with a wad of newspaper, and tying it on with several bungees.  The second bike was relatively easy to push whilst I rode mine, one-handed all the way, of course, and in the same gear all the time!

I got there on the dot of 9.30 and once both bikes were in the shop, I passed on Ian's message about the poorly positioned chain and the fact that there was no oil on the chain. The shop staff were surprised and grumpy about this, after all, the bike should not have gone out in such a condition and therefore someone slipped up.  And although I had the paperwork, they were not happy with giving me the deposit.  However, I was fine about that, as I know Ian preferred the BACS way of transferring money, and the shop would be able to do that more easily than I could do PayPal.  So I got a receipt and left.

My next port of call was the Green Party office to give back the megaphone and radios that Graham had lent us, and from here I went for a coffee with Serena from the Bike Ride, and it was very nice to get to know her a bit better. 

I got home at around midday, did a bit of computery stuff and had lunch and did a good block of compost heap work, at least two hour's worth.

The next notable thing was the LETS meeting at the Seahorse, at 7.30.  Kay arrived just after me and Melody a bit later still.  We had an efficient meeting... when Melody's around, it is always efficient!  I took notes and will write them up soon.  I was just thinking of going when will arrived, so I stayed and we had a really good chat.  Was a very nice conversation; I'm very fond of him.

I didn't get home til nearly 11pm... lit the stove, did some washing up, did emails and facebook and blog.... the usual stuff til the wee early hours...

Monday 4th April 11

I got up at 9; Gill had taken our youngest to school in a taxi and we were expecting Will to come and do maths with our home-schooler. 

Gill came back and I got busy in the garden, doing more mechanical riddling and filling sacks with mature compost for Edible York.

I came in for lunch and went out for another short time, to load my trailer... 2 big sacks in the trailer plus the little one's bike, and a sack on my pannier rack.

I cycled down to the Building Society to get out a cheque for Jim Semlyen, to renew http://www.novaterium.com/ and delivered that cheque.  Then on to Cycle Heaven to get a new cycle helmet for our youngest, who's grown out of his old one.  He wanted a green coloured one, so I picked the only green one.  However, this was £54, and I'd wanted to pay only half of this!  So he got a red one for £30.  I then delivered the compost to St Clements, and headed off to the Millennium Bridge to go to the Steiner School.  I did 15 minutes of compost heap management there... the new bin is now ready for some fruity stuff from the daleks next to the playground.  So that's my next job.

My son liked the new skid lid, and we cycled home together... but he did the last bit on his own as I wanted to pop in to Freshways to collect compostables.

I did more work in the garden until just after 6 when I came in (with a good crop of Shiitake!) and Gill told me I could do my own tea... so I did.  Rice based, with Shiitake mushrooms, home grown and fresh off the log!

Then it was the LETS meeting.  I took notes, and wrote them up afterwards.  I seem to have a lot to do.  Not an early night.

Monday 28th February 11

I enjoyed today.  We were all getting up sometime after 9 as Will was due at 10 to do some maths with our eldest, but Will arrived at 9.35 and we weren't ready.  Anyway, we hadn't got any graph paper, so Will went to buy some.  We were up when he came back!

The maths session went really well and I'm delighted for both parties. 

At 11.30 I headed into town to meet a gentleman called David, whom our mutual friend Carolyn thinks I might get on with, and might be in a position to help.  I found his City Centre house, where he's lived for 40 years, and met his cousin Richard, who's been helping to look after him since he's not been so well.  We chatted about all sorts for a couple of hours.  I might be going to do some PA/carer work for him.

I went to the building society and paid in two cheques, and came home for lunch at nearly 3pm.

The rest of the afternoon went quickly and I had a really simple tea, pasta, red kidney beans and half an avocado.  I'd arranged to meet John at 8 in The Golden Ball, and we had some good wide-ranging chats including a brief resume of the Climate For Change workshop which I missed because of work.

I cycled back home via the wasteland with felled trees near Fulford Road, and came back with 5 lovely lumps.  Had a nice chat with one of my facebook friends Juliet before going to bed, and it was good to link up.  I do love facebook for networking with people with shared interests.

The thing I nearly forgot to report was that I got a booking for the festival of Purim, from a Synagogue in Leeds.  They booked me years ago, twice, and it was quite an eye opener for me as I didn't know much about Jewish culture.  The Rabbi was pleased that I remembered Purim, and I'll be going back there on March 20th.

Monday 14th February 11

A good day, despite most of it being inside and doing assorted paperwork and admin stuff.

At 10, Will came to meet our eldest and to see if they could work together... Will is a maths enthusiast and we've asked him to help us home educate our eldest.  He's coached two GCSE students already, so we discussed that too.  They just had various discussions and tried out various number games, but next week I'll start paying Will 10 Yorkys for the hour's tuition. 

Just before lunch I had a good telephone conversation with Nathan from Promessa UK, sorting out a few facts to help me write clearly about it on Novaterium.com. 

I also had some conversations with Keith, whom I know from Freecycle.  He responded to my 'wanted' post, where I asked if anyone had a spare electric chainsaw as mine had ceased to be able to be used.  I explained what had happened, and he said he'd have a go at fixing it.  However he was having a busy day himself, so we arranged to meet later.

I got a message from a teacher in France asking if I'd be willing to talk to her students about being a 'freegan'.  I replied immediately and said yes, she was delighted and found me on skype, and at about 3pm we connected and I answered questions about my green lifestyle.  They were a group of 20 year olds, not sure what lesson it was, but that didn't matter.  I had their questions relayed to me by the teacher and they listened to my answers.  One student later found me on facebook, saying he'd lived as a freegan for a couple of years.

I did a couple of hours work in the garden, and sorted out some Mediterranean-grown new potatoes which had been thrown out as they had blemishes and damage from the harvesting.  Later, I washed them and trimmed them, and cut them into cubes and made a potato salad on the stove.

Gill made a celery soup (just 2 potatoes, an onion and a whole head of celery) and an apple crumble with stewed apple from the freezer.  This was a delicious tea.

Justin called to pick up his cheque from the two days work he did, and to leave us the certificates and circuit diagrams of the house wiring, so that anybody doing any further work knows what is what, as this house has really weird wiring.  I told Justin that the lights he said wouldn't work after he removed some crappy flex were actually still working, so he'll need to come tomorrow and check the status of that wire, to check there isn't some problem there....

Then I cycled round to Keith's house in Tang Hall/Heworth, to see if he could fix the chainsaw.  The problem was that I could not undo the nut securing the blade, to tension the chain, as the bolt was turning with the nut as I tried to undo it.  Somehow the bolt had come loose.  He had a good poke around, trying to see if he could get to the base of the bolt to hold that still, but no.  So he undid the screw/bolt things holding the plastic casing together, which then showed that the base of the bolt was encased in the plastic casing.  After some thought, he reckoned that putting a blow torch on the bolt would enable him to pull it out of the casing as the plastic would soften.  This worked, once he'd found the blow torch!  The hole that was left was the right size for a bolt he had in his extensive collection.  He decided to anchor this two ways... by drilling a hole across the head and also into the casing of the saw, and sliding a pin through both case and bolt.  He also had some glue called Sticks Like Sh*t which he used to fix the bolt head into the hole and the pin in place.  We then had a bit of bother getting the case back in place as there were a couple of springs which needed easing into place, and the on-switch was difficult too.  BUT we got everything back in place AND the machine worked!  Whether the chain stays taut when I'm cutting is another matter, but we shall see!

Keith didn't want anything in return... as he'd offered to help me.  I said that if I ever asked him for help, I'd expect to give him something.  I asked again if there was anything I could do by way of thanking him, and he said, well, he was looking for a rhubarb crown.  I said I'd be able to help him with that!

Keith is an example of a person I would like more of in the community around me.  If more people were like him, the world would definitely be a better place.

I got home and did more washing up, cooked potato salad, helped Gill open a PayPal account as she wants to buy something tomorrow, and I found out I won't be in York tomorrow as Ali has two ill PAs and wants me to go over and work... hence Gill needing to open the PayPal thing, as I was going to do that transaction for her, but won't be around.

Wednesday 17th March 10

I got up early as I'd arranged to take some compost round to a friend for 9.30, so before breakfast I took the wheelbarrow down the garden and picked up 5 sacks of very old mature and lovely compost and put them in my trailer. Then I had breakfast.

The compost was appreciated, and I should get paid Yorkys for it, but I don't know how many yet... we didn't discuss that. What I did do was to check my friend's CV, as there is a job recently advertised that looks very desirable. I was able to pick up one mistake and make a few suggestions about other things to add or ways to improve the document.

I got back at about 11am, bearing cereals and bread from the Co-op and Thomas the Baker.

At midday, a chap I've met just once through York in Transition, Nick Haines came round, to discuss the Seed Swap which he is officially in charge of. He was pleased that I'd bought the 69 packets of seeds and he reimbursed me the £14. He'll claim that back off YiT once the event has happened. We talked about other aspects of the day, including whether I can do a presentation about how to make seed compost, and whether I can bring some ready-made seed compost to sell, or to give to people and ask for a donation, which is usually what I prefer to do. He agreed to canvas opinions of the other YiT people, and get back to me. He had printed off some colour posters, and we talked about publicity.

I gave him a little tour of the garden and by 1.15 he had gone. After lunch I cycled a poster down to Country Fresh, and picked up two sacks of biodegradables, then on to Alligator, who took two posters and gave me a bag of 3 dead cabbages and some red peppers which had started going off, I then came back home via Freshways who had a polystyrene box of mainly over-ripe bananas to be recycled. They also took a poster.

I then made a load of seed compost. I do a mix of 7 parts old riddled leafmould, 2 parts loam and one part rich garden compost. I prepared this with the big riddle and then the rotasieve, and bagged it up... 10 carrier-bags about half full. If this isn't going to be used at the Seed Swap, I'll either sell it via Country Fresh or just use it myself.

I came in at 7pm and Gill had made a rice-based tea which was lovely. At 8 my good friend Will arrived, as I'd asked him to come and help me interpret my questionnaire for my book, which I really must get on with. I showed him the questionnaire and the data so far, and the bits of the book I've already written. I think with him involved I'll get on a bit better. He is well organised and asked me to give him deadlines to do the various bits. He wants to be paid in Yorkys.

So, a busy day, productive and social. But I'm looking forward to tomorrow even more!

Wednesday 16th December 09

I got up reasonably early and spent quite a bit of time catching up with my blog, writing out my notes and memories from my day in Sandwell last Friday, and then at midday helped Ali a bit with her film... she wanted someone to recite a poem whilst she recorded it, to use as part of the soundtrack. We got it on the 10th take... it was perfect, but for some reason her Dictaphone didn't record more than 4 seconds on that attempt. The 11th was successful!

At 2.40 we set off to pick up her daughter from school, and then went to Sainsbury's for some of her Xmas shopping and we had tea there, in the cafe. We got home just in time to gather all her University work up and she went off to there and I got the 6.21 back to York. I met an interesting Russian molecular biologist heading back to Edinburgh, after she'd had a PhD interview in Nottingham. So we talked about stem cells amongst other things. The journey flew by!

And back home by 7.30... and Will and David arrived at 8 to have a game of 'Co-operative Scrabble' where the individual players' scores are not recorded, just the running sum total. Between us we got 624 which Will said was good. A friendly evening.

Saturday 16th May 09

Heaved myself out of bed at 9 after going to bed after 3am... I'd have liked a bit of a lie-in, but had arranged to go and visit Andrew, a Freecycler who offered an unwanted train-set layout, ie a board with some track on it. It was raining so I took a load of paper sacks to cover it up. I helped him get it down from his loft... and there was a bag of bits and pieces with it too! This had been well loved when his children were children... but they are my age now, so it was probably 30 years old or thereabouts! The track was rusty... old oo gauge track was made of simple steel and rusted when moisture condensed onto it, and it needed rubbing with sandpaper to ensure the contacts with the electrics in the engine. Modern track is stainless steel or nickel steel or something... and it doesn't corrode, so we'll replace the track.

It wasn't raining as I came home so it didn't need covering up, and I picked up a sack of compostables from Country Fresh, which went on my pannier rack. Home to find that Will, my friend from LETS, was going to visit, as he wanted to see how our boys worked the Wii. It was good to see him, and he enjoyed making a Mii and having a go at conducting and a few other things. Then he felt tired and Gill asked him if he wanted to have a nap on the sofabed in the front room. So he had half an hour before heading into town to participate in an arts event, not sure what.

After lunch, I spent some time washing up, made a nutloaf.. a bi-colour nutloaf, one half with carrot soup in, the other with chopped and lightly steamed spinach-beet from the garden. I lined the baking dish with slices of a spherical courgette... one of the shops had thrown out about half a dozen of them, don't know why as there is nothing wrong with them. The result, microwaved and then turned out onto a metal tray and baked in the oven for 20 minutes to crisp it off, was awesome! We all loved it! Gill put some salad together, and olives and pickles... it was delicious. Gill made a banana cake with some thrown out bananas, with chopped Brazil nuts and home-made sultanas too. We eat like, well, like it's a restaurant! A five star restaurant! But Gill and I have both worked in catering... Gill ran pubs (cooking for 200 every Sunday) and I was a Pizzaland person for two years , and had a season at Gillygate Wholefood Bakery and Cafe Co-operative in the late 1980s, cooking good veggie nosh.

I did manage some time in the garden, and also did some work in the conservatory, pruning the Kiwi tree (hope it fruits this year!) and sorting out little yams to plant up. One of the yams from a couple of years ago is already several metres long and snaking its way all over the kiwi and up to the roof... an amazing plant. And each year the tuber triples in size. At the leaf nodes, little balls develop and fall off... these grow into yams if allowed to, and it was handfuls of these I was collecting from around the back of the Kiwi pot and other big planters. I expect I'll sell some or give them out at the St Nicks junk-swap event.

A quiet evening, chatting to load of different people on the computer and watching the telly.

Friday 23rd January 09

I took our youngest into school. Came back and Gill was feeling very poorly and was wondering what to do. I told her to ring the hospital and/or her GP and she was offered an appointment for 3.40, but really she was so ill that I thought she needed something sooner, as she thought she was going to die. Our neighbour Marion has just retired from nursing, but is still qualified, so Gill went to ask her opinion. Dave, Marion's husband, offered to drive Gill to the surgery (shows how ill she was, as it's less than 10 mins walk but she couldn't face it. The doctor gave her a prescription for some strong antibiotics as she has an infection in her abdomen.

Somewhere in amongst this lot, we had a visit from our friend Maria who has just handed in her resignation to the school where she's recently started working. She found that the combination of so much prep and marking, having loads of different classes shared amongst relatively few teachers, and various other pressures was too much. Very sad, as she is in fact an excellent teacher... but it wasn't the teaching which she found to much, it was all the surrounding stuff. But she knows we are sympathetic and always have a cuppa and listening ear for her. I'm sure she'll find something else.

I also did a compostables collection by request from Freshways and came away with some interesting tubers which I might have a go at growing. Today I also harvested some Oca from the molasses drum at the side of the house... it's a frost-sensitive plant and the recent cold spell has rendered the tops into a collapsed state, but the soil was completely full of lovely shiny pink tubers, which can be eaten raw or stir-fried, and have a tangy lemony flavour and are crunchy. Latin name is Oxalis tuberosa, for pictures of Oca, see http://www.potager.dk/index.php?id=18&la=en and there's an excellent article with photos here: http://www.greenharvest.com.au/Plants/oca_info.html I will eat some and replant the smallest ones in pots so that I can grow them on in the conservatory for a few months before planting them out or letting other people have them.

At 2.30 I went down to school and helped prepare for the Blue Peter Mission Nutrition Bring and Buy. I got a load of tables out of the hall and put them up in the playground... Julia suggested a circular shape which did work well. One of the mums brought a load of fairy cakes and Julia had already collected some stuff to sell from a previous Mission Nutrition sale (afterwards, the stuff which hadn't sold) and parents brought stuff in today. By 3.15 we were ready to sell and it was a very busy few minutes. We hadn't put prices on anything... we just asked for offers and reminded people that it was for Mission Nutrition, and many parents and children were very generous. Lots of people got some fantastic bargains though. Later during the evening, I got an email saying we'd taken about £120. I was delighted!

I helped pack up and took some clothes which will be OK in the forthcoming York in Transition Clothes Swap, on 14th February. Then I cycled home with our little one who was pleased with his little computer game (50p) a laughing furry ball, a paper clip holder and a wooden snake for a pound, he also bought two buns, ate one and brought one back for his older brother.

Gill was back in the house when I got back but went to bed. I prepared the boys' tea on the woodstove: sliced and fried butternut squash, pasta parcels and shells with a leek, cabbage, tomato and cashew nut stew/sauce. Gill had a little bit afterwards... we all enjoyed this nosh.

At 8 our friend Will came round, as agreed during the week. He had wanted to play a game of 'co-operative Scrabble' but we also had a funding application form to fill in for the new LETS software, so we did that instead. Will left at 10.30 and I did a bit of wire stripping and Gill came down after midnight needing painkillers.

Saturday 18th August 07

Another lie-in, til 9, then got up as today have to go to the allotment to speak to Frank about a compost toilet at the lottie, he's looking for a design.

Our 13 pots of jam have not set, which means that we cannot give any away, although it tastes lovely, it needs to be spooned out.

However, didn't do much til after lunch when I went via Martin's compost collection, and when I got to the lottie, Frank wasn't there, he'd already gone... this is the second time I've missed him.

However, did some bramble pruning and nettle pulling, a good layer for the compost heap, and put the fruit and veg on top of this. Then planted 9 rows of tiny leek seedlings, where the spuds came out of last week. Then cut more bramble, the stuff which is encroaching the allotment, and pulled nettles which are encroaching the path, and put this on top of the chopped fruit and veg layer. Picked a tray of blackberries for making blackberry and apple leather. This is a guaranteed way of preserving the harvest.

When I got back I made some flagolet bean and red pepper spread, the beans were out of date from Out Of This World, and I soaked the whole packet and cooked them over a couple of days on top of the stove. Whizzed them with the hand-held blender with a waste pepper and home-grown onions. Added some flavours, herbs, soy sauce, bouillon powder and home made paprika from last year, makes a beautiful spread, four pots worth, will freeze them.

Home to have an unusual tea, a Tesco's veg pie which was given to us, not sure why, but they were taking up space in the freezer, so they went in the oven and we had home grown potatoes and broccoli, plus the soup from yesterday which I whizzed so it was less of a stew and more of a soup. Lovely tea. Watched telly all together whilst eating, then the boys went to bed early as we've got a visitor at 8.30, for a game of Scrabble.

Will came at the appointed time, and we soon had a game of superscrabble underway. Will is not a particularly competitive player, infact he introduced us to co-operative scrabble, where the aim of the game is to make the highest combined score, the individual scores are not important. However tonight we didn't play co-operatively, as we are used to playing to win. We didn't finish the game, we stopped at 11.15pm and Gill had got the highest score. The main thing is that we all enjoyed the game and each others company. Will is good at conversation and has a creative mind, he's always entertaining and interesting. It was Will who suggested that I should write a blog... his is at http://mathsdancer.blogspot.com . I don't understand all that Will writes about, or nessessarily agree, but one doesn't have to agree with everything someone says to like them or even love them.

An excellent evening, also made some blackberry and apple leather.