Friday 1st July 11

A bit of a lie in.  Gill went to school to do her volunteering in the shop.  So, a late start and I then spent an hour finishing off the notes about the WNBR meeting we had ages ago but I got stuck.  I did finish them and send them off, hooray!

I also phoned Sargent Dave Horn, the police officer who looked after the ride, and asked if it was OK for our report to describe how the ride was policed, as what actually happened on the day was so very different to what the other officer said would happen.  I wanted to make sure he didn't get into trouble if I described how the police had controlled the traffic, which according to the ACPO guidelines, they're not supposed to do.  He was quite happy for me to say what happened, as he'd filed his own report on the night of the ride, and what he'd done was to do a risk assessment for each junction as he came to it, and with each non-traffic-lighted junction, he'd decided to get the ride over in one group, and momentarily stopped any motor vehicles getting into the middle of the group, to reduce the possibility of anything dangerous happening. 

So, my next WNBR job is to write a brief post-ride report.  I'll wait until my colleagues get back to me re the meeting notes.

Then I went to buy some bread, and came home to have lunch.

So, then got outside, did some clearing up in the studio, so tomorrow I can get the log splitter out and hopefully Tony Castle will render it well again.  I think it needs some more hydraulic fluid, but he's the best person to know. 

I visited Richard who'd asked me to come and collect a shed-load of compost able materials.

At 6 I was at Davids to take him to City Screen for a coffee and a chance to spot Carolyn on a boat.... we did spot her, waving at us.  After this, I introduced David to Richard, who as about to have an evening as Ray Spike, raising money for Alzheimer's research with his band The Falling Spikes, in the basement of City Screen.  I decided not to go to the gig as I needed to finish off in the Studio, digging out the log splitter, and sorting out the mountain of crap Richard gave me, and I don't need to be hungover tomorrow as I've got work in Haxby.

And I need a bath, so got the stove going for hot water......

Friday 17th June 11

Another good day, maybe not quite as up-beat as yesterday!

The best thing that happened was that our youngest son came home from his camping trip from school, and we've missed him.

As for the rest of the day, well I caught up with some paperwork during the morning and in the afternoon, cycled down to town and transferred some money from two accounts into our Suma account, and put a cheque in too, as on Tuesday we'll be getting a Suma order and will need to pay the driver.

I only did a short time in the garden, dealing with the bags of decorative vegetation from Barley Hall, using it roughly chopped up as a woody/carbon-rich layer. I'd also got some stuff from Country Fresh and Freshways, and a small amount of this went on the current heap.  More tomorrow.

For tea, I had a 100% free meal... some free (as past it's sell by date) quinoa, cooked on the woodstove, a large tomato and some red pepper, both discarded because of surface blemishes.

At 7.30 I arrived at the Black Swan for the last meeting of the York World Naked Bike Ride, the 'post ride debrief' with Hugh and Tony.  It was a long and rambling meeting, and once again, I took notes and promised to type them up.

I came home after 11 and got hot water together for Gill to soak her feet, and later, I did a bit of washing up.  Bed early, just 2.30 today. 

Saturday 4th June 11 The Sixth World Naked Bike Ride

I had booked three tickets for a screening of 'Home' at City Screen, so I could take my sons to the cinema as a treat... but as usual I didn't get it quite right.  I thought a film with fantastic aerial photography and a good environmental message might be a treat.  But neither of them were keen, so I didn't force them to go.  This meant  that I didn't feel like going either.

However, I needed to go to town to get some bamboo canes for the World Naked Bike Ride flags, and Richard had messaged me too, asking me to pick up today. So I decided to make best use of the journey and take in the accumulated drinks cartons to Hazel Court... and I had some space in the trailer so I took some steel tubing which has sat in the garden for ages... I think it came from a rusty hammock which someone gave us.

So the metal stuff went in the metal skip and tetrapacks in the drinks carton recycling skip.  I went on to Barnitts to get 10 bamboos and then went to Richard's to pick up the 4 boxes of compostables he had for me.  In such warm weather, stuff goes off really quickly.

I had quite a long time chatting with Rich but as I hadn't gone to the film, I had plenty of time.

I got home and Gill was complaining about my compost heap smelling.  I went down the garden and couldn't smell it.  Gill went to buy bread or something and came back, apologising as other people were complaining of the pong... it was a nearby farmer, presumably, spreading something pungent on the fields.  I went on the computer and found the Press had published the piece I was asked to write last night.  I was pleased with it, and also that comments were not enabled on it!  The WNBR always gets the bigots sniping.

I had lunch and did a bit of sorting in the garden.  Then at 2pm, I was expecting Ian and Lyndsay, but they didn't show, but I continued getting my stuff together for the ride.

So at about 3.30 I set off for the Millennium Bridge. (tbc)

Thursday 2nd June 11

Such a busy day!  I had postponed the visit to Brunswick Organic Nursery from yesterday and I also had to deliver the 'hard copy' press releases for the World Naked Bike Ride which the Press and Radio hadn't responded to after they were sent by email.on the 27th May.

So that was my first trip out.  I set out with the two press releases and then returned 3 minutes later as I'd forgotten the fliers.  I then bombed down to Gillygate to the Radio York building and gave in the press release and discussed how best to publicise the event through the radio.  From here I popped round to Millers Yard and Dylan was happy to have the fliers.  Then a swift walk through the centre of town to the Press office.  I had a look through the paper which had just been published; they hadn't responded to our press release but had printed the letter I sent in a couple of days ago.   Then I had a chat with Dan, a reporter, who took the press release and fliers and said he'd try to get something in on Saturday.

From here I shot off down Fulford Road, over Millennium Bridge and out to Bishopthorpe.  I was pleased to meet friends at Brunswick, including Adam, and gave out a few fliers for the WNBR.  I found a good selection of squash plants and one or two other things, including some Marigolds for Gill, by request.

Then home, for a late lunch and a bit of a sit down and then off again to see if I could get a better quality 'Micro SD' card for my little camera.  I saw a YouTube video of a 'before and after' with the Micro SD which came with the camera (jerky, not the best quality) and then after a SanDisk SD card replaced it.  Much better, a smoother film.  I cycled to Staples and they had a replacement 8GB card for £18... but not from SanDisk, but Lexar, which they said was a good quality product.  I wanted the 8GB one as that's what the camera came with... I could have got a SanDisk 2GB or 4GB for considerably less... but I bought the £18 version, and was told that if the quality was not what I wanted, I could bring it back.  I put it in the camera and did a test film on the way home.

At 6 I cycled out again, to a Freecycler who had offered some Basil seedlings.  I offered to swap them for a bean or two, so took two toilet-roll grown Pea Beans over to her.

After tea, which was linguine with home grown spinach, we put up the new tent.  We bought this last year and hadn't tested it, so it was a group exercise to erect it.  So, team effort and one hour later, we had the 4-person tent up, only just enough space, but much excitement from the boys.  They wanted to sleep in it with their friend who's spent much of the day with us.

So Gill and I got it ready for them to spend the night there, and by 11.45pm, all was quiet there... apart from the duck in the next garden quacking intermittently.

Tuesday 17th May 11

Oops, overslept, and woke at 9.33, realising I had agreed to meet Tony at 9.45 outside Alligators.  I washed, dressed, got a cereal bar and a banana and jumped on my bike.... and got to Alligators only a few minutes late.

We'd got an appointment at the Police Station to talk through the World Naked Bike Ride risk assessment.  The Police in North Yorkshire have a policy not to do any traffic management, so our 'how to reduce risk' section, which included references to 'police escort' didn't go down too well, but we included it as it was the obvious way to make the ride safer.  However, in the end, the officer who saw us gave us two possible ways to deal with the junctions and the problem of the peloton getting split.

So I regarded the meeting as a reasonable success, and Tony and I had a brief chat afterwards before I cycled into town to deal with David's water ingress problem.  I arranged to meet up with someone who uses the space under David's flat, to see where the water had got in recently, just to confirm which wall had the problem.  I then went to see David who had Richard with him, and Richard's friend John.  Gill messaged me; she'd brought the bike lock key into town so I could pick up our youngest at 3.30.  She popped in to see David, as she hadn't seen where he lives, or met him.  I was pleased they've now met.

I then took David to St Martin's Church, on Coney Street, next to City Screen, to hear the lunchtime organ concert, today being performed by Robert Sharpe, who's the Director of Music at York Minster.  The organ was a simple one, no foot pedals, and the pieces played included some Camidge, J.S. Bach, John Stanley and Mozart.  I enjoyed Samuel Wesley's 'Hornpipe' most, I think, but found all the pieces very simple (ie a keyboard played with one pair of hands), a bit boring and a bit comical.  The sound of the organ reminded me of steam-powered fairground organs.  But there was nothing I disliked, and I'd be happy to take him again; indeed, I am booked to do so! David enjoyed it very much, I was glad to learn.

I took him to Browns with Richard and John, and they met with Carolyn.  I went back to David's flat and met the person who has access to the space under it, so i could see the offending wall.  This will help me describe the situation to the Environmental Health when I speak to them.  I went back to Browns and John bought be a sandwich and coffee.

I had a quick look around the cellar with Richard and we found another source of moisture from the soil pipe from the upstairs toilet.  That can be fixed fairly easily, I think.

I then got off to go to the Steiner School to pick up our son and 3 outers of soya milk.  And a log on the way home.  Our son pedalled so hard on one section on the way home that he broke his chain.  We phoned Cycleworks to find if they could do it.... no, had to wait til Thursday.  We phoned Cycle Heaven and yes, they could do it in half an hour.  I loaded up his bike onto my trailer and took it to Cycle Heaven; Ash sorted it in 5 minutes and didn't charge me much.  I love Cycle Heaven, it's the best bike shop in York.

I got home and did a bit of chainsawing... some nice offcuts rescued from a skip recently.  Then I came in and flopped.  What a day!

Tuesday 26th April 11

Another good day.  Got up at a civilised time when the phone rang and it was Bridget from the Rowntree Society, replying to my enquiry about David donating some memories to their memory project.  She's going to invite him to an event on 17th May.

The rest of the day unfolded slowly... I did some more work out in the garden, including, at last, planting a third of the potatoes.

At about 4 I cycled down to town via Dower Court, where I was eventually able to get in and put 36 leaflets into letterboxes.

I got a cheque to pay my National Insurance and paid in a cheque which repays me for my train ticket down to UK Aware.

Then at 5 I met Helen at El Piano, which was lovely, and then we both went to see David, and we all went to City Screen, and met Dave and Chris.  Helen got the 7pm train home and David and I wandered back through York to his house, and I got him his food and went at 8pm.

Back at home, Gill had created a curious meal... a very 'short crust' pastry base which had failed to contain a quiche... so it was a cross between a quiche and an omlette.  I enjoyed it though.  Then I had an hour's phone call with a woman I met through a facebook friend who's going to open a small eco-friendly campsite in France, and she wanted to pick my brains about compost toilets and how to heat shower water.

Later, I did a bit more work on the York World Naked Bike Ride, and various other writing jobs.

Tuesday 19th April 11

I got up fairly early and after breakfast, went to Kexby Avenue and the roads off it to deliver the last of the postal voter letters.  Well actually not the last of them, as I couldn't deliver quite a lot of them... either couldn't find the road or block of flats, or couldn't get into the block to put the letter in the voter's letterbox.  This is one Green Party job I will not be doing again.

I came back and helped Gill sort out the conservatory, which is going to have the guinea pig cage in it.  I prepared a load of kitchen paper rolls by cutting them in half and filling them with seed compost, and planted a lot of climbing pea beans.  Gill found several succulents which had succumbed to the cold weather... but had got a few living bits left on them, so I potted those up, with the hope that they'll regenerate.  I also took a pot-bound succulent and split it up, getting over 40 individual plants from it, all of which I potted up. 

I found a load of batteries, ferrous scrap rescued from the fires, some old electrical equipment and soya milk cartons, so I loaded up the bike trailer with these plus the old microwave oven, and took them for recycling at Hazel Court.  I came straight back, and continued with helping Gill.  We got a metal rack shelf thingy down from the loft and installed it in the conservatory, which makes more storage space there.

I got an emergency booking for tomorrow morning: SNAPPY had been let down and rang me up to do a balloon modelling session tomorrow morning, which fits in nicely with another playscheme in the afternoon.

I then got some compost ready for delivery, and at about 5.30, cycled to Priory Street to deliver... and then on to David for a two-hour visit.  On the way there I met Paul and Gill, who are Trouvère, and they know David, so when David and I left his home, I found them and they chatted to David for a few minutes.

And then on to City Screen where Carolyn was waiting for us; I got drinks with David's membership card enabling a discount, and I got myself a bowl of what was said to be leek, tomato and olive soup, but it was more of a stew, delicious, with a warm bread roll. Trish Scott was at City Screen and it was good to see her again... but all too soon it was time for us to go. 

I heated up David's tea when I got back, and cleaned some pigeon poo from his yard, and he let me go just before 8pm.

I cycled to The Seahorse Hotel for the World Naked Bike Ride meeting with Tony and Hugh, a good and productive meeting.

Home at about 10.30.  A bit of a late night; did a lot of reading, including this really good article about people who preach green but don't live it, and I found an event I'm going to participate in, on the 12th May, called Mass Observation, a one-day diary.  Should be easy for me! I also enjoyed watching a short film about a woman, Pat, living frugally off the land, a film made by a facebook friend of mine, Josie Gallo.

Thursday 10th March 11

Up early as had to be at Mill House on North Street for 10am, and as it was very windy, I set off in good time as when it's windy... and blowing from the direction you're travelling in, it really slows you down.  But when I reached town, I saw I had 15 minutes to spare, and then I saw a skip with assorted pots and planters in it, so I rescued some of them, and got to the meeting with 5 minutes to spare.

The meeting was with the Council's Event's Officer, Liz Topi, the Police, Licencing and Highways, and was to discuss the forthcoming York World Naked Cycle Ride.  What the organisers would like is for the ride to go ahead with a Police escort, to 'cork' junctions and allow the group of 100 or so riders to stay as one group, rather than being split at traffic lights and other junctions, and risk getting motorists in the middle of the cyclists, which we feel is unsafe.  However, in York, the Police have decided that they are not responsible for managing traffic, and this is left to the Council.  So, if we wanted to be an official event with a Council Traffic Order, and junctions controlling, this would apparently cost thousands of pounds.  If we requested the Police do it, they too would charge for the service, if they were allowed to do it.

So, we are going to go ahead with the less safe situation of the riders obeying the rules of the road, but getting split up in the process, and having to stop on the highway to regroup.  Far from ideal.  In Manchester and Sheffield, the Police look after the riders and ensure motorists don't get tangled up with the cyclists.  We had lots more discussion, about a risk assessment, insurance, a change of route to avoid the Carnival, which Liz says will have 800 children there and she doesn't want the cyclists to 'upset' them.  But the organisers' main concern is that the ride goes ahead and is safe and fun for all, and makes the point about our vulnerability on today's car-infested roads. 

Right towards the end of the meeting there was a fire alarm, so we concluded the meeting outside.

I cycled home and wrote up the notes from the meeting and emailed them to all concerned.

I got an email from Chloe at Edible York confirming that they'd like another 15 sacks of compost for the Barbican raised beds.  To be collected on Sunday.  I'm very pleased to get such a big order, and even more so that the beds will be used to grow food.

I did a bit of moving stuff around; sawdust down the garden, compost up the garden, vegetables down the garden.... logs down to the woodshed. 

I came in at about 6... Gill had made some celery and sweet potato soup, so I had that and went out to Central Hall at the University to see Greg Dyke talking about the Yes campaign to reform our voting system.  This was good, and I'll be voting Yes to introduce AV, which is a first step towards Proportional Representation, my preferred method of electing representatives.

I chatted with Charles afterwards, and collected all the burst balloons, and then on the way home... found a pile of logs! 

Wednesday 7th July 10

A lie in... woke at 8 but then slept til about 11... bliss.

A very restworthy day actually, although I did stack all the logs I cut and split yesterday, and in the evening attended the post-ride meeting of the York World Naked Bike Ride at the Yorkshire Terrier on Stonegate. Hugh and Tony were there already when I turned up, and we were joined by Hedley and Richard. We reviewed the feedback from riders, and discussed how we can have a better ride next year, especially concerning a protocol for the police and our stewards.

After the meeting finished I stayed on with Tony and had a really good chat with him, before leaving soon after 11pm.

Saturday 19th June 10, CTC Rally AND 5th York World Naked Bike Ride

Up early as I had a busy day ahead... a full day of entertaining at the CTC Rally (the 'York Cycle Show') and then the Fifth York World Naked Bike Ride at 5pm.

So I left in good time, popping in to see Richard at Country Fresh as I haven't said hello to him for a few days, and then along Fulford Road to Hospital Fields Road and down to the Millennium Bridge.

I was pleased to find that the lovely Racecourse people had left Ebor Way open; the covered pathway with nice smooth concrete, which is ideal for teaching/learning unicycling. But before I got started, I visited the volunteer repair stall, which wasn't for repairing volunteers, but for voluntarily repairing bikes and the like.... so I gave them my unicycle which had a slow puncture, and they repaired it! For free! very kind of them... Then I visited the control tent and said hello, letting them know where I was planning to work. So, by 10.20, I was set up in Ebor Way and was soon busy with lots of children, a few teenagers and the occasional adult.

I worked solidly, without a break, until about 2.30 when, for some reason, the Racecourse management decided to shut the gates at the North end of Ebor Way, so that the flow of pedestrian and cycle traffic stopped, reducing the number of people using my services. But, at this time a young female unicyclist, R, whom I've met on several occasions, turned up and had several spins around on one of my unicycles, which was encouraging for other children her age and size (she's now 12) who were trying to learn by using the 3 sets of '4 wheel unicycles' and the one '2 wheel unicycle' thing (pedal go and fun wheels). However, this activity dried up, leaving me just with R, so I decided to decamp for the last hour onto the main field. But it was REALLY cold and much more windy here, and there were hardly any people wanting to try out stuff, so R and I just unicycled around a bit. The lumpy bumpy field wasn't as easy to unicycle around on, and at one stage I fell off and took the scab off my knee, which started to bleed again.... what a nuisance!

However, that last hour came to an end and at 4pm I was able to say bye to my little friend and cycle off into town to join the World Naked Bike Ride participants. I had brought with me a mask, requested by Melanie, 10 bamboos, for the flags, gaffer tape, for fixing bamboos, the megaphone, and my flagpole and flag. I got some of it set up and met up with Janie (ex Spencer Tunick, ex Manchester WNBR) and her son T, who has not ridden a bike very much, and curiously, was dressed as a mobile phone! Then I had to do some announcing, including Councillor Andrew Waller's message to the group, following his being contacted by a few members of the public unhappy with what we had planned to do. Some people are unhappy with public nudity, others about using Memorial Gardens as a starting point, citing 'disrespect'. So, to try to counter this view, I announced that the ride was dedicated to those who had been killed whilst cycling, especially those serving their country, the cyclist regiments and battalions.

Then Jesse Schust did a bit of an announcement; he's been looking after the UK WNBR for a few years and he's standing down, and I believe it is Tony who is going to keep those wheels turning. Then we moved to the start of the ride, which is a car park quite close to the River Ouse, behind a block of flats or apartments. Councillor Dave Taylor was being Dick Turpin for a while, and he launched the ride.

We'd discussed how the ride would be managed and I was asked to do the 'rear guard' and keep at the back of all the riders, so I kept this position all the way. It was a very slow ride, at walking pace for quite a bit of the way.... just as well for one participant who walked and jogged the whole way round with a skateboard under his arm, completely naked apart from shoes!

Our route went over the River Ouse, to the Minster, down Petergate to Church St and Parliament St, then wriggled round to Coppergate and Clifford St, round the oval road which goes past the Castle Museum, over to Tower Gardens, down river to Blue Bridge and onto Millennium Bridge. The other side of this we continued down river as far as the snicket which leads fairly steeply up to Terrys on Bishopthorpe Road. From here we went towards Bishopthorpe and crossed onto the start of the Route 66 cycle path to Selby, to the place where to occasionally used Racecourse Road crosses the cycle path, and where Ruby Milnes was tragically killed in 2008, when a lorry delivering portaloos to the Racecourse collided with her.

So this was the half way point, and we'd planned to have a 15 minute rest here, but it was REALLY cold and windy, so we had a brief stop of about 5 minutes. I did an announcement about the serious message of the ride; our vulnerability as cyclists, and I mentioned Ruby. We had a one minute's silence. After which people were keen to keep going!

I counted the participants here, and there were 97, and two had left the ride at the Millennium Bridge, so the number as far as I'm concerned was 100 on this ride. My CTC Rally friend R turned up here and so I said goodbye to her again. Our route back was along Albermarle Road, The Mount, Blossom St, Micklegate, Coney St and into Museum Gardens where people dismounted to get to the area where we got back into ordinary mode. There was a bit of discussion about the police presence. They had been understaffed due to other things going on, so we had mainly 'PCSOs', and their role was supposed to be 'observers'. However, when a couple of our stewards 'corked' a junction (stopping traffic to allow the riders to go through all in one block, for safety reasons) the PCSOs intervened and tried to prevent our people doing this. But later in the ride, the police behaved more sensibly and on one occasion corked a junction themselves, on The Mount, and then on Mickelgate, told us to stay as a block and ignore the lights which were changing, and if we'd obeyed them we would have been split as a group. We did get split a couple of times and this did not enhance safety. Ideally we need to be treated as a procession or convoy and kept as a group, and my guess is that next year, we'll try to sort this out beforehand.

So, it was a successful event with no accidents or incidents to speak of, no aggression from motorists and I heard no negative comments from members of the public. I was really impressed by Janie and especially her son who are both pretty novice cyclsts and for them, it was a tough ride.

I cycled back with Michael Nugent, our volunteer CRU... cycling response unit, a self employed ambulance bike rider from Essex who is a keen naturist, and I'd offered to give him somewhere to kip for the night. He'd parked outside our house and cycled in with Jesse, whom he'd given a lift to, and he had a wander down the garden, I picked some spinach and Gill added this to some noodles and other veg which we both enjoyed. After this he said hello to the children and then we had an hour in the Beeswing down the road, good chats.

A few more chats and laughs when we got back, and jolly conversations with Gill, but then he was tired and as he had to get up and go at some ridiculous hour, he went to sleep on the futon in the front room.

I wrote my blog. Which I hope gives you a flavour of an unforgettable day. But only if you were out in it would you know how cold it was!

Friday 18th June 10

Quite a busy day, did a load of pruning and planting potatoes, working with Gilly.

Had a phone conversation with Tony about a message to the organisers of the York World Naked Bike Ride, and then dealt with replying to that...

After lunch I cycled down to town to get my dynamo/front light connection sorted out... the wire had come out again, but Ash was his usual wonderful self and made it work again. I had time to pop in to Nationwide to get a cheque out for the CarFree Conference fee, and I was annoyed to see that one of my accounts has had the terms changed, so that I won't be able to take a cheque out unless I pay a £10 fee, which is very annoying. It means that I will have to go in and move my savings from the Cashbuilder account to another... a complete bally nuisance.

Then I delivered the cheque to Ivana at St Nicks, as she's looking after that side of the conference. Found a couple of logs, picked up a sack of compostables from Freshways, and home just in time to go and pick up our youngest from school. It was 'lolly Friday' so he had a lolly and we walked most of the way home together.

When I got back, Gill and our eldest went out to town on the bus to pick up a new pair of specs and were back in just over an hour. I had a quick tea and at 6pm, Tony rang and arranged to meet me at the Racecourse to give out WNBR leaflets to the CTC Rally attendees.

I got there at 6.20 and immediately started giving out our leaflet to people arriving at the site for their weekend's camping or caravaning, and there was a lot of enthusiasm for the ride. Tony arrived from Selby on his racing bike and he also gave out leaflets, and went round the campsite too.

I came back via a freshly felled tree and got in at 9pm. Lots of pretty frantic emailing and facebooking stuff... oh, and washing up, blog and interspersed family stuff! Busy busy busy...

Wednesday 16th June 10

I got up after the boys had left for school and again, had some time with Gill before I headed off to town to meet with my YWNBR colleagues Tony and Hugh, down at the Theatre Royal. We needed to touch base about last chance publicity, stewarding, all sorts of bits and bobs.

I called in on Barnitts on the way home to buy some bamboo canes which will enable people who buy flags to put them on their bike.

Then I called in on Country Fresh to pick up 3 boxes of compostables plus a range of veggies and fruit to keep the family going... I got in at 2pm and had a late lunch. I listened to Anna Semlyen on Radio York being interviewed about the ride and the 20's Plenty campaign.

Once the children were back home I did some more work in the garden... preparing the pond area for the forthcoming pond, by removing ground elder and brambles. Also did a bit of composting.

Later I went out log collecting and raised the suspicions of a car driver who stopped to watch me.

Thursday 10th June 10

I had to get going fairly early... I had been asked to get the York World Naked Bike Ride leaflets from York Community Print, and at 10.30, Hugh was meeting a photographer/film-maker from the Yorkshire Post and I wanted to support him, as no-one else had said they were able to go.

But, during breakfast I checked my emails. Last night, at something past 2am, just after I'd turned off the laptop, I checked the York Press. On the front page was a small paragraph titled 'Naked Ambition' and with a line saying 'Full story: page 17, so I had a quick look through the paper and ended up on Page 17, where the full article about our ride was. I was horrified by the mistake Richard Harris the reporter had made. We'd spent ages getting a good Press Release together and the silly numpty had not read it properly, and said we'd be leaving from Museum Gardens, whereas we are actually leaving from Memorial Gardens, the other side of the river. We are returning to the Museum Gardens, but obviously, we want people to know where we're leaving from, so they can join us.

So, I put my laptop back on and fired off an email and a letter to The Press. I also looked on the Press website and left a correction under the article.

This morning I got an apology emailed to me and a promise to print my letter.

So, my first trip to Holgate Villa. This is a 1960s concrete office block, and currently houses York Green Party and North Yorkshire Credit Union amongst many other groups. I had agreed to meet up with Andy Chase to pick up some York World Naked Bike Ride fliers, with an image of David on them and information about the ride.

Then I went to meet Hugh at Clifford's Tower and the Yorkshire Post people arrived and did a bit of filming and photography. Both of us were interviewed.

I then called in on Alligator to pick up compostables, and left fliers there. Then to Country Fresh, and left some leaflets there. Then to St Nicks, where I had several conversations and left some WNBR leaflets.

I got home after 12 and had lunch.

Later I did some work in the garden and disposed of all the compostables, as I won't be able to do any tomorrow as I'm heading over to Manchester for their Naked Bike Ride and the Spencer Tunick 'Everyday People' exhibition at The Lowry on Saturday.