Still feeling quite 'blue' today... not a change of political colour, just my mood is down on usual. But I'm lucky, as I never get down enough to stop me doing things, and today was no exception.
I was woken by shouting and came down to see if I was needed... wasn't really, and I had breakfast and did my emails, and watched a bit of The Big Questions which is often though-provoking. Around this time, Robin arrived with his home-made compost tumbler which he has had to get rid of, as he's reorganising his garden. He's lent it to me on permanent loan. It is a standard wheelie bin, riddled with holes for ventilation, and a centrally-placed pair of holes surrounded by a metal ferrule to strengthen them, through which goes a rod, acting as a pivot. This sits on a wooden stand, allowing it to rotate. The lid is kept shut with some kind of strap and tightener, which took me ages to work our how to use... but I did, eventually. I left this in the front garden for now.
At 11 I cycled off to the allotment, despite my not having one anymore, I've decided to rejoin the Association as firstly I really believe in allotments (despite it not being a religion!) and secondly it allows me to purchase reduced price gardening supplies... so today I spent just £11 on four types of seed potato (£1 a kilo), 'Masterpiece' broad beans, 'Sutton' broad beans, two packets of F1 'Earligold' sweetcorn, two packets of 'Incredible' sweetcorn, mixed broccoli, calabrese 'green sprouting', calabrese 'Chevalier', cauliflower 'Autumn Giant', cauliflower 'Rafael F1', leek 'Musselburgh', courgette 'Bambino', courgette 'Zucchini' ad a packet of 'Early' butternut squash. I also rescued a few bits and bobs from my ex allotment which as yet doesn't have anybody tending it. I might go and rescue my expensive asparagus before they start growing, if I can find them!
As I was coming home, my bike chain, which has been giving me some trouble, broke, so I had to scoot home. As soon as I got in I rang Cycle Heaven and hooray, they were willing to drop everything to have my bike in, as soon as I wanted, and make it better. So I had lunch and scooted/walked back into town and delivered my bike. I was told that I needed a new derailleur mechanism, as mine has been knocked and that's why it has been jumping and causing me problems. So I said yes, and walked into town again to get some money out of the hole in the wall, and then walked on to see if Pauline was in... which she was, and she was happy to see me. She always talks sense and an hour with her made me temporarily forget my woes. We had an interesting conversation about an ethical dilemma. We both have one... hers is sorted, mine hasn't yet happened but I might need to act on some information some time and Pauline had an answer about how best to do that. She is a great friend and in my opinion, a wise woman.
I then picked up my bike and it felt wonderful again! Called in on Country Fresh and Freshways, arrived home very laden. I got home just in time to be useful with the boys, but soon escaped down the garden to install the new tumbler, and filled it completely with assorted garden stuff and greengrocer stuff. I think it'll be a good bit of kit.
A few weeks ago I'd found a bike on the side of the road so I'd rescued it and after a few days, reported it to the Police as lost property. Amazingly, someone had apparently reported it missing and today the Police rang to say they wanted to collect it, so I brought it to the front of the house in anticipation. This is the first time any bike I've found has been claimed. I am very pleased.
Tea was nice.. a rescued avocado, and an experimental pate made by our youngest, who loves cooking (watercress and cashew nut... interesting!), plus a macaroni cheese with cauliflower and broccoli. Good stuff!
However, I still had the blusey feeling hanging over me and I felt quite lethargic during the evening, just no energy or enthusiasm at all. I'm hoping it will blow over.
Showing posts with label bike needing repair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bike needing repair. Show all posts
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Wednesday 20th January 10
Quite a frustrating day in some ways.
Some interesting email feedback following the WeLoveTheEarthCentre meeting yesterday, some very positive, others less so. But nothing horrible, just stuff which took time to read, and as is my wont, I reply to everything, politely and carefully. Sometimes composing an appropriate reply takes a long time, but my view is that every individual is worthwhile, has a right to their views, and deserves a hearing and a polite but honest response.
Hey ho... was on the computer til midday.
But then I had a couple of Freecycle things to do, one person asking for cacti accepted my offer of a few Bryophyllum plantlets, which grow on the leaves of the parent plant. So I put some into a film canister and got my bike and set off to Burton Stone Lane, which is about 20 minutes cycle away. On the way I met John from St Nicks and had a nice chat, and then went on my way. I got to my destination... and realised I'd left the film canister at home! Duh! So, I cycled all the way back, collecting some logs on the way, so this journey wasn't completely wasted. But halfway back, my chain broke. Oh no! I had to walk the rest of the way home. Grrrr...
So, got home, admitted my error and bad luckto Gill, and borrowed her bike and did the whole journey again. I love cycling but I'd have preferred to do this 40 minute trip once, not twice, and not to have used Gill's bike as it isn't good for my knees.
When I eventually got home, after dark now, I went to pick up a broken colander which was offered on freecycle, which I'll use to do the University of Plymouth and Garden Organic 'compost beasties' survey. The idea is to put some compost in a colander, in a funnel, with the funnel in a jar of vodka. The compost is then subjected to several days of shining a warm light onto the top surface, which drives the beasties downwards, to their alcoholic death and then being sent through the post to be identified. This has never been done before, so I'm happy to be contributing (well, about to contribute to) this scientific research.
When I got in from this, we'd had a visit from the friendly Environmental Health Officer. Before Christmas, someone had complained they'd seen smoke coming out of our chimney, and complained. We live in a Clean Air Act zone so homes may not emit smoke except for the first 10 to 20 minutes of lighting the fire, and householders may only burn 'authorised fuel' or have an 'exempt appliance', which is what both of our stoves are. We hadn't responded to this letter... I had been busy and then the letter had got buried in a pile of stuff, and anyway, we knew we were ok, so we just let it go. The complainant had complained again, so she visited. She was happy to see which models of stove we had and my method of drying the wood, and she said that the occasional aroma of woodsmoke was not a problem, only actual smoke coming from the chimney. She also said that she had a woodstove, and understood why we had them. A good visit!
City of York Council have a leaflet explaining this here (pdf), on their webpage, and there's a list of exempt appliances here. If you want to see what other people think about your stove, or a make of stove you are considering getting, check out WhatStove which is an excellent resource.
Gill was experimenting with making pasta. We had her home-made tagliatelle for tea, with broccoli. It was very good.
I had a quiet evening in, more Earth Centre stuff, and other things including a Fiddlesticks booking in Malton at Easter and confirmation of another couple of bookings in the Summer in Leeds. Good, need the work! However cheaply we live, we do need some money to keep things going...
Some interesting email feedback following the WeLoveTheEarthCentre meeting yesterday, some very positive, others less so. But nothing horrible, just stuff which took time to read, and as is my wont, I reply to everything, politely and carefully. Sometimes composing an appropriate reply takes a long time, but my view is that every individual is worthwhile, has a right to their views, and deserves a hearing and a polite but honest response.
Hey ho... was on the computer til midday.
But then I had a couple of Freecycle things to do, one person asking for cacti accepted my offer of a few Bryophyllum plantlets, which grow on the leaves of the parent plant. So I put some into a film canister and got my bike and set off to Burton Stone Lane, which is about 20 minutes cycle away. On the way I met John from St Nicks and had a nice chat, and then went on my way. I got to my destination... and realised I'd left the film canister at home! Duh! So, I cycled all the way back, collecting some logs on the way, so this journey wasn't completely wasted. But halfway back, my chain broke. Oh no! I had to walk the rest of the way home. Grrrr...
So, got home, admitted my error and bad luckto Gill, and borrowed her bike and did the whole journey again. I love cycling but I'd have preferred to do this 40 minute trip once, not twice, and not to have used Gill's bike as it isn't good for my knees.
When I eventually got home, after dark now, I went to pick up a broken colander which was offered on freecycle, which I'll use to do the University of Plymouth and Garden Organic 'compost beasties' survey. The idea is to put some compost in a colander, in a funnel, with the funnel in a jar of vodka. The compost is then subjected to several days of shining a warm light onto the top surface, which drives the beasties downwards, to their alcoholic death and then being sent through the post to be identified. This has never been done before, so I'm happy to be contributing (well, about to contribute to) this scientific research.
When I got in from this, we'd had a visit from the friendly Environmental Health Officer. Before Christmas, someone had complained they'd seen smoke coming out of our chimney, and complained. We live in a Clean Air Act zone so homes may not emit smoke except for the first 10 to 20 minutes of lighting the fire, and householders may only burn 'authorised fuel' or have an 'exempt appliance', which is what both of our stoves are. We hadn't responded to this letter... I had been busy and then the letter had got buried in a pile of stuff, and anyway, we knew we were ok, so we just let it go. The complainant had complained again, so she visited. She was happy to see which models of stove we had and my method of drying the wood, and she said that the occasional aroma of woodsmoke was not a problem, only actual smoke coming from the chimney. She also said that she had a woodstove, and understood why we had them. A good visit!
City of York Council have a leaflet explaining this here (pdf), on their webpage, and there's a list of exempt appliances here. If you want to see what other people think about your stove, or a make of stove you are considering getting, check out WhatStove which is an excellent resource.
Gill was experimenting with making pasta. We had her home-made tagliatelle for tea, with broccoli. It was very good.
I had a quiet evening in, more Earth Centre stuff, and other things including a Fiddlesticks booking in Malton at Easter and confirmation of another couple of bookings in the Summer in Leeds. Good, need the work! However cheaply we live, we do need some money to keep things going...
Sunday, 15 February 2009
Sunday 15th February 09
A good day... chilled morning watching The Big Questions and Countryfile, whilst playing Scrabble on Facebook and keeping the stove going. The bananas I loaded up yesterday are looking a lot smaller and soon I'll be able to move them to another cake rack to finally dry off. The banana glut has been caused by the heavy snow last week. Don't see the connection? Read on!
Every day, primary school children get a piece of fruit under the 'Fruit for Schools' scheme... it could be an orange or apple, banana or even a stick of carrot. This is a regular consumption pattern, so when the snow came, and a percentage of schools were shut for a few days, this meant that several hundred thousand pieces of fruit were left uneaten... and came back onto the market. So a box of bananas, which ordinarily might cost £15, became available for about £5. So, many fruit shops bought these and sold the bananas more cheaply than they usually do. But they go off quickly and some people don't like over-ripe bananas (I do though!) so that's why there are over 100 bananas still sitting in our hallway, waiting to have the chance to be rapidly air-dried, jarred up and bartered on the LETS, or given to friends as gifts, or even chopped up and put in my daily muesli.... or composted, which is what will happen to most of them.
So, Sunday afternoon was equally relaxed... did some wooding, visited Country Fresh on my bike which is just about on it's last legs (if that's not a misnomer) as the jumping drive cog is worse today... making it almost unrideable uphill with a load, but still OK on the flat or downhill...
Later, after tea, I made the same journey again, down to David's to see the photos he took down at the Residents' Festival and then last week down at the Museum Gardens. Some nice Fiddlesticks images, we think we almost have enough for David to start doing my new publicity leaflet.
During the evening I got both 5 gallon cans of bathwater hot so as I can have a bath tonight, as I'm doing some filming tomorrow up in Middlesborough, and although it's about frugal living (someone's trying to live on a pound per day, I think, and I've been asked to help and give some tips and advice), I do want to look clean and tidy... not as if I've been head down in a skip!
Had a bath and hair wash. Lovely!
Every day, primary school children get a piece of fruit under the 'Fruit for Schools' scheme... it could be an orange or apple, banana or even a stick of carrot. This is a regular consumption pattern, so when the snow came, and a percentage of schools were shut for a few days, this meant that several hundred thousand pieces of fruit were left uneaten... and came back onto the market. So a box of bananas, which ordinarily might cost £15, became available for about £5. So, many fruit shops bought these and sold the bananas more cheaply than they usually do. But they go off quickly and some people don't like over-ripe bananas (I do though!) so that's why there are over 100 bananas still sitting in our hallway, waiting to have the chance to be rapidly air-dried, jarred up and bartered on the LETS, or given to friends as gifts, or even chopped up and put in my daily muesli.... or composted, which is what will happen to most of them.
So, Sunday afternoon was equally relaxed... did some wooding, visited Country Fresh on my bike which is just about on it's last legs (if that's not a misnomer) as the jumping drive cog is worse today... making it almost unrideable uphill with a load, but still OK on the flat or downhill...
Later, after tea, I made the same journey again, down to David's to see the photos he took down at the Residents' Festival and then last week down at the Museum Gardens. Some nice Fiddlesticks images, we think we almost have enough for David to start doing my new publicity leaflet.
During the evening I got both 5 gallon cans of bathwater hot so as I can have a bath tonight, as I'm doing some filming tomorrow up in Middlesborough, and although it's about frugal living (someone's trying to live on a pound per day, I think, and I've been asked to help and give some tips and advice), I do want to look clean and tidy... not as if I've been head down in a skip!
Had a bath and hair wash. Lovely!
Friday, 13 February 2009
Friday 13th February 09
I managed to get our youngest into school on time but our eldest is unwell so he stayed at home.
I spent a chunk of the morning writing my column... did it on 'greener driving' which was interesting... ie acknowledging that if people HAVE to use their motor vehicles, there are things they can do which will reduce the cost to the planet as well as to their wallet. I enjoyed writing this and got it in at lunchtime. It'll be published in 2 or 3 weeks time in Community Care magazine.
After lunch cycled down to town with my poorly bike not letting me go at my usual breakneck speed (!) and put a cheque in and got some cash out so I could buy another £50 worth of Carbon Detox tickets, which I hope I'll sell at the York in Transition clothes swap tomorrow. I then went straight to school to collect our youngest. His bike has a puncture which was initially a slow one, meaning that I could pump up the tyre and it would last until he got to (or home from) school. However, it's now a fast puncture, so I strapped it onto my trailer and we walked home together, holding hands and chatting. A very enjoyable 'being a good daddy' experience! Helped of course by him 'being a good son'!!! Both boys had some time on the Wii and then on the computer after school, and barring one short outburst followed by a sincere apology, we had a really nice evening together.
I spent a chunk of the morning writing my column... did it on 'greener driving' which was interesting... ie acknowledging that if people HAVE to use their motor vehicles, there are things they can do which will reduce the cost to the planet as well as to their wallet. I enjoyed writing this and got it in at lunchtime. It'll be published in 2 or 3 weeks time in Community Care magazine.
After lunch cycled down to town with my poorly bike not letting me go at my usual breakneck speed (!) and put a cheque in and got some cash out so I could buy another £50 worth of Carbon Detox tickets, which I hope I'll sell at the York in Transition clothes swap tomorrow. I then went straight to school to collect our youngest. His bike has a puncture which was initially a slow one, meaning that I could pump up the tyre and it would last until he got to (or home from) school. However, it's now a fast puncture, so I strapped it onto my trailer and we walked home together, holding hands and chatting. A very enjoyable 'being a good daddy' experience! Helped of course by him 'being a good son'!!! Both boys had some time on the Wii and then on the computer after school, and barring one short outburst followed by a sincere apology, we had a really nice evening together.
Thursday 12th February 09
Not an easy start to the day but everyone got out of the house on time. I cycled our youngest to school, with him sitting on the luggage rack, as there was snow forecast for the afternoon and Gill didn't want him having to cycle back in that. However, my drive-cog wheel (sprocket?) is somehow slipping under the chain when I push hard on it... which was more than a bit of a nuisance. I had to walk up the hill away from our house but once on the level, so long as I didn't accelerate hard, I could cycle relatively easily and got to school on time. Time for a service, methinks!
I then cycled gingerly into town and dumped the machine at the station and got my ticket to Sheffield, where I was due to help Ali with a day of interviews for new personal assistants. I had a really good chat with a lovely South African woman from Harrogate, called Julie, who was heading to a conference in Birmingham. We discussed any number of interesting subjects... religion and evolution, polyamoury and cheating, Zimbabwe and politics.... a train trip which helped me feel a whole lot better!
Ali met me at the station and we went up to Blue Moon Cafe to look at all the applications and discuss the questions to be asked in the interviews. One of Ali's other carers Sarah arrived to help, and we had coffee and cake to help us with our deliberations. At midday we toddled up to the Friends Meeting House where Ali had hired a room for the day, as a neutral space in which to interview the six applicants. One phone call message arrived saying one had withdrawn, but we interviewed five really lovely people, including two Poles and two Africans, one a refugee pleased with recent residency papers. All of them had the ability to do the work and fit in with Ali's family and their care needs. Because all of the applicants were good, choosing who got the jobs was difficult, but Ali was glad to have the two of us to bounce ideas off. Over lunch, another of Ali's friends arrived and stayed for an hour, and he joined in one of the interviews too!
We finished the interviews and spent nearly another hour discussing the notes we'd made and who might fit best in Ali's household.
We left at 5.30 an I got a lift to quite close to the station... and grabbed a baguette for tea before getting on the 5.47 to York via Wakefield and Leeds. This 'CrossCountry' was rammed full... standing room only, and it was a cold hour in the lobby area between the main part of the carriages. However, I got a seat from Leeds to York, and had a nice chat with Zena, travelling fro Oxford to Durham to see her boyfriend.
Once in York I had no time to go home before the Transition meeting started, so I struggled in the snow with my poorly bike along to the Stables, where just five of us came for our regular fortnight meeting. I was really tired and cold, but had a good meeting, getting a lot done. The Carbon Detox Show tickets are selling well, and our Transition Initiative project is moving forward.
I was glad when it finished though, at 9.40, and got home for 10pm. Gill had had a tough day and was happy to see me to tell me all about it. I had over 70 emails to deal with and was up til nearly 2am doing that and this blog, having a bowl of pasta and soup supper and watching BBC News 24.
I then cycled gingerly into town and dumped the machine at the station and got my ticket to Sheffield, where I was due to help Ali with a day of interviews for new personal assistants. I had a really good chat with a lovely South African woman from Harrogate, called Julie, who was heading to a conference in Birmingham. We discussed any number of interesting subjects... religion and evolution, polyamoury and cheating, Zimbabwe and politics.... a train trip which helped me feel a whole lot better!
Ali met me at the station and we went up to Blue Moon Cafe to look at all the applications and discuss the questions to be asked in the interviews. One of Ali's other carers Sarah arrived to help, and we had coffee and cake to help us with our deliberations. At midday we toddled up to the Friends Meeting House where Ali had hired a room for the day, as a neutral space in which to interview the six applicants. One phone call message arrived saying one had withdrawn, but we interviewed five really lovely people, including two Poles and two Africans, one a refugee pleased with recent residency papers. All of them had the ability to do the work and fit in with Ali's family and their care needs. Because all of the applicants were good, choosing who got the jobs was difficult, but Ali was glad to have the two of us to bounce ideas off. Over lunch, another of Ali's friends arrived and stayed for an hour, and he joined in one of the interviews too!
We finished the interviews and spent nearly another hour discussing the notes we'd made and who might fit best in Ali's household.
We left at 5.30 an I got a lift to quite close to the station... and grabbed a baguette for tea before getting on the 5.47 to York via Wakefield and Leeds. This 'CrossCountry' was rammed full... standing room only, and it was a cold hour in the lobby area between the main part of the carriages. However, I got a seat from Leeds to York, and had a nice chat with Zena, travelling fro Oxford to Durham to see her boyfriend.
Once in York I had no time to go home before the Transition meeting started, so I struggled in the snow with my poorly bike along to the Stables, where just five of us came for our regular fortnight meeting. I was really tired and cold, but had a good meeting, getting a lot done. The Carbon Detox Show tickets are selling well, and our Transition Initiative project is moving forward.
I was glad when it finished though, at 9.40, and got home for 10pm. Gill had had a tough day and was happy to see me to tell me all about it. I had over 70 emails to deal with and was up til nearly 2am doing that and this blog, having a bowl of pasta and soup supper and watching BBC News 24.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
