Tuesday 23rd August 11

A very full day with two Fiddlesticks gigs.  My first was at St Oswald's School in Fulford at 10am, a show to support the Circus Stars summer reading scheme, followed by a free-play session, which went very well.  I had lunch in that library with Jenny the librarian, whom I liked as she and I shared some music tastes, and Elizabeth, the Council Officer who'd booked me for these series of gigs.

I then cycled over Millennium Bridge to Bishopthorpe Library, where I did another 2 hour session, the one hour routine followed by a more-or-less free-play workshop... although I did start each of these free-play sessions with a catching and throwing game.

So I finished the activities at 3.30 and was cycling back at about 3.50, home via Richard (who's also, like me, looking forward to the Galtres Festival this coming weekend) and home to an empty house at about 4.30pm.

Gill and the boys had gone to see the Harry Potter film, as a birthday treat for our eldest.  I went to pick some plums and windfall apples, and carved up the last of the Jargonelle pears for drying.

The rest of the family appeared, and we had a quiche with lots of halved tiny home grown tomatoes in it, and Gill had also made a cake that she'd tried to get to look like a guinea pig.... but with all the candles in its back, it actually looked like a hedgehog.  It tasted good anyway.

I did quantities of paperwork/admin stuff during the evening, plus washing up and fruit preparation, and went to bed well after 2am.

Friday 24th June 11

Woke Gill at a minute past midnight and gave her a snog and cuddle for her birthday.  She fell asleep again and came upstairs with me when I went to bed after 2am.

I woke again after 9 when Gill had already left the house to work at the Steiner School shop, and I had some time with our eldest.

Gill came back and we spent some time discussing what to do for her birthday.  We thought about going to City Screen... but there wasn't anything on we liked the look of, nor at the Theatre Royal, and the Grand Opera House had Deacon Blue... not our cup of tea either.  So we decided that if Simon could babysit (he said he would) then we'd go to El Piano and have a meal together.

Gill and our eldest went out soon after lunch to watch the fire-jumping ceremony at the Steiner School.... it is some Saint's Day and they have a 'traditional' festivity, our lad's first, so Gill went to watch him.

I went to visit Carolyn, to discuss a few things regarding my work with David.  I got back at 5, Gill was just in with the boys.  Simon wasn't able to come til 7.30 so we said don't bother... I'd made a nice soup and Gill said she'd prefer that and a game of Scrabble instead.

So that's what we did.  Nice soup, we all liked it, and a game of Scrabble which didn't get finished.

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 10th August 10

We were woken early by an excited little boy who is 11 today... he had woken at 4am and was too excited to go back to sleep, so he'd been reading but was hungry, at 7.40. Gill got up and told me to go back to sleep.... I'm not an early morning person, and am up til 2am, whereas she sleeps in the evening when I'm doing things and she then gets up at 6am.

So, at about 9 I was woken again, the Birthday Boy had held on and wanted desperately to open his presents. So I decamped into his room and sleepily watched him open a box with some Lego figures in it, including a jester and a magician, and his older brother had made him a wand out of a stripped holly stick and in the split handle was a trapped pheasant feather, some kind of (imaginary) 'power' that I don't understand. I don't get make believe, never have really, it's an Aspergery trait.

We all breakfasted and I wrote a letter to the Neighbourhood Unit about the Funding shenanigans I've found myself having to deal with. Then before lunch, their friend came down to join us with a trip into town. I cycled in, stopping at Woodlands as one of my documents hadn't photocopied properly, and they wanted to re do it, and then to chat to some chaps who were taking down an Ash tree.

The boys and Gill caught the bus into town, and I'd arranged to meet them at the Museum Gardens after I'd met up with the Neighbourhood Unit to explain the position of York in Transition about 'sponsoring' another organisation, or rather, not being able to. I met them on the steps of the Yorkshire Museum, which has recently been refurbished. We spent quite a long time in there, and it is improved, although some things aren't yet labelled/numbered, and I spotted at least three mistakes, one was a spelling mistake, another a text layout error and there was a factual error too, but I can't remember what that was.. But I liked the use of the Tempest Anderson Hall as a film theatre, and I liked the more open space with the reference books visible on the floors above the exhibitions.

After this the boys wanted to wander through town looking at shops, my idea of Hell, so I cycled home via the Edible York Raised Bed,where I saw my friend Lizzie talking to the Radio York presenter next to his car with the aerial up. I stopped, and found out they were about the do an interview. Chloe turned up, and all three of us were briefly interviewed on live radio... what a surprise! I talked about the Transition to a low carbon economy where we grew more of our food locally, and the presenter introduced me as Compost John, responsible for 30 sacks of compost getting to this bed.

But I needed to get back, and when I did, I spent an hour getting about 400 or 500 kg of Ash logs onto my trailer, I think I did 6 trips, before the time came for my 4pm appointment, the York Environment Forum which I occasionally attend.

This was at the Guildhall, and was a special meeting to ask questions of Andrew Cousins from the Allerton Waste Recovery Park, or Anaerobic Digester/Incinerator plant. We had a series of questions and I asked a couple of supplementary questions based on the wide-ranging conversations I had with Andrew at The Hospitium. It was a good meeting and we agreed to write a position statement about this development. We also debated our Vision Document. We finished well after 6pm.

I came home and loaded lemon halves into a heap and came in quite tired to have pasta for tea.

Thursday 24th June 10

Up early enough to see the boys off, despite being out and about at 2am, on a mission to rescue logs from a bonfire pile on a building site. I've now taken all that I can take from there, and fully expect to see the rest of the stuff go up in smoke quite soon. The logs that I rescued I split and stacked, I think there's between 300 and 400 kg that I got from this place over the past few nights. That's a good week's winter heating, at least.

I decided to check with Catherine the York Rotters project manager about the current thinking about composting in blocks of flats, since a friend who lives in a block wants to compost and some of the neighbours do too. I confirmed what I thought, that there are a series of Environment Agency forms to fill in if they decide to have a communal compost heap or wormery, but if they do it unofficially then they'll just have to keep quiet about it and get on and do it without the authorities getting involved. Catherine reminded me that I'm currently not allowed to address public meetings as a York Rotter, because of my Aspergers and the twitchyness of the Council, York Rotters' funder, being worried that I might mention compost toilets or other 'horrific and wayward' composting subjects. So I told Catherine (and later, John from St Nicks too) that it wasn't a public meeting. However, they were still unhappy about my going as a volunteer Rotter, wearing my York Rotters tee shirt. Whilst stacking logs I had a wild thought that if they want me to go as John the Composter, which is my business, that as the 'client' isn't paying (they are expecting a volunteer Rotter) then I should invoice York Rotters... but of course I won't do that. But I am angry that I'm still being prevented from doing what I love. I do hope we resolve this soon.

Gill went to her birthday lunch with Melody, Natalie and Alison. I worked outside and came in over lunch, watched some Wimbledon tennis stuff. I heard someone with a chainsaw nearby so I went to say hello, and was promised some apple and pear logs to pick up later.

I did a bit of log stacking in the afternoon, but to do this I needed to clear up a lot of aluminium cans which I've collected over the past months. So I had a stamp-fest and filled a sack with them, and then I stacked the very dry logs from the building site. Gill came back at about 3 and I went to school to pick up our youngest... he walked some of the way home and had a lift on the pannier rack for the rest.

Our eldest went down the garden at about 6pm and came back in excited, as he'd had a close encounter with a 'bird of prey', and he gave us a quite detailed description, it was grey and had a stripe on the underside of the tail. This only matched a Honey Buzzard, in the assorted books we have... but I wonder how likely that is?

I enjoyed tea... some burgers made of rice from yesterday, along with pan-fried new potatoes and some asparagus, Gill's favourite birthday vegetable.

But then at 6.45 I set out to go and visit a friend called Owen, who lives in a flat in a block of six. He wants to do some composting, and had asked for a York Rotters visit, to which I'd agreed. I went to his flat and two other residents came to join the discussion. Earlier, I was asked/told to not go as a York Rotter but to go as John the Composter. But this turned out quite lucky really as if I'd been with my 'official' tee shirt on, I'd have had to give them advice about Community Composting and the dreadful Animal By-Products Regulations, but as I was 'just John' I was able to give them two options.

So, there are no regulations at all about what a householder can home compost in their own garden or property. BUT, if you have more than one household contributing to a compost heap, or in a communal garden, then officially, this is known as Community Composting and the ABPR comes into play. This means that any food waste which has come into contact with processed food, or dairy, or meat/fish must not be composted on an open heap or in a dalek... it has to go into an 'in vessel' system where the temperatures are controlled and measured, and any Community Compost set-up needs a licence from the Environment Agency.

So my talk explained what composting was, and how to get the best results, and why it was good... and then the choice: for one of the residents to set up a compost bin or two, and for it to be used by that person and others, if they wished, without the owners explicit knowledge (!) and not have any of the red tape, or to contact the authorities and get the permissions and get assistance from York Rotters (although probably not me). I explained about Bokashi and wormeries and tumblers. We looked at the potential positions for the bin/s and then I left them to decide what their approach would be. My guess is that a simple dalek system will be used and it will be unofficial, without the ridiculous rules and regulations. 40 minutes later I was cycling home, and I picked up the apple and pear logs which were promised earlier.

Later on, Gill and I had a game of Scrabble on a board, but it was an awful, low scoring game which I won.

Friday 7th May 10 Election Count

A very memorable day!!!

I had an exciting night at the election count at Oaklands Sports Centre, now rebranded as 'Energize'. Firstly there was a wait as the count wasn't going to start until all the ballot boxes were in. There were two counts, York Central and York Outer, with the hall split into two halves. Sometime after midnight the first boxes were tipped out onto the tables, starting with number 1, and then working through to the low 60s with the Central count, as this was the constituency I was interested in, as the Greens didn't stand in York Outer.

The first job was to check whether the number of ballot papers matched the tally on the sheets taken by the officials in the polling stations. So the ballots were sorted into bundles of 50 for easy counting. This allowed us to look at particular polling disrticts to see what the balance was, so as the ballots were unfolded and put on the pile, I noted whether it was UKIP (hardly any) Hugh Bayley the sitting Labour MP (lots) our man Andy Chase, (just a few) the racist BNP (even fewer) Christian Vassie for the Lib Dems (quite a few but not as many as Labour), Eddie Vee the Loony Elvis Impersonator (virtually none) and Susan Wade Weeks the 'Greenest Tory in the land' (similar numbers to the Lib Dems). I used the 'four-bar gate with a fifth cross-bar' method of tallying. This initial tally told us that Hugh Bayley would retain the seat. It also 'worked' as on one table, a counter put 51 in one pile by accident, and the ballots were rejected as it didn't match the numbers on the sheet. The wads of 50 were recounted and the error found.

All the ballot boxes and postal votes were counted before the second stage of the process. This was where the bundles of 50 were sorted into the 7 candidates. Here, the observers' job was to watch very carefully to see that the right ballot papers were going into the correct pile. It is easy to make a mistake, faced with thousands of forms to sort. I pointed out several errors, where a sorter put a ballot paper in the wrong pile, so close and astute observation is really important. At this stage, the spoilt ballot papers are weeded out. There were a few with no mark whatsoever, and a few with a cross against more than one candidate, or all of them! Some ballots had the mark in the area of their candidate, but not in the box where it should be... for instance, one had the number on the left circled rather than a cross or tick in the box on the right. There were waved at the officer who was collecting the piles of ballots, and she decided whether it was a valid vote, or needed to be seen by the candidates for a decision. There were also quite a few ballots I saw with messages to the candidates, including one with the 'CRASS' anarchy logo scrawled across, and another saying 'I cannot vote for any of you'', and another with a lot of pictograms of male genitalia against the 3 main parties and the UKIP and BNP (not the Greens though!!!) and several others. These are put in a 'spoilt ballot' pile and the candidates check them to see they are indeed spoilt. There were a few with 'difficult to decide' marks, where perhaps the voter first put the cross in the wrong place and scrubbed it out and put it in the intended place. These are shown to the candidates and they decide if it is a spoilt ballot or 'belongs' to one candidate. There are usually over 100 spoilt ballots in an election of this size.

After all the ballots for each candidate are put together, they are put back on the table and counted into bundles of 50, for the final count. The counter makes a bundle of 50, and then swaps with their colleague who also counts it, so each bundle is counted twice. During this counting, usually with a rubber thimble, any incorrectly placed ballots might also be spotted, as all the crosses should be in the same place.

Finally, the bundles of 50 are all put together under the candidate's name and it is easy to count them for the final result. All this took about 5 hours, and the announcement was just before 5am.

The results were Bayley 18,573; Wade Weeks 12,122; Vassie 11,694; Chase 1,669; BNP 1,171; UKIP 1,100 and Eddie Vee just 154. There was a 61% turnout.

After the results were announced Bayley did his acceptance speech, with lots of thank yous for the staff, his team, his wife and lots of others, and all the other candidates spoke briefly.

Then we were done. I cycled home and got in just before 6am. I put the telly on and had a bowl of cereal. Within the hour, the result from Brighton Pavillion came in, and the news I'd been waiting to hear for some time... that Caroline Lucas had won the seat... our first Green Member of Parliament!!! A historic day, a joyous day. The interweb lit up with messages of joy and congratulations. I was quite emotional.

I also started getting messages of birthday congratulation, as it's my birthday today. I couldn't have wished for a better present than Caroline's win.

I stayed up til the boys came down before going to school, and then retired to bed. However, there was a phone call at 11 which woke me up (the car hire company, worse luck!), and I then stayed up til about 2.30 when I went to bed for another two and a half hours.

I did a very short stint in the garden but there was another phone call which brought me back in. But it was a booking for the summer Fair for the Madhyamaka Centre, which was nice.

Gill made a pizza and baked a butternut squash. A nice birthday tea. She also made a cake for the St Nicks 10th Anniversary tomorrow and a pile of buns, each with '10' in icing on the top.

A very memorable and enjoyable day.

Sunday 23rd August 09

Our eldest son's birthday... so there was excitement first thing with presents, and after midday my brother Thomas and his wife arrived, on the way from visiting friends in the North East, with their youngest child who was very shy initially but then suddenly became completely animated and lots of fun.
Had lunch with them and a wander down the garden.

I did some compost management in the afternoon and picked lots of beans for tea.

Monday 10th August 09

Ten years since our youngest son was born... and consequently an early start, as on birthdays, children don't stay in their bed very long and they wake early with the excitement!

But it was lovely to see him opening his cards and presents, and it didn't take him long to find the things in the garden hidden by his older brother.

I was really happy that he got a card from his grandparents, whom we don't have a lot of contact with, and he rang them up to say thank you.

I went to the building society, the Dentist's for a scale and polish, then on to the station to renew our family railcard, and bought tickets for today's trip to Scarborough.

The journey to Scar was good, and when we got there we headed down to the beach to dig channels in the sand and make our characteristic sand-castles with turrets made from dribbled wet sand. It was drizzly but not cold. Nice co-operation with the canal we built, at least, no arguing.

Then a bus trip round the headland to the North Bay, got off and walked up to the little railway and water-chute thing, and Gill watched us three have two goes on the water-chute... basically a wooden boat which slides into the lake, is hauled out back up the slope, and slides down in again. Fun!

Then down to the Peaseholm Park, where several times a week there is a 'Naval Battle' with 20 foot-long model boats, operated by a person inside, acting out a WW2 battle with model planes on wires, fireworks, explosions next to the boats and it was quite dynamic.

After this, our birthday boy requested a go in the 'dragon-boat' pedalo so Gill again watched, with her camera, and we had a good little go around. Then back to the bus, up the cliff lift and to the train which we just got, with one minute to spare...

I picked up a large load of compostables from Country Fresh, and a big head of broccoli for tea. Gill did linguine and a veg sauce... one of our youngest's favourites.

Several phone calls this evening, including one from a journalist from Toxin Magazine about the Big Green Gathering.

Wednesday 24th June 09

Up fairly early as I was taking our youngest to school. It is Gill's birthday but I hadn't sorted anything out as I hadn't had time yesterday. She had an appointment and left at 8.30, and arrived back with a headache and went to bed.

I went to town to deliver the Planning Panel paperwork and went to the market to see if I could find something for Gill... no luck. So I cycled on to Alligator and found some marmalade, chocolate, vegetarian jelly powder and a card made by Brenda Tyler, a friend of mine. Then in Country Fresh I got some marigolds... not gloves (!) but flowering plants, a tray of 12, as well as assorted veggies, fruitees and compostables.

I had a late lunch and Gill went to pick up our little one. Both boys signed the card and we sang Happy Birthday to Gill and gave her the presents and I think this cheered her up. However, she had said she would do the parents evening at Archies, so I made tea for the boys.

Gill got in and had some too, and we had a peaceful evening. I did quite a bit of compost heap loading, then came in and prepared a large number of apple rings and red peppers for drying. I also posted messages on Freecycle for a mirror, ceiling light and candlesticks, all rescued out of a skip. I got requests for them very quickly, but I had put on that I would wait to see as many answers as possible and then decide... so a decision in a few days.

Gill had requested that I have a real game of Scrabble without me also playing more Scrabble games on the computer. Which was probably a bad idea as all my energies went into the one game and I beat her 420 vs 248. But we both enjoyed it, regardless of the score. I was lucky with my letters, including putting down all of them on the last go to make POLICERS. Gill really enjoyed playing real Scrabble without the interference of the laptop being on, and it has been a few months since we played. When we first got together, 16 years ago, we played Scrabble nearly every night....

But after the game I switched on to write my blog. Mr. Habitual.

Thursday 7th May 09, my birthday..

My children came into the bedroom as I was waking up singing Happy Birthday, and gave me a card and a little present... a plastic liquid-filled tower which when turned has bubbles of air bubbling up and globules of liquid dripping downwards, either side of a spiral barrier. I do wish they hadn't bothered! But birthdays aren't just for the celebrant, they are partly for the people celebrating your life. I was sensible enough just to thank them, not to go on about green issues then! I later learnt that my youngest had bought this for himself, and then had realised that I hadn't got a present, so he I think volunteered to give it to me. How sweet are my children?

Anyway, a normal morning ensued, Gill again took our youngest to school and came home and we had a nice hour together, before the first visitor of the day. This was in fact two people, Margaret and her daughter, to collect a load of jam jars for marmalade and other preservation. They were fascinated with the stove and dried fruit, and had a tour of the garden. Lots of opportunities to give then info about green choices... which Margaret had indicated she was interested in talking to me about.

Our second visitor arrived before the first ones went, it was Tony who had left his walking stick here when he came to help bury Andy's cat. Tony drank some tea, chatted and went... with his stick!

Gill and I had lunch, and after lunch Gill did some transplanting of aquilegias which had grown in the wrong place, and I cycled to Oxfam for coffee and Sainsburys for assorted groceries.

At 3.45, our next visitor arrived, Tim, who was picking up our old front door for a project at Poppleton Station where a group of volunteers are rejuvenating the old nursery and are going to use it as horticultural therapy, mainly for people involved with Bootham Hospital. Excellent idea! I of course offered my services as a compost enthuser! (If that's a job title, or even a word...?) Anyway, good to see the back of the jars and door.

As the boys came home, the charity walkers from Meningitis UK came by, so we put some money in their bucket and Gill took a couple of photos. They are walking from Blackpool to Bridlington! Respect!

Birthday tea was rice and veg, and then I gathered myself together to go to St John's to the York Green Festival meeting.

After which we went to the Olde Starre Inn on Stonegate and had a leaving do for Anika, who's moving to Derby. Had some excellent chats, with a film and TV lecturer, my friends Baz, Rich and Martin, and some other of Anika's friends. I had three pints of pear cider, which is a lot for me... my usual consumption is a single pint. But, when people offer you a drink on your birthday, it would be churlish to say no and go home early. So got home at midnight, tipsy but happy.

Wednesday 7th May 08

Very groggy this morning but came down to let the children wish me a happy birthday. Gill took them to school and I went back to bed and read NewScientist for an hour whilst thinking about various other things.

Came down to do some computery stuff and then at 11 our visitors came... two of the three facilitators of the parenting course. The course has officially finished but both of us missed a couple of sessions so to round things off they offered to come and spend a couple of hours with us to recap some of the techniques.

They had a tour of the garden and then we chatted together for a couple of hours, leaving at 1.30, having had a good in-depth conversation. They were pleased that we have obviously made some progress and our difficulties are reducing as our son learns to deal with his emotions better. So they went, I cut up some sticks from Anna's house and then at 3 went to school to bring back 3 boys, two of which were taken to Martial Arts by Gilly.

I continued in the garden until tea... Gill had made a quiche with a Shiitake mushroom grown on an oak log in our back garden, totally delicious! It was even better as we all ate together and we all got on well!!! The cake she burnt last night she made into a trifle with banana and chocolate goo... much better than a cake!

Did more in the garden til 9.30pm, came in tired but happy, kissed the boys goodnight and had a shower to get the anti-midge stuff off, as Gill cannot stand the smell...

A quiet evening with some telly and lots of chats on the computer, and lit the stove to do the washing up.