Monday 24th October 11

Gill and the boys went early, via taxi, to the station, to get the 08.30 train down to Peterborough and then on to Norwich, where they are staying for a few days with Linda, Gill's sister.

I went to Country Fresh at about 9.15 as Catherine had asked me for 4 pumpkins for Pumpkin Evening at St Nicks.

I delivered them to St Nicks where there was a Rotters meeting at 10.  This went smoothly.

Pottering round the house over lunch.

Got the 16.26 train to Manchester to go to a 'clothing optional swim' at Levenshulme Baths, and to meet up with several friends, including Janie and Chris... but when we got there, the event had been cancelled as the staff member who was supposed to be looking after the event was off sick.

So we went to a hotel and had a walk and spent the rest of the evening together.

Came home on the 10.22 from Stockport, getting into York just after midnight.

Good chats with Mike and Juliet on facebook

Wednesday 15th December 10

I had intended to go to St Nicks today and help with some coppicing, but Gill wasn't feeling too brilliant so I decided to stay closer to home and do some work in the garden, chainsawing and compost bin filling, harvesting artichokes, tidying.

I popped round to the bread shop, and after lunch went into town to put in a cheque and find a 'seasonal gift' for the family.

I came back via Richard at Country Fresh, and made a really good nutloaf, with equal amounts of breadcrumbs and grated parsnip.  I also put all the dried red and yellow pepper in the liquidiser goblet and reduced it all to dust, sieved it so that I had a bowl full of sweet pepper paprika.  Melody came to pick up her Suma order, so I gave her a jar of the paprika as a seasonal present.  She gave us a bag of foraged nuts, some jam and chocolates.

The nutloaf was delicious.  I zoomed into town after tea as I wanted to attend the York Green Party AGM at the Guildhall.  I enjoyed this.  Then I visited Anna as she hires out TENS machines and I borrowed one for Gill.  However, I'd asked on Freecycle about one and I had an offer there too.

I enjoyed a science programme quite late into the night, and a nice facebook chat with my friend Lisa.  She is fun.

Thursday 9th September 10

A very productive day.  I got up fairly late but was busy soon, did some housework and after lunch, did a load of fruit picking.  I started with the plums as they are very ripe, many have fallen and others gone mouldy on the tree.  I took the ladders down and picked quite a few, about three quarters of a bucket full, and then asked my neighbour if I could take my ladders down his garden to reach the rest of the plums in our tree from his side of the hedge.  He had no problem with that... they have two similar plum trees which were equally loaded.

So I ended up with a whole bucket full of plums... what will I do with them?  My neighbour also told me that I should be taking the opportunity to pick the apples from our tree which are accessible from his side, so I moved the ladder and picked a large box full of James Grieve, a delicious and fairly early eating apple. We have a Cox apple tree too, this ripens later in the year.

So, lots of fruit to process.  I had some quiet time and sat and cracked shells off hazelnuts.  We have a really good nutcracker, with a spring which opens it up after squeezing it, and the nut goes into a conical chamber which copes with all sized nuts (well, not coconuts!) (looks a bit like this).

I also did an hour or so chainsawing and log stacking, on the right of the front door as you look out.  This means we are now using the stuff on the left which has been there all summer.

I had a quick tea at 6.30, reheat rice and some tomato sauce Gill made, and microwaved green beans, perhaps some of the last from the garden.

Then at 7 I went down the garden and found 4 sacks of compost for Suki, Ann's housemate, and took that round on the way to the York in Transition meeting.  It was Peter's birthday and he, Edward and Andreas were drinking coffee and eating doughnuts... they'd had a Directors meeting which I'd missed, but the Steering Group was from 7.30.  I took minutes.  We finished just before 10pm.

Then I came home via Freshways, picked up a couple of sacks of limp vegetation, and lit the stove to keep the plums drying.  I cracked more nuts whilst watching Lorenzo's Oil, a moving film.  I chatted with an American friend on facebook called Sheila, who sent me a recipe to use some of the plums.

Bed ridiculously late again!

Wednesday 4th August 10

A working day so I had a bath after breakfast, and at 11.15 I set off for Strensall Barracks to perform at the playday.

I took just 35 minutes to get to Strensall and had an hour to have my sandwiches, get changed and get my equipment ready for a 1pm start.

The playday was very well attended... I had an audience of over 40 for my show and more than this wanting to participate in the workshop, which was difficult as I usually specify maximum 20 for a workshop... and the last hour, the balloon modelling show and workshop, I think there were about 70 people in the room.... far too many really! But I'm getting really fast at inflating the '260' modelling balloons... I can do each one in one breath now. The times that I needed a balloon pump are long gone! So I blew up about 50 in 15 minutes and the show went well, although I did have a queue of children at the end wanting a balloon, as they didn't get one or had burst theirs. It was a really tough 3 hours, and I was glad to get paid (charity fee) and cycle home. Got in at 5.15.

Gill had made tea so I had that and then had an hour in the garden. The usual compost management stuff.

Later I had a game of Scrabble with Gill; she won. I also had an intense chat on the computer with Janie AND Joanne, although not at the same time.

Tuesday 27th July 10

I had a late start and a quiet remains of morning.

I spent much of the day in the garden... the pond area is coming on nicely and I spent several hours removing vegetation and roots to make the area as bare as possible before moving soil around. I was lucky to be joined by our eldest son who helped for half an hour, which was a real pleasure.

I finished digging out a compost bin which I started doing a few days ago and continued with Janie yesterday, and put in a load of stuff which has been building up, including ground elder roots and brambles. I riddled another sack of very mature compost and will bag up all the riddled stuff soon.

During the evening I watched a series of programmes about cycling and bicycles on BBC4 which was nice, but my mood was saddened as I tried to chat with someone I care about, using facebook chat, but they were rude to me and removed them self from the account I was using. I felt sad all evening about this.

However I did manage to get some minutes written from the last York in Transition meeting, and sent to the other participants for checking.

Monday 1st March 10

A good day, got a lot done. I had a slow start, with emails and stuff, but at 11 went to buy bread from Thomas' 'Yesterbake' (actually Saturday's bake) and got (fresh) veggie pasties too, to make tea easier.

I did quite a bit of work in the garden... pruned back all the fruited loganberries and chopped them down to thin bits for composting and the thicker straight lengths all went into a wooden fruit-box to dry off and become kindling for the stove next winter.

Then I tied-in the loganberry shoots which grew last year and will fruit this year. It looks really tidy now, a good job done.

The large sack of smaller twiggy bits made a good thick layer on the new compost heap which I started yesterday. I added another huge load of greengrocer stuff on top of it, surrounded by flattened cardboard boxes to keep the material from falling out of the pallet-sided cube.

At about half five Gill came down and reminded me that I had taken her bike to Cycle Heaven yesterday to have the back wheel repaired. I'd said to them that if the wheel was not repairable, they could replace it, so we rang to find out what they had done and the cost. They had replaced the wheel and the tyre and done some other work... costing £56... sharp intake of breath!

We hadn't actually got that amount of cash between us, so one of our sons offered to go and look in his piggy bank equivalent, and found £40 to lend us, mainly in coins. I took this and hopped on my bike and scooted off down to Bishopthorpe Road. Very soon I was cycling back towards town with Gill's bike wheeling along next to me, and I decided to pick up a film ticket for the weekend, and then onto Millers Yard to pick up orange halves. Dylan gave me two nice pine chairs which he said were surplus to requirement, so I loaded these onto the trailer too. If we don't need them, I'll put them on Freecycle.

Home with the two bikes, two chairs and about 60kg of compostable oranges. Slowly.

Gill was glad to see me, and her bike, and I came in to help.

She had made some leek and potato and cheese sauce thing to go with the pasties, which was good. I had to head off to the other side of the Racecourse then for a York in Transition Directors meeting. Four of us attended, and we have just about finished the structure we need before we can ask for a volunteer Treasurer. We need quite a few policies in place, but when these are sorted, we'll be in a much better place to get funding for projects. It was a good meeting, and our host had worked really hard getting the different policies written. Some changes were suggested, these will be incorporated and then the documents sent round for comments and then adopting.

When I got in, Gill was once again very glad to see me. I assisted in getting the children off to bed.

Later, had my first googletalk conversation with my Canadian colleague about the website we are doing. And after that, whilst on facebook, Gill's nephew Jonny who is in Australia was on the chat function, and Gill had a nice conversation with him. I wonder if Gill will consider joining facebook?

Saturday 13th February 10

A really good day, a nice late start, waking slowly and gradually becoming aware of things... I love waking like this! I made up my muesli before having breakfast and it is good to have my home-made cereals again. I use Suma Organic Muesli Base and a wide range of chopped-up home-made dried fruit.. today, apple, pear, banana, pineapple, pumpkin seeds, some out-of-date cranberry and white chocolate muffin topper stuff and some broken walnuts. Delicious! Each time I make up my big jar of muesli I do a different mix... sometimes with sesame seeds, sometimes some leftover chocolate flapjack. Sometimes I have some fresh fruit on top too, and I have a layer of shreddies or shredded wheat, then bran flakes, then my muesli, and often some crunchy cereal on top. I like unsweetened soya milk on this. For me, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

So, I had breakfast and did emails, and was reminded that today at midday there was a commemorative tree planting at St Nicks in memory of a York Rotter called Carol Skelton, who died last year. So I got there on time but was waylaid by a local policeman who was keen to mark my bike with a UV pen with a serial number, so that if it gets stolen, and I report it, anybody caught with a similar looking bike might have it scanned, and there is more chance that I would get it back.

The family arrived, Carol's sister from Harrogate, and quite a handful of nieces and nephews, and others I didn't know their relationship. We all walked over to the Stone Circle and a hole had been dug, and a wheelbarrow of rich soil was ready to put in the Birch tree which had been chosen. The children held the tree and shovelled the soil into the hole over the roots, and some photos were taken. Then we walked back to the centre where there was a lunch... baked potatoes and salads, it was nice to be able to chat to some of them, and show a few around the centre.

On the way back I found some really good Oyster mushrooms, the same log which Simon's been harvesting. I've never seen so many on one log, there were literally hundreds. I picked three small clumps.

Home for about 1.30, and after a coffee I went outside to try to finish off the packing case wood, as it's looking very untidy.

At 3.30, Faith, a media student from Leeds arrived... she had been set a project to find out about 'freeganism' and had found the UK Freegans website, and JD the site supervisor had put her in touch with me. I'd talked to her by email yesterday and this morning she said could she visit this weekend, so I said yes to this afternoon if she wanted.

She recorded her questions and my answers, and then we went round the garden which I think was an eye-opener for her. She recorded some of our conversations round the garden too, so she got plenty of material.

After Faith went to get the bus back to the station, I continued with the firewood situation and got a lot done.

I harvested a bunch of Velvet Shank mushrooms from the garden and added these to the Oyster, and had these with the stir fry which Gill made.

A very nice evening chatting with friends on facebook. And washing up.

Tuesday 19th January 10

A really good day, up quite early and felt full of energy. Rang the bike shop to see if they will mend my dynamo, they'll do it on Thursday.

I spent some of the morning doing assorted things inside and in the afternoon did more chainsawing, quite a lot, and cleared a backlog. Geddit? BackLOG!

The most interesting part of my day was my evening trip to Denaby, to attend the We Love The Earth Centre meeting. I'd been put in touch with a York woman, Imelda Havers, who runs Blue Fish Regeneration and was going to drive to the venue, picking up her colleague Sally Walker who is an architect specialising in sustainable buildings. So I was picked up at 5.45 and we arrived at Denaby Main at 7pm, minutes before the meeting started.

This meeting was less well attended than the first one, but a good cross section of locals, greens, and other interested parties, including one owner of a business named on the WLTEC website. The meeting was slightly better organised than the first one, but considering the huge mountain that has to be climbed if this group is to have any positive impact at all, relatively little got done.

The problem is that there is a lot of passion and strongly held ethics, but little leadership and no-one with much experience of running a successful community group with this size of aim. The interests of the leaders so far are expressed by building benders (temporary structures made of branches tied together) and cob ovens (often used at festivals to bake bread) but these are surely far removed from the interests of the majority of local people, who are probably drawn to green issues if it saves them money, but not for the 'save the planet' ideals of people like me.

Additionally, the document obtained by WLTEC from the RTTG listed a long list of multinational companies and big businesses, some of whom represent the biggest despoilers of the planet. The document describes these as 'partners', and in fact, the list is probably more a 'wish list' or a list of potential contacts. But this list has alienated the local deep greens, who have put RTTG into the same category as Costain, Eon and BASF, who are big builders, coal-fired power station developers and chemical companies. There was some defence of the RTTG, as it is run by 3 local blokes who are pretty keen on green issues and community involvement in this kind of development.

I am not sure if I am able to help the WLTEC group... primarily as I'm not local enough. I have offered my help if they want me, and I'll certainly attend the site meeting on 9th Feb to see if I can help the RTTG's work to get some good workable ideas for the site. I do hope that it isn't sold by Doncaster Council for housing, an open cast mine, bog-standard 20th Century Earth-Despoiling business or something similar. It must continue as a site for education and promoting sustainable development. My vote would be for a 'Northern CAT' type place. I'd love that!

Imelda and Sally got up to go as soon as it was obvious that the meeting had finished (I could have sat around chatting for another hour!) and I suggested we went to see the front gate of The Earth Centre site, as neither of them had been there. After this, we went home, and I was delivered safely back soon after 10pm.

Had a lengthy facebook chat conversation with a friend's wife who works in a school and wants me to help with her science week, with my Fiddlesticks Fun Physics show. Good stuff!

Friday 15th January 10

Got up early and got outside to split and stack three big logs I found and brought back last night on a nocturnal sortie! I also did a bit more pruning of the house-height pine tree which is too close to our house and our neighbour wants removed... and we'll be happy too as it cuts a lot of light from our front room. I'm not taking it out all in one go, as the soil will swell and damage our foundations, so I'm removing branches bit by bit, over a couple of years, and later this year I'll take the rest of it out.

So an active morning, followed by a stint of doing emails which was interesting as I engaged in some dialogue with one of the people behind we love the earth centre, about someone on the email contact list who is unhappy about the involvement of RTTG, and has proposed an anarchist 'solution' or response, and has been emailing aggressive rants to others on the list. Several people have asked for their details to be removed from the list because of this person, and I was worried that 'we love the earth centre' was being damaged.

Later in the day I had a good phone conversation with Mike from RTTG, which he said does not yet have any partners for their Earth Centre redevelopment, and that RTTG is a voluntary group with just 3 people at it's centre. Whether he means unpaid (which is what I understand by the word 'voluntary') is something I'll have to check! But what I did ascertain was that half a dozen people involved with WLTEC including myself, are invited to the first open day, where RTTG want to gather ideas for the future of the site. Should be an interesting day!

I also went to see my friend Debbie, as when I got home yesterday, she had given Gill a message about her friend Debbie F, who has died from cirrhosis of the liver; she was an alcoholic. Very sad. I knew Debbie F a bit, and she liked me apparently, but I didn't have time or energy to get to know her better or become a real friend. And as she was often drunk, that put me off trying to be a better friend or try to help. Her problems were just too deep. Anyway, sad to hear the news, and I spent an hour with my friend hearing about the fun times they got up to. I expect I'll attend the funeral next week.

At tea time I shredded the pine tree limbs which were small enough to go into my Mountfield quiet shredder and put the bigger branches in a pile for chopping up and drying.

I managed to get onto the tax website and found that they have to send me a new password in the post. What a palaver!

I went to Bryony's 'leaving drinks' do at the Yorkshire Terrier on Stonegate, and on the way there, met my old partner I lived with for 10 years, and we had a brief but friendly chat. I was really glad to get her email address, as several people from our past have asked me how she is and all I could say was 'she's in York and whenever I see her, she seems OK, but I have no contact details'. But now I'm going to be able to email people's details to her so they can reconnect. I didn't stay at the leaving do for long, as I'd promised Gill I'd get back to assist with the bedtime stuff.

Played a bit of Scrabble in the evening and chatted to Ali on facebook instant messaging. A peaceful evening.

Tuesday 10th November 09

A better, smoother start to the morning, and I was able to get to my 10am appointment with Ann up the road, who asked me last week if I was able to help her with a pile of partly cut down apple tree logs. So I took my electric chainsaw there and she took me to see her 91 year old Mother's garden, next door but one, where some wide-boys had partly taken down the tree, been paid, had problems with their chainsaw, and disappeared. Without finishing the job.

So, John to the rescue. I chopped up the big logs from this once splendid 100 year old + Bramley, which they had cut down as they couldn't use the apples and the fallen apples and autumn leaves were 'untidy'. I think that this is almost criminal, but it was done, there was little point bemoaning it's loss. The whole garden had been covered in gravel and it was so ugly.

The job was bigger than I thought and I spent two hours helping them, for no payment, just the logs, which should be about 10 cycle trailer loads full. Glad it's nearby.

Back for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon wooding, chopping existing logs in the front garden, splitting them, and stacking some by the side of the house where I removed the stacks when the work was done last week. I didn't bring any more from up the road as I haven't space.

Later I popped down to Country Fresh to get potatoes, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms and onions. Came back with what I went for plus two sacks of 'resources'.

Gill was feeling poorly so I made tea... pasta and veg with tomato and onion sauce, really simple but both boys asked for more, so it was well received.

I spent some of the evening doing yet more of the huge pile of persimmons... I've only about 20 or 30 left now, but they dry quickly and are really nice when dried.

Late on I had a good conversation on facebook chat with Sabine in Germany. So a good day in many ways, despite my feelings of anger about such a big old productive tree being chopped down for no good reason that I could understand...