Thursday 30th June 11

Gill came to wake me up at 8.30 as she was going in a taxi to school, with our youngest to drop him off at school, and with our eldest, who was being taken for a day out to explore Selby, getting there by bus.

At 11 I set off to see Melody the funding advisor at CVS, in the rain which had started just before I set out.  I'd booked to see her with two York in Transition projects in mind, the Thermal Imaging Camera one, and the more difficult Cosy Homes idea, about how to persuade private landlords to insulate their properties.  We had an hour's chat and she helped me understand a bit more about how to take these projects forward.

I called in on my opticians as they'd written to me telling me I needed my annual check up, and I was pleased to get an appointment for 6pm tonight.

I put 2 cheques in, collected some squashed lemon halves from the lemon juice stall to add to my compost and collected a big bag of maybe 50 Chiquita Mini bananas from Country Fresh, plus an avocado, all for £1. Then from Freshways, a sack of mixed compostables including some orange tomatoes which were in good enough condition to make soup out of.  So after lunch, I made soup.  I used one onion, one potato, 10 orange tomatoes, some basil and bouillon.

I had some loganberry juice leftover from Gill freezing a load of loganberries, so I soaked some dried apple rings in it and they soaked it up, and I re-dried them, making 'loganapple rings'. I also prepared and laid out for drying about 34 tiny bananas.

I wrote up the Melody info and sent it to YiT Thermal Imaging people.

At 5.15 I headed to Millers Yard as Dylan had asked me to pick up his halved oranges, after which I went on to the opticians. I was very pleased that I don't need glasses yet, although my eyesight is slowly getting worse.

Home, quiet evening in, although the internet went down at a crucial time, so Gill and I did a diary check, which was good as she hadn't got all of my summer bookings in her diary.

I am very intrigued by what I'm seeing in my 'Feedjit' thing, which tells me where blog-visitors are coming from and how they arrive.  At the moment, and over the past few days, I've been having a lot of visitors from Sri Lanka, many of whom are entering a search term 'Do low carbon lifestyles lead to discomfort of the people' and similar.  I think someone must have set a project or essay title with something like that, but I'd love to know! 

And the answer is 'no', my low carbon lifestyle is quite comfortable, although things like public transport need a bit more thought and planning than just jumping into a car.  And, mentally, I feel good about it.  I feel that I'm doing the right thing.  I feel that the resources I'm not using are being made available for others.  However, it does sometimes feel like a bit of a lonely furrow I'm ploughing, as so few people in the West are taking the issues seriously.  For the vast majority, it is 'business as usual' even though many people are warning of a forthcoming climate emergency.  We'll see.  Time will tell whether I'm doing this in vain, or whether people like me will be hailed as the heroes who cared enough to try to do something about it.  Thing is, I won't be around to know the answer, as I'm over half-way through my life and might have, at best, another 30 or 40 years to go.

Tuesday 6th April 10

Gill woke me at about 8.30 saying that she was going to get the 9.10 bus down to the station with our eldest, to go to Sheffield to pick up our youngest. However, our lad's glasses had broken... the lens had fallen out due to the tiny screw coming out. So I said that I'd get up and cycle the glasses down to town, to the shop where they were issued, hopefully get then fixed, and take then to the station to give them to my boyo.

So this is what I did, arrived at the shop at 9am, the screw had actually broken but the dispensing optician was able to extract the bit which was left in, and replace it... and I was at the station by 9.10. The train they meant to get was at 9.44 but they didn't arrive at the station til about then... someone had collapsed on the bus and it had stopped to wait for the paramedic, and no-one could get off as the collapsed person was in the aisle, so everyone had to stay put...

So they got the next train. I went to my building society to put two cheques in, and then onto Country Fresh to pick up 3 sacks of compostables, but I didn't get any shopping as I didn't know what we needed. However, I did get a tray of cauliflower seedlings and leek seedlings. I came home via Freshways but there wasn't much to pick up there, so came home and got busy with some stacking in the back garden. These were the very fresh sticks delivered to me by my gardener/permaculture friend a week or two back, mainly quite thin ones 5 to 10 cm diameter, and lots of them. So they are going onto a pair of pallets in the back garden for a year or two, carefully stacked so they don't roll off...

This, and a little bit of stacking outside the front door, was the only outside work I did whilst Gill was in Sheffield. But when the family came back, I cycled back down to Country Fresh, with three carrier-bags of riddled compost and 3 sacks of mainly plastic waste harvested from the compostables, which I prefer to put back in the shop bin. I bought eggs, onions, mushrooms, broccoli and a butternut squash.

When I came back, Melody and her son were visiting... and her son and mine were down the garden so I went down too, as last time they were down there together, a lot of stuff got wrecked, so I didn't want that to happen again. Instead, I suggested that we do some positive destruction... and break up a load of hedge-sticks which will end up in paper potato sacks and be kindling. Melody's lad was very happy to do this and we talked about pH, acids and alkalis. Good stuff.

Tea was pasta with the sauce which Sarah, yesterday's visitor, had made out of the 'freegan' stuff I said she was welcome to take. I don't know what was in the sauce... peppers and aubergines I think, but it wasn't seasoned and I added a bit of grated cheese and some soy sauce to the pile of pasta.

During the evening I was alerted to a news item on the BBC website through the Scrabble application on facebook, that Mattel, the owners of Scrabble, are changing the rules to allow 'proper nouns', ie words with a capital letter such as people's names, place names, etc. I am very against this, as are the vast majority of the comments on the facebook 'wall' about this rule change. Scrabble is an excellent game and the rules don't need to be changed; I really don't think that allowing proper nouns will make the game any better. I will continue to play with the normal rules. I've just found Ariane Sherine's take on this too... a very funny article!

I also watched the video on wikileaks which shows American soldiers killing civilians. Just reinforces my view that war is the least sustainable activity that we humans can engage in.

I wrote a review of "In Transition 1.0 - From oil dependence to local resilience" so it can be put on the York in Transition website and the Ceilidh information. I tried to write a press release about Friday's seed-donation.

My film review is here:

"IN TRANSITION 1.0 - From oil dependence to local resilience"

'In Transition' is a compilation from over 100 stories from all over the world, sent to Emma Goude from the Transition Network. She knew that one option was to go to Transition initiatives and film key players from different projects, and then edit this into a coherent story... but this would involve her flying around the world. So, instead, Transitioneers were asked to submit their own films... which proceeded to arrive in many different formats, and each film needed watching, describing, and then the best bits massaged into what is a very inspiring 50 minute romp through forward looking and optimistic practical projects.

So, this is a kind of 'wiki-film' which is very enjoyable and inspiring. Although it is short, it can be dipped into. Nothing is covered in much depth, but all the key areas are covered, peak oil, food, education, economy, transport, local government.

The DVD has many extras which show some of the clips which couldn't fit into the film proper, and a 'bonus disc' with even more Transition-related material, including Richard Heinberg talking about 'peak everything' and some interesting observations on volunteer burn out and the psychology of change.

(and you can buy the DVD or see the film here, as well as at our event on 17th April)