Tuesday 28th June 11

Spent the entire morning helping Gill deal with the accounts.  I went through the diary, April 2010 to April this year, and checking with my blog to find out my 'John the Composter' gigs and compost sales.  I managed to focus on this and by lunchtime had got all of the info from these sources to allow us to nearly finish the accounts. There is one more jobette to do; to work out the phone costs.  With the Phone Co-op it is possible to sort outgoing phone calls with a code which you put in before dialing.  This means I can accurately say how much I spend on different phone calls.  But I have to add VAT to each figure and we haven't done that yet.

So after lunch I did some more enjoyable things, out in the garden.  I fed a whole lot more turf through my mechanical riddle and got 2 wheelbarrows full of lovely fine loam, which went into the raised bed.  Then I did two wheelbarrows of compost, from a dalek with very mature and reasonably dry crumbly stuff in it.

At 3pm I cycled down to the Steiner School with our youngest's bike, and collected a box of material from Country Fresh which I put on my rack.  This was good for a nitrogen-rich layer on the new compost heap which I'm creating. We cycled back quickly and I continued in the garden, finishing off the raised bed and planting it up with a load of sweetcorn, a few beans, a cucumber and a few small squash plants.  I might get some crops off this, who knows?

I also responded to a message from a Freecycler I'd sent a request to, for a 500g bag of oats.  So I cycled over to some new housing on Heworth Green and 'got my oats' and came back via the cycle track, picked up some logs, and chatted with John Horsley who was cycling in the same direction.

I got a sack of stuff from Freshways and did some more time in the garden before it got too dark to continue.  I had a very enjoyable evening with a nice phone chat with a friend, and did a big wash-up whilst listening to Last.fm.

Tuesday 14th June 11

A peaceful day, woken by Gill as my friend who had given me their bank card came round and wanted it, needed to go shopping.  Later I called round and my friend had bought cider.  Alcohol is a powerful addiction.

I had a fairly lazy morning but soon got busy in the garden, weeding, planting squash and sweetcorn.

I cycled down to Country Fresh and got a bag of fruit and veg for us and some fruit for a friend, plus two bags of compostables.  I went to pick up some sticks from someone who had pruned a lilac tree, and emailed me offering the sticks to me for kindling.  Another trailer-full, just needing to be cut in half or thirds and put in a paper sack for drying.

I was down the garden when Andy D'Agorne came round to see how my tiny camera worked, he wants to use it to film the occasionally dreadful driving behaviour outside his local school.  We had a good chat, but it meant I didn't get my evening meal til after 9pm.  I used some past-sell-by-date quinoa, some spinach from the garden, the tomato stuff which didn't go through the sieve when making soup on Sunday, some coleslaw and a slice of 'Mediterranean Bread'.

Later in the evening I watched 'The Pipe' on More4, a documentary about an Irish community resisting the imposition of a Shell gas pipeline across their village and traditional fishing grounds.  I support direct action in defence of Planet Earth.  We need to stop spending on fossil fuels and invest heavily in renewables.  Every pound, dollar and euro spent on oil, gas and nuclear means less money is available for investment into wind, solar, tidal, wave, hydro and other less polluting technologies.  I'd like to know the outcome of the Rossport pipeline debacle, as the film ended with the damaged pipelaying vessel leaving Irish waters.  I wonder if it came back to resume it's damaging activities?

Sunday 29th May 11

A lovely day with a leisurely late start. I didn't do much til after Gardener's Question time, when I went outside to do some real gardening of my own.

I first spent quite a while cutting back a load of shrubs which form a boundary between ours and next door... it's not really a hedge, more a border with assorted small trees, brambles, ground elder, Vinca and Alkanet.  I ripped and cut loads out, including a large Hebe which died over winter.

This made space for me to get to the back of the raised bed where I replaced a bean wigwam which had been in 2 years and was getting brittle. I wired together 3 long branches and made another.  Then I planted out quite a few of the Pea Beans in toilet rolls, two plants per leg of the wigwam.  I also planted out 9 curly kale plants, 6 sweetcorn, and got a load of seedling American Land Cress and Perpetual Spinach put in the pots they vacated and I'll either sell them down at Country Fresh or at some charity event.

So I was happy to have got some planting done.  In the evening I signed up to use eBay as I have a few things to sell, and spent some time getting a free business card deal together.  The company even offer an online version.

A very late evening as one of my friends was in crisis and I spent some time on the phone, after 2am.

Thursday 27th May 10

A quiet day... spent most of the morning sending photographs to my colleague in Canada, so he can help me decide which ones are suitable for the website, and doing publicity for the Fifth York World Naked Bike Ride. Oh, and washing up!

In the afternoon I planted about 20 sweetcorn plants in the raised bed... I needed to remove the old purple sprouting broccoli plants (which I fed through the shredder), and removed lots of American Land Cress which had self seeded itself all over. I left the self seeded perennial Spinach Beet and the self seeded Rainbow Chard. Then I broke up the hard ground with a fork, and sprinkled a sack of riddled compost all over this, and created a sort of grid of planting holes around the Chard and Spinach. I put a dollop of riddled compost in each of these and dug it into the base of the hole, then popped the sweetcorn into them, and watered them in. I hope we don't have any late frosts!

I did a load of pruning too, a renegade beech hedge, some unruly loganberry which has got to the wrong side of a fence and is making access to a water butt difficult, and I took a low hanging branch off the walnut too. All this was shredded and put in a tumbler with loads of waste fruit and veg stuff.

So, a busy day... too busy to remember that I should have gone to a lecture at the University at 6.30. I remembered at 10pm, too late to do anything about it. Duh me.

Monday 24th May 10

I think it was quite a good day... I did get quite a bit done and nothing terrible happened.

Although I went to bed at 3am last night, I was up just after 9 this morning and feeling fine, and soon got myself on my bike with the paperwork needed to pay our Council Tax and re-subscribe to Resource Magazine, which is always a good read.

So I got cheques out and then went to the City Treasury to pay in half of our annual Council Tax. We have the opportunity to use PayPoint in a local shop, but this would be connected to our bank account, and I don't pay the Council Tax from this... I always pay from my Fiddlesticks income, from the Fiddlesticks Building Society account, so I'll continue to pay twice a year, using a cheque from this account. I did find out though that I could get a cheque out made payable to The Post Office, and use a card (which is being sent to me) to get that paid on to the Council. I had a 20 minute wait at the Council Treasury, as they no longer have the numbers of staff that they used to, so I might use the Post Office option next time.

I visited Dylan at Millers Yard, but someone else had taken his last bag of orange halves, shock horror, for their allotment. I was delighted!

Then back through town, collecting halved lemons from the lemonade stall, and visited Rich at Country Fresh and came home.

After lunch I did some paperwork (an invoice, emails, several phone calls) and sent a reply to the US Composting Council about the Sierra Club's new proposed policy on composting and then outside, yet more foodplant stuff, getting the last tomato plant potted up, and some of the squashes and beans outside in the radiator raised beds.

At teatime I was informed that our eldest had to take 500g of cooking apple into school tomorrow for his 'food technology' so he can make apple crumble, so I cycled down to Country Fresh again and got two cooking apples (550g, allowing 10% waste for peel and core... clever, eh?) plus a large load of blood oranges which are past their best, bruising a pale powdery blue colour... They'll be absolutely fine on my compost heap, though.

So, finance, paperwork of the electronic kind, phone calls, assorted eco activism on the web, making potting mix, planting plants, riddling compost, collecting compostables, building another layer on the heap, seems like a good active day.

During the evening I told all my German friends about the forthcoming screenings of The Age of Stupid in German, had a discussion about vaccination and immunisation on facebook, stimulated by my delight that Andrew Wakefield has been struck off the Medical Register for unethical practices, and played a bit of Scrabble... and washed up, and washed and blanched grapes ready for drying into raisins.

Oh, and watched the Community Channel on Freeview to see assorted Age of Stupid stuff. Which as usual had me in tears. Wonderful, still!

Saturday 22nd May 10

An incredibly busy day, despite a medium lie in and almost unbearable heat.

I have work tomorrow so I went to put my shaver on charge, but Gill has reorganised the bedroom and the flex to plug it in has gone missing. She spent quite a bit of the day sorting through things trying to find it. It might be that I just have more facial hair than I prefer when I do tomorrow's gig. She's felt frustrated for much of the day.

So whilst Gill was doing things inside, I was busy with foodplants in the garden. I planted 9 beans and 2 cauliflowers and a butternut squash in one of the raised beds. I filled another load of planters and put in a variety of stuff I already had, but then mid-afternoon I cycled over to Brunswick Organic Nursery in Bishopthorpe and spent Gill's two £10 vouchers she got from York Rotters for making a cake or cakes. I got 4 tomatoes, 6 squash, a melon (I've never grown melon before), some basil, 6 purple sprouting broccoli, 6 calabrese and 8 sweetcorn.

I cycled home carefully and slowly and didn't bounce the plants too much. I planted the melon in a tub in the conservatory. I put several beans by the side of the shared path, where they can grow up against my log piles, which won't be used over the summer so they'll make a good support, well I hope so. Gill thinks our neighbour won't be happy about it but I think he won't mind. They aren't in the way.

I had tea upstairs in the bedroom as the family were all wallowing in Dr Who. I had a basic grain and veg dish with crispy-fried Oyster mushrooms. Lovely. I listened to a bit of Tracey Smith's DJ-ing on her Hospital Radio show on Apple AM, and when that finished, I half dozed and half played Scrabble on facebook.

Then I got up and had a solar powered shower... the panel has got the cylinder up to 85 degrees Celsius today, and the shower was lovely and used no gas. Great!

Later, I watched Michael Moore's film on Capitalism in America. Watch this and you'll understand why I do not support the Capitalist status quo. It is a system which generates a huge gap between the rich and poor, squanders resources, peddles false dreams such as stuff makes you happy, more stuff makes you more happy, and it is just wrong. I'm not a Communist wanting everybody to be equal, as Communism didn't work well either. I want a Co-operative Democratic Green revolution.

Thursday 20th May 10

A morning full of phone calls, paperwork and pretty boring stuff... and the afternoon I did a lot of work in the conservatory and on the lawn just out the back, preparing growing medium for pots. I filled one huge ceramic planter with a branch for support, 4 Chinese Yams, 2 beans and a cucumber. I did a large plastic pot with a tomato, bean and yam. Another pot with 3 beans only, and another pot with a tomato and I think a bean and a yam.

I have space for another 15 large pots... but preparing enough growing medium for all those will be quite a job. I'll be going to Brunswick Organic Nursery soon to get a few more different tomato plants, hopefully a bit more interesting than the Shirley and Tumbler that I've just put in.

Gill made chips to go with the pastie and salads, which was nice as we don't have chips very often. Then I went to a Car Free Day meeting, with people from York and Ryedale Friends of the Earth, and we had good conversations at the Seahorse Hotel. Our slogan for the Car Free Day on 22nd September is 'Walk It, Bike It, Bus It'. We have some interesting plans but I cannot divulge them as some bigwigs have to make some decisions before we can move forward.

I got in at about 10pm, and at about 11 I lit the stove to get enough hot water for the washing up.

Saturday 20th June 09

A work day, so up early to get myself ready for the York Cycle Show on the Racecourse.

I got there on the dot of 10.30 with my trailer overloaded with the box of jugglestuff, four Pedal-Go things ('four-wheel unicycles') two Fun Wheels ('two wheel unicycles') and four real (one wheel) unicycles. And my sandwiches.

The weather looked ominous but held off for an hour or so, and my position, near the entrance to the central compound was a good one as had loads of punters wanting to have a go on the various unicycley things.

My old friend Dawn found me, how lovely to see her again; she'd come over on the train with her folding bike from Sheffield. I met loads of other people too, far too many to name individually, but a few who stood out were Rachel, now 18, and a Fiddlesticks fan for years, now not a child and a bonny young woman with a huge smile; R, a very keen child unicyclist whom I met last year and we bonded, and amazingly, Gill and the boys appeared, I hadn't expected to see them.

The weather decided to make my job much harder by raining hard and rendering the firm grass into a soft muddy area, less convivial for unicycling. But I continued where I was, as the Racecourse had sealed off the covered walkway where I have worked on previous years.

I didn't stop for lunch but had bites of sandwich between helping people with their unicycling technique. I worked til just after 4 and then packed up, went to see the HQ tent, and cycled home. I had to spend the best part of an hour cleaning my assorted unicycle equipment as it was covered in mud.

I then went round to Maria's as she was having a birthday party, and Gill, boyos and Dawn were already there. I had a veg kebab and nutloaf, and a good chat with a newly married couple Mark and Sarah, I think. We spent some time discussing Optimists v Pessimists! A relaxing evening.

Got home at about 8pm and planted sweetcorn, nearly too potbound but hopefully will now grow huge and give us some lovely cobs...

Wednesday 10th June 09

Excellent day, although got off to a slower start than I would have liked.

Gill went to art and I did the washing up before cycling down to the station so I could go over to Sheffield to see Ali. I took some climbing bean seedlings, a squash and a yam, for her raised beds. The train was a bit late and then there was quite a wait at the tram stop, so didn't get to her until after midday. But hey, that's life!

Had a lovely afternoon with her and at 3 went to collect 'littleboo' from school and she was, as usual, ecstatic to see me... and then when home, helped me plant the beans and other things. Hope the cats don't dig them up with their pooing activities. I buried a load of cat poo under the squash plant as extra fertiliser!

Ali had received an invite to go and see Carol Ann Duffy, the new Poet Laureate, perform a reading, and this is one reason I'd come over, to help Ali get there. We had decided to go on the tram, but the rain started coming down quite heavily so we changed our transport options to her car.... which turned out to be a good thing, as if we had of gone by tram, we would have been completely stuck. The rain came down, hail, thunder and lightening, continual cloud burst for some length of time, resulting in flash-floods all over central Sheffield, tram lines closed and traffic jams everywhere. We spent an hour and a half getting to where we wanted to be... we had intended to go and eat first but this time was used up with the chaos caused by closed roads.

But we got to the church where Carol Ann Duffy was due to speak. She'd taken the train over from Manchester but the floods had prevented her from getting any further than Dore, where she got a bus into town. I loved the poems she read, well, most of them, and her humorous commentaries. She started with a selection of her poems from her book 'The World's Wife' including 'Mrs. Midas', 'Mrs. Tiresias', 'Mrs. Aesop', 'Mrs. Faust' and 'Anne Hathaway', which is I think n the GCSE syllabus. Then she did some more personal stuff, 'A Child Asleep' and a series from Rapture, 'Text', 'Tea', 'Row', 'Syntax' 'Art', 'The Love Poem', and finally 'Prayer' and Premonition, a new poem about her Mother who died a few years ago, and she's only just got to a stage in her life that she can write about her. (see this page for biographical information and a selection of poems read by the author..)

After this we went to a nearby 'stuff yer face for a tenner' and did just that, after which Ali took me to the station. Lots of cancelled and late trains. I eventually got one to Leeds, which got in at midnight, and waited for the 12.34 to York which got in at 1.15. Fortunately a nice young lady was happy to chat, and she, Ruth, told me about her cybernetics degree at Reading Uni, and about her laptop, and I told her about some of my writing and entertaining activities. It made the journey go quicker for both of us.

Home just before 2am, damp but full of buzzy thoughts. Quite a day!

Thursday 28th May 09

Up at a reasonable time and Gill was planning the trip to the IMAX cinema in Bradford, as the boys wanted to see The Night At The Museum 2. She bought tickets over the phone yesterday and had sorted out which train to get, and booked a taxi. But due to factors which I don't fully understand, the boys said that they didn't want to go this morning, so Gill did a second round of ringing round and cancelled everything, and will hopefully get her money back from the IMAX.

So, both Gill and I spent quite a bit of time in the garden. I was busy most of the day, potting up peppers and more tomatoes, sieving compost and loam to use as growing media. I did a load of weeding, mostly ground elder and green alkanet. Also compost heap building, so a perfect day in the garden.

Our youngest is complaining that his bike is too small for him, so after tea I cycled with both boys down to Bikerescue via Walmgate Stray and the Millennium Bridge. When we arrived at the Parkside Commercial Centre, the Bikerescue dog, a friendly enough hound, was there, and my son who is scared of dogs ran away and had to be coaxed and cajoled back, and I asked the chap who dealt with me to put it in the office so my boy's fear didn't prevent us deciding on a bike. We chose one, and it needs a bit of work so I put down a deposit and was told it would be ready in a week or 10 days. We cycled back a shorter way.

I cycled back into town immediately, as I'd agreed to help a friend who's moving house soon. She cannot get into her loft as the hatch is quite narrow and her hips are not! So I went up to the loft space and handed down assorted boxes, bags, piles of books, electrical items and more. Then we had a good chat before I came home, getting in after 9, but doing some sorting in the front garden before coming in.

A quiet evening, enjoyed watching 'Surgery Live' on C4 with Gill.

Tuesday 26th May 09

What a treat, a lie-in til maybe 9am! Maybe our children are heading towards teen-dom, when late mornings will be the norm? In fact, I was up first, at about 9, and our youngest appeared on the landing as I came out of the loo. They are usually up much earlier!

A very happy family day... the boys played on the computer for most of the morning and I did too (of course I don't play! I work... allegedly!) and after lunch Gill walked into town with them as they are outgrowing shoes and wanted to get more computer games.

I made a risotto using the method I watched Beth do the other day... similar anyway. I fried onions, celery and garlic in the big pan on the woodstove, then added chunks of courgette and butternut, raw (Beth baked hers first) and when that was all softened, added red pepper paprika, bouillon, sage, then rice and boiling water and simmered it for 25 minutes. I also dry-cooked a load of home-produced pumpkin seeds so they popped and puffed up, then added a load of spinach beet or chard chopped leaf, which wilted down and was served as a side dish to the rice.

I went in the garden and planted beans, peas and squash in the radiator bed, some calabrese and cauliflowers in the raised beds, did some composting and weeding, then did a load of riddling and made up some growing media and potted up peppers and cucumbers in the conservatory.

The family came in and I fed them. Well, they fed themselves, but I put food on their plates.

I relaxing evening, watched a programme about the interesting 47 million year-old fossil primate which is a link to our pre-human past.

Monday 25th May 09

Beth woke me up at sometime after 7 as I needed to leave the house at about 8, in order to get to the nearest station by 8.28, to get to Peckham Rye by 9.30 and meet Anna. A quick breakfast and goodbyes, walked up to the station, got a ticket to where I wanted to go and caught a train four minutes earlier than expected all the way to Victoria, as suggested.

However, when I got to the ticket barrier at Victoria, it wouldn't accept my ticket... and the member of staff looked at the ticket and pointed out that it said 'not valid via London' and he said that I'd have to speak to the barrier person at platforms 1-7. So when I did this, they wouldn't let me through either, and told me to go to the ticket office to get sorted out. I did this and the only option was to be sold a ticket from Clapham Junction to Peckham Rye for another £2.10. This meant that I got through the barriers and on to Peckham Rye by 9.30, and Anna arrived with my keys, a teeshirt and NewScientist. So much for leaving in a hurry the previous morning...

I gave Anna a book I'd got at the conference on Sunday morning which I thought she'd be interested in... she was delighted as it definitely was right up her street, so her walk to the station was worth it for her too.

I got the bus to Kings Cross, waited for the platform to be announced and got on the train which left at 11. I had some nice chats with the family sitting in the 3 seats with me, but I couldn't use my laptop for very long as the plug socket in the carriage wasn't delivering any power, and the battery on this thing doesn't last very long without the mains, perhaps about 30 or 40 minutes!

Anyway, York appeared soon and I cycled home via Country Fresh and Freshways, getting in at 1.30.

The boys were delighted to see me, they'd all had a good time, with a visit to Scarborough and fun with Simon and his son, and Gill was pleased I'd got such a lot from the conference. I don't think she missed me, perhaps as I did ring every evening to see how things were!

I had lunch and Gill asked me to go and do some shopping, so I did that and then spent some time in the garden, planting beans, squash, peas, and weeding and piling stuff into a couple of dalek bins. Nice to be back!

Gill made a quiche and cooked the potatoes I bought, and we had a lovely evening together, watching Ideal and talking over some of our weekend.

Monday 18th May 09

I woke with a phone call from Thomson Directories AGAIN pestering me for payment for advertising. I am unsure what this invoice is for, as I already sent them a cheque earlier this year. I rang Thomson directories back to find out what the two cheques were for and got nowhere. I rang my Building Society to see if the previous cheque had been cashed, and was told that someone would get back to me by the close of the day. They didn't.

However, I had a couple of things to do in town, and called in to Cycle Heaven to ask about tightening my disc brakes. I left my bike with them and walked into town, and when I got back less than an hour later, I was told that it had seized up slightly and they'd tightened it up, but the next time it needed adjusting, I'd need replacement brake pads. Disc brakes are good, they are not wearing out my wheel rims like with previous bikes (I needed to replace my rims every other year) but the downside is that the replacement thingy inside the brake is about £15 a pop, more expensive than brake blocks!

Anyway, came home via Country Fresh (one box) and Freshways (two sacks) and within these there were two pineapples, so Gill made an upside-down pineapple cake... slices of prepared pineapple in the base of a cake tin, and sponge cake mixture on top of this. 6 minutes in the microwave and voila! A cake! A delicious cake!

I had some time potting up tomato plants in their final position in big planters in the conservatory, using home-made potting medium. Very satisfying. I had an early tea, just sandwiches, as I was going out to two talks with no time for tea between them.

The first, at 5.30, was the Professor John Whitelegg Inaugural Lecture about designing a zero-carbon transport system. This was in the Physics department at the University of York. The lecture was streamed and recorded, and I'll put a link to the recording when I find it! It was an excellent lecture, and I like John Whitelegg's enthusiasm and delivery. This finished at just after 6.30, and I skipped wine and nibbles to cycle swiftly over to the Priory St Centre to see another Stockholm Environment Institute researcher, Andreas Heinemeyer, give a talk to the Co-op Members Group. I know Andreas reasonably well, but I've never seen him present a 'Transition' style talk. He was very animated and injected lots of humour, I really loved the way he delivered the information. I stayed for the meeting afterwards and spoke to the item on York Green Festival receiving funding, and put in two items of AOB, one on York Credit Union becoming Yorkshire Credit Union and one on the Transition Picnic.

Cycled home, arriving for 10pm, and had a bowl of pineapple cake and cold custard whilst watching the news. Had a chat with Ali on the phone about her creative writing which she wanted me to read and hear.

Got a lot of writing to do this evening... still!

Blog page view counter (from Bravenet) went past 10,000 since September last year. I'm amazed!

Sunday 17th May 09

Woken by shouting but things seemed to calm down, thankfully. Our eldest got ready to go to Games Workshop with a friend. This is a shop space in town where people can buy different models, mostly plastic, and there's a central table where the different games can be played. He took sandwiches for lunch and ate those outside the shop.

I did quite a bit of paperwork, Gill got some documents photocopied at the Co-op and I sent those off.

So Gill and our youngest had quite a bit of time in the garden. I filled three containers with a mixture of old used compost and fresh rich compost, and planted three varieties of potato. I also planted two types of sweetcorn seed (Indian Rainbow and Blue Jade) in modules (little pots) and several sorts of beans, including unidentified runner beans, Cherokee Trail Of Tears and my favourite, Jack Edwards Climbing Pea Bean. Some of these bean seedlings I hope to sell at Country Fresh, but most will go in the garden and at the allotment. I sorted out a lot of detritus from the conservatory and planted yet more tiny yam balls, some of which were beginning to sprout on the floor of the conservatory.

Gill and our youngest went to visit Ashley and family up the road, leaving me to wait for our eldest to get back.

Charles rang up... he's a Green Party friend but he's going away for a Scottish Mountain-Climbing holiday over the Euro-Election season, and won't be able to cast his vote, either in person or by post. So he's asked me to be his proxy, and a postal vote will be sent to me to fill in and send off. We had a good chat and a wander down the garden, and the family returned from their various travels.

A good tea; spinach, chard, broccoli with pasta and chunks of yesterday's nutloaf, with garlic bread and cheese.

Bathed the kids (hey, they do it themselves these days, but I carry the water upstairs!) and watched telly and played Scrabble.

Wondered whether to do my Community Care Blog on the new North Yorkshire Credit Union which has opened this weekend. This means that the services of a Credit Union are now available to anyone living or working in North Yorkshire, as well as the City of York. I am feeling very pleased, and indeed a bit proud, since I started the ball rolling with York Credit Union, and am member number 0001. I've had nothing to do with the development of North Yorkshire Credit Union, but am still really happy that the Credit Union advantage is now available for so many more people, in Selby, Scarborough, and all over the County.

Watched my counter approach 10,000 page views since September last year...

I did eventually write my Community Care blog! It took over two hours.

Sunday 8th June 08

A good start to the day, woke up slowly knowing I had no commitments today workwise... so had breakfast and went back to bed for half an hour before going into the garden to process some prunings that Gill produced this morning... some overhanging lilac and invasive holly.

Then came in to have a coffee and watch Countryfile. And then had lunch. And then went back into the garden again. Planted yet more beans and curcubits, and a couple of tomatoes from the BIG Recycle.

A lovely day... ended well too, with a Gill's home-made pizza and later, Jill and Ben came round and gave Gill an old unwanted laptop so she can do emails and the boys can too, plus search the web for homework etc. All Jill and Ben want in return is a load of dried fruit... which reminds me I must send some to my sister who has requested some!

Perhaps with a quieter week I'll find time to sort this out.

Sunday 1st June 08

Another excellent day... not too early a start, infact after breakfast I went back to bed to read NewScientist, a treat. Then went on the internet to research energy performance certificates for tomorrow's talk at CVS, whilst watching Countryfile. The research was interesting and I'm glad that I've been asked to do the presentation, as it has forced me to learn something new.

A good lunch, and the rain stopped so I went outside but came back in to listen to Gardeners Question Time and do the washing up. Our eldest got a phone call reminding him that he had been invited to a friend's birthday party in Selby, a swim party.

A good session in the garden, loads of shredding of brambles and hedge cuttings, and planted some squash and beans in the raised bed which I made out of two bay-window radiators, back to back. I decided to remove a lot of brambles from the hedges, as we have enough blackberries and they look untidy. I have rescued a second pair of bay-window radiators, which are even bigger than the first pair... so I'm using that as a compost bin for now but will top it off with loam and plant into it... the warmth will be good to help the squash get going... I'll have some ready in a couple of weeks to go in there.

Gill made a quiche for tea with Jersey Royal potatoes. I spent some time on Facebook and deleting emails..... far too many in my inbox!

Saturday 31st May 08

What a day! Woke early but the boys left us alone (are they getting the hang of a lie-in at the weekend?) and we eventually got up soon after 9. The boys and Gill headed off to Scarborough and I went down the garden to plant some courgettes and climbing beans.

So I had the whole day to myself... lots of sorting in the garden, and at about 11.30 came in to do emails and at 12 watched part 3 of the either rubbish or excellent (can't decide!) Kyle XY on BBC2 whilst having lunch and preparing a nutloaf for the family to have when they come home. Had to do it by hand as out liquidiser is broken. So it took an hour to grate bread into crumbs and hand cut nuts... however it was eventually ready for the microwave. I also did a lot of apples, making them into rings and laying them on racks on the stove, which I have lit to get plenty of hot water and heat for drying fruit, despite the warm weather.

So a very productive day... family came back at 7ish, ravenous and ready for nutloaf and cauliflower with tomato sauce. They loved it!

Watched Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall on C4 whilst doing more emails and blog, getting ready to go out tonight.

Cycled down to City Screen to an event called the Fuzz Club, a psychedelic night with my favourite band playing, 'The Falling Spikes'. I met up with Dave T which was really good, we spent the whole night together chatting and enjoying the music. The support band was called 'Apply The Brakes', they were a bit American and a bit pretentious, and I was very glad when Spikes came on. They are loud and have a certain sound which they stick to... lots of stuff going on, a bank of guitars and my buddy Richard on drums. I really REALLY enjoyed them. They take me to amazing places, soundscapes, beautiful.

Came home after midnight and went to bed very soon after.

Friday 23rd May 08

Gill wasn't feeling brilliant so I took the boys into school, told one of the teaching assistants whom I'm friendly with and trust about last night's incident and she couldn't believe it, with a 'what is the world coming to' and gave me a hug. It was good to offload it, and I immediately felt a whole lot better.

I went to the allotment to plant the remaining potatoes... and defoliated an area of ground by hand, then dug it over, removing buttercup and dandelion roots... but didn't get the potatoes planted and I sensed it was getting towards lunch, so I cycled round to Anna's to pick up another load of her vegetation she's cropped to make space for a trampoline, and took it to the Hazel Court/James St civic amenety site for recycling. On the way in I was shouted at by an operative who told me I wasn't allowed in on my bicycle, so I told her I was ignoring the sign saying no pedestrians/cyclists as I had no option wanting to put my recycling in the skips up at the top. I was told this many weeks ago and wrote to the paper about the nonsense of 'no pedestrians' as when the car drivers go to the skips, they get out of their cars and become.... pedestrians..... walking around from one recepticle to another... and I don't have a car to bring my drinks cartons to the site for collection, but use my bike and trailer for this. And as I pay my Council Tax and wish to recycle my wastes, I will continue doing this. But being shouted at doesn't make me feel good, so I am going to write to Yorwaste and the Council and complain. The sign should read 'Cyclists and pedestrians enter at your own risk, please be aware of vehicle movements' or somesuch. The civic amenety site is less dangerous than many of the roads I cycle on, so it makes no sense to ban cyclists on safety grounds.

I came home via St Nicks and arrived home just before 1pm. After lunch did some computery stuff and at 3, went to pick up the boys. Gave in a couple of 'Big Recycle Day' posters to display at school. When we got home I went to the lottie and put in the potatoes.... finished, hooray!

Home before 6pm, last of the soup for tea and then went down to the Priory St Centre for a Greenspeak meeting, on congestion charging. This was very interesting, might make a good paid blog topic. Caroline was there and she gave me some broccoli seedlings, a pepper plant in a bucket and a stunted tomato.... I'll give her some compost next week, in part-exchange. I'm very pleased with the broccoli.

Home via Country Fresh... two sacks and a box.

Had a bath to remove allotment from my legs.

Up late, watched an entertaining but daft TV prog called Kyle XY... Gill enjoyed it too.

Thursday 22nd May 08

A busy day, up before 8, asked by Gill to get one of the children downstairs and get him dressed. I managed to do this and then distracted both of them (whilst they ate breakfast) by reading them a book which arrived in the post yesterday, sent to me by CRAGger Anna in Peckham, who knows my enthusiasm for composting. It's an American book called 'The Magic School Bus Meets the Rot Squad, A Book About Decomposition' (published by Scholastic Inc, ISBN 0-590-40023-1, 1995) It is a childrens' book, aimed perhaps at 4-7 year olds, so a bit young for my 8 and 10 year olds, but it was funny and appreciated. More than this, it helped them forget that they weren't wanting to go to school and they went on autopilot, I took them in without any problems whatsoever.

Home and to work.... got three carrier bags of potting material together, one of loam, one leafmold and one compost, and put these with the rotaseive ready for Green Thumbs this afternoon, where we are potting on seedlings from their seed compost in tiny pots into richer compost in bigger pots. Then I got six carrier bags of riddled compost to take to the veg shop and then on to the lottie to prepare three trenches to plant more potatoes, which went in soon after. Got home at 1.45, more than ready for lunch.

Did a bit of computery stuff after lunch and so soon it was 3 o clock and time to go to school to help out with the Green Thumbs Gang... my job was to show the children how to riddle the various materials and then use the resultant mix to pot up the seedlings.

As the children were getting ready to leave, I had a brief word with the mother of L----- who attends the gardening club and is wildly enthusiastic and talkative. A couple of days ago L had picked several horse chestnut leaves off a tree and was using them in various poses as costume/playthings and she came to show off to me. I asked her whether she should have picked them... in retrospect this was a little bit too much of a 'killjoy' and perhaps a bit strict and authoritarian. However, I was brought up to not pick stuff off plants as some are toxic (ivy, laburnum), others irritate skin (hogweed) and others cause photosensitisation. Also, picking wild flowers is illegal and picking something from someone elses property could get someone into trouble. Also, leaves are there to help the plant grow... all these things are reasonable rerasons not to pick plants willy nilly. But I accept that it was inappropriate to ask L the question. Her mother, however, told me not to speak to her child as I wasn't her teacher and I had no right to speak to her 'like that'. I apologised immediately but wanted to say why I'd asked her if she should have picked the leaves, so I'd written a note to L's mther and tried to give it to her after the gardening club.

Her reaction was quite extreme... she said if I didn't leave her alone she'd call the police, and then said "I'm sure they have your details already" which was most unkind and it made me think that she thinks I'm some sort of criminal! It upset me but I remained polite. Her words went round my mind all evening. I did speak to Julia, the Green Thumbs chair, and she was shocked and suggested I let the school know about the situation. There's nothing that can be 'done' about this, but incase she makes any allegations in the future or kicks off with someone else, I decided to tell someone at school.

An evening worth forgetting after this. Didn't feel very happy.

Thursday 15th May 08

A good morning as I was able to come down and assist in helping to put one of my boy's socks on... he hates socks and often removes them angrily once they are on... not sure why this is, but hay, we're all different! So Gill was able to take them to school and I then got a phone call from Jo saying she was in the area and was in a motor vehicle and could collect some compost if I had any spare. Do I have spare compost? Hahahahahahaha what a silly question!

So I quickly got dressed and had a quick bowl of cereal and then Jo came, and we had a cuppa, and Gilly joined us for a good chat prior to us going to get some sacks of compost, which Jo drove away by about 10am

Gill and I then went to do some work in the garden... Gill sowed carrots and sweetcorn whilst I weeded and loaded up a compost bin with Alkanet and Ground Elder... thugs of plants!

Came in for 1pm lunch and watched the news, dreadful scenes of the aftermath of the Chinese earthquake, and then did some emailing etc. Some people at school want to see if they can break the world record for the longest daisy chain, so I googled it but couldn't find any details... although did start to register with the Guinness World Records website until Gill talked me out of it... suggesting a better idea was to have a sponsored daisy chain or a 'pay 20p to join in the daisy chain making' type of thing... it has to be a fun/fundraiser for Green Thumbs gang, so when I go to school I'll relay the info to Julia and see what she says!

Had a phone call from Environmental Health about the foreign object in the bread roll (27th March) saying a full investigation had been done but no trace of any metal missing on machinery, and all the systems within the factories were found to be acceptable, so it remains a mystery.

Green Thumbs went well. My group planted modules of spinach, lettuce and spring onions in big tubs. Some other children made labels and planted pumpkin seeds and various other stuff. A successful hour...