Sunday 2nd October 11 Beverley Food Festival

Woken by my phone at 8am and went down to the breakfast room.  Sharon, I think her name was, wasn't expecting me, as somehow the message had come through that I didn't want breakfast.  I NEVER don't want breakfast.... it is the most important meal of the day for me!

Anyway, I had a bowl of cereal and some toast, beans, tomato and an egg fried hard, and three cups of coffee, and an orange juice.  I then went to my room, got changed, and went to the Market Square to find Helen, my handler today, to find out where she wanted me to be.  She had disappeared but her colleague Helena suggested working in front of a building which I've done my show in front of each time I've done the Beverley Food Festival.  However, it was no longer an empty cinema, but a Browns department store, and it looked like it was going to open later that day.  So I couldn't stay there.

I went and devilsticked outside the main marquee whilst the event was being opened, and then one of the Beverley Town council people suggested I work outside a Building Society which wouldn't be opening today, so I got set up there, and got a Council van moved as it was part blocking the view.

I was busy from then on in, continuous workshops and interaction and all sorts, 100% full-on.  At about midday I took a short break to go and buy a pie for lunch, and I also got two 750ml bottles of 'Gold from the Wold' Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Rapeseed Oil for £10.  But this only took 10 minutes, and another 5 minutes to eat the pie, with various children hanging around and watching for my last mouthful, to then home in and ask if they could have a go with the 4 wheel unicycle, or Deborah the Diabolo (Derek's blind sister) or juggling...... but I wanted a change so I did an hour and a half of balloon modelling, finishing at 1.55 to go and sit in the Market Cross building to do a composting workshop.  Only 4 people turned up to this.... but it was still worth doing.

So from 2.20 through til after 4pm I was busy with more circus and balloons, without a break, full-on again.  That's how I like it as the day goes really quickly!

I waited ages for the bus home.... including walking down to the railway station to see if it would be quicker to go that way, but it wasn't.  Beverley really needs a direct rail link with York, in my opinion!  Anyway, the bus came and I dozed on it all the way to York and collapsed when I got in.  A busy weekend.

Saturday 1st October 11

A busy busy day: cycled up to Haxby in the morning to help with the York Rotters compost bin sale.  I took the jars of different sorts of compost from yesterday with me, and showed lots of people what they might expect to get from the bottom of their bin in a year or two.  I took the leafmould jars and the jar with lots of worms and other beasties.  I stopped at 11 and cycled back, collecting some sticks on the way, and got back at 11.40.

Then at 1pm I set off, in Fiddlesticks costume, to the Central Library, 'Explore' to do the final show for the Summer Reading Challenge 'Circus Stars'. I called into the Anti Gravity Shop to buy a new 'two wheel unicycle' as my old one has got too old to support my weight.  I did my show from 2.10 til 3, and had a lovely response. I'm now in a position to submit an invoice for all my summer's library gigs. 

Came back home via the cobblers to re-stick my Fiddlesticks boot sole, and via another place to get new shoelaces.  Then came home via Richard, and collapsed as I was really hot and tired.

Later I got all my kit together and jumped on a bus to Beverley, and dozed on the bus, got myself booked into the Cross Keys and had a quiet night before the Beverley Food Festival.

Friday 30th September 11

Up early to cycle out to Tollerton to work at The Pizza Farm.  They grow wheat (and make flour and pizza dough), tomatoes and onions (and make pizza sauce) and pigs (to make Parma ham, apparently) and cook pizzas in a wood-fired oven... and have school trip visitors to learn about food production.  Normally they have about 40 kids, and split them into 2 groups, but today they were due to have 58 kids, so needed to split them into 3 groups, and felt my composting talk would complement the food growing and food preparation sessions.

So I took a range of food packaging plus some food 'on the turn' and various sorts of compost, and a selection of compost beasties.

I set out early in order to get there for 9.30; it was an hour's cycle, and the children were due at 10am.  I was given a place near a hedge, with a table for my materials, which I placed in 3 areas: assorted food packaging, some of which was recyclable, and some which generally isn't; a load of lovely biodegradable things... including things starting to biodegrade, and a collection of jars of assorted composting things... some still just recognisable, from the top layers of a heap, and another of more mature compost.  I had one jar of year-old leafmould, another of mature riddled leafmould.  I had quite a few different animals, beetles and beetle larvae, centipedes, millipedes, woodlice, slugs, worms... and finally, a jar of well composted 'humanure' and sawdust, as I know children love anything to do with that sort of thing.

With each group I started by inviting a child to pick a packaging object and to tell me what it was made of and how it could be recycled.  With a few different sorts of packaging chosen, we covered glass, metals, cardboard, paper and plastic, and got quite a bit of information over.  We covered landfill and incineration, and how different sorts of materials can be recycled and why.  With the mouldy food, we covered bacteria and fungi, and how food is normally preserved. Then with the compost I was able to talk about the carbon cycle and methane from landfill, and the benefits of home composting, helping to make soil fertile for food growing, wildlife value, etc etc.

One of the other two groups was learning about food growing and processing, and the others were making pizzas and having them cooked in the wood-fired oven.  Part of the deal today for me was that I got pizza for lunch... it was really delicious!  The other part of the deal was that I'd get partly paid in logs; Mike's son runs a fuel-wood business, so once I'd done the third group, after lunch, I was shown the logging area. I was really interested in the machine that the logs are fed into which cuts and splits them.  There was a builders' dumpy bag full of bits and bobs which weren't the right shape or size to go in the 'onion-net' bags which is how the logs are packed and sold, and Mike said I could fill my trailer with some of these.  He also promised a delivery of a couple of sacks of other oddments when he was next passing our house.

So I cycled home having had a very satisfying day teaching about sustainability, paid a fairly small fee, but fed and given logs in lieu of a more substantial payment.

In the evening I went to John Brierley's leaving party.  He's been the St Nicks Centre Manager for 8 years, I think, and done really good work, but he's decided it was time for a change and so he's resigned and tonight was his main leaving do.  I found Kennedy's, just off Stonegate, and spent a couple of very happy hours there chatting to friends old and new.

Thursday 29th September 11

Not too bad a a day.  Had some time with Gill... good that the boys are being more independent and giving us some time together again.  Most welcome.

Got a phone call from Robin Harford, who's in York to run his foraging course.  He wanted to visit, so an hour or so later, he turned up, on his friend Atul's bike, and I gave him a tour of the garden and we had lunch together.

I did some work in the garden during the afternoon... mainly compost stuff, but also preparation for tomorrow when I'm off to The Pizza Farm to do a series of talks on compost to some schoolkids.  I also worked out where I was going using Googlemaps.

After 5pm I got ready to go to work; got to David's just before 6pm and took him to City Screen to meet up with Lotte, also met Esther Lilley (whom I know from when she worked at Lord Deramore's school) and her husband to be, Daniel, and we all had really good chats... I got on very well with Daniel, with a shared interest in architecture and sustainable buildings.

I took David back to have his tea at about 8, with Lotte who left her bike in David's yard, and David and I worked out my hours and monthly payment.  Home via Country Fresh, where I picked up some waste furniture.

I did quite a bit of washing up and fruit preparation, played Scrabble and other laptop-based stuff.

Wednesday 28th September 11

A fun day with good social interaction.  I got up fairly early but spent quite a time on the computer.  Gill went round to Maria's and I had an early lunch before heading off into town to meet a new friend Antonella, whom I'd offered to show the Millennium Bridge.  She's not from York and didn't know the walk from the centre down to the bridge and up through Rowntree Park, and it was really nice to be able to show her.

We parted in the Clifford's Tower car park and I foraged a few sweet chestnuts.

Came home via Richard at Country Fresh.  I then had a final session picking walnuts off the tree.  Those I couldn't quite reach from the stepladders, I whacked with a stick to make them fall.  Later, I laid out most of them on trays to dry... and there were over 300.

Robbie came round, with a bottle of home made cider, as last year I'd given him a load of brewing equipment, and this was a thank you!

Philip came round at 8pm and we had 3 happy hours chatting, me shelling hazelnuts, and catching up as we haven't spent an evening together for a very long time.

Tuesday 27th September 11

Well a low mood day for some reason, despite getting quite a bit done.  Got up late and had a normal morning doing stuff inside.

Mid afternoon I did some chainsawing and stacking, trying to get the front garden clear, although it'll take a while.

In the evening I went to the 'Powering York; Our Sustainable Future' meeting at Priory Street.  This was a joint meeting between the Open Planning Forum and the York Environment Forum.  There were 3 speakers, Professor John Whitelegg, from the Stockholm Environment Institute, Jacqui Warren the Sustainability Officer from the City of York Council, and Amanda Botterill, from the Yorkshire and Humberside Microgeneration Partnership and it was chaired by Julia Booth, from BBC Radio York.

When I arrived, I was startled to see someone I thought I recognised, my friend Lorna.... but it was actually her identical twin Clare, whom I haven't seen for a couple of years.  We had a good chat before and after the meeting.

Monday 26th September 11

Gill got the boys off to their schools in a taxi, to the Steiner School, and our eldest walked from there.  She stayed at home, and that enabled us to spend some child-free time together, a very rare thing these days. 

But we had a busy morning, Gill made a fruit cake for David, using home made dried fruit and then icing it with a pretend 'Waterlilies by Monet' picture on the top.  It is David's 78th birthday tomorrow.

I carefully took the cake in a bag dangling from my handlebars down to town when I went in for 6pm.  He was thrilled.  We went to City Screen for a coffee and chat, and we met up with Susan, who came back with us to have a slice of cake.