Wednesday 29th June 11

I got up early to load up my trailer with the shredder.  Then at 8.30 I cycled in with our youngest and when he was in school I got the school extension cable and ran it from a socket in the sports hall to the path next to the compost heap.  A few weeks ago the school was decorated with a vast amount of vegetation, which before I arrived would have just been thrown in a pile and forgotten, once it had been taken down.  However, I asked for it to be put next to the compost bin I built, and today was the day to process it into something compostable.

I spent about 3 hours dealing with it, and also started to manage the existing compost bins, a pair of New Zealand bins, full to overflowing with uncomposted sticks and quite a lot of soil, and ants.  I pulled out lots of sticks and shredded these too.  I'll be riddling all of this material quite soon, so that Dave the gardening teacher can have some nice composty soil to do things with.  He commented that it looked a bit time intensive, so I told him it would make great compost and not need riddling, like the unruly pile of soil and sticks would... and that will take some time!  I got quite prickled with the bits of rose stem in amongst the shreddables, and bitten a lot by the ants.

I chatted to several people whilst working, all pleased to see something being done with the compost.  I'm glad the school are positive about it!  Much better than Lord Deramore's; that was a battle.

I came home for lunch and spent an hour on the computer before going back to pick up our little cyclist.  I went via Country Fresh and collected about 80kg of stuff, some of which I put on top of the woody shreddings, to help rot them down.

When I got home I did another batch of riddling, compost and loam, to make a potting mix for some tomatoes and cucumbers, which I proceeded to plant up.  I also did some weeding under a hedge in preparation for cutting it soon.

So a productive day outside.  In the evening I lit the stove and did a massive wash up, and prepared 24 'Chiquita Minis' for drying, tiny and very sweet bananas, from Country Fresh.

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.

Monday 27th June 11

I had a relaxing day in some ways following a busy weekend.  I got up after 9 and had a fairly 'normal' morning with washing up and doing assorted paperwork and dealing with a couple of phone calls, emptying the vacuum cleaner, and other jobs around the house.

It was really hot outside but I did a bit of stuff in the garden around lunchtime, but then later, at about 4pm, I did a good lot, loading up a compost bin, shredding some bits and bobs which have been hanging around for ages, and then preparing several sacks of lumpy turf for the raised bed by bunging it through the motorised riddle.  I got very hot so spent an hour working naked... the hedges are thick and no-one overlooks the garden so it was just really nice in the late afternoon heat, especially when it started raining a bit at about 5pm.

However at 6pm I came in and had a quick solar-heated shower, a bite to eat and then at 6.45, got on my bike and sped down to David's, as he was planning to go out to City Screen tonight.  He supports the York Blind and Partially Sighted Society, and tonight was an 'open mic' fundraiser in the Basement.  So I heated up his tea and after that we toddled off to the City Screen, had a coffee and then went to the Basement and got a good place to sit and watch. 

There were an assortment of stand up comedians and a couple of bands, and my friend Debra arrived so I stood up and let her sit with David.  She was glad of the seat, I didn't mind standing.  We left at about 10pm, during the interval, but he'd enjoyed the event.  I left him at 10.30 after he gave me my June cheque.

So a late night as Gill had been to a parents evening at the Steiner School and spent a long time telling me all about that.  And then I played a bit of Scrabble, watched YouTube videos of some UFOs in London a few days ago, and wrote this up.

Sunday 26th June 11

The hottest day of the year so far, and unfortunately I was working.  However, despite the heat, it was a good day.

I got my trailer loaded up with all my Fiddlesticks stuff and at 9am, set out for Acomb to hopefully get to Alison's for 9.30.  I was a few minutes late but she wasn't ready.... her two teen offspring were coming too so I had a few minutes to wait whilst they got themselves ready.

Alison works for Wakefield Council and was partly responsible for the Green Living Day at Waterton Countryside Discovery Centre.  She is an energy advice person and the stalls at this event were a mix of solar panel installers, cycling advocates, the RSPB, Woodland Trust and the like.  I found a reasonable place with some shade, and hard-standing for the unicycle toys.  I was busy from 11am all the way through til 4pm, with just 10 minutes break for lunch.

I did get very hot and a bit sunburnt, but there were a constant stream of contented punters which was good... kept me busy!

I dozed on the way home to Alison's and then woke up (fortunately!) for the cycle back to Hull Road.

Gill made me some tea, a really good salad, and then at 9 I went out and did an hour and a half of filling the orchard raised bed with 4 barrows of rich compost, and 2 barrows of soil.  It isn't full yet but tomorrow I'll finish it and plant it up.

Enjoyed some more of the Glastonbury coverage but not everything, I really wasn't into Beyonce.

Saturday 25th June 11, Sheffield Green Fair

Well another day of work, but one of my favourites, despite last year breaking my ankle at the Sheffield Green Fair.  So I got the 9.35 train and chatted with a nice lady who was heading to a cricket match in Gloucester with her husband and son.

I got to Sheffield at 10.20 and walked up to St Marys, took about 20 minutes.  The Fair started at 11 so I was in good time.  I had a wander around and chatted with one of my favourite Sheffield Green Fair people, Richard Clare, who is heavily involved with the Sheffield Organic Food Initiative, Grow!Sheffield, Abundance, Landshare and Allotment Soup.  He had his usual seed packets and I bought a few which I hope I'll get round to planting.

I got a vegan spinach and mushroom roll from New Roots, a volunteer-run veggie, vegan and fair-trade food shop (two shops!), and chatted with the nice folks at Waste Wood Briquettes and Litton Logs, who are one and the same thing. Finally I found the inside area with the Sheffield Humanists and a nice wood-turner who told me that on the Sheffield Woodturning Club wetbsite there was a page of links to other woodturning groups, where I might be able to find a buyer for my big cherry logs.

My work consisted of a load of unicycling around, and then soon after midday a one-hour show which went well... in the middle of which I spotted my Mum so I shot over and said hello to her.  I continued the show and when I'd done the 'two tricks at the same time' finale, had lunch with her, sitting in the shade of a tree, eating sandwiches.  Good to see her, it's been a while. My sis Anna was there too, helping with the Sheffield Freegle stall, and quite a few other lovely people I know.


After lunch I did mostly balloons as it was too hot to be unicycling around, but I had a constant stream of eager kids wanting dogs, kangaroos, giraffes, and dog's dinners.  Oh, and a few fighting worms.  So I did another circus bit as I was getting bored of balloons, and this became pretty full-on with more children wanting to participate than I could cope with.  At about 4.30 I went to get my cheque and then went to get changed.... when I came out there were two more kids wanting balloon animals.  I made them an elephant and a mouse, and got out of there, walking down to the station. 

My train was over half an hour away so I had a mocha and watched a pigeon.  On the train I met a lovely mother-daughter combo, coming back from holiday in Taunton, and we talked about all sorts, it was a nice way to spend an hour and it made the journey go quickly.

Home by 7.30 and Gill had made quiche to go with the last of the onion soup.  A chilled evening followed, enjoyed half-listening to Glastonbury on the TV.

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.

Thursday 23rd June 11

A quiet day, woken by a phone call for a Fiddlesticks enquiry soon after 9, and so I got up and got myself together.  A non-eventful morning, and most of the afternoon too. 

The best thing to happen was that our eldest helped me make the raised bed in the orchard.  We collected a pile of old bricks, 'clamp bricks' from the shared pathway between ours and next door, and took them in the wheelbarrow to the orchard where we made a front wall to the bed, with the most visible bricks the old, nice looking ones, and the new bricks being used for the structural back to this front wall... no mortar, and it's only about 6 bricks high, so little risk of it collapsing.

I also did a shopping trip to Sainsburys... margarine, a kilo box of bran flakes, a loaf of lovely bread, some vegan ice cream, 4 kg of pasta.  I cycled home via Freshways and picked up 2 sacks of compostables.. but luckily there were a load of onions and a load of apples.  I decided to make some onion soup, and dried apples.

So, later in the evening I did make onion soup.... 7 free onions, one purchased potato, some home grown squash, the last of last year's crop. All cooked up on the woodstove.... great!