Sunday 27th November 11

I had a good long sleep, til after 10, but got up and watched some of Country Tracks and had a shower and got slowly ready for work.

I set off after lunch to go to a birthday party in Clifton Moor, so I cycled down to James Street and then onto the cycle track to Wigginton Road, up to the Bumper Castle and over to the Community Centre on Rivelin Way... in about 25 minutes.

The party went really well, the 7 year old boy and his friends had a good time and I was pleased that his Mum had booked the space for 2 1/2 hours, so there was no hurrying and I even had time at the end to make a teddy bear and a Weeble, which I don't usually do in my balloon show.

I came home an even quicker way, along Water End into Clifton and then straight through town and home in 20 minutes!

I had a peaceful evening, enjoyed a baked potato and the mushrooms I picked on Thursday, which I cooked and bunged in the fridge.

Saturday 26th November 11, Leeds Summat

An intense and full and busy and awesome day, and one that's taken AGES to write up!

I'd wondered about going to the Leeds Summat for some time, and decided last night that I would go... even though it entailed a very early start.  I unhitched my trailer and left it at home (trailers aren't allowed on trains) and cycled to the station to get the 8.25, which got in just before 9am.  It only took me 5 minutes to cycle up to the University from Leeds station, and I found the venue, the Student Union building, very easily.  I haven't been there for years.

I had a float around and chatted with a young politics student before the opening at 10am, had a coffee and a croissant and went to the Riley Smith Hall.  I was pleased to meet my friend Justin Rowlatt, the journalist who became 'Ethical Man' for a year.  He and his wife have family in Leeds.

He was on stage for the opening session, along with Rommie Smith, a poet, Hilary Benn, MP for Leeds and ex Environment Minister, a trainee barrister called Maryam Mir, a chap from Land Securities called Gerald Jennings, Maurice Glasman, a Labour Peer, and a local activist, Nic Greenan.  The host or chair was Harry Gration the TV presenter.  Between them they introduced the Summat, which was framed with the recent 'Arab Spring', the Occupy movement, the recent riots (which didn't happen in Leeds due partly to some intervention from youth leaders), and the 200th anniversary of the Luddite Uprising.

There was a wide ranging discussion, which identified a key cause of the problems, which we think is inequality.  Maybe there should be a maximum wage?  Land ownership is another massive issue, another sort of inequality.  Justin identified that he thought that there was a lot of ideological baggage in the green movement, and he is pro-nuclear power, and pro-genetically modified organisms.  He told us that there are a lot of positive things happening, as he's just come back from the Amazon rainforest, and seen how that moves are afoot to stop (or at least slow) the deforestation.  However, time was against us and that session ended, and I went to the next thing I was interested in.

This was an introduction to the Enneagram, which is a way of analysing one's personality. I've been interested in exploring personality traits for a long time, partly because I have an unusual one, and in some areas, I'm quite extreme and this has caused some problems and clashes. My favourite was the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicators, but I'd never heard about Enneagram.  All the participants stood around a large diagram laid out on the floor, with the 9 different personality types, Challenger, Peacemaker, etc etc, and a couple of chaps explained how it worked and what the various things meant and how it could be used.  I was fairly interested, and might explore it further.

However, the next session was really good; I chose to go and see Mary from Incredible Edible Todmorden talk and show her slides.  I am, like many, very inspired by this project, and indeed, it has inspired the formation of Edible York.  It was good to hear one of the founders talk us through the project.

Then I went to a session called Activism and Social Change in the main hall, with Justin Rowlatt, Peter Tatchell the veteran human rights activist, Khadijah Ibrahim founder of Leeds Young Authors, Benny Wenda from Free West Papua, and at least one other.  I particularly enjoyed hearing about Tatchell's 'citizen's arrest' of Robert Mugabe, and the overall message of this session was believe in yourself, listen to others and learn from others.

Finally, there was a session hosted by Green Drinks Leeds, which also resulted in a few good conversations.

In the evening I cycled over to a different venue nearby, and there was a bit of live music and some good food, and I met my old friend Louie, whom I've known for years and years from festivals. He was there with his daughter, and I was really glad to see him as he's a very jolly fellow.  I didn't spend a long time at the evening gig, and cycled back to the station and got back to York at about midnight.

This post took months to complete as I have so much happening in my life, not helped by computer breakdowns and still writing a daily post.  However, I do like to publish in sequence, so once this post is made public, I'll post a whole load more in batches, which were days with a bit less happening and less to write about.  I may even catch up and publish the day's blog on the day it happened, like I did for a long time....

Monday 13th February 12

Up early and a busy day.  I had a huge load of washing up to do from the weekend, and log supplies were running low.

Treemendous York meeting at St Leonard's.  I agreed to create a Google Map of potential sites to put trees, and to work with a Tree Warden to make an invite to householders to plant trees in their front gardens in winter 2012/13.

Baked potato for tea

North Yorkshire Humanists in the evening.

Not much time allowed on the computer as mine is still not working and so I was allowed half an hour on the kids computer before the room was again transformed into a bedroom and I was chucked out.

Friday 25th November 11

Quite a good day, the most productive part was the York in Transition Thermal Imaging Camera meeting at Andreas' house in the evening.

As for what else happened, well it was so mundane and ordinary that I couldn't even be bothered to write about it!!!

Thursday 24th November 11 Hedge Laying

For maybe 20 years, one of the many things in my list of 'I'd like to try' was hedge laying... a way of pruning and managing a field boundary which rejuvenates the vegetation, and looks attractive, and makes it 'stock-proof', ie sheep and cattle cannot get though it.  Well, today I had my chance!

However, it meant visiting a place I have boycotted since it got built: The McArthur Glen Designer Outlet Centre, which was built on the site of the old Naburn Hospital, and the site of my first Non Violent Direct Action, trying to prevent an out-of-town shopping centre being built.  Part of this site was an old orchard, and fortunately, although hundreds of trees were cut down to build shops and car parking, the orchard escaped.  More recently, there were plans to build a garden centre over the orchard area, but the community who valued these trees rose up and stopped the development.  McArthur Glen has entrusted the orchard to Fulford Community Orchard.

So the Southern edge of the orchard is a belt of trees and an old overgrown hawthorn hedge, with some of the trees making this hedge having trunks up to 20cm across... not the best size for trying to lay at 90 degrees to the way they naturally grow.  I arrived at 9.30 and some BTCV volunteers were taking tools towards the hedge, and Paul, the leader took us through the basics, what the tools were, a brief health and safety talk, and then he put me with an experienced hedge layer, who showed me how he did it.

The hedge had already been thinned out a bit, and the tops taken off, so the height was perhaps 4 to 5 metres, and some of the dead wood removed.  The method was to make a horizontal cut with a bow saw quite near the ground, and then to cut away above this with a billhook, making a sloping cut, to allow the top of the plant to be carefully bent over to near horizontal, where it rests on the last one laid down.  The important part is there needs to be a little bit of bark hinge connecting the now horizontal part with the roots, so it can keep growing and be a living hedge.  However, these old plants had quite brittle stems as they were old, and some broke off as they were carefully bent over.  But this is OK really, as they are staked into place with the still living stems, and other cut wood put in too, to make a 'dead hedge', filling in the gaps and making the hedge more solid. I found using the billhook quite difficult, as it's a two-handed tool, and I'm used to using a machete, which is one-handed.  But we got our stretch done, and I was really pleased with this.

I left at about 2.30, as I wanted to collect some fungi I'd seen on the way in; I got a good bag full of shaggy ink caps, which have a wonderful delicate flavour, one of my favourite mushrooms.

I got in just before 4pm and had an hour and a half before going out to work for David... we went to City Screen and he caught up with a newspaper, and I met up with my friends Jonathan and Trish.

Wednesday 23rd November 11

Well today I was due to go to donate platelets at Seacroft Hospital in Leeds... I took pears to Scoop, and spotted the preparation on Walmgate Stray to burn the big pile of brushwood which had been piled up since summer when the new fence was put in, and I'd asked the Council not to burn, but to leave as a wildlife resource.  As I cycled down to Scoop, at about 9.30 the little bulldozer was being taken out of a trailer behind a tractor, and as I cycled past again, the workmen were setting fire to the big pile of brash.  This is bad practice; if having a bonfire, it is far better to move the material to be burnt to an area near the storage pile, which may very well have got wildlife living in it.  The fire should have material added to it from the initial pile, but on Walmgate Stray, the big pile was torched in a very lazy and uncaring manner.  I was quite angry, and started composing a letter complaining about this.

I cycled on to the train station to get a bus. I had a bit of a drippy nose, but thought this might be an allergy, rather than a cold, so I decided it was OK to donate.

I donated 3 units of platelets in 67 minutes. I didn't feel that brilliant during the donation, and the staff asked me if I was well enough to donate.  However, I do get a runny nose fairly often, and have done since childhood.

Bus back, came home, flopped, and went for a lie down.

However, I needed to collect the unsold pears from Scoop, and then there was a seminar on sustainable development, organised by the University International Development Society.  The speaker was Professor Piran White, Deputy Head at the Environment Department.  It was a good overview about what sustainable development entailed.

Later, I wrote to the Press about the Council's bonfire, and copied in Andy D'Agorne, who'd been party to the discussion earlier this year.

Tuesday 22nd November 11

Bit of a lie in, and a fairly relaxed day. I was supposed to take my bike into Cycle Heaven in the morning but I didn't get it together til mid afternoon.

Ash told me that they had this one last Weber hitch left, and their supplier couldn't get any more.  However, I'm not that happy with the Weber trailer hitch, as it wears through (with the hammering I give it!) really quickly... this last one has lasted about a year.  So this one might be the last one that Ash fits, and he showed me another trailer hitch which might be more suitable for my needs.  However, he doesn't know if it comes separately from the trailer that it's attached to!

I left my bike and trailer at Cycle Heaven and walked into town to pay our water bill, get a cheque out for my Leeds Yellow Pages, and put two cheques in.

That didn't take long, so I walked up to see Pauline, who was in, and seemed glad to see me.  We chatted for half an hour and then I walked back to Cycle Heaven, paid for my trailer hitch and cycled home.

Had a quiet evening, didn't do much apart from turn out the pear leather from it's tin onto a non stick sheet to continue drying.