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 30th September 10

Woke at 8 and was told that I'd gone to bed at 9 last night and although I said I'd like to be woken at 10.30 to come and watch Newsnight and get on with housework, I'd grunted at 10.30 and turned over and slept right the way through.  11 hours sleep is rare for me, I usually get 6 or 7.  But I woke feeling refreshed and much bouncier.

It was a good day, the boys went to school and Gill went to physio, and I used the sunny dry day to do some chainsawing and work in the garden.  I also did some fruit drying... pineapple, banana, pear.  I did some paperworky/admin stuff, preparing for the weekend's work. I got a phone call from BBC Radio York who wanted to interview me in Pickering on Saturday, for their Transition event, and they wanted to do a sort of 'my top year and three songs', and we had quite a good conversation.  Right at the end I asked him whether he knew I was standing in an election.  He didn't know there was an election.  I told him about it and he said he'd get back to me about whether it would have any bearing on the interview.  Much later in the day, he rang back and said that it was borderline whether my being interviewed about green issues and standing as a Green Party candidate in an election was a problem, but to be on the safe side, they'd decided not to use me this time.  I think they've got to be careful not to be accused of bias.

At about 7pm I set out to go to the York in Transition meeting, via my agent's house as I've not been able to contact him.  I left a message through his letterbox.  Then over to Andreas's house, and I was pleased to see his wife Catherine before she went out to work.  Edward and Peter were at the meeting too, and we had a productive meeting and all of us have things to do to take York in Transition forward.  I cycled back via an almond tree I'd discovered and picked a bag of almonds.

Back at 11pm and settled down to the usual mix of computer and washing up... and then there were screams upstairs.  One of our boys was being sick.... poor him.  It took ages to clear up.

Friday 27th November 09

A good day!

Did quite a bit in the garden and building a logpile on the left of the front door, looking out, visited Richard at Country Fresh and met a nice law student called Gita, who knew of me as 'Compost John' from discussions at the Students' allotment.

Spent quite a bit of time sorting out the stuff from there, loading up the big Compostumbler with shredded hedge and greengrocers' unsold goodies.

I had an early tea... an aubergine thrown out for no good reason, and some slices of 'nutolene' that Gill found in the loft, in tins from a Suma order years ago. They are dated best before sometime in 2008 but as far as I'm concerned, it's OK, and 5 hours later, I'm not dead. I sliced this and fried it on the stove, and made two 'burger' things with Foccacia rolls that Gilly bought, with broccoli, baked beans and some home-made coleslaw.

Then I went out to 'The Climate Connection' meeting organised by York and Ryedale Friends of the Earth at the Friends Meeting House in town. This was a meeting to give information about the path towards the vital Copenhagen talks next week, and a chance for York people to hear what some local decision makers think about it, and ask them questions.

My friend Kate Lock chaired, and the panel were Andreas Heinemeyer from the Stockholm Environment Institute, Andrew Waller who is the leader of the City of York Council, Hugh Bayley our MP, and Mike Childs from FoE. The format was that they each had a chance to say what they wanted and then faced a couple of questions before the next panellist came on. Then all four of them faced a 'Question Time' type situation.

Andreas presented his take on climate change, which as a scientist had plenty of facts and figures, but as a father, had a soft side too. I've seen him present this before and he's one of the best, very accessible and easy to listen to.

Andrew Waller had a slide show showing some of the ways which York is responding to the issues. He had just come back from the Leeds City Region Housing Strategy and learning that York is to have it's own 'Urban Eco Settlement' where the British Sugar site was. He had slides of the Eco Depot, built with straw and with an innovative automatic ventilation system, and the Clifton Moor Eco Business Centre built by The Helmsley Group. I didn't know that York has a Passivhaus, (here's a good pdf from Leeds Metropolitan University on the development) but I did know about Elm Tree Mews in New Earswick, six homes heated by one ground source heat pump and with other built-in innovations. He mentioned the Joseph Rowntree Housing Association's other eco-experiment (to-be) at Derwenthorpe, near Osbaldwick and a 1930's semi they've bought and are retrofitting to high ecological standards. Andrew then turned to the carbon emissions from Council activities and property, which they have promised to reduce by 25% by 2013 using a carbon management system. This includes a new school which is heated with wood pellets, and a campaign to get shops to keep their doors shut in cold weather, keeping the warmth in (but hopefully not the customers out!)

Hugh Bayley was on good form and he too was pleased about the 'Eco-District' to be built on the brown-field British Sugar site. I didn't make any more notes about what Hugh said, nor any from Mike Childs apart from he was talking about leadership and the power that ordinary people have to lobby our leaders. The Climate Change Act only got through because of the thousands of us pushing the Government into it.

The Question Time bit of the meeting was excellent, with a first question on population and another on economic growth. I asked if any of the panel had measured their carbon footprint and which calculator they'd used. Mike said he had done his but had forgotten what the figure was, and that he 'was doing enough'; Andreas said he'd done lots of them and they all came up with different figures, but as he refused to fly, he was pleasantly surprised how low it was, Hugh admitted it was something he was going to have to do, to be able to say whether he manages his personal 10:10 pledge, and Andrew also didn't give a figure. Kate was the only one who knew her CO2e footprint had dropped from 16 tonnes to 12 over the 2 years she was writing her book. I suggested that people try The Carbon Account as it was so easy and visual. It actually doesn't matter which one you use... what's important is that people measure it now, make changes, and use the same calculator again to see the changes. Kate added some information about the Green Streets Challenge which she is involved with (door knocking!) and there were further questions about the Local Transport Plan and a complicated one about outcomes and policy.

All together it was a packed evening, with lots of information and I really enjoyed it.

I didn't hang around for too long, and was home by 10pm. I read Gill my notes and then typed up my blog whilst listening to music on BBC 2 and then Channel 4.

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!