Monday 7th December 09

Up before 8.30 in case the builders came whilst Gill was taking our youngest to school... and they walked down as he's achy and bruised from falling over at the ice rink last night.

The plumber, Lee, working with Harris Builders arrived at 8.30 and started checking through the various boxes and packages which have arrived from Solartwin. He found that the large box which contained the cylinder part of the system had been bashed and had a damaged corner. However, this is, I hope, cosmetic damage and is the result of inadequate packaging and mishandling. Although I'm not a fan of excess packaging, it has a purpose... protection... and in this case, some extra polystyrene or thick card on each corner would have protected the contents better. I wonder if we'll get any money back for this?

Fortunately the huge panel was in perfect condition, and all the other bits and bobs seemed to have arrived. Lee's brother Andy arrived and they worked harmoniously til after 5, but they just did the internal work. Tomorrow morning the panel will be hoisted up to the roof and fixed in. I don't think they fancied it in the rain.

I spent the whole day at the house, making sure the chaps were well dosed with tea and anything else they needed. I chopped up another load of apples for drying and did a wash up and made another batch of tomato soup on the woodstove, this time with a slice of pumpkin whizzed up into it. I also started building the logpile on the right hand side of the front door, looking out. With both stoves going now, we are getting through the logs really quickly.

So, pasties and soup for tea... the soup was delicious.

At 7pm I got myself ready to go down to the Seahorse to attend the last LETS core group meeting of the year, and the social and trading afterwards. The meeting was very well attended, probably because of the social. The funniest thing was that Rakesh brought loads of goodies to trade and this generated quite a bit of excitement and more trading than the core group meetings have seen over the whole year... I think anyhow! We did have a short meeting and I took minutes and will write them up. I was pleased to chat with Jini, whom I've not got to know before now. So, an enjoyable meeting and I brought back some interesting edibles.

I got home soon after 10.30 and watched Newsnight which had reports from Copenhagen, and wrote up the YiT emails from last night.

Wednesday 14th October 09

A very late morning... Gill got me up at 8 to see if I could sort out a child's bike brakes (which I did) and I then went back to bed, til 11. Lovely. Partly as I was up til 3am last night... or this morning, if you want.

So, after lunch I did a big load of shredding, the stuff I cut yesterday. Then I attacked the hedge again and yanked out a load more, cutting the roots and bottom of the plant off and removing all the spare soil, and pulling congested roots apart. This realised another 60 plants, which I bunged in a sack and invited another Freecycler to come and get.

I worked up until teatime and had a quick tea and then went to the Hull Road Ward Committee meeting which was just round the corner. This was the meeting where this year's funding applications are presented. John from St Nicks presented his request... something towards a new CCTV system and another requested grant towards some new play equipment. Then people in the ward vote for which ones they like and don't like... and the Council decisdes who gets the money.

This finished at about 8.30 and I popped in back home to check all was well, and then cycled down to Green Drinks for a single pint, just one hour. Had some chats with Ivana and Graham, Dave and Jennie, and a couple of others, but I was tired and came away at 10. Glad I did as when I got home I watched Newsnight which had a piece on the Green Movement with Justin Rowlatt and Caroline Lucas. 'Twas good.

So, a quiet evening followed, ploughing through emails, following up various things I'm obligated to do.

Tuesday 28th April 09

A rainy day, and we were expecting a Suma order so we stayed in... the delivery was much later than usual and arrived after 1pm. Despite the rain, I did a good wood stack outside the front door.

I also did some weeding as some weeds come out more easily if the soil is wet, and did some compost heap management, piling several sack's worth of assorted veg on the current pile, with a good layer of woodchips from a stumpgrinding operation at Woodlands last year.

We had leek and potato soup with some garlic bread... Gill's home-made bread... and the last slices of yesterday's nutloaf.

At 7pm I cycled down to the Museum Gardens to attend the meeting of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in the Tempest Anderson Hall, a lecture by Dr John Barrett from the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York. I've been to quite a few of John's lectures and they're always good, this one was called 'The Carbon Footprint Of Everything We Consume' and although I knew quite a bit of it already, I learned new things about 'consumption based emissions' and 'greenhouse development rights', and things which will hopefully come to pass at the Copenhagen Climate Talks in December. I have quite a bit of research to do...

I asked a question at the end about carbon calculators and John suggested two I could try, the WWF calculator and he B&Q One Planet Living calculator, both of which were developed by SEI, with the B&Q one in association with Bioregional.

I have been meaning to join YPS for some time, so tonight I did. I was then able to go to the small gathering in the Gatehouse for a few chats and glass of wine.

Zipped home in order to see Newsnight which I had hoped would have the Ethical Man meets Joe Jenkins, author of The Humanure Handbook, 'the book which changed my life', but unfortunately he wasn't featured, he was left on the cutting room floor as it were. Relegated to a mention on the blog. How sad! How disappointing! Missed opportunity BBC!

But, on searching the blog for the mention, I find that there is a vid of the piece they didn't broadcast. Seeing this made me happy. Another 13 seconds of (nameless!) fame... just over 2 minutes in, and how nice to see my hero Joe. Cool. (not Joe Cool, Joe Jenkins...)

Gill and I watched a film 'Wimbledon' which was quite good.

Wednesday 22nd April 09

Ahhh, a lie-in! how nice! I got up at 10 and Gill was already at Art, so I finished off my column on cosmetics and sent it in. This took til lunchtime, mainly because I got distracted by Scrabble on Facebook and chat, and interesting links... but by late lunch, was finished.

Gill came in and got a picnic together and went on the bus down to town to meet her 'Ladies who Lunch' friends, Melody and Alison, and had a picnic with them in Museum Gardens.

I just mooched around, dealt with a couple of phone calls, did some housework and planted some broccoli, calabrese and curly kale seeds.

My friend Robin had made contact with someone who lives near him who has just taken down a holly tree and passed my her details to me, so I rang her and she said it would be OK to go within the next hour. So I refilled my chainsaw with lube oil and got the loppers, and cycled over to near the Hospital along the Route 66 cycle track.

She'd taken down one holly, and I cut up the two trunks which she'd denuded of side branches. But a sizable one metre stump remained and I eventually removed that, leaving a 30cm stump. There was one other job she wanted doing, removing an overhanging branch of a sycamore. This was more difficult as my chainsaw, or perhaps the electric supply to it was malfunctioning. But I did manage to get some of it down.. but after an hour and a half working there, I'd had enough so I loaded up my trailer with some of the holy logs and went. I'll go back in the next week or so and finish the job.

Home to a happy house, nice tea and pleasant evening. I was disappointed that Newsnight focussed on the budget and didn't have Ethical Man on.

Wednesday 15th April 09

Excellent day... went first to Bishopthorpe to visit Loretta who had asked me to go with log splitting equipment to split a load of holly logs she had got. I split all these, plus some other logs (elder, pine) and had a look at her compost bin, at her request, and round the garden looking to identify some plants Loretta could not...

Then on to Brunswick Organic Nursery to get some vegetable seedlings. But they are not quite ready for sale yet, except the Calabrese. I bought some lunch and ate it there, and had a brief chat with Adam the chief honcho which was nice.

Then on to see Pauline... but I stopped on Bishopthorpe Road where a vehicle had come off the road a while ago, uprooting a stretch of hedge, which I trimmed with my bowsaw and took the biggest chunks in my trailer. Then cycled to Pauline's to chop a few of her logs, with my big bowsaw, which has a log blade on it, whereas hers has a blade which is better suited to dried wood. Had a coffee and chopped her logs, chatted to her grand-daughter who was helping her with some painting.

Then towards 3pm, to 'York Beach' which is under Ouse Bridge, on the Queens Staith side of the river. Members of York in Transition had arranged to meet a Press photographer here to publicise the Age of Stupid showing at City Screen on 26th April. He arrived and had quite a few suggestions about what and what wouldn't work, so Edward, Candy and I did a variety of poses for the camera! We then all went to City Screen to get another few.

We had just finished when I met my friends Trish, Dexter and Miladdio, which was nice.

Then onto Country Fresh with an AoS poster, and St Nicks with my second AoS poster and flyers.

Then home! The family had gone into town to go to the Warhammer shop, as both boys are getting into these little models, and they came back and started painting them up and gluing them together. I spent some time with them and had a word game with my eldest.

Minimal tea, enjoyed Newsnight as it was Ethical Man's second USA outing.

Wednesday 8th April 09

An early start as had been booked to go to Bish Street Kids playscheme in Bishopthorpe, so by 9.30 was loaded up with the full circus workshop kit, and cycled off down Heslington Road, Cemetery Road, across the Millennium Bridge and out to Bishopthorpe.

David the photographer, who had planned to come and record today's event, had phoned in unwell so I just got on with what I am good at; a one hour show and workshop, followed by a freeplay workshop, then lunch, more freeplay workshop, finishing with the balloon modelling workshop. The 20 or so children had a good time, so did I, and was finished by about 3pm.

Called in on David on the way home to wish him well, and came home to find a reasonably calm house. I had a bit of peace and quiet and then did some more sorting out in the garden. Got some more of Ali's compost ready, and a bit later, had a chat to her as she wants to come and collect some, to mix with the topsoil she's been given on Freecycle for her wheelchair-user friendly raised bed garden.

Ate tea all together and had some good giggles and chats, a peaceful evening mostly.

Enjoyed Newsnight as the return of Ethical Man was on, saving America from it's huge carbon footprint... well, kind of!

Monday 16th February 09

A swift start to the day, as had to take my bike into Cycle Heaven for an overhaul and then get to the station for soon after 10.

My bike needed coaxing down to town... no acceleration at all... a real problem! But I did slowly get to the shop and showed them the problem. The front cog teeth were worn down into spikes, meaning a new cog and chain were necessary. I had noticed a loose spoke.. on closer inspection, it was obvious that it had pulled free of the wheel hub, which had broken... How DO I do it? However, the hub is under warranty and they'll send it back to the manufacturers who will (probably and hopefully) decide to replace it. So I left it there in good hands and walked up to the station.

I got the 10.26 to Middlesbrough, and at 11.30, met Andy from the BBC, who is doing the Inside Out segment on an experiment to see if someone could live on £1 a day for a week. The subject of the experiment is John Foster who is a radio presenter on BBC Tees, and I met him next, the meeting being filmed by the same cameraman who did the Yorkshire Inside Out piece in 2007. We then headed to a Thomas the Baker shop which does the reduced price bread, known as Yesterbake, where we did some filming, and then onto a veg shop where John was unable to get any cheap veg, so no filming there. Onto a park where I was lucky enough to find some edible mushrooms and John and I did an interview about the connections between his experiment and low carbon living.

Then John went home (on his bike... actually a borrowed bike as he hasn't got one!) and I went with the two Inside Out chaps to a noodle bar for a late lunch.

I got the 3.50 train back to York... I slept on the train, headache throbbing, very tired.

Collected my bike from Cycle Heaven and cycled home... lovely to have such a responsive bike again!

I went straight to bed as I felt very tired and unwell. Slept til after 8 and came down to spend some time with the family but I don't think I was much company. Headache all evening. Didn't eat as felt sick. Dosed up on painkillers, which didn't work.

Good to see Justin Rowlatt back doing Ethical Man on Newsnight... he's off to the US to 'save the world' apparently! Good luck to him!

Sunday 9th March 08

A lovely day to start with, a lie in whilst the children played with lego, then breakfast and I went on the computer to email my Newsnight and 'One Show' friend Justin Rowlatt about my Oxfam competition win, and the possibility of getting the subject onto Newsnight and/or the One Show.
I also emailed Newsnight direct and kept Oxfam in the loop. I want to take this opportunity to get carbon rationing and low carbon choices into the public arena again, and as many people as possible to consider what they can do to cut their emissions.

Watched Countryfile out of the corner of my eye too... multitasking with several electrical appliances on....

Weds 11th April 07

A lovely day weatherwise so got started early with some Green Party local election leaflet deliveries. I went with Debbie who enjoyed the round last time and had asked that she could help again. This delivery was Fishergate Ward, but a different area, someone elses round. It didn't take long with the two of us and we visited some housing we hadn't seen before, new flats and small houses off Hull Road.

I cycled into town to do my Wednesday compostables pick up, and got some vegan ice cream for Gill who reacts badly to cow's milk products. Vegan products also have less of a carbon footprint too, as cows produce loads of methane and use lots of resources such as water and feed, which has it's own carbon footprint. The 'Swedish Glace'ice cream also tastes lovely, but is a lot more expensive than dairy.

I also visited the Yorkshire Museum with the Morel fungus I found over the weekend on the allotment. Pip Strang the expert there says she will identify it... I was suprised to hear from her that there are 18 British species, my book lists just two! She'll contact me with a identification in a couple of weeks.

During the afternoon I did a lot of riddling of finished compost, to make the stuff usable and separate the uncomposted sticks and non-compostables (stones, little bits of plastic) from the fantastic crumbly rich particles of 'humus' or biologically active carbon-rich matter, perfect for adding to growing media for healthy plants and crops. The seeds are in, I need lots of compost to add to leafmold and loam to grow them in. So I'm bagging up the riddled stuff ready for this season. My riddle is a sheet of chicken wire mounted on a wooden frame, about 1.5m square. I also have a 'rotaseive' which is smaller and has smaller holes, producing a finer grained compost.

This afternoon's York Press had our letters published, mine about the lack of response from Lloyds TSB about my offering to help them with reducing waste, and one from Gill saying she considered me an Eco-Lover not an Eco-Warrior.

In the evening I attended the first meeting of York CRAG, Carbon Rationing Action Group. This was interesting and I enjoyed it a lot. The basic idea is to help citizens to reduce their carbon emissions and save resources for future generations. This will be done by offering a carbon calculator to measure annual emissions, and setting a target to try to aim for (or under!). There will be regular meetings to inform, educate and encourage, perhaps themed to get people with different interests involved and on board. We may perhaps set a penalty for those who go over the target, a financial penalty per kilo, which would be paid into an account and used to offset those extra emissions. The offsetting could be local, such as helping to pay for insulation or energy efficient lightbulbs for a CRAG member who's finding the target difficult to attain. We're meeting in a fortnight and will debate and agree Mission, Aims and Objectives plus discuss (and agree?) the structure of the group.

I got home just in time to see the Newsnight 'Ethical Man' special, in which I featured, helping Justin Rowlatt with composting and helping Ethical Man go on his way ethically, by composting him. It was a good programme and I think was a fitting end to his year-long project. And I've benefitted as I now have a column in Community Care magazine (starting at the end of the month) and a new career begnning.

What a day!

Tuesday 10th April 07

A good morning as I had some post from the BBC, Sara the Newsnight Ethical Man reporter sent me 2 DVDs, one with the Panorama programme and the other with the filmlet about water which went out on Newsnight last year and featured my compost toilet. She advised me that the 'Death of Ethical Man' filmlet was due to go out on 11th, that's tomorrow!

After an early lunch went into St Nicks to meet up with the 'Crossroads' crew and split logs with them (rather, oversee them splitting logs with an axe!) and I met the Crossroads boss, and gave her my card in case she wants to have me for anything. We managed to finish splitting the logs and stacking them, well done all!

Monday 2nd April 07

Easter Hols, for the children, so had a relatively late morning in bed. Spent some time re-reading 'The New Woodburner's Handbook' by Stephen Bushway, which Bill and Dinah brought back to me. It's American but an excellent overview with much detailed analysis.

Once I'd got up properly I did some outside stuff, including making a lot of seed compost as the boys want to plant their Morning Glories, Sunflowers and my Squash seeds. There's lots more to plant too, so I made a lot. It's mainly leafmold with a small amount of seived loam and garden compost. I also added a quarter bag of commercial seed compost from a bag rescued from a skip.

When Gill had come back from getting bread and milk (although we have a doorstep milk delivery we sometimes need to 'top up' with Co-op shop milk in plastic bottles, which are recyclable but not reusable like glass milk bottles) I went to town to pay in my Out Of This World composting money into York Credit Union, collect the OOTW compostables, buy some goats cheese for Gill and zoom home in time for lunch.

A lovely sunny day, spent much of the afternoon in the garden, as did the kids.

YorkLETS had a meeting in the evening, and it was a good one although not many turned up. We discussed whether to put an advert in the Local Link magazine for new members, and also a combined LETS/Freecycle social. I agreed to contact CAB because they are helping people find ways to get by using less money, and may be holding an event later in the year which we could be invited to. I reported my successful York Co-op Members talk about LETS which resulted in one new member. We planned the AGM in June. A good meeting.

Watched Newsnight hoping that Ethical Man would be on, but he wasn't. Never mind, it could be tomorrow, or sometime later in the week.

Thursday 22 March 07

A pretty mega day.... lots of activity. When I awoke I got up immediately as I knew I had some preparation still to do... So before breakfast I built o logpile on the side of the porch which ran out last night. The wood I stack there has 'air dried' in the open, uncovered, and needs to spend a short while finishing off in a covered position before coming into the house and drying some more before being converted into heat, or use for bathwater, or fried pumpkin slices. So it's a type of rotation, we're now on the carefully stacked pile on the right of the door as we look out of the front, and I'm rebuilding the left. It's quite tricky, as I have to leave air spaces AND ensure it stands up. I have to interlock and leave gaps... an art. And they still fall down occasionally!

Breakfast, hurried the childern to get ready, another fine art as too much chivvying results in the eldest one shouting back at me and having a paddy, and our youngest also doesn't like being told again and again. But why do we have to tell them several times? Because they seem not to listen, ignore us and carry on doing what they were doing rather than getting dressed, washing face, brushing teeth, shoes on, go and get bikes etc etc. If we didn't push them they wouldn't get to school on time, and that is a parental responsibility. They will sometimes question why they have to go to school at all, or refuse to go, and so the morning routine is rarely easy and chilled. It is most often rushed and bad tempered. However once on their bikes they cycle like the wind and appear to want to get to school. Weird, I don't understand.

So when I came back from delivering them, Gill was just leaving with Jane and Mike, her sister and brother in law's car to go to Scarborough to help her Uncle Tom move out of his sheltered accommodation and into a care home, as he's been in hospital after a fall and cannot go back to where he was before. A sad day for him, it must be difficult realising that you are going downhill, always towards death. He has to sell some of his furniture as it isn't fire resistant, and to raise money for a new armchair. Gill's going to empty a dresser of crockery and catalogue it, ready for sale.

I got on with preparing for the Ethical Man team to come and invade the garden and use me to do a tiny segment of their programme. I took straw and sacks of fruit and veg down to the coffin-like composter I've prepared. Got a phone call from Sara the producer, they were on the train, four of them... two cameramen as they've a boom and tripod this time. I put my huge ladder (6 metres unsupported, or 9 metres propped up against something solid) down the garden in case it would be useful, and waited til midday when the taxi arrived. During the wait I created another load of banana and lime leather, as the first lot seems to be a success, and warmed the soup Gill made last night for their lunch. They enjoyed the soup, and we got to working out what was going to happen. The first take was Justin and I walking towards the Compostumbler and then, in turn, rotating it (no pun intended!) and then with Matt the cameraman off the ladder and at ground level, opening the composter and witnessing the water vapour (it's not steam as steam isn't visible...) and Justin over-reacting to the smell, which was rather strong. Matt was brave and filmed the fruit-fly larvae in close up, he admitted to having a phobia of maggots. Then several takes with Justin trying to get me to explain the difference between aerobic composting and anaerobic rotting, with mentions of methane and the fact that anaerobic decomposition (in absence of oxygen) is more polluting re global warming, whereas composting releases only carbon dioxide and water, and results in a usable material great for gardens.

The next take was walking towards the coffin-composter and Justin getting in and discussing the legalities of this disposal method, and then the fun bit, pouring chopped-up and decomposing fruit and veg all over him, and then layers of shredded twigs and woody materials, with me explaining why the mix is needed. Then the gross bit, at J's request, putting composting worms on his face. This is going to be an image that some people never forget, and I don't think Justin will forget it either. It was so weird a thing to see I couldn't help laughing, especially when the worms tried to go in his mouth and ears.

Finally, when he'd got out and got changed, he brought his suit back down and it was laid out on the coffin, sorry, composter, and a 'fruit-face' was created for him... a humerous 'end of Ethical Man'.

Gill arrived back just as Justin was coping with worms doing lots of takes on his face, and was disgusted. Matt also disgusted as he has a worm phobia too! I'm suprised he was willing to come up here again.

Gill went to school as our eldest was in his class assembly, on The Amazon, and he was a sloth. He had lost his script and was the only child to not read his lines, he did them from memory, good lad!

They came back just as the team were preparing to go, which was nice as they met Justin (famous!) and Sara (sweet).

When the Press came Iread it then scanned the small ads in the back, and someone was offering 4 waterbutts for £20, a bargain. I rang and was pleased to find I was the first person to contact them, ring back at 5.30 when husband home. I popped out and got some signatures for the election, and got back in time to ring the waterbutt man. He was insistant that it would be 'first come, first served' so if I wanted them, I had to visit soon as other people had rung up. They live the other side of York, a good 25 minutes cycle away, but I reckoned I'd have time so at 5.40 I set out. The waterbutts were good, I paid and suprised the chap by fitting two on my bike... one lengthways on the trailer and the other accross the rack on the bike. Home by 6.45!

Wolfed the last of yesterday's nutloaf and by 7.10 set off for the CrUST/ Green Festival meeting in Stonegate. A very nice welcome from Tom in The Evil Eye, and a good meeting with Mark and Tracey. Agreed future dates and several ways forward. Work to do, but it's coming on nicely. I like being an organiser, and I feel that they like working with me.

Home at 915 with a load of nice dry St Nick's logs (St Nicked logs?) (No, John said I could!)
Gill had recorded the first of the new 'It's Not Easy Being Green' with the Strawbridge chaps, but I didn't watch it as I was too engrossed with emails. Several finalising ones with Community Care, Graham being very welcoming and explaining about my blog for them. They have a website, I'll have to visit it! Nice email from my friend K in the US (yes the one who asked about composting in a comment on this blog... I asked her to post a comment to see how it worked, and so far she's the only one to read AND post... this may change!) Good to know there's a CRAG group being started in York, Carbon Rationing Action Group..something I'm keen on. Lots of Green Party stuff too, as elections approach there's always lots of activity.

On computer til well after midnight.

1st March 07

Another packed day, starting, for me, with my wife waking me up and telling me it was 8am and time for me to arise and get ready to take the kids to school. Nice to do this as she will be bringing them back this afternoon AND doing both trips tomorrow as I'm in Burnley, leaving at 7am.

Spent some of the morning preparing soup for tea.... a large load of seconds tomatoes had come my way and only some were so bad they had to be composted. All done on the woodstove, of course! The post arrived and it was a good day as I got my quarterly dose of 'The Permaculture Magazine' and my weekly prescription of NewScientist. Both excellent reads, some familliar and easy to digest stuff and usually some challenging and thought-provoking items. I look forward to my next few nightly reads, as I always read for a half hour or so before sleeping, even if I retire at 1 or 2am.

Gill went to school to help with a school trip that our youngest was going on, they took the bendy bus which was apparently a lot of fun as it has CCTV and every time the youngsters saw themselves on it, they cheered and got over-excited. I cycled to Out Of This World and returned some plastic containers which had come home with me yesterday full of gubbins, and Marianne the boss gave me my month's 'honourarium' (is this how it is spelled? is this what it is?) I am a voluntary composter but the company values my services and gives me £25/month for recycling the majority of their biodegradables that can't be recycled in other ways, like cardboard which gets made into more cardboard.

Then onto the Credit Union to save this money, Mike the manager gave me some very good news which I hope to be able to share with Blog-readers in the future.

Then to Cycle Heaven where they swapped my mended and partly rebuilt bike for £165. Feels like new! Lovely, and a swift cycle to Jean out on Poppleton Rd, where I wrote a letter for her as she's too old to write by herself. She couldn't even sign it. I feel so sorry for her, old age and decrepitude isn't nice. She really wants to die, she doesn't see the point of still being alive. It's not a dignified way to spend the last months/years of her life. I really enjoy being with her, though, and was glad to help her keep in touch with an old couple she's fond of. They used to 'do' YHA trips together.

I spent an hour and a half with Jean and bombed home, it always seems downhill from Poppleton Road to Hull Road! Busy times at home as Justin Rowlatt, BBC Newsnight's Ethical Man phoned and suggested that the Yorkshire Post might be interested in my 'story', ie that I'm a keen composter with a low-impact-lifestyle. Then The Yorkshire Post phoned and I chatted/was interviewed for some time, also discussing how/when/where the YP photographer could get a shot of me/my compost bins. This will be on Sunday morning, the article will go out on Monday and Panorama, with Justin's challenge, goes out on Monday evening, so long as no huge story blows up and takes over. Exciting! I'll do anything to promote sustainability!

I went to school with a trailer-load of chainsaw and shredder at 5ish, to assist the school in disposing of a tree which blew over a couple of weeks ago. They're happy for me to have the logs and shredded twigs, as I can use/recycle both. Thank You School!

I sent 54 emails in the evening, telling people about my forthcoming Panorama appearance.
Bed was too late really, but I did get a bit of NewScientist in!

28th Feb 07

Another busy day, with a meeting to prepare for a meeting, AVP this time. Alternatives to Violence Project has re-organised its structure and AVP York has joined up with AVP Sheffield, AVP Nottingham and AVP Northumberland to become AVP North East and East Midlands. This new group has its first annual meeting in April or May and it'll be in York, so today a small group of us are planning that meeting.

I cycled up to New Earswick via a Freecycler who has offered my son a CD player. The lady I met was offering it on behalf of a friend in the same sheltered accommodation block ,who thought Freecycle was a great idea but didn't want to do it herself. The CD player was more than that, infact a compact radio, tape and CD system with seperate speakers. It's been in storage for a couple of years. I hope my son is happy with it, my wife and I will check it out tonight to see if it works.

The AVP meeting went well. I facilitated/chaired and took notes and offered to type them up and circulate. Such is the life of a hyperactive overenthusiastic sustainable communities idealist.

Then into York to see one of my favourite people, an unconventional professional and well-off woman who always has time for a coffee and chat. I don't entirely approve of her jet-setting lifestyle, always off to somewhere far-flung, but she intrigues me and we are good friends, just good friends! I moved off to Cycle Heaven to return the Filibus bike and collect mine... but my back wheel was still being built, so I went to Out Of This World to pick up compostables on the Filibus. Home for 2.40, just 20 mins for a late lunch before leaving to pick up the kids. Gill my wife has gone to Scarborough to see her Uncle who's in hospital. She'd made potato salad and quiche for the boys tea before going, so I had little to do when we got in. At about 4.30 my friend Mark came to visit for the first time, and I gave him a cuppa and a tour of our large garden and 30 compost systems. I think he was impressed!

Gill came back and met Mark, which was nice as I'll be working closely with him over the next few months, on the CrUST Green Gala scheduled for July. Mark left and we had tea. The boys wanted to go on the BBC 'Shaun the Sheep' website, so before bedtime I went online and got onto the site, but we couldn't really get it to work properly. A bit of a let-down.

My friend Justin Rowlatt emailed me to say I will be on Panorama next Monday, which is on Justin's 'Ethical Man' experiences as part of his job with BBC Newsnight. I must phone my Mum and Dad to tell them. It's nice to be able to do/be something they can be proud of, as for many years they viewed me as a failure and a dropout, but all that time I was 'incubating' my green-ness, which is now fashionable! Justin came to film last year as he was intrigued by my compost toilet. It's very satisfying to use the BBC media machine to promote sustainability.

Must go, I'm really tired tonight. But I'm loving blogging!