Wednesday 29th September 10 Walk it, Bike it, Bus it, York's Car Free Day 2010

The weather was looking dismal and I was feeling tired, but I'd committed to helping with today's event.

So I got up soon after 7 and left the house at 8 to meet with other volunteers at 8.15 at the Postern Gate Hotel on Piccadilly.  I was the first there.  Julia was the second.  She is from Switzerland and is in York to do a PhD on neuro imaging... fascinating stuff!  Then Jenny arrived, and Kaj, from Finland, and Guy, our own FoE stalwart.  Three of us went to Bootham Bar and gave out leaflets about the Car Free Day; the leaflets had information about the extra two traffic-free streets today, Micklegate and Fossgate, and the entertainment that was timetabled, plus the attractions which were admitting car-free travellers at a reduced rate or for free.  It rained constantly, and our leaflets got wet, but lots of people took them.  Quite a few people said they didn't know about the day, but two told me they had noticed less motor traffic on the roads.

Then I went to Millers Yard and picked up the sacks of squashed halved oranges, and came home.  I had just 10 minutes at home, time for a coffee, and I cycled back to go to Micklegate, with my balloons.  I'd been booked to do circus skills, but there was no way I could do that in the rain. But balloons can be modelled in almost any weather.  Trouble was, there were not that many people walking down the road, and only a tiny percentage of them were suitable candidates for balloon animals.  But, I must have given out a dozen or so.  It rained continuously, although mainly drizzle rather than 'proper' rain.  Some good conversations with Kaj, who is a linguist and loves accents and language.  I left at 11.30 and visited Fossgate where I was pleased to find the traders had put stalls out into the street and it was a lot more vibrant, despite being damp.  I came home and had lunch and some quiet time, cracking nuts and doing the washing up.  But soon after 3pm I went back to Fossgate with my bag of balloons and stood with a school sustainable travel person under a gazebo, darting out to give out balloon animals to parents with small children (using the device 'Excuse me, but do you know anyone who likes balloon animals?').  I enjoyed listening to a guitar player called Richard Harrison, and then later a pair of young sisters playing the Sax and Clarinet, the Frankland Sisters, aged 12 and 14. They were very good, and played things like 'Singing in the Rain' and 'Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud'.

It began to rain very heavily and at about 5pm I came home.  Very wet, very exhausted, feeling deflated and in need of bed rest.  However I didn't manage to get the early night that I would have liked.  I made my own tea... 3 slices of the huge Tromboncino squash, half an onion, some nuts all fried up on the stove top, then I added a sliced huge 'beef' tomato straight off the plant, and some pasta left over from yesterday, and some old Edam cheese which the children now claim not to like.  I spent some time on facebook, and got a message from a friend who told me that a scan had found a tumour on their liver, which kind of put my low mood and tiredness into perspective.  I went to bed at 9ish, intending to get up a bit later and do stuff, but I slept right through.

Thursday 20th May 10

A morning full of phone calls, paperwork and pretty boring stuff... and the afternoon I did a lot of work in the conservatory and on the lawn just out the back, preparing growing medium for pots. I filled one huge ceramic planter with a branch for support, 4 Chinese Yams, 2 beans and a cucumber. I did a large plastic pot with a tomato, bean and yam. Another pot with 3 beans only, and another pot with a tomato and I think a bean and a yam.

I have space for another 15 large pots... but preparing enough growing medium for all those will be quite a job. I'll be going to Brunswick Organic Nursery soon to get a few more different tomato plants, hopefully a bit more interesting than the Shirley and Tumbler that I've just put in.

Gill made chips to go with the pastie and salads, which was nice as we don't have chips very often. Then I went to a Car Free Day meeting, with people from York and Ryedale Friends of the Earth, and we had good conversations at the Seahorse Hotel. Our slogan for the Car Free Day on 22nd September is 'Walk It, Bike It, Bus It'. We have some interesting plans but I cannot divulge them as some bigwigs have to make some decisions before we can move forward.

I got in at about 10pm, and at about 11 I lit the stove to get enough hot water for the washing up.

Tuesday 20th April 10

Another basically good day. A busy morning inside, I made some carrot soup. Then Gill went to town and I responded to a phone call from Keith the Freecycler, who invited me to come and collect a load of wood.

So I soon cycled round to Burnholme and Keith had a really good load of wood... all cut to the same length and just enough to completely fill my trailer and panniers. Perfect. I called in on the Co-op on the way home, and got in before our eldest son came back... and he helped me do some stacking for a few minutes, which was nice, unexpected.

After tea... the carrot, onion, potato, red pepper and celery soup with bread and hommous, I went to the upstairs room of the Golden Fleece to the planning meeting for the September 22nd Car Free Day. This was well attended, 11 of us, and Graham Relton proved a good chair, keeping us more or less focused. We started off with some info about the Car Free Cities Conference and then talked around the run up to the Car Free Day and the day itself. A very inspiring meeting.

I offered to try to find a more accessible venue, as it is possible someone with mobility issues might turn up, and having the meeting in an inaccessible room would be embarrassing and quite frankly, wrong. So I cycled to the Black Swan (they have level access but no accessible toilet) and then the Seahorse (level access, not sure about the loo situation) and both can host us on 20th May. I emailed Graham and asked him to choose between the two.

Tuesday 22nd September 09 International Car-Free Day

and York's First Car-Free Day!!!

Our plans swung into action. I got up at 6.30am (not my favourite time of day!) and got together Lynn's parasol and filled the base with water, my smallest 'dalek' compost bin (actually the one which belongs to the school and was delivered to me by accident), and a planter with a courgette plant and a broccoli plant just about ready to harvest. In my panniers I took bread, hommous, apples, Danish pastries and similar, a knife and a toy car which belonged to Gill's Uncle Tom, for sticking the ticket on for the parking space.

I got there just after Candy, who had bought a 3 hour ticket at 7am. We chose a space as close to the junction of Lawrence St and Foss Islands Road, between a pub and two fast-food places. Very soon Rich arrived on the St Nicks load-carrying trike with the plastic sheets to put the turf on, and the 12 rolls of turf. Bryony came with her palm tree. The turf was rolled out and garden stuff placed carefully, and a couple or road cones with bamboo canes in to support the banner which read 'PEOPLE PARK NOT CAR PARK' and I think another line underneath about York in Transition and/or Car Free Day. The picnic table and deck chairs went up, and the table was soon covered in breakfast-type food. We also had leaflets about Car Free Day and York in Transition, and as we were right next to the traffic lights, several of us were able to speak to drivers and give them leaflets.

Three City Councillors turned up, Christian Vassie (LD), Dave Merrett (Lab) and Andy D'Agorne (Green), and I was disappointed that my friend John Galvin, our current Lord Mayor (and a Conservative) didn't appear. That would have been a real coup to have all four parties supporting us.

We suffered a bit with the gusty wind, and it was an unpleasant place to be as the area is totally dominated by roads and cars... but that was the point, to have a little chunk of parkland in an urban jungle. The media turned up, BBC Radio York interviewed Candy (sorry, Dr Candida Spillard!) who was very eloquent, and the York Press guy hung around waiting for the right light... he couldn't do anything whilst the early morning sun was so bright, but when it clouded over he got his photo... I think he might use the 'Uncle Tom's Toy Car in the foreground' shot... I hope so!

At about 10 am we had a little conference and as we had just about run out of leaflets and the weather was looking ominous, we decided to strike camp. I took the compost bin and parasol home in the trailer and came back to help transport the turf round to Anna's. She bought the turf off me, so there was no net outlay for the turf. We got a few donations, which paid for the Danish pastries and parking ticket.

On the way back from Anna's I stopped off at Country Fresh and picked up yet more compostables. I got in at midday. Gill was about to head off into town, so I had a quiet afternoon and at 3 cycled down to school to collect our youngest, and had a nice chat to Mrs Lee, one of my favourite teachers, about the school now not composting AND having lost bits of two compost bins I had lent them and they'd removed. She said that she'll say something quietly to people... I kind of want to write the school a letter but I don't think I should.

Later in the evening I returned Lynn's parasol.

Rich made this video of the day, nb the traffic noise!

Monday 14th September 09

No lie in this morning... Gill wasn't feeling like taking our youngest into school so I cycled in with him. On the way back I collected more aluminium cans from Windmill Lane, about another 20 or so, plus some plastic bottles. I'm glad to pick them up but really mystified why people think it's OK to throw them into the hedge and verges.

Anyway, it made the early start a bit more useful, but I didn't do much for an hour or so after that, just spent time with Gill, washed up, did the recycling, the usual household chores. I had a phone call with Karen who knew Austin and was as shocked as I was to hear what happened.

In fact, had a very quiet day, did a significant amount of work on the computer (if you call emailing 'work'?) but this included some York Rotters stuff, Fiddlesticks stuff, various bits and pieces. Oh and I went to the bread shop and got 'Yesterbake' and found some stuff in a skip which I put on Freecycle. I picked some beans for tea and washed some potatoes. Gill made tea though.

I collected our youngest and spent some time outside after that, digging out last year's leafmould pile and bagging it all up, about 10 sack's worth, leaving the wire netting enclosure ready for this year's harvest. I'll soon be riddling last year's bagged-up stuff, ie leaves collected in 2007, and using it in next year's potting mixes.

After tea I went to a hastily organised Car-Free Day meeting, as some members of York in Transition are preparing for a stunt next Tuesday, which is International Car Free Day. More info posted here when things are finalised. Home by 9.30, in time to say goodnight to the children, light the stove, get water for washing up and hopefully dry some plums.

Wednesday 3rd September 08

Both boys off to school today.

I decided to read a daily email I've subscribed to, about the trial of the protesters accused of damaging Kingsnorth Power Station. Their defence that it was (is) necessary to cause some damage in order to prevent greater damage, likened to breaking a window to rescue a person from a burning building. If you would like to get a daily blog entry about this interesting trial, click here. On October 7th, there is another trial of climate change protesters, those who stopped and occupied a coal train near Selby, the 'Drax 29'. That trial is in York Crown Court and it's important that it receives lots of publicity, as climate change is the most important threat ever to face humanity. I believe that these individuals are bound to be looked back upon as brave heroes with insight, not criminals, and their claim that causing a little bit of disruption or damage is necessary to draw attention to the importance of this issue. For an interesting take on the global crisis of too many people emitting too much pollution and possible 'geoengineering solutions, see this article by James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis, written in The Guardian.

I did a lot of 'house admin' today, including taking our meter readings to put on The Carbon Account, to record the household's carbon footprint. I really do recommend this way of keeping a check on your transport and energy-related carbon footprint. Join up and become my Carbon Account friend!!!

I had brought back a load of plastic tubs of grapes, each with a few mouldy ones and mostly good ones, so I sorted through and washed and blanched the good ones, balancing a tray of them on the woodstove to make nice little sweet (and free!) raisins...

Gill went to pick up our youngest from school and I got ready to go down to the station to get the 4.12 to Hull to attend the 'Co-operative membership Co-operation in Your Community meeting, which starts at 6ish in the Feren's Art Gallery. The idea was to let individuals and organisations know about the Community Fund, and as two organisations I'm involved in have received money from the Co-op, I was a speaker. I arrived a bit early and sat in the gallery reading my NewScientist, trying to catch up as I'm 5 weeks behind!

The food arrived and I ate heartily and hopefully healthily... and at 6.30 we were invited into the lecture theatre to hear presentations from Darren the local Co-op person, Stefan who told us all about the funding streams and how they work, and then three community groups who've benefitted from their money... Yvonne from Harrogate Car-Free Day on 24th September, David from Ryedale Special Families and Michelle and Becky from Goole's Hinge Centre. Finally, I did my bit!

Got the 8.56 train back to Doncaster, cursed when the possible connecting train up to York pulled out of the station as we pulled in, sat in the waiting room for over an hour (finished a NewScientist) and got the 11pm train back to York. Fortunately I'd made a friend on the train, a 20 year-old chap working as a night-time secyrity guard in York, so we chatted. Home by midnight...