Thursday 29th April 10

I got up before I needed to... the phone rang and I wondered if it was for me, and I came down to sleepily 'be there' which seems to be a good thing when the boys are getting ready for school. Just being around is a calming influence. If I say anything or interact, this is not the case, so I've learned to just 'be'. I've often said that I'm not very good at being and am much better at doing. But in this case, the doing is to just be, if that makes sense.

Anyway, at 10ish, Katalin arrived. She contacted me first before last year's York Green Festival and wanted to take photos of the event, and she did just that, recording the festival. She has a website coming soon... I look forward to seeing it! We had a cuppa and chat with Gill... and then a slow wander down the garden. She loved lots of what she saw, she was perhaps the most enthusiastic visitor I've had for some while! So she took pictures of wormeries, compost, flowers, untidy bits, me, and I don't know what else... I'll have to wait and see!

She left at about 1pm and I washed up and had lunch. In the afternoon I planted some more seeds, different sorts of climbing French beans from the YiT seed swap.

At about 4pm I bombed down to town to deliver a letter and came back via Country Fresh and Freshways. I spent a bit of time starting a new compost heap in the rain, in the metal sided bin, with the basal layers being lots of shredded hedge. Gill made a simple pasta, carrot, mushroom, asparagus, home grown purple sprouting broccoli mix, with a slice of freshly baked home made bread. This was delicious, as usual.

Then I went to town again to attend the FoE 'environment' hustings... the environment has hardly been mentioned in this pre-election run-up, so it was good to go to a meeting with all four main candidates in York Central, down at the Friends Meeting House, and hear what they had to say.

They all agreed that the most pressing environmental issue is that of climate change. All candidates said their parties would deal with it. I was quite impressed with Susan Wade Weeks the Tory, who describes herself as 'the greenest Conservative that you'll ever meet', and I really like the independent approach of Christian Vassie, the Lib Dem City Councillor and City of York 'Energy Champion'. The Green Party's Andy Chase was reasonable, and Hugh Bayley was his usual experienced and professional self. Four people who all care and think they could be the MP for York. My guess is that Bayley has such a big majority that he'll be almost impossible to dislodge, but I would love Vassie to get it. If it was a close-run thing between Bayley and Vassie, I'd vote tactically and vote Lib Dem, but I think I'll vote with my heart and vote Green. Although the Tory seems a nice person, and pretty green in some ways, I don't like all of their policies and don't trust them.

I enjoyed this hustings a lot, despite Hugh Bayley calling me 'Stephen' when he answered my question on how we can reduce the amount of meat consumed. I'd have thought he would remember my name by now; we've been communicating for many many years and have met on dog-knows how many occasions. I forgive him, he meets LOADS of people, and at least he tried! But he won't get my vote.... he didn't have a good answer to my question!

I chatted to a few of my friends afterwards and cycled home via a pile of pallets which loaded themselves onto my trailer and followed me home!

Saturday 10th April 10

A really good day, with more fun than most days. I got up soon after 9 and all was peaceful. A good start.

I wanted to join my friends in town at 11ish who were staging a 'Jam today, Jammed tomorrow?' stall in Parliament St. The York's Jammed campaign is being coordinated by York and Ryedale Friends of the Earth and they had invited people down to join in.. and suggested bringing circus toys down, so I decided to take my devilsticks (two sets). But I also had three sacks of Freshways 'resources' on my bike, so I took them, a garden spade and my composting knife to St Nicks where they have a composting area and copious volumes of sawdust (from a pet shop), and I spent half an hour chopping up aubergines and oranges, and covering them with sawdust and limp herbs. I washed my hands at the Environment Centre which was open, as it was an Eco-Active day.

Then down to Parliament St where the FoE stall was being set up, and boxes of sandwiches and scones all with jam were on offer. I spent a happy hour or so doing my devilstick, and there was a small boy who's mum was collecting for charity, and he had a go with my second set. Jennie did some poi as well. I chatted to a woman called Liz or Betty from Rotherham who was working with a Cliff Richard tribute singer... she was collecting for charity and giving out balloon models. I made her a couple of my favourites, the 'dog's dinner' and the 'weeble' which she was very taken with.

I left at about half past 12 and went to Sainsburys as I'd had an order for their very nice multigrain bread. Got home at 1, and got into the garden as soon as I could as it was a lovely day. Gill was still tidying and sorting... I took some of the stuff (my dumped mess mainly) down the garden for sorting, and the boys happily destroyed several wooden fruit boxes which I'd piled up in case they came in useful. They are now useful... kindling.

I did loads in the garden... more compost heap turning, some weeding, and later on, shredding.

Gill decided that she had been working so hard that she didn't want to cook... so she bought a pizza, some garlic bread, oven chips and frozen peas. This might seem 'normal' but in our house we generally cook from simple ingredients rather than buy ready-made.

So I came in at about 6.30 to have my share of pizza etc, and as usual, put my laptop on (especially as the incomprehensible Dr Who was on!) and was on facebook, and my facebook friend Tracey Smith sent me a message, saying she was doing her 'internet radio show' on Taunton Hospital Radio, and did I want to tune in? It's called Slow Down and Green Up, so I thought I'd give it a go. After a few minutes, during which we'd exchanged a few messages, she suddenly started talking about chatting to someone on facebook, and how she didn't really know how to use facebook so she was going to experiment and find out a bit more about who she was chatting to. So she said hello to me and clicked on my profile info page and started reading out my favourite music and quotations... and found this blog's URL and I thought she was going to start reading out my blog... but she ran out of time as her show finished at 8pm. Most unexpected.

I decided to use the last of the daylight to finish off some tidying... and within the hour both boys came out and we all had a go on the trampoline. We spent so long there that Gill brought the boys' supper out, and we stayed down there for quite a while until it was really dark and we could see the stars.

So a mixture of fun things, enjoyable activities, and warm sunny weather.