Wednesday 2nd September 09

An increasingly busy day with emails and meetings. I spent a big chunk of the day with the laptop on, fielding queries, bouncing them on to the correct Green Festival person, replying, finding solutions. Things are falling into place nicely. I also did quite a bit of log wrangling... building logpiles, tidying up.

At 5 I went round to Lynn's with four carrier bags of riddled compost, which she paid me 10 Yorkys for. Then I went through to see Richard and bumped into my friend Gary Haq who wants me to go and check his compost heap sometime, and needed to know how to reduce the fruit fly problem he is experiencing. I tried to explain that it isn't a problem, that they are a resource, but actually he wants fewer fruit flies. The solution is to put all the day's peelings, cores etc in a wrap of newspaper, which means the little darlings cannot get to their food source... and when the material has broken down enough to rot through the newsprint, they are not as interested in it.

Then on to Rowntree Park where there was supposed to be a stewards meeting, but only organisers turned up, plus the ever-so-reliable Jem from JSS Audio, and his colleague who's name I didn't catch. But several of the park-keepers were there, including John who will be working on Sunday, and we were able to see the electric sockets and water availability. We had a final walk around the park with decisions as to where to put things.

It started to rain as we walked round... it did that last time too. But the weather forecast for Sunday is better. I then cycled off to Leeman Road, where a Freecycler had offered a load of compostables, threatening to lob them in the bin if nobody wanted them. I didn't want them either, but took them to St Nicks for their composting operations. Took then via a chap on Walmgate who had requested a poster for his window.

Then home, via Freshways and a talkative Raj who enquired about having a stall at YGF09. Gill had made a sort of curry with a pile of assorted veg and the carrot soup I made. This was put on a bed of rice and was DELICIOUS!!!

More email stuff when I settled down, but also got a few Scrabble moves in...

Monday 9th February 09

Gill took our youngest into school on foot, as it had snowed last night.

I was up and about by the time she got back, and we had a reasonably relaxing morning doing stuff around the house.

Got a message from my friend Gary Haq, who works at the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York, telling me about his new blog http://garyhaq.wordpress.com/ which I think is very good. He's very knowledgeable and has contributed to lots of studies, and published lots of stuff. It's about 'Human Ecology', which is something I sometimes list as one of my interests, so it's good to read about Gary's take on what's going on.

Gill went to town to buy train tickets for a trip to Birmingham next week, half term, she's taking the boys to meet friends and visit a science centre called Think Tank, which looks really good.

I processed quite a large pile of logs... chainsawing and splitting, to replace the various stacks of logs which have kept this house warm over the past few cold weeks. The logs I'm preparing now will be ready to use in a year or perhaps two, depending on how well they dry. Different types of wood dries at different rates, and some I store under cover, out of the wet... other logpiles are just raised up off the ground and have air all around them (they might look as if they are stacked against the house, but I leave a gap between the wall and logpile).

Then it was time to go and get or youngest. I gave him a lift back, and he had a friend visit for an hour or two. A peaceful evening.

After a pasta and cauliflower tea, I cycled off down to the Friends Meeting House to go to the York Green Festival meeting. We had no agenda... so I constructed one and chaired the meeting. There were 19 of us there... an excellent turn-out. Several more job-posts got filled, including the music co-ordinator and the event co-ordinator too, which is really good! I feel we're really going somewhere now.

I popped into the Golden Fleece to book a meeting room for a co-ordinators meeting, and there will be another 'public' meeting at St John's College on 9th March.

Home soon after 10, Gill asleep in a chair after a tough evening managing our little darlings.