Monday 23rd January 12

Up early and got busy doing things... breakfast, emails..... and then there was a knock on the front door.  It was the head groundsman from St Johns College, with two gardeners, and their flat-bed truck with 3 HUGE slices of tree on.... asking me if I'd like them?   I jumped at the chance, and said I'd be out in 30 seconds to help.  Each lump was the buttressed base of a big lime tree.... a couple of weeks ago the college took down dozens of them, thinning the row of mature limes on Lord Mayors Walk by removing every other one.

So, each one took all four of us to lift, and I asked for them to be put in a place where I wouldn't need to try to move them.  The other trees had been taken to a field near Dunnington, where someone at the college was a happy recipient, and the amount of wood would probably keep his stoves going for decades!

A bit later, I tried to split one of the rounds just with my maul... but the wood is slightly spongy and it didn't respond at all.  So I chainsawed them into quarters, and then bashed these with the splitting maul, which worked.

I also did some clearing up in the conservatory, taking several trays of squishy pears out, and ready to take down the garden to the new compost heap.  I put another couple of layers on, but have more to take down tomorrow.

Gill had a hospital appointment to see if her arthritis can be dealt with, so I made a pasta and sauce (on the woodstove of course!) and Gill was pleased with this when she got in.

I did some 'house admin': sorting out our energy bills. I had read the gas and electricity meters on Saturday and phoned Good Energy and left a lengthy message but I phoned them today because they hadn't got back to me.  Based on meter readings on 21st January 2011 and last Saturday, 23rd January 2012, we have used 56 cubic metres of gas - 626 kwh, or 1.71 kwh/day.  Based on this consumption for last year, next year's bill is £107.94.  We use far more electricity, 1938 kwh, or 5.3 kwh/day, and Good Energy will charge us £362.62 for next year's consumption.  So, our annual energy bills are £470, which for a family of 4 is pretty low, although I'd like them to be lower! I will pay these bills by bank transfer soon.

Oh!  I got a postal delivery... of two bike tyres, not wanted anymore by my facebook friend Graeme, who has replaced his bike and had two new tyres spare.  One has a kevlar anti-puncture lining.  He didn't want anything for them, just the postage of £4.41; I sent him £5 via PayPal.

So, a good day, plenty of activity outside and plenty of 'work' inside!

Friday 21st January 11

Up early but I'd have liked a lie-in, but as Gill was taking our youngest to school, I got up and ensured that our home-educated child got to Maria's on time for his science lesson with her.  Once Gill came back, I went to the bread shop for £4 worth of yesterbake bread (2 big loaves, 4 bags of assorted rolls, 4 iced spirals and 2 bags of flapjack offcuts) and I posted a big parcel of home made dried fruit to Tracey Smith, in swap for her book 'The Book of Rubbish Ideas' which she sent to me to review here!  I haven't started reading it yet, but hope to get around to it soon.

I also read our gas and electricity meters, as I'd received a gas bill and the last two readings were estimates.  I buy both gas and electricity from Good Energy, which supplies 100% renewable electricity, and the gas bill helps pay ROCs to people with solar panels.  The way I pay my bills is to pay a whole year annually in advance, and this means I can easily work out our annual consumption.  So, over the past 12 months, this household of 4 people has used 65 cubic metres of gas, which equates to 726kwh, and cost £65, with £40 standing charge... so our annual gas bill is £111.61.  We use more electricity than gas, 2009kwh last year, which is 5.5kw per day.  The national average is 10 to 28kw/day I was told.  This makes our annual electricity bill £342.84.  I will pay by bank transfer next week.

I enjoyed lunch, and after this bagged up some very well rotted (and dry and powdery!) compost from a rotating barrel tumbler.  It will need riddling but the majority of it is really lovely stuff.

Gill had already gone down to town by bus and then out to the Steiner School, and was awaiting an interview with the class teacher and anther staff member.  I cycled down, getting there just in time for the 3.45 interview.  It seems that our boy has settled in to this new school well, and has made friends and is already pretty well integrated into his class.  We need to fill in a form and work out our gross income to work out our financial contribution, but this should be relatively simple.  We were away by 5pm, Gill and Junior got the bus and I cycled quickly home and put the oven on, as Gill rang and said she'd bought oven chips in Iceland.  We don't have chips very often... maybe once a month, but now and again it's quick and easy.

At 6.45 I took our eldest down to Heslington for his computer graphics lesson.  I picked up 2 loads of wood in the intervening hour and then walked back with him after 8.

I'd been invited to a party this evening but I decided to stay in, and was glad I did as my authority was welcomed when some behaviour happened which merited intervention.    So another busy and full day.

Wednesday 7th April 10

A busy and productive day... mainly paperwork type stuff.

I cycled down to town in the afternoon via St Nicks where I picked up the box of seeds left over from the seed swap, which are destined to be donated to the YUMI international community garden on Friday, and in town I got out a pile of cheques, two for advertising (Thomson Directories and Yell), £75 of balloons from Cozmic Balloons and a very exciting one, for RSA Membership as I've been nominated to apply for fellowship of the RSA. This means, if accepted, I will be able to 'label' myself as 'John Cossham FRSA'! I also transferred cash to our current account to pay our annual electricity bill with Good Energy... this is £250 for power (5 units/day) and £60 for the daily admin charge, making our annual bill £310.

I also wrote a press release about the seed handover, and popped into the York Press office to chat to a journalist about it, and request a photographer. I spent quite a bit of time making sure all the people mentioned in the document were happy with what was said, about them and their organisations.

At 5pm I bombed down to the station to get the train to Sheffield, as I've been booked by Ali. I took the laptop and managed to get a few emails deleted from my inbox... but not many as the journey is only 50 minutes!

Friday 29th January 10

A really difficult start to the day, but I eventually took our youngest down to school and was pleased to have a chat with the head, who invited me to meet with her next Monday. No doubt she will tell me that the school is doing everything it can to become greener.

Anyway, picked up a few bottles and cans from verges on the way back. For me, 'green' is all day, every day. I felt pretty low today due to the shenanigans this morning, but did quite a bit of stuff around the house before cycling into town to pay the gas bill, our first gas bill with Good Energy. I pay Good Energy for our electricity and now gas annually in advance, a deal I've negotiated with them and may not be available for new customers. Although gas is not renewable or green, our annual bill with them is likely to be about £100, slightly more than with British Gas, but the extra money that Good Energy get is given back to customers who have renewable generation (including solar hot water) through their 'Hot ROCs' scheme. This is what we have to sign up for next. We have the forms already... next week I'll fill them in. I'm looking forward to seeing how much we get back! These case studies make it look promising!

I came home via Sainsburys as nowhere else does big jars of Marmite and I got one of their big loaves too, at a slightly reduced price as the label and barcode had been torn off. I popped into Freshways and picked up one bag of compostables from them, and on my way into town I'd visited Country Fresh and had two medium sacks from them.

Home to a peaceful house... our youngest had got a special mention in school assembly for his pivotal role in yesterday's class assembly. That would have made him feel good. He really deserves it.

I did a bit of ringing round to see if I could help a voluntary group I've got involved with, they need to get some insurance quotes for a site visit they want to do. So I found potential insurers on the web, and then rang to explain the situation. It took about 8 phone calls before I got to the right place. But the person in charge of the voluntary group was pleased and I hope this facilitates the site visit.

I helped a bit with tea... mushroom sauce in funny wrap things (reduced in Sainsburys!) with butternut rounds and halved pickling onions (both thrown away!) gently sauteed on the woodstove, and baked beans and a bit of salad.

A quiet evening. Played Scrabble and chatted to two friends on facebook. And washed up.

Oh, and today I did quite a bit of composting help too... a woman I know who works in a school wants me to come in and give some composting advice, and someone I know well who works in the Environment Agency also emailed me for some composting advice. How cool is that? Helping the EA with their tea-bag problem!!!

Thursday 15th October 09 'Blog Action Day 09'

As regular readers will know, and new visitors would find out if they looked at previous posts, this blog is really just a daily diary. I usually just write about what I do, and rarely express an opinion or have a rant (although sometimes something gets my goat so much I just have to let rip, see this recent post about my child's Primary School and it's lack of environmental awareness), but today is a bit different.

It is Blog Action Day and it's all about Climate Change. Well, my life has evolved and been directed to be as 'climate friendly' as it is possible to be in this country whilst living reasonably normally. So today I will share with readers what I did, BUT explain the climate/carbon or otherwise ethical reasons behind this.

Firstly, I work as an entertainer 'Professor Fiddlesticks' which means I mostly work at the weekend, and have weekdays pretty much free to do what I want. I do a lot of 'home making'; things like preparing food and cooking, washing up, and gardening including some food growing. The house is heated by two smoke free Clearview woodstoves and we don't use our gas fired central heating at all. I have to do a lot of wood collecting with my bike trailer and spend time cutting, splitting and stacking logs.

My job means that I do not earn a lot of money... but in carbon terms this is great! Rich people have far higher carbon footprints than poorer people, as one of the things which adds to your carbon footprint is the embodied energy and resources in the stuff you buy. So, as financially I'm poor, I don't buy much. Some of what I buy comes from charity shops too, which is re-use of unwanted stuff. Your home heating, power and your transport choices are a huge part of your overall footprint. We use electricity (and gas) from Good Energy, who supply only renewable electricity. We only use about £80 of gas a year (Gill bakes cakes in the oven, and we sometimes use instant hot water for showering) but we get this from Good Energy as it will enable us to qualify for a little annual grant when we install the solar hot water panel on our roof, which should be before Christmas. Smokefree woodstoves are a very efficient and a clean way of heating your space; we also cook on ours, and heat bathwater, washing-up water, and dry fruit (more of this later!). Wood is a renewable resource and much of what I collect is stuff which would have been shredded and left to rot, put on a bonfire, put in a landfill or just left lying around (although this last option also has some environmental benefits).

So, during the morning I dealt with more hedge, which my neighbour has asked me to remove and he will replace with a low wall and a fence. He is going to re-use some bricks which I salvaged from an air-raid shelter I took down ages ago, and re-use an oak fence that a neighbour was getting rid of, and asked me if I wanted it for my stove! I am grubbing out the hedge and cutting off the roots over 100 of which have already gone on Freecycle, and will grow more hedge. The larger sticks will be cut to length and dried for a year before being used for kindling on the stove, the smaller twigs are being fed through my 'quiet shredder' and will make good carbon-rich and aerating layers in my compost heaps. The hedge removal will allow us to grow more food; the existing roots extend into our raised beds, making them over-dry and robbing the soil of nutrients. The fence will be designed to allow both sides to be used to for climbing plants up... I'll be growing climbing pea beans.

And talking of beans, all through the summer I've been picking the young tender green pea beans (instead of buying flown-in Kenyan green beans), but today I picked a load of the pale papery pods with mature seeds in. Some of these I'll soak and cook... replacing shop-bought baked beans, but the ones in the longest pods I'll keep for sowing next year. I also often keep a few in my pocket for giving to people to get then started with this variety.

I also did some composting. Those who know me or read this blog won't be surprised by this (!) but I usually do some composting every day. I service a greengrocer, a supermarket and a cafe, and purchase their unsold fruit and veg 'resources' at a penny per sack, and reclaim what I can from this and compost the rest. The 100+kg I cycle back home every week would all go to landfill if I didn't recycle it. Landfills emit methane from the biodegradable material in them, and methane is a climate wrecking gas 23 times more powerful than CO2. My compost heaps may emit some methane but mostly the stuff decays to CO2, water vapour and leaves a rich soil-improving humus or 'garden compost'. I have about 34 compost systems, five of them are rotating tumblers and most of the other ones are 'dalek' bins or 'New Zealand' pallet bins. I also have wormeries, a 'green cone' and am trialling a spherical rolling composter at the moment. I LOVE composting! I even built myself a compost toilet which not only saves the valuable 'humanure' but doesn't waste water. Cleaning our waste water nationally takes between 2 and 3% of our electricity, most of which is generated by burning coal. So my compost toilet means my manure isn't adding to the national (or my) carbon footprint.

At 2.15 pm I set out on my bike to the Hazel Court Civic Amenity Centre, where people can dump unwanted waste and take their recycling. The 'rules' say that cyclists are not allowed in, as they are classed as pedestrians, and pedestrians aren't allowed up at the top area, just drivers. However, the drivers get out of their vehicles and walk around, and in my view, they are therefore pedestrians. So I regularly go there with my cycle trailer full of mainly drinks cartons, which are not collected in the kerbside recycling. Today, I took several electrical items, rescued out of skips, and according to the WEEE regulations (Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment) these should be recycled not landfilled. So, if on my cycles around York, I find a WEEE-able item in a skip, I generally chuck it in my trailer and take it to the WEEE area at Hazel Court next time I go. Today I took a bedside light, a 'boom box' radio, tape and CD player with the CD player not working, and a slow cooker. All the metal components of these items will be recycled. I guess most of the plastic will end up in landfill. I also took lots of soya milk cartons.

From here I went on to my building society to put in a Fiddlesticks cheque, and onto Edward's house for a meeting with two halves to it. Edward is centrally involved with York in Transition, and attended the Transition Network Conference in London in May, with me. We haven't yet written a report of this for YiT, so we reviewed our experiences there and will write a report each. My report will be heavily based on my blog posts for the event, see Day One, Day Two and Day Three. Transition Initiatives are providing information about climate change and peak oil, and are helping to enable local communities to develop resilience against these coming threats with some creative projects. Those wishing to explore Transition could look at the Transition Towns Wiki the TT Network and Rob Hopkins excellent blog, Transition Culture.

The second reason I was visiting Edward was because he is updating his EcoRenovation book and he really wants to use social networking to inform that process. So, although he's had a facebook account for a while, he hasn't got to grips with it and so I offered to give him a tutorial. We ended up getting his EcoRenovation New Edition page started. This facebook page won't be published for a bit (as of today there's nothing on it!) but when it is, people will be able to contribute their thoughts on the subject. Rewriting the book will be quite a job as technology has moved on, so has the climate imperative, and there is a lot more information out there. But renovating and retrofitting an existing house is in many cases far better in carbon terms than demolishing and rebuilding, although with some housing stock the best thing to do would be to replace with really up-to-date energy efficient homes.

I left Edward's at 5.30 and popped in to Country Fresh to pick up the latest load of compostable material. Richard had four boxes and a sack for me, quite a lot... perhaps 60kg. I was pleased to find two pineapples in this lot... with some damage to one area but the rest was fine. Most consumers won't look twice at damaged fruit, but I'm very happy to use it. I cut off the damaged or rotten bits and, in this case, I sliced the rest and put about 20 slices on my drying racks above the woodstove. I use this dried fruit in my muesli, and my children eat it instead of sweets. I dry apple rings, pear slices, whole bananas, kiwi, melon, grapes (make raisins) and sweet red pepper, which once dry, I put in a blender and the sieve the dust to make an excellent sweet red pepper paprika, which I add to soups and stews. I also make fruit leather... a blend of different fruit, sieved and then put in a non-stick tray and dried. When dry, this is cut into strips and it is wonderful. Obviously, the taste depends on what fruit is put in!

Later on, I made some soup (mixed veg, leek and potato) on the woodstove, and we'll have that with some crusty bread tomorrow teatime.

So, this was a fairly 'normal' day for me. A lot of what I did was low (fossil) carbon and climate friendly. Not everything I do is zero carbon and I don't think it is possible to have no impact. For instance, I have fathered two children with Gill and today Gill bought new shoes for one of them. An environmental impact. Gill also shopped at the Co-op and bought breakfast cereal. This was not organic (lower carbon option as no pesticides/artificial fertiliser used) and even if it was, there is still a carbon footprint involved in processing and transportation. However, because of the choices I've made re transport, home heating/energy, shopping habits, I have a carbon footprint (according to ActOnCO2) of half a tonne a year. Double this to include the public transport I use, and take some away for the stuff I take out of skips (maybe?) and I'm probably living with a footprint of about a tonne a year, possibly a footprint within the carrying capacity of the Earth. The main thing, though, for me, is that I'm happy and enjoying living this way.

Tuesday 9th June 09

Up early as one child was cold so Gill woke me and asked me to light the stove. I cuddled my son before lighting the stove, and 10 minutes later he was happily eating his breakfast in front of it...

I seemed to spend most of the day on the computer, although I also washed up, dealt with several phone calls, switched our gas bill to Good Energy and became a Good Energy Pioneer which means I might earn some money promoting the company! I made up my next couple of week's muesli, which is excellent with lychee and apple fruit leather. No-one else seems to like it but I do...

I made a nutloaf for tea... the top half was the basic mix plus spinach, the bottom half was with sweetcorn. I then went out to a site meeting at Rowntree Park for York Green Festival; Rand, Rob, Bob, Rich, Baz and Tom turned up, and we decided where the various sections of the event would go. Rand and I went back to Baz's house and Rand agreed to be the Event Coordinator... hooray!!!

Got back towards 9pm and had nutloaf, potatoes and peas for tea.

Friday 2nd January 09

An excellent day! It was a relaxed morning with no shouting or aggro, and then Gill went into town on the bus to try and find trousers for our eldest and so he could get a birthday present for his friend who's party he's going to tomorrow.

I took this opportunity to play with our youngest, he wanted to play on 'Mario Karts' on the Wii... and oh God it was difficult! I was rubbish... came last several times, but hey I'm a beginner and I'm old so both count against me. Half an hour left me exhausted! So much concentration... and then the phone rang and it was Rose up the road asking if our eldest was needing a lift to the party tomorrow... and I asked if her son was in and wanted a playmate? He was and did, so we walked up there and I came back to do a composting job which has been needing doing for a while: the bin made of Anderson Shelter corrugated iron was very well rotted down... I dug it all out and put the stuff in a builders bag, from where I'll bag it up or riddle it and bag it...

Then Gill came back, our eldest with no trousers but a nice appropriate prezzie for his friend.

I then bombed into town on the bike to pay our annual electricity bill to Good Energy through the bank (electronic transfer) and put in a cheque for £30 for 6 sacks of compost Alison had off me yonks ago, the stuff Barry Potter took up on his return journey from delivering the cider press back to me...

Back in time to put some rather overdue compostables which have been hanging about into the newly vacated container, and collect a pile of electrical flex I rescued a while ago which I've been putting off sorting. However, once I'd sat down and got going with the craft knife (pulling the flex into the blade, the blade held still next to my trousered leg), my eldest started to help by pulling apart the grey outer insulation and removing the inner thinner wires, and then when I'd shaved off a long sliver of plastic from the copper wire, he extracted the wire from the throw-away plastic sheath.

We did about two hours worth... a most excellent Father/Son activity, and we did about a quarter of what I've collected recently. Enjoyed the Royal Institution Lecture again, and took wood-heated bathwater up for the older boyo to have a bath before his party tomorrow.

A most enjoyable day. I want, no, NEED more days like this, where I feel like a good parent doing the right things re my offspring. All too often these days I feel like I'm just not coping, but today was a blinder! Mainly due to excellent behaviour from both boys.

Monday 29th December 08

Another slow start to the day. Didn't do much before lunch apart from cycling round to Thomas the Baker to get bread and do assorted paperwork, sending off a cheque, ringing Good Energy to find out our annual bill for green electricity for next year, based on this year's consumption (it's £285, and this year we've used 1421 units, or 3.89 units per day). At midday lit the stove and jarred up a load of dried mango and pears, leaving the racks empty for the next batch... and right on cue, Raj rang and invited me to come and collect some 'resources'. When I did eventually get down there, the sack of stuff he gave me, sorry, sold me for a penny, contained lots of apples. How timely is that? He was also in a very jolly mood, methinks business is brisk!

Also popped along to Country Fresh, and Shirley was working but still came away with a few kilos of recyclables, saved from certain landfill.... So as it was getting dark I put another load in the Compostumbler and then came in to heat up the red red red soup on the woodstove, as Gill prepared pasta and broccoli using gas (although the water was initially heated in the kettle on the stove). I had a bowl of soup followed by a bowl of pasta n veg with some soup on top.

So a quiet and fairly productive day.

Wednesday 30th April 08

Quite a serene start to the day, I took the boys in as Gill wasn't feeling up to it and then went on to visit Anna's pile of vegetation... I cut a load of sticks out of it and came home with them, and will do a load of shreddable materials next... possibly taking them to the James St depot for the green waste skip...

Home in time to fill in our feedback form about the 'Strengthening Families' programme, which is being assessed by Warwick University. Then off to the Heworth Family Centre for the final meeting of the parenting course, where we gave feedback to Richard from Icarus, who will do a report about the various families and parenting courses which have been trialled in York over the past year and a bit, and then City of York Council will know which approaches work and which give value for money...

Then at midday we all headed over to Meltons Too on Walmgate for a meal. I went via the Council offices on St Leonards Place to give in the planning application responses from last night, and still got to the restaurant before any of the car-borne people...

Lovely meal, I had leek and potato soup, a little on the salty side, with bread, which was also salty (perhaps it's because we don't add salt to anything?) and then a baked mushrooms with cheese sauce and breadcrumbs dish, and tiramasu... what a treat, very filling and delicious!
We had certificates presented and a card given, it was good to chat away and exchange stories.

Raced home well after 2 to go to the veg shop and get back so I could pick up the kids!

I got soaked on the way to school and came home with three little chaps, two of them eager to go to Martial Arts.... Gill took them there but it had been cancelled, at least no-one else had turned up so they came back and I phoned our friend Maria to say not to pick up her son and ours from there but to come straight here.... and when she came, we had a good chat whilst I peeled pears to dry them... school had thrown away about 15 small pears (no idea why!) so I am making use of them and doing a pile of pear halves.

After tea... not a huge lot as I was still full from lunch... I did a load of emailing and got two messages on this blog in my inbox on 27th and 28th Feb 07 asking me about where Clearview Stoves can be purchased/installed from... So, a message to Alan the Lumberjack and Lindsay, who know Pauline, you should contact 'The Stove Gallery' (also known as Pete the Sweep) which is at:
41-43 High Street,
Starbeck near Harrogate,
tel 01423 887799
e: http://www.thestovegallery.com/
They have quite a few stoves on show, including the wonderful Clearview range, and provide friendly and professional installation, servicing and advice. They recommended getting our chimneys lined with insulated concrete, and we used 'Chimneycrete': http://www.chimneycrete.com/frontpage.htm and are very happy with the performance of both flues.

Despite recommending Clearview Stoves and The Stove Gallery to literally dozens of people, I have never been offered a discount and I could never say that they are cheap.... but I trust their knowledge and ability so continue to use them. And Clearview Stoves are widely recognised as being the best smokefree stoves available: http://www.clearviewstoves.com/index.htm
We have two Clearviews, a Vision 500 flat-top which gives up to 8kw of heat, and a Pioneer 400 flat-top which gives up to 5kw. These give us enough heating and cooking to make our other fuel bills tiny... an annual gas bill of about £50 and our annual electricity bill is about £230, paid to Good Energy Ltd http://www.good-energy.co.uk/ who supply 100% renewable electricity.

Tuesday 15th January 08

A good day, got a lot done... started with a lie-in with Gilly which was as usual lovely and then got up, leaving her for a sleep and I got on with some housework including processing a load of oranges into juice. I then went into town and got a repeat prescription for my asthma preventer, and paid the electricity bill for the year ahead... it cost £227 as last year we used 1213 units (about 3 per day) and Good Energy says that the normal usage is between 12 and 26 units a day. That annual cost includes a fixed charge of 15.63pence/day too.

I visited my friend Debbie who has recently started a manageress job in a charity shop, after several years out of work. It was brilliant seeing her 'in her element', and dealing with the public so well. I was her referee for the job, although I'd never seen her at work, unless delivering leaflets counts as work! I also met a volunteer called Rosalind, a fairly glamorous 60 year old who flirted with me which was nice.

Met Jim in Coney Street and had a good chat, and then in Cycle Heaven met Rosie, who was initially Gill's friend (I think they met through Accessible Arts) and is now friends with both of us.

Got back just in time for picking up the kiddies and got back to some dry weather (been raining all day) so I went down the garden to try to get more hedge sorted out.

Gill made a super Spaghetti Bolognaise using soya mince... very tasty.

During the evening I watched a very interesting programme with Michael Portillo, and had a good chat with K on the computer (googletalk), then Gill and I did our 'parenting' homework which we've been putting off all week.