Saturday 29th October 11

I woke having had an odd dream that a young foreign woman had come to the door saying her business needed to recycle some food scraps, and would I help.  Gill had answered the door and sent them away saying that we didn't need yet more composting going on, and then I got to the door and called the woman back and it turned out she was from somewhere like Norwich Union, and I got a contract with them to set up a Jora system, composting at their premises, and managing it too, so an ongoing 'job'.  Funny dream!

There wasn't much morning left after I got up and breakfasted and got dressed....

The afternoon was good as I went up Marion and Dave's Winter Pear tree again.  I saw Marion on the way down the garden and she said she was very happy with the 3 trays of pears I'd taken up the garden for her, and I could have all the rest.  I'm very happy with that!  I picked a load more but there's still more to get.

I'd agreed to go over and see Anna, Douglas and Loony, in Sheffield, and Anna had suggested we have a meal out, and said could I be at the station for 5.30?  I got the 4.09 which went via Leeds, and I chatted a bit with a pleasant young law student called Natasha, from Newcastle, and visiting a friend in Birmingham.  I also took my pumpkin seeds (last years) and peeled the outer layer off them, one by one.  I got a lot done, on both legs of the journey.

Anna and Douglas like a particular Chinese restaurant called the Hong Kong Wok, and they'd booked a table. I had spring rolls and a green pepper in batter for starters, and then tofu and veg with egg fried rice for main meal.  It was lovely to have some relaxed chats with Anna, sitting opposite me, and Loony's 3 year old daughter was very entertaining too.

We spent just over an hour here, and then Anna drove us back to Middlewood where she and Douglas live, very close to the end of the tram line.  I had a coffee and shelled more pumpkin seeds, and at just after 9 set off for the tram, the 9.26 which would get me to the station for my 10.06 train back.

A late night but all went like clockwork, very smoothly.  A lovely evening, thank you Anna and Douglas.  

Saturday 13th August 11

A really enjoyable day, showing Loony around York... her first visit here.  I collected her from the Bed and Breakfast and we got a bus to Clifford Street, then walked to Parliament St to wait at the fountain to meet Grant.  I chatted to a chap with a huge sandwich board with a message offering a reward of £50,000 for information about corruption in the West Mercia Police.  He was quite an interesting person to talk to, but I didn't have long as Grant turned up, and we all went for some lunch.

Then we wandered over to Coffee Yard and visited David, and had a coffee and a chat, made David's day a bit more interesting anyway!  Then Grant parted company with Loony and me and we went to see the Minster, and then to Monkgate Bar to go along the wall to Bootham Bar.  By this time, Loony had done enough walking so we got a bus to Rougier St and then a Number 10 to Hull Road, and Loony had a cuppa and met Gill and the boys, and walked down the garden and back, before we went to the Co-op and on to her Bed and Breakfast on Heslington Road.

I didn't stay long as we were both tired, and I have work tomorrow and she has a long bus journey back to Bristol.

Friday 12th August 11

Mick the Brick arrived to finish off the job he started yesterday.  He put a final layer of render on, making it really smooth and it looks lovely, both inside and out.  I paid him and by 11am he was gone.

I did a small amount in the garden and more in the house, working with Gill a bit to get the conservatory more tidy and usable.

At 4.15 I cycled down to town, via Country Fresh, to meet Loony off the bus which was due in at 5pm.  We walked all the way through town to Heslington Road, where her Bed and Breakfast was, and when she'd got herself together after such a long bus trip from Bristol, we got a taxi into town.

We went to El Piano as a birthday treat for Loony, where Bob the chef was doing an offer, if you bought a drink, you got a tapas dish with it.  So we sat outside, under a huge umbrella awning, and had a couple of drinks each and 3 tapas dishes between us... a tomato salsa and tortilla chips, a refried beans and corn fritter dish, and finally, vegan sushi... my first experience of sushi!  Loony had a sugar free and fat free pudding too, made from banana and coconut.  

Saturday 7th May 11

A slow day, had several visitors though, Loony's mother and a friend, delivering a sofa and two chairs, and her ex partner and 3 year old daughter, who stayed when he went, and then her father and his partner, and a friend/home helper person, Gemma I think... but no-one else came to her housewarming, but glad some did!  I did do quite a bit of balloon modelling, Gemma was good and Loony and her little daughter had a go too.

I got the bus into Bristol at 6 and my train left on time at 8.30, got into Birmingham at 10ish, I left there at 10.30 and got into Manchester Piccadilly after midnight, and then walked in the rain across the City centre to Victoria, where I had a good hour's devilsticking before the 1.55am train left for York.  Got into York at 3.30, home and soaking wet at 4, amazed at all the lovely birthday greetings that came through facebook (and a few on email) and didn't get to bed until nearly 5.

Friday 6th May 11

Another busy day, mainly at the count and then a train journey.

The counting of votes was due to take place today, and what is now 'Energise' but I and everyone else in York calls Oaklands Sports Centre.  The entrance ticket said 9.30 but there were so many people wanting to get in, and having to get their round-the -neck tags saying 'Candidate' or 'Counting Agent' or 'Guest', that the count didn't really get going until nearly 10am.

The first job was to separate the Referendum grey coloured papers from the white Council Election papers, and this wasn't really a process which allowed any of the party workers to get any information.  This happens at the next stage, where individual ballot boxes, which are numbered, have their ballot papers counted and put in bundles of 50, and this number tallied with the number of people who came into the polling station to vote.  At this stage, it is possible to do a count of the numbers of ticks or crosses on the ballot paper and see what the voting patterns were in specific geographical areas, as each ballot box serves a part of the ward.  This is easiest in areas with just one Councillor, ie one vote.  However, it gets more difficult where there are two or three Councillors and you are allowed up to that number of votes.  So in Hull Road Ward, where there are two Councillors, there were two crosses on most ballots, and it was less easy to see what the outcome of the poll would be.  

So, although some of our party activists were busy scribbling down as many of the details they could during this initial count, I couldn't follow it and there wasn't a party activist giving instructions about what to do.  So I just watched the person counting and counted as well, to check they were getting it right!  I really didn't need to do this as each bundle of 50 is recounted by another person and initialled by them as well.  The referendum ballots were counted too, and bundled up into 50s, and this second lot of counting extended the whole business considerably.  At about 10am, Kirsten England, the Chief Executive of the City of York Council said she thought they'd be able to finish the job in a couple of hours, but the first result wasn't announced til 4pm!

So, after the numbers of ballots were tallied with the people who turned up to vote, the Council seat ballots from each ward were sorted into those papers where the voter had voted for both or all three of the same party, and mixed or single votes.  The 'block votes' were then counted and checked, and each candidate had their votes noted.  Then the mixed and single votes papers were dealt with, by a pair of counters, one reading out the names on the ballot, one by one, and the other with a tally sheet with all the candidates' names on and rows of very small boxes to the right of their names for putting a tiny line through or a cross in, rows of 10 and columns of 5, so each big box when full would add up to 50 votes.  This part of the operation was very important to watch, especially with one of the counters, who by chance happened to be a Council officer whom I really don't get on with as they've been rude, unhelpful and unprofessional with me in the past.  Several people noticed that this person was making mistakes, and complained, so when done, this operation was checked by  another group of counters.  All this took MUCH longer than initially planned, or desired.

However, the results started coming in, and one of the most exciting was in Acomb Ward, where the Lib Dem leader of the council, whom I think is a dinosaur who ought to have been put out to grass long ago, and his second in command, whom I think has been weak politically but is a nice guy whom I'm fond of, lost their seats.  The cheer from the gathered opposition was huge, my cheer was only for the passing of Steve Galloway, not Andrew Waller.  When the Hull Road Ward results came in, I wasn't elected either.  That's politics. 

The other interesting result was that in another ward to the west of York, Anna Semlyen was voted in.  She's been a Green supporter for a long time but was incensed by the unilateral decision by Steve Galloway to say no to a city-wide 20 mile an hour limit in built-up areas, and joined the Labour Party, and has been elected.  I now predict a few years of exciting politics.... I predict that Anna will 'make waves' and put a lot of energy into what she wants to do; I hope she remembers that she's representing the citizens in her ward and a good Councillor gets to know the area (if they don't live there, which she doesn't) and the people there.  I wish her, and the other new Councillors, and the re-elected ones, a good four years, and hope they can move the City of York to a more sustainable, lower carbon, fairer, more equal society.  One day I hope to get elected, in MY ward, for the party I've agreed with for all my adult life, and be a really hard-working Councillor.  Maybe next time?  It is, as always, up to the local voters.

As soon as our results were announced, I got my stuff and cycled briskly off, as at 6.24 I had to be on a train to Bristol.  I got back at 5 and Sue was talking to Gill on the doorstep, having collected an 'emergency' bag of dried fruit for her latest long drive.  I hadn't got any time to chat as I had less than hour to get myself ready and packed and off to the station.  This I of course I managed to do.

The train left on time and all the way to Birmingham I started working though over 100 unread emails from one of the lists I subscribe to, and once read, I deleted most of them.  However, there were still about 60 left, which I thought I might get through between Birmingham and Bristol.  But, no, I met a really nice chap on the platform waiting for the Bristol train, which was 40 minutes late, and we talked about Credit Unions, high street loan companies, how to conduct successful relationships, and much much more.  He got off at Parkway and I at Temple Meads 5 minutes later.  My friend Loony was waiting for me, and as the train was late, we'd missed the bus so we had to get a taxi.  She's got a new flat recently and is having a housewarming  party tomorrow, which is one reason why she's invited me down, to provide some entertainment.

Sunday 31st October 10

Well a reasonable sleep; got up at 9.30 and had a relaxing morning watching Country Tracks and playing Scrabble on facebook.  I also did some tidying of pumpkin seeds, taking them off the 10 or so sheets of newspaper where they have had their initial drying, and putting them onto fresh dry sheets, just 3 this time.  There are an awful lot of seeds. 

I visited my friend Debbie and returned some things she'd given me which I didn't want, and arranged to get her a few bits and bobs from the greengrocers.  Then I went down to Country Fresh and did my shopping and picked up the 3 sacks of compostables.  When I got back I did a bit of work in the garden, dug out the Compostumbler, putting the materials into a dalek, and immediately refilling it almost completely full. I collected the last of the quinces, which I expect I'll make into membrillo, as it's such an amazing taste.  I also collected quite a few of the windfall Cox apples, which are very plentiful this year, although really small.  I'll need to prune this tree this winter.

I was glad to have a facebook chat with my friend Loony, who's visiting my sister Anna in Sheffield, and a bit later another chat, by phone, with my brother, who's found himself hosting a Halloween party for Loony's daughter and Anna.  I'm sure all the children will enjoy themselves. 

Our youngest went out with a few of his friends to do Trick or Treat, and came back happy and overloaded with sweets.  I popped out to collect my equivalent, logs, as I've found a dead hazel which hadn't been coppiced, and had therefore come to the end of it's life, with a height of about 8 or 10 metres and a trunk diameter of about 10 or 15 cm.  If hazel trees are coppiced, ie cut down regularly, the tree regenerates almost indefinitely.  I'm doing something similar to a huge willow in my garden, but instead of cutting at ground level, which is coppicing, I cut it at about 3 or 4 metres, and this is known as pollarding, which I do every 3 or 4 years.  This also extends the life of the tree. So I came home with one trailer full of hazel logs and sticks, and will go back for more in the next few days.

During the evening I halved, cored and peeled more pears for drying, and a few Cox apples, and also did a few pumpkin seeds.  A busy but good day.

Sunday 8th August 10

I really enjoyed today...

After a slow start, and after lunch, the family went to Scarborough on the train, with one of the boys' friends, and left me to get on with whatever I wanted.

I spent a bit of time tidying the kitchen and then got the shredder up the garden to the front, and organised various sheets and bags to deal with the huge volumes of vegetation that I was due to process. So, I took all the pine tree I cut yesterday and clipped off any twigs, leaving the slightly larger sticks for stacking into a fruit box. I shredded these twiggy bits with all of the Wisteria I ripped out yesterday, and got 5 large sacks of shredded material off it. I did this on and off for about 4 hours, taking a break to make carrot soup (carrots from unsold Alligator stuff, home-grown courgette) and to prepare another saucepan full of Cherry Plums.

I got a nice visit from Debbie who was wanting me to help with a remembrance event for her friend Debbie Fricker, but I won't be able to attend as I'm doing something else. However, I'll be able to provide a little sack of logs for a ceremonial fire she's having.

Gill and the boys got back at 8 and Gill was pleased to have some carrot soup.

I had a really good chat on MSN Messenger with Leonie, a friend of my sister whom I've met once but have become friends with recently through facebook.

So a hard-working but relaxed day, happy that the Scarborough visit went well, and I feel lucky to have such a wealth of friends.