Wednesday 15th June 11

I was woken with a phone call just after 9 from my friend Gary Haq, who had been rung up by Radio 5 Live, who wanted to interview activists who had an opinion about Mark Kennedy, the undercover policeman who as Mark Stone, got rather too involved in the Climate Camp... and his role caused the trial of some people allegedly planning to shut down a coal-fired power station to collapse.  Gary said that when he spoke to the researcher, he thought of me, and he offered to pass my phone number to the researcher.  A few minutes later, she rang me, and we had a few minutes chat.  However, my views about him were not polarised enough to warrant them ringing me back for the show at 10.

I listened to the show; they had an interview with Mark Kennedy which was interesting, and several people who had known him, and a selection of people who were either damning him or praising him.  Our son listened to the programme with me, and learned about various legal acronyms and other words.

However, I was due to be at David's at 12.15 so I couldn't stay and listen to the whole programme, but what I heard was interesting.  I cycled down to town and met Alanah at David's, another of his PAs, who had got him breakfast and ready to go to the organ recital by Francis Jackson.  He is one of York's best known organists, and David's been looking forward to it for weeks and weeks.

I took him to St Helen's Church and we were almost the first there, and positioned ourselves in a good position to watch Francis doing his thing.  The church filled up, as he's very popular.  Francis is 94 years old and has been involved in making music in York for 83 years, since he was a chorister in York Minster. He played some Bach, Vaughan Williams and a piece he wrote himself as a retirement present for a colleague.  He didn't just play, he introduced some of the pieces and was quite a character.  In one of the last pieces, something by Karg-Elert, he made a mistake right at the end, and he got up and said, 'I'll do that again' and he played the last few chords again.  He came across as a really lovely chap.  And David's seen him perform on numerous occasions and spoke with him afterwards, which was nice.

Then we went to the bank, and to the Library where we filled in a questionnaire about eye health, and then back to David's home.  I made him some toast and got away at 3pm.

Lynn had asked me to come and visit, and give her the caffeine-free coffee we'd been given, so I had a late lunch and then went round for a proper coffee (ie with caffeine!) and a good chat; it's been ages since we spent any time together. I took her some climbing beans as a present and we caught up with each other's news.    I went from here to a Freecycler called Tim who'd advertised a Le Creuset lid, 24 cm across.  I'd measured the pan I found in a skip in 1999, and have been using all this time with an ill-fitting aluminium lid with a plastic Marmite lid on top, which allowed me to balance trays of fruit on top.  I emailed and said that I thought it might fit, but if it didn't, I'd put it back on Freecycle. When i got home and tried it, I was hugely delighted that it fitted PERFECTLY!!!! Gill and I were so pleased!  Tim had the lid spare as he'd dropped his pan and it had shattered, as they are fairly brittle cast iron with enamel on.  At least the lid has another new life!

At 7 I'd agreed to go and visit Sherry, Melody and Simon's lodger, who wanted to make use of our Suma order.  I cycled down there and she got about £10 worth of dried fruit.  I came back via a logpile.

Then I spent some while chopping up the sticks given to me yesterday, and dealing with a load more kindling-style stuff, putting it neatly into fruit boxes.

A nice simple tea... potato, bought pizza, asparagus.

And a fairly good evening, trying to catch up on some writing tasks which are outstanding.  Bed at 3am.

Wednesday 6th April 11

Another good day, the morning mainly inside and a good bit of the afternoon outside.

At 3pm I went round to see Lynn, who had asked me to help her 'do' her compost bins.  The fullest one needed the top layers taking off, which I'm happy to do by hand... the stuff washes off, and doing it by hand means lumps can be broken up and bits of plastic removed easily.

So the top layers, with bountiful worms, went in the less full bin, and then Lynn found a dustbin with a lid which I filled with more or less finished compost.... I'll lend her a riddle and that will enable her (or her children!) to separate the fine compost from the unrotted sticks and plant stems. 

However I could only spend an hour there as Gill had gone to the Steiner School for a meeting with our lad's teacher, and so I had to get home to make sure our eldest was OK.  But instead of Yorkys or money, Lynn gave me several good sized leeks that she'd grown.  I was very pleased with this barter.

When I got home things were a bit fraught, Gill hadn't managed to get to the Steiner School and was wondering where the taxi was... it came and she got to school on time.  Our youngest came home in a taxi and Gill, after the meeting, took the usual two buses.    However, our eldest was happy helping a friend with his homework, so I went out the front to split logs, and got distracted by a possible chainsaw sound, which turned out to be a strimmer.  However, I collected the last of the sticks from Jamie... except he said there was another load coming, as he'd done a bit of tree surgery work for someone.  Suits me... except I have to sort out a chainsaw!  Argh!

I made myself some tea... the second lot of home-grown Shiitake mushrooms (had some yesterday too) fried up and put with a bit of couscous salad, some olives and a few bits of tomato, alongside a potato and chive salad, and an unwanted hommous sandwich rejected by one of the boys.

Then at about 9pm I loaded up my bike trailer with 4 sacks of compost, and one on the pannier rack, and cycled it down to St Clements.  I was back home 25 minutes later.

Had a peaceful evening, prepared melon slices for drying.

Tuesday 12th January 10

Quite a good day... got a letter from a reader of plants for a future, to which I contributed a comment, with some seeds as a swap for some tubercles of Diascorea batatas (sometimes known as D. opposita) or Chinese Yam (see this blog post). I also had a phone call from a West African man living in Worcester who'd bought a cinnamon vine in a pot from Country Fresh when he was visiting York, asking me about how to look after the plant... and I promised to send him a few tubercles when they were harvested.

So I replied to both with a letter and information about looking after the plant, and tomorrow will put a film-canister of tubercles with the letter and send them off, one to Worcester and the other to Maldon in Essex.

At 10am Lynn came round as she had asked if I still had any spare bananas... and by chance, I had got some more bananas yesterday so she came round for a chat and to pick up some bananas. We chatted for over two hours.

I popped round to Tang Hall Library to take some children's books back, and got milk from the Co-op on the way back.

Rice and home-made baked beans for tea, and then off to the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel for 6.30, where there were just two applications to deal with. However at the previous meeting, just before Christmas, only two people were able to attend, and they disagreed over an application, so the Clerk had emailed round to canvass opinions and gather more comments. The other person had said this was underhand and wrong, as only the opinions of those present at the meeting should count. So we had a very heated discussion which lasted until we had to go, at 7.30. We realised that we had no ground-rules for this situation so the Clerk is going to ask the Council for advice, and I'll ask my Fishergate Planning Panel friends if they have rules about being quorate (having a certain number of people there in order for the meeting to make decisions) and whether people not actually at the meeting can contribute to the discussion or the vote. Difficult ethical and procedural dilemmas.

A late evening with children and homework.

Wednesday 16th September 09

A very busy and good day... maybe because Gill ensured that I had a lie in, and I came downstairs after 9am, and had some good chats over breakfast.

However, I had assorted things to do so I got on and did them.

I cycled down to Lawrence Street and measured three parking spaces which have a two-hour limit, so I could work out how much turf to get. This don, went on to Morrisons to get a big jar of Marmite, and some goats cheese for Gilly. Then on to St Nicks to discuss a job which has been advertised there, with the recycling team. I am wondering whether to apply for it. It's four days a week, 28 hours, and pays £10K. If I got it, it would be a big change for me as I'm used to pretty minimal paid work, and lots of free time to do things which reduce my cost of living. But the Fiddlesticks work is not that busy and I'm missing the writing work, so I might give the recycling job a whirl.

But I also needed to go to St Nicks to sort out the bags of stuff brought back from the Green Festival, all the paper plates and biodegradable containers, cardboard cups, wooden forks etc. I had to take out some plastic and a few cans and other non-compostable bits... but this left me with four sacks of material to bring home and put in assorted tumblers and daleks.

Home for a late lunch and then after that went up to B+Q to find out about the turf, and I easily bought what I needed. I got 12 rolls for £31. I'll collect them on Monday, the day before the stunt.

Then did a little bit of riddling, and dug out a pallet heap into a builders bag so I could re-load the pallet bin... and took some riddled compost down to Richard at Country Fresh, and brought back a huge load of perhaps 80kg. More composting, finished pruning the little cherry tree, and picked some pears. I prepared the pruned cherry wood into a 'magic staff' for one of my boys who desperately needed one.

Gill used the broccoli I bought to add to a lightly spiced curry that one of the boys had requested and we had that with rice and pitta bread.

I then popped out to see Lynn who's been requesting some dried fruit for weeks, and saw that she has got a garden parasol to lend to the Car Free Day event.

So a busy day. Productive, active, feels good.

Thursday 14th May 09

Did some paperwork this morning... emailing and various Fiddlesticks and Green Festival stuff, including getting a phone call from Ed at the Co-op North Yorkshire Area Committee telling me that they had decided to sponsor York Green Festival again. This is such fantastic news!

After lunch I went to the allotment and dug loads of clumps of grass out, dandelions, thistles, nettles, weeded around the asparagus, and got perhaps enough space to put in my spuds, late but not too late! They'll romp away once in. Someone has stolen some pallets from around one of my compost heaps but pallets are easy to get hold of so I'll just get some more and rebuild.

I love being there, but my hands are now fizzy from all the nettles!

Gill and I made the tea together... I did some potatoes and some fruit for fruit salad afterwards. I doctored the soup with some soya milk and used up some dead spaghetti from a couple of days ago... a right big mix of stuff.

At about 7, went to Lynn's with the bags of clothes she let us look through... Gill only wanted a few bits, and wanted to get shot of the bags of spare stuff. Lynn had also got two squash plants for me, grown from seed from a commercial squash. So, no knowing what might grow from them!

Then onto St Nicks for the York in Transition meeting. Lizzie our facilitator today had gone to the wrong place... The Stables, and cycled fast across town to get to us. It was worth it, a very good meeting.

Spent time on the laptop doing the YiT facebook page, doing an event page for the Transition picnic and multi-sports day on the 31st May. And chatting to Lynn and Ali.