Gill got me up at 7 as I'd agreed to go and stand outside a polling station at 8am. I got there at 7.45 as it only too me 15 minutes to cycle across Low Moor and over Millennium Bridge to St Chad's Church Hall. The Green Party 'door smiler' told me that in the first 40 minutes of voting, there had been 80 voters! I took the Green rosette and did 2 hours of 'door smiling'. We don't take poll numbers, as this is to find people who have promised to vote for a party, but then haven't turned up at the polling station, so that in the last couple of hours of the poll, the party activists can go and ask the voter if they have voted, and even invite them to have a ride in a car to the polling station. The Green Party stand outside polling stations mainly to remind people that we have a candidate... and with the hope that by doing so, we might get a few more votes!
After this, I went to see Pauline. I changed into my usual scruffy clothes there (I was tidy for the polling station!) and had a coffee and chat, then sawed up some scrap wood for her.
I called in on Country Fresh on the way home and bought some fruit and veg, and picked up a small sack of biodegradables. Freshways also only had a small sack.
After lunch I picked up a prescription for Gill and voted. The polling station was busy.
Then I had a few quiet hours, before the children came home, did a bit of paperwork, and then at 4 went down to town again for my annual check-up at the optician. I have Glaucoma in the family so I have a 10% chance of getting this, so I have my eyes checked regularly.
On the way into town, though, I had an accident, a collision with a car which stopped suddenly in front of me. I was on a left-turning corner and a car on the outside of me started to pull in to the left, which would have trapped me. Now I could have applied my brakes sharply and stopped, or I could have accelerated away from the danger. I chose the latter... but the car in front then stopped suddenly and I went into the back of it, scratching the paintwork. I banged my groin on my crossbar and my tri-bars were pushed up, but the bike wasn't damaged. The passenger in the cat was quite upset though... shocked, and I calmed her down and explained what had happened and gave her my contact details, as the accident was partly my fault. She told me it was a hire car and she'd bought extra insurance for it, so I don't know whether I'll get the bill or not.
Fortunately, my eyesight is fine, so far! Maybe I could do with a 'road-sense judgement' test!!!
Came home via Country Fresh where Rich gave me a lot of dryable fruit and I gave him some dried fruit as a thank you.
I had tea soon after coming home (linguini and a tomato/veg thing) and did some more writing.
Soon after 9 I got myself ready to cycle over to Acomb to attend the count. I won't be back until the wee early hours, and will probably stay up to see the outcome of the election.
Showing posts with label The Green Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Green Party. Show all posts
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Thursday 22nd April 10
Another good day. I got up at 8.30 and did assorted things around the house, and Gill went to the GP as she's had a very painful foot for months and months. She has often wondered if she has broken a bone in there.
I washed up. I found a way to get the solar hot water through without the boiler kicking in. Firstly I checked the temperature on the tank in the loft... the incoming temperature from the solar panel was 80 degrees Celsius. So this was hot enough to bypass the boiler and be mixed down with cold water to a reasonable temperature for it to come out of the tap. But we don't think the system is working properly, as when we turn the hot tap on, even with the tank so hot, the boiler goes on. I need to contact the installers to get this checked. So what I did was to turn the hot tap on with a low flow, too low a flow to make the boiler kick in. A few litres later (water for the Papyrus plant!) the water ran warm, enough to do the pots, pans, plates and cutlery. I was very pleased. When Gill came in she said she'd been having showers like that for a while! I checked the temperature afterwards, back up in the loft, and despite the sun still shining fully on the panel, it had gone down to 76, proving that some of the hot water in the tank had been replaced by cold. Result!
I went to the bread shop and got two small loaves and six bags of rolls and some Danish pastries and some flapjack offcuts... all for £4. That's the beauty of Yesterbake!
On the way back I couldn't help seeing several builders vans outside a house, which was having a huge log cabin built in the back garden. There were loads of offcuts already available, actually I think it was packing wood.. as the planks were fixed to steel bands, fortunately easy to pull off the planks, so I asked the builders and they were very happy to see the stuff go. I took one trailer load before lunch and at about 2pm, went to pick up a second load. There were also a vast quantity of thin slivers of wood, again, something to do with the packing, so I brought those home too, and I broke each one of those into about 4 pieces and popped them into a sack... I got 5 potato sacks full of kindling. Excellent. They also said I was welcome to have the pallets.
When our youngest came in from school he had a friend with him and we all chatted together about the things they have done, as he's been on a special day up at Manor School and seen a video about electrocution, and not playing on the railways, and various other things. Apparently it was 'pretty random'.
I dug out about half of the metal-sided compost bin into the builders sack. I riddled another sack of mature compost dug out of the builders bag yesterday. I had a lot of interest from some robins, and I put a small yellow centipede on the palm of my hand and held it out... and one of the robins came and pecked it off my hand. Hand-feeding robins! Lovely!
I had fried egg sandwiches for tea. We have more eggs than we need, some out of date ones, so I used those.
Later I finished breaking up the kindling and watched the politicians debate on BBC2 after it had gone out on Sky which we don't have. I think they are all grey parties. None of them inspire me. Caroline Lucas inspires me. I will be voting Green.
I washed up. I found a way to get the solar hot water through without the boiler kicking in. Firstly I checked the temperature on the tank in the loft... the incoming temperature from the solar panel was 80 degrees Celsius. So this was hot enough to bypass the boiler and be mixed down with cold water to a reasonable temperature for it to come out of the tap. But we don't think the system is working properly, as when we turn the hot tap on, even with the tank so hot, the boiler goes on. I need to contact the installers to get this checked. So what I did was to turn the hot tap on with a low flow, too low a flow to make the boiler kick in. A few litres later (water for the Papyrus plant!) the water ran warm, enough to do the pots, pans, plates and cutlery. I was very pleased. When Gill came in she said she'd been having showers like that for a while! I checked the temperature afterwards, back up in the loft, and despite the sun still shining fully on the panel, it had gone down to 76, proving that some of the hot water in the tank had been replaced by cold. Result!
I went to the bread shop and got two small loaves and six bags of rolls and some Danish pastries and some flapjack offcuts... all for £4. That's the beauty of Yesterbake!
On the way back I couldn't help seeing several builders vans outside a house, which was having a huge log cabin built in the back garden. There were loads of offcuts already available, actually I think it was packing wood.. as the planks were fixed to steel bands, fortunately easy to pull off the planks, so I asked the builders and they were very happy to see the stuff go. I took one trailer load before lunch and at about 2pm, went to pick up a second load. There were also a vast quantity of thin slivers of wood, again, something to do with the packing, so I brought those home too, and I broke each one of those into about 4 pieces and popped them into a sack... I got 5 potato sacks full of kindling. Excellent. They also said I was welcome to have the pallets.
When our youngest came in from school he had a friend with him and we all chatted together about the things they have done, as he's been on a special day up at Manor School and seen a video about electrocution, and not playing on the railways, and various other things. Apparently it was 'pretty random'.
I dug out about half of the metal-sided compost bin into the builders sack. I riddled another sack of mature compost dug out of the builders bag yesterday. I had a lot of interest from some robins, and I put a small yellow centipede on the palm of my hand and held it out... and one of the robins came and pecked it off my hand. Hand-feeding robins! Lovely!
I had fried egg sandwiches for tea. We have more eggs than we need, some out of date ones, so I used those.
Later I finished breaking up the kindling and watched the politicians debate on BBC2 after it had gone out on Sky which we don't have. I think they are all grey parties. None of them inspire me. Caroline Lucas inspires me. I will be voting Green.
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