Monday 18th May 09

I woke with a phone call from Thomson Directories AGAIN pestering me for payment for advertising. I am unsure what this invoice is for, as I already sent them a cheque earlier this year. I rang Thomson directories back to find out what the two cheques were for and got nowhere. I rang my Building Society to see if the previous cheque had been cashed, and was told that someone would get back to me by the close of the day. They didn't.

However, I had a couple of things to do in town, and called in to Cycle Heaven to ask about tightening my disc brakes. I left my bike with them and walked into town, and when I got back less than an hour later, I was told that it had seized up slightly and they'd tightened it up, but the next time it needed adjusting, I'd need replacement brake pads. Disc brakes are good, they are not wearing out my wheel rims like with previous bikes (I needed to replace my rims every other year) but the downside is that the replacement thingy inside the brake is about £15 a pop, more expensive than brake blocks!

Anyway, came home via Country Fresh (one box) and Freshways (two sacks) and within these there were two pineapples, so Gill made an upside-down pineapple cake... slices of prepared pineapple in the base of a cake tin, and sponge cake mixture on top of this. 6 minutes in the microwave and voila! A cake! A delicious cake!

I had some time potting up tomato plants in their final position in big planters in the conservatory, using home-made potting medium. Very satisfying. I had an early tea, just sandwiches, as I was going out to two talks with no time for tea between them.

The first, at 5.30, was the Professor John Whitelegg Inaugural Lecture about designing a zero-carbon transport system. This was in the Physics department at the University of York. The lecture was streamed and recorded, and I'll put a link to the recording when I find it! It was an excellent lecture, and I like John Whitelegg's enthusiasm and delivery. This finished at just after 6.30, and I skipped wine and nibbles to cycle swiftly over to the Priory St Centre to see another Stockholm Environment Institute researcher, Andreas Heinemeyer, give a talk to the Co-op Members Group. I know Andreas reasonably well, but I've never seen him present a 'Transition' style talk. He was very animated and injected lots of humour, I really loved the way he delivered the information. I stayed for the meeting afterwards and spoke to the item on York Green Festival receiving funding, and put in two items of AOB, one on York Credit Union becoming Yorkshire Credit Union and one on the Transition Picnic.

Cycled home, arriving for 10pm, and had a bowl of pineapple cake and cold custard whilst watching the news. Had a chat with Ali on the phone about her creative writing which she wanted me to read and hear.

Got a lot of writing to do this evening... still!

Blog page view counter (from Bravenet) went past 10,000 since September last year. I'm amazed!

Friday 6th March 09

Gill walked our youngest and his friend to school and I got up and did some paperwork and chopped wood. A few weeks ago someone suggested I enter a competition being run by the Yorkshire Post to find a green person.. even the greenest person, so I entered that. I also took some photos with Gill's camera of my assorted logpiles and compost bins.

Before going down to school I went to Country Fresh and came back with a huge load of stuff, which again I photographed to give an idea of the sort of stuff I bring back with me. When I transfer these to my laptop I will be able to post them on this blog... exciting! Well, exciting to maybe a few people!

Had an email from Susanne Wiigh Masak who has invented a compost burial process which is more environmentally friendly than conventional deep burial, called 'Promession', something I've been interested in for quite a while. And then I had a brief Skype chat with her. Excellent!

I prepared some of the contents of the fruit and veg haul, including a load of tiny tomatoes which Gill added to the tomato and onion base for the pizza she was making.

I went down to school and did my self-imposed composting duties, emptying the playground bins of about 20 Kg of fruit and veg bits, which as there is no compost bin at school to put it all in, I put in a large potato sack and brought it home, where it all went into the Compostumbler. I have had an email from the headteacher saying she had received my letter, and could she pass it on to the Health and Safety person who said schools weren't allowed to compost. No apology though, not yet. I would like one..... it would make it feel a lot better. I asked her to copy anything in to Councillor Waller as he said he was taking action, and I trust him.

I did some more splitting and stacking, had a phone call from Thomson Directories about extracting money from me, and then continued with the much more enjoyable wooding.

Gill's pizza was good, but it arrived too late for me to go to the Critical Mass, but I'm not obliged to go to that... but maybe I should have as there was aggro at home which I could have done without. But once the little darlings were in bed, all was peaceful and I prepared a large number of pears, putting them on racks for drying.

Watched 'Rocket Science' on BBC2 which was OK but not brilliant. Nice chats with Ali, sorting out future visits to Sheffield.

Friday 18th May 07

Woken by fighting boys downstairs... well this is completely normal with a 7 yr old and a 9 yr old I suppose. Wearily came downstairs and sat there blinking and trying to look fierce. It seemed to work as the aggro stopped. Whilst Gilly took them to school I did some Fiddlesticks paperwork.... a reply letter and invoice to a playscheme in Harrogate in August.

Went back to bed for an hour when Gill came back in, but was disturbed by Rory from Thomson Directories wanting to talk advertising.

Collected my emails which include the info from Thomson and their work with Google.

Did lots of housework and stuff inside, including more bean seedling potting up, I've now got hundreds of them, each in a plastic cup 'harvested' from a skip on Heslington Road a few weeks ago, and given a drainage hole from a hot wire charged up in the woodstove. Some of them will be given away and others donated to a fundraising event, with plenty for the garden and allotment. There's two main types, Jack Edwards PeaBean and 'Cobra' climbing bean, but a smattering of others including some dwarf beans which I haven't grown before.

Went to get the kids and did a bit of composting in the garden. Gill created tea, rice-based nutloaf with left-over rice from yesterday, and peas from the freezer and potatoes from the veg shop on Hes Road.

Then I prepared for the evening, meeting with York Rotters at the 'Slug and Lettuce' (appropriate!) to see off Keely after her couple of years in post, and welcome Catherine, our new project officer. I put together a jar of dried fruit for her, and labelled it 'Some that got away'.

I went to town early as I had not collected my Out Of This World compostables, so I did this first and then parked my bike in a place overlooked by several CCTV cameras for safety. Met up with Jo, new Rotter and then several others. We waited outside Slug and Lettuce as it was heaving... the York Races are on, so loads of toffs around... and eventually Keely arrived so we all went in. Drinks were very expensive but the atmosphere was ok, and we all had a lovely time. John and Ivana had got Keely a leaving present of two fruit trees, a plum and a peach, and had brought a digital photo of then... not the real things, fortunately!

Spent a couple of hours there and when the party moved on I came home as I have work tomorrow and shouldn't get too tired. Being responsible.