Tuesday 17th May 11

Oops, overslept, and woke at 9.33, realising I had agreed to meet Tony at 9.45 outside Alligators.  I washed, dressed, got a cereal bar and a banana and jumped on my bike.... and got to Alligators only a few minutes late.

We'd got an appointment at the Police Station to talk through the World Naked Bike Ride risk assessment.  The Police in North Yorkshire have a policy not to do any traffic management, so our 'how to reduce risk' section, which included references to 'police escort' didn't go down too well, but we included it as it was the obvious way to make the ride safer.  However, in the end, the officer who saw us gave us two possible ways to deal with the junctions and the problem of the peloton getting split.

So I regarded the meeting as a reasonable success, and Tony and I had a brief chat afterwards before I cycled into town to deal with David's water ingress problem.  I arranged to meet up with someone who uses the space under David's flat, to see where the water had got in recently, just to confirm which wall had the problem.  I then went to see David who had Richard with him, and Richard's friend John.  Gill messaged me; she'd brought the bike lock key into town so I could pick up our youngest at 3.30.  She popped in to see David, as she hadn't seen where he lives, or met him.  I was pleased they've now met.

I then took David to St Martin's Church, on Coney Street, next to City Screen, to hear the lunchtime organ concert, today being performed by Robert Sharpe, who's the Director of Music at York Minster.  The organ was a simple one, no foot pedals, and the pieces played included some Camidge, J.S. Bach, John Stanley and Mozart.  I enjoyed Samuel Wesley's 'Hornpipe' most, I think, but found all the pieces very simple (ie a keyboard played with one pair of hands), a bit boring and a bit comical.  The sound of the organ reminded me of steam-powered fairground organs.  But there was nothing I disliked, and I'd be happy to take him again; indeed, I am booked to do so! David enjoyed it very much, I was glad to learn.

I took him to Browns with Richard and John, and they met with Carolyn.  I went back to David's flat and met the person who has access to the space under it, so i could see the offending wall.  This will help me describe the situation to the Environmental Health when I speak to them.  I went back to Browns and John bought be a sandwich and coffee.

I had a quick look around the cellar with Richard and we found another source of moisture from the soil pipe from the upstairs toilet.  That can be fixed fairly easily, I think.

I then got off to go to the Steiner School to pick up our son and 3 outers of soya milk.  And a log on the way home.  Our son pedalled so hard on one section on the way home that he broke his chain.  We phoned Cycleworks to find if they could do it.... no, had to wait til Thursday.  We phoned Cycle Heaven and yes, they could do it in half an hour.  I loaded up his bike onto my trailer and took it to Cycle Heaven; Ash sorted it in 5 minutes and didn't charge me much.  I love Cycle Heaven, it's the best bike shop in York.

I got home and did a bit of chainsawing... some nice offcuts rescued from a skip recently.  Then I came in and flopped.  What a day!

Wednesday 16th June 10

I got up after the boys had left for school and again, had some time with Gill before I headed off to town to meet with my YWNBR colleagues Tony and Hugh, down at the Theatre Royal. We needed to touch base about last chance publicity, stewarding, all sorts of bits and bobs.

I called in on Barnitts on the way home to buy some bamboo canes which will enable people who buy flags to put them on their bike.

Then I called in on Country Fresh to pick up 3 boxes of compostables plus a range of veggies and fruit to keep the family going... I got in at 2pm and had a late lunch. I listened to Anna Semlyen on Radio York being interviewed about the ride and the 20's Plenty campaign.

Once the children were back home I did some more work in the garden... preparing the pond area for the forthcoming pond, by removing ground elder and brambles. Also did a bit of composting.

Later I went out log collecting and raised the suspicions of a car driver who stopped to watch me.

Sunday 30th May 10

Had quite a busy morning, up just after 9 and dealt with a slight hangover by having a large coffee and 2 paracetamol, and a shower.

I needed to be in tip top condition for work... Professor Fiddlesticks had been booked by Anna, the organiser of today's 'Multi Sports Day' near the Fulford end of the Millennium Bridge, which was due to run from 2 til 4pm. So I had an early lunch and got going with my bike trailer full of the usual gear at just after 1pm. I also took a couple of bags of dried apple rings for the LETS stall, and the York World Naked Bike Ride leaflets.

Stuff was already happening when I got there, and I secured a place on the path with my bike propped up against a lamp-post and immediately there were youngsters wanting to have goes on the unicycles. So I was busy for over 2 hours, unicycling and helping people with the 4 wheel unicycle, 2 wheel unicycle and occasionally the one wheeler. Oh, and rewarding people with balloons and doing some unicycle and devilsticking demos.

But it wasn't a perfect day... we had gusts of wind, strong enough to lift up some of the gazebos, rain showers and even a hailstorm, but several nice patches of sunshine. There were at least 100 people there, possibly up to double that, and it seemed that everybody had a good time. I was pleased to see quite a few of my friends, including Tony my WNBR friend who had collected the Yorkshire WNBR leaflet, half of them for Sheffield, half for York, and he'd also got some flags. These will be available on the York Ride, at a slightly discounted rate.

I packed up soon after 4pm as I'd had a phone call just before I'd set out from Randall, who wanted me to help fill in a Risk Assessment for the forthcoming CarFree Network Street Party, and he was due to come round at 5pm. I got in at 4.50, and then got a phone call from Rand saying he'd been moving paving slabs around with his bike trailer and would prefer not to have to cycle from Acomb to Hull Road... so could we do the meeting by Skype?

So we had a 1 hour 45 minute Skype call, filling in the documentation and raising several important questions. At the end of it Gill gave me a bowl of home-made celery soup which was delicious, and then home-made 'stuffed crust' pizza with salads, also delicious. Gill is an awesome cook, and knows it, and loves it. She's always saying how much she likes being a mother and looking after us. We are all damn lucky.

I visited Ben as he had offered a CFL bulb on freecycle which would fit our ceiling light socket in the front room (downlighters) and he also might have a solution to my shaver conundrum. He'd found a large heavy transformer, a box with knobs on which changes mains power to whatever voltage you set the dial at, and analyses whether things are shorting, etc. In return, I'm taking a box of waste metal to the recycling site for him.

Later I did the washing up and sorted through the bananas and set about 30 of them to dry, and left my shaver charging on Ben's machine.

Saturday 1st May 10

Woke feeling a bit excited as later today I'm heading off to Manchester to (hopefully) take part in an art installation by Spencer Tunick.

I had a busy morning outside once I prized myself out of the house, and then went to Country Fresh, and back to light the stove to get bathwater and tidy myself up.

Enjoyed my bath lots.

Just after 5 I cycled a child back to his parents and then came home, had tea and escaped from Dr Who, by listening to Tracey Smith on Internet Radio.

At 8.30, started getting ready to go to the station......

I got to the station in good time and got an open return for £22, and once on the train I had a really interesting chat with a young man whom I'd overtaken on the bike earlier in town, who was heading back to Huddersfield. He was Paul who works for the Tyndall Centre, and was therefore a great person to converse with. We chatted about how to assign carbon allocations to shipping and aviation, which currently doesn't show in any individual country's carbon emissions. What luck to sit with such a knowledgeable guy!

Tony got on the train at Leeds and he immediately inspected Paul's bike as Tony love bikes, as well as being a naturist and keen on participating with the Tunick installation. Paul got off at Huddersfield and Tony and I chatted about organising the York World Naked Bike Ride and several other subjects.

We got into Manchester soon after 11pm, and took the tram to Harbour City which is the nearest Metro stop to The Lowry. There was another guy who got off the tram who looked like he knew where he was going, so I asked him if he was going to the Lowry, and we walked together across a Dutch-looking metal bridge and to The Lowry, which was still open and people were beginning to accumulate inside as it was very cold and windy outside.

I chatted with some of the people in the group we joined, and as we had over 3 hours to kill, did some balloon modelling which went down very well. I worked with a woman called Jane who had previously done some balloon sculpture and she made a couple of animals. She loved the teddy bear I made.

Sometime after midnight we all went outside as the queue had started to develop, and people were getting chairs down from a terrace so they could sit and wait in the queue... as registration wasn't til 3.30am.

Wednesday 28th April 10

I overslept... oh dear. I'd told Debbie that I'd be with her at 9am to go and deliver some Green Party leaflets. She had a meeting at 11 so needed to be back before then, but I woke at 10am and didn't remember about the leaflets til about 11. I popped a note through her door apologising and later she rang and we sorted out another time to deliver them.

Gill got really busy cleaning the downstairs loo, inspiring me to do a job lot of washing up with solar heated water, and some hoovering.

After lunch I was expecting Katalin to come and visit but she rang and said transport was difficult so could she come tomorrow. I had no problem with that and got busy in the garden, riddling yet more material for the large raised bed, and taking worms from this compost to one of the wormeries which I think needs some help... I've found some dead worms in it and some maggots. I wonder what that is about?

At about 5 I walked round to Debbie's and we walked down to Heslington Road to deliver 200 'Vote for Andy Chase' leaflets.

In the evening I met with Tony at the Black Swan to do some more work on the York World Naked Cycle Ride. We finalised the route, decided who was doing what with regards to contacting various people, and it's all coming together pretty well I think.

After this meeting, which took 2 hours, we spent another hour chatting and getting to know each other which was really nice, as although I've known Tony for a while, I've never socialised with him.

I got home just after 11.15 and lit the stove so I could do the washing up from tea time.