Friday 25th March 11 - UK Aware 2011, day one

A very early bleary start at about 6.30am (yawn) as had to be on the 08.11 train to London, and I hadn't got all my stuff together last night.

But as usual I managed to get to the station on time, and got myself nestled down into my booked seat.... and then blow me, who should come and sit opposite but my neighbour's son Joe, on the way down to some kind of induction into a Mariner's organisation on a ship moored on the Thames.  We chatted a bit but then he immersed himself in his Kindle or iPad or something.

Fortunately, a lovely Chinese lass came to sit next to me, Faye, who's at the University of York doing a Masters in Education, her aim is to teach English in China.  We got on really well, and covered many subjects, and I hope she'll contact me after her trip to China to see her family.

So, as there was intense conversation, the journey went quickly, and soon after 10am, we were on Platform 0 at King's Cross.  I'd worked out my route last night, and headed for the tube to Earl's Court.  What I hadn't known was that to get the train from Earl's Court to Olympia the Olympia trains have to be running, and they weren't.  The tannoy said to go to a station South of Earl's Court, so I got this train, with some nice folks with an ADHD son, heading to the Dr. Who Exhibition.  But I hadn't heard that from this we should get the overland train, and I said I was sure we were going in the wrong direction, and we all went back to Earl's Court.  Here we got the info that we should have taken the overland one North up to Olympia, so we went South again to catch that.  However, when we got to that overland train platform, there was a sign saying 'next train to Olympia, 55 minutes'.  So we asked the station person, and she said get the C1 bus.  We got this, a largish group of us by now, and by midday we were at Olympia 2, for UK Aware.

I was first confronted by a rather hyperactive photographer taking pictures of the people coming through the door, had a show guide booklet thrust into my hands, and went to the front desk to register.  As I'm a speaker, I was told to go and pick up my badge from the side desk, and here I met Philippa whom I'd had a lot of email contact. It was good to meet her, and hopefully she was able to mentally tick off one more thing to worry about from her list.... the urban composting presenter is safely in London and has found the venue!

The show area had a lot of cars, bicycles and funny looking scooter/motorbikes on the left, so I had a quick look there first.  The cars were the various electric ones, which cost a lot but only cost a few pennies per mile to run, and give out no 'tail pipe' emissions.  The motorbike-like things were more my cup of tea (apart from the retail cost, starting at £1500) but were being tried out on a test-track... they can accelerate up to 20mph really quickly.  These were from solstis bikes and Quantya bikes. 

Near these was a hydrogen-powered fuel cell van owned by Camden Council. A model of a new wind turbine with swept-back blades which make it completely silent was in front of a bus covered in astroturf, 'The Big Green Bus', doing a week-long tour of London to promote Climate Week, and it's green as it runs on waste vegetable oil.  The bus is also sponsored by Armadillo LED lighting, which had an impressive and powerful set of lights on show.

still tbc!

Thursday24th March 11

I worked late into the night using Lucy's laptop and WiFi to write up the past couple of days events, and went to sleep on their fold-out couch/bed well after 2am.

And was woken up at 7am as I was booked onto the 8.06 from Weston to Bristol.  I had some cereal and toast with the children, and Lucy was driving past the station anyway so she dropped me there and came onto the platform for a few minutes to see me off.

In Bristol the 9am train to London was waiting, I had got a cheap route via Reading... a longer journey but cheaper ticket, so got into Reading at just after 10 and then waited for the Newcastle train which came in at 10.35 and left 5 mins later, with me esconced on a reserved seat.  Got the laptop out and half dozed, half deleted emails, chatted to Ernie behind me at one stage of the journey, and a lady opposite too, who was interested in my dried fruit and swapped some for a bag of crisps.

The train was early into York, getting in just before 3, and I went down to Cycle Heaven to see if they'd got my bike parts.  The brakes had arrived but not the indestructable sprocket ring, and Ash had forgotten to book my bike in for Friday, so Ben dealt with it and said come in on Sunday. 

I was pleased to get home and people seemed pleased to see me.  I did my emails and had a couple of phone calls, including one from my brother Tom telling me that my Uncle Eddie Potok had died last night.  I rang Aunty Lizzie and we had a nice chat.

Gill made spaghetti with a nice mix of vegetables for tea, and later still I had a bath.  I spent quite a bit of time getting stuff together for going to London tomorrow, as I'm going to UK Aware. I'm staying with Lisa and Ian and looking forward to that, and may get to see my Oxfam Carbon Footprint friend Anna too.  Exciting times!

Wednesday 9th February 11

Up early as we had a visitor booked... Dave the Education at Home Assessor.  However, Gill and our non-home-schooled child had an adventure in town; they went in on the bus and got stuck in town as there was a bomb scare so they got out and walked all the way to the Steiner School.  Apparently town was full of sirens and traffic backed up.  Gill got home quickly by taxi, via Heslington, at about 9.30am.

Dave the Assessor is independent of the City Council, and a very experienced ex teacher, and he arrived on time at 10am.  He talked to our home-schooled child, and us, and found out about all aspects of his weekday activities, what he enjoyed doing, different subjects, and we told him about the help we were getting from Maria and Simon, and going to Cafe Scientifique.  We discussed GCSEs and College, University and a lot more besides.  He was a lovely chap, and made us feel a lot better about what we've done.  He was completely satisfied that we were doing the right thing, and doing enough education and other beneficial activities.  We were all very pleased and in good spirits for the rest of the day.

I had a late lunch and got a bit stuck on facebook because I got drawn into a discussion about a conspiracy theory which I had vaguely heard of, but was a bit incensed by the way someone tried to involve the Rio Earth Summit in it.  Apparently, there is a group of people who caused World War One, World War Two, financed Hitler, caused the Ethiopian famines, and hijacked the Rio Earth Summit for their own ends.  I think it sounds like a mix of nonsense and paranoia, but it is interesting to se how some people think.

I also had a good phone conversation with Philippa from UK Aware, discussing whether I might be able to get involved. 

But I escaped from the confines of the house and went to St Nicks to learn how to work the laptop and projector in preparation for Saturday's Rotters training, which is full, with at least 25 people booked., I was shown what to do by fundraiser and computer expert Graham.  I came home via a pile of willow logs.  Then I did some chainsawing and splitting, and stacking.

A quick tea and out at 7pm to go to the Green Drinks at the 3 Legged Mare.  It was a lively discussion, with Jenny and Tom arriving soon after me, then Kit and June, Julian, Tracey, Melanie and Richard.  I really enjoyed this gathering.

Left at about 10.30 and came home via where I'd seen a stray, unwanted, unloved pallet, which followed me back as I think it knew it would get a warm welcome!  Ha, it will do in due course!