Friday 3rd April 09

Gill did all the early stuff, I got up, breakfasted, Gill came back from delivering our youngest to school, and we went back to bed as this is the last chance we have for a lie in for a fortnight... both boys are early risers, like Gill. Got up again at 11, I went to Thomas the Baker for Yesterbake bread and some pasties for tea, and the Co-op for some other bits. Met Stephen and as usual, 'chewed the fat' with him, putting the world to rights.

Came back to find Ai's wormery has been delivered. WRAP has a deal with assorted local authorities, through the Recycle Now website, they offer reduced price composting equipment. You put in your postcode and a range of different compost bins and wormeries comes up, with different prices in different areas. In Ali's area, there wasn't a Can O Worms available, but there was in York and North Yorkshire, so she ordered one to be delivered here. Se did this just in time, as now I cannot find any wormeries available on this website! The best price deal that I've found today is in Lancashire, where a 'dalek' compost bin can be had for £3 or £5, with a delivery charge of £5. But I put in postcodes of people I know in Shropshire, Cambridge, Norwich, Hebden Bridge and Leeds, and there are good deals to be had in all of these. My 'top buy' is the 330 litre Compost Converter 'dalek' bin.

I had lunch with Gill and then got on with processing the large logs out the front. I just managed to saw through the really thick cherry trunk and split the chunks, stacking them by the side of the house to dry. One of my neighbours told me that he thought my logpiles were untidy, and that he sometimes smelt smoke from the stove. I apologised for the occasionally poor management of the stove, which only burns smoke free when burning hot and with the air coming through the turbobaffle. Sometimes Gill opens up the air under the grate to get it burning well, and then forgets to close it. Sometimes a log goes on which doesn't catch properly, and it smoulders rather than burn cleanly and heat up well. So these stoves are only smoke free if they are well managed. I didn't tell my neighbour that I found his cars ugly, but I did, in passing, mention the invisible and smell-free carbon dioxide pollution that cars emit in very large amounts, but this was dismissed. Depressing. We ought to live in a smallholding really, where having a few tonnes of logs stacked around the place wouldn't upset the neighbours.

Gill did the school run and the boys had some visitors to play with. Melody and Ros came to drink coffee and chat. I visited Country Fresh and Freshways, to collect my not very fresh stuff.

Melody left soon after I got back, and had been given some garlic bulbs by Gill as I've got dozens and she pickles them. Next to the front door were another 50? or so garlics, thrown out by the veg shops, and I'd been intending to pickle these. I gave them all to Melody, as she's far better at doing pickles than me, she was ecstatic. In return, she'll give me a jar or two of the finished product, yippee!

Tea was delicious... I cropped some of the Shiitake mushrooms and gently fried them in olive oil on the stove, appreciated by all the males in the house (don't think Gill's too keen) and some of yesterday's lasagna and pastie and potatoes.

A warm and cosy evening. Did more dried pears.

Sunday 30th November 08

Quite an early start, to get ready for the train home from Burton on Trent. Got the 10 something northwards and changed at Doncaster which saved half an hour, as the original train went to York via Leeds.

Back into York at 1pm, collected some veggies for home at Country Fresh and got home to find a relatively peaceful situation, although the previous evening hadn't been that way. And the afternoon wasn't too peaceful either, as the ever-present homework was causing problems and there was a lot of answering back, shouting at me to shut up, and at one stage, the child in question ripped my tee shirt. I decided the best policy was to remove myself from the hostility so I went and did my emails and researched a little task that Community Care has set me, to nominate my heroes and villains of this year. Not easy, I don't have many villains in my life!

Took bathwater upstairs for our youngest and had tea, on my own as I'm not watching 'Little Dorrit' but everybody else was. But trawled through over 100 emails and replied to a WRAP questioner about composting in schools. Tried to pull together my Community Care blog, which I want to do about my non-diagnosis. Might do that tomorrow.

Thursday 8th May 08

I took the children to school and then spent over 2 hours finishing preparing the compost I took in on Monday (going through it by hand and removing plastic etc for the bin, and uncomposted sticks etc for reinclusion into a current heap) and then shovelling a large pile of soil onto the sheet next to it, mixing them up and shovelling it into 5 large plastic pots that Julia bought so we can plant up our veggies.

Home at 11.35 and there was a message from BBC Radio Northampton asking me to participate in a phone-in regarding the huge amount of food waste which is thrown in bins every day (there's a report out from WRAP which analysed 2000 bins and they have extrapolated those results to suggest daily figures for things like unopened yoghurts and whole chickens just thrown away, see http://www.wrap.org.uk/wrap_corporate/news/wasted_food_now.html and 'Love Food Hate Waste http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/) so they're ringing me at 1.15 to go on the radio, live, re composting.

But it wasn't food waste composting which they were interested in,it was my compost toilet! Daft buggers, always looking for the weird and wacky... Never mind, it's part of the cycle....

So a funny afternoon thinking about the media's preoccupation with the unusual, rather than asking me about food waste composting, which would have been much more useful to their listeners. At 2.50, David came with some LETS paperwork which I was meant to get photocopied and get delivered, and he left his wallet on the table. I went to school to do the Green Thumbs Gang and the pots were still in the after school club area, which is supposed to be for their sole use from 3 til 6, so a Dad went to get one of them, and I helped him get another, and we suffered some abuse from the people running the after school club, very unprofessional and over the top. I was quite upset as they used this language in the presence of children and I think they were being bad role models. I may very well write a letter of complaint... a polite one, but stating that this aggression and use of language was inappropriate.

Anyway, we got 3 of the huge pots of soil into position and the children planted one up with Cara maincrop potatoes and one with Marco garlic. We had a chat about beans and I gave them each a bean to plant, my favourite 'Jack Edwards Climbing Pea Bean' which I grow every year. They planted the beans and some flower seeds, then we went to look at the little greenhouse and last week's seeds... the broccoli and spinach was through, but not the parsnips or spring onions...

Home and soon off to town to go to Mail Boxes Etc where I get my photocopying done. Whilst in there someone came in and overheard me mentioning the Radio interview, and asked me several composting questions.... another excellent opportunity to spread the word... and then my friend Catherine H came in, and she's working in 'Education for Sustainable Development' (ESD) and I offered my services as an exciting presenter in her school. There'd be no payment, but the youngsters would have a chance to work the rotaseive and hear about composting...

Home via David's to give his wallet back but he'd gone out after cancelling his cards, he'd not bothered to ring us up and ask if he'd left it here! He'd shared his distress with his downstairs neighbour and so I left it with her. Later I got a message thanking me for finding it and returning it.....

Tea and soon it was time to go to the York Eco Action meet up at the Black Swan. A well-attended meeting, I wrote an impromptu agenda and facilitated the meeting. Everybody seemed happy with this.

At about 10, closed the meeting and cycled off to see another friend whom I don't know that well, and we soon found ourselves having a very deep talk. This person told me that they were contemplating comitting suicide as life was very tough, had been for 20 or more years and it didn't look like it would ever get better. I was a good listener and offered some possible solutions and I hope that I will be able to find a counsellor/advocate for this person, to help with one of their problems. Because I am very open, some people find it easy to be open with me, and I have some very interesting conversations and relationships. This talk had me in tears as the thought of this person killing themselves was so very sad. I was told when it was time for me to go that talking to me had helped. I offered to be a sounding board whenever I was wanted; I also offered the person the opportunity to visit me and Gill. Now to try to find someone who might be able to help... not too sure where to find a counsellor/advocate person but I'll try.

Home by midnight, a chat with Gilly and then a good chat with K over the water, who has got her compost bins up and running and suprised me by agreeing to recycle her urine on the heap. I didn't think she was the type! Assumptions can be so wrong....

Very late to bed, well after 2am...

Wednesday 30th January 08

A day which started feeling low but got better.

I took the boys to school and then on the way back collected some sticks someone had dumped near a hedge, and went on to visit Sarah who had requested some composting advice from a trained York Rotter! She has a composter, but did not know where to put it, so I suggested a place which would catch the sun, allow juices to drain away but wasn't too near the back door to be blamed for flies or smells in the house. Then had a coffee and a chat; she's a trainee social worker and was interested in our experience of the 'Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities' workshops.

Got home and got ready to go to SFSC which was good this week.

Home via Richard's fruit shop, picked up 2 bagfuls, and then got home just in time to go to school to pick up the boys, three of them again, and Gill took them all to Martial Arts as I waited in for our visitor, Richard the insulation expert. He came at 4pm and looked round the outside of the house, and the inside, and then had a wander down the garden as he's a keen gardener and composter too. Lots of really good chats and he will send us his recommendations and quotes.

Had a good tea of bulgar wheat and squash, and did my emails and got ready to go out for my second Rotters event of the day.... a Ward Committee meeting on Stockton Lane, working alongside Elizabeth the Council Recycling Officer (one of them!) promoting home composting and the cheap WRAP deal of a 220 litre 'dalek' for £8 (free delivery) or the 330 litre for £10 (free delivery)... with a pound reduction if ordered online (www.recyclenow.com/compost). We spoke to a dozen or so people, half of whom were alrerady composting but didn't compost cardboard, the others were new to the idea.

Left at 8 when the meeting itself started, and called in on James on the way home, who was very glad to see me as he says I'm his only friend apart from his care workers. I picked up some sticks from him and promised to go and visit next week.

Home before 9pm, tired but happier than this morning.

Later in the evening had a good game of Scrabble with Gill, and I'm back on form... I won.

Sat 14th April 07

Awoke at 9.10 and got up quickly as I was due at St Nicks for 10! I have been booked by Keely to teach at the latest York Rotters training session, to do the 'basic home composting' part of the course.

This covers what composting is, and some terminology, and where it happens in the wild, and how we tame it for our benefit. I talk about why it is good and why the alternatives are bad, and the range of materials which can be composted. This includes the two basic types of materials, greens and browns, or wets and drys, or high nitrogen and high carbon, which when layered or mixed make a good heap. We briefly discuss the living organisms which populate a typical 'cold' heap and 'do' the composting for you, fungi, bacteria, protozoa, worms, insects, mites, other arthropods and the complex ecosystem within, and of course how the heap's diaspora fuel the wider ecosystem of arachnids, amphibians, birds and mammals. And of course this touches on some of the percieved problems of composting, flies and rodents, and how to dissuade them.

We covered hot turned piles and cold 'sit n wait' heaps, different compost bins and containers, and how to use the material once made. We went outside to view the range of composters on display at St Nicks, and the leafmold pile and the wormery. This led onto 'advanced composting' which Keely led, on composting in urban yards and how to do cooked food, including using 'bokashi' which is a pre-treatment with a culture of bacteria and fungi which 'pickle' the food materials anaerobically before they are composted, making them much less appealing to vermin. I was allowed one minute to talk about my compost toilet, and how I use partially composted sawdust to cover and compost the humanure with.

Then we had lunch which was an opportunity to chat with some of the new people who had attended and re-connect with some old friends who had come for their first official compost training or for a refresher. I was pleased to chat with 'Kate the Columnist', perhaps gathering more material for her writing, my good friend Jenny who helps run AVP Britain, and I first met over a decade ago through the New Economics Foundation before we started York Local Agenda 21 and before I went on my first conflict resolution workshop run by the new AVP York, which I then joined and helped to manage for the next 10 years or more. We have now morphed into AVP NEEM (Alternatives to Violence Project North East and East Midlands)! And I was delighted to chat with an old LETS contact Anneliese who is a fabulous poet and wordsmith and is gathering ideas for a series of poems about, you guessed it, home composting!

After lunch and chat we met up with Izzy and Hel from WRAP who'd come to teach us 'compost drumming', samba rhythms performed on compost bins and caddies and other items connected with recycling. I've tried drumming before and never really got on with it, but Hel was a good teacher and I did better than ever before. We learnt a basic rhythm and a few breaks and are now ready to perform at the May 6th York Green Carnival... except I have paid work on that day and won't be able to fully participate. But I'd like them to come to the Green Festival in July.

One of the new Rotters, a South African called Sarah, was interested in seeing my composting demonstration garden, and as there was no reason to defer this, she cycled back with me and had the tour. She was also interested in the Ethical Man stuff, and as she doesn't watch much TV, I put the tape on and put a glass of juice in her hand and let her see what the Beeb has been doing over the past year.

Gill and the boys had gone into town on the bus to go to the City Art Gallery for a hands-on art day, and they also went to the Yorkshire Museum for a dinosaur exhibition, and between these visits had gone on a boat trip up and down the River Ouse, and eaten a picnic they took with them. They came in just before Sarah went, and they'd obviously had as enjoyable a day as I had.

We concocted tea between us, a stove-top stirfry of pumpkin/squash slices, mushroom (including home-grown shiitake), tomatoes and vegetatian sausages, with baked beans, cabbage salad, pickled beetroot and guacamole. As this was nearly ready, a person appeared at the front door, a woman who we've been friendly with in the past, but whom had on one occasion been very agitated and abusive, and then on a subsequent occasion apologised and told us she had a mental health problem and had been admitted to Bootham Hospital because of this. She was in an agitated and paranoid state, and was saying that she was unable to return home because her neighbour was persecuting her and the police would be waiting, and she had nowhere to go. I offered her the chance to sit in our garden with a cuppa in order to calm down, and I'd talk with her when I'd eaten my tea. I made her a herbal tea and had my meal, and then went to see if there was anything I could do to help. She was unable to suggest any practical actions I could do to help, and refused/ignored all my offers, as I would have really liked to help as she was in distress. I told her she seemed agitated and that I couldn't just listen to her tales of woe, and she became abusive to me saying that I was as bad as all the others and she left in a huff, saying she was just going to have to walk the streets of York all night with nowhere to go and no warm clothes. I was left feeling quite sad as I wanted to help but her mental state wasn't compatable with being able to accept help. I feel sure that she will probably spend some more time in Bootham. I will talk to her about what I should do if she turns up like that again when she is out and more rational.

This occurance rather put a damper on a good day. Another damper was that late at night when I'd spent an hour doing my blog, it refused to publish and I couldn't do anything about it. I lost the lot. I had to retype it all in on Sunday morning.