Tuesday 30th November 10

Well a tough start to the morning, going into school and having another meeting. 

This, and another unconnected incident, meant that a 10.30 meeting I was due to have was cancelled.  But it wasn't a vital one, just a social, but I was looking forward to it.

So, I did some more prep for tonight's meeting, contacted St John's again but missed the person who would be interested in the Waste Food Feast idea, and spoke with Briony Pete, who assured me that she'd be able to find the place OK.

I cycled round to buy some bread and get a prescription, and only fell off once.  Then I went to the other Co-op (we are blessed with two both within 5 minutes walk or cycle) to get goats milk, but there was none.

So, apart from these excursions, a quiet day. 

In the evening I got a message to say the Hull Road Planning Panel was cancelled due to the weather, but I was quite glad of this as I was attending the Waste Food Feast planning meeting at 8pm, actually I needed to get there by 7.30, to meet Briony.

I had assumed that G/020 was in G block in James College, which I'd found on the map, but that was a residential block so I went to the info place and the chap in there directed me to the depths of the Mathematics Department.  I couldn't find the room but then was accosted by Briony, who had found it!

I dumped my stuff in the room and retraced my steps to put up A4 posters directing people to the room from the car park, as I was expecting someone from City of York Council to turn up, and possibly other non-University people.  When I got back to the room, half the People and Planet group had appeared.  But no-one from outside the University came... but that didn't matter actually.

Despite not being able to use her laptop presentation, Briony explained about her job, working for Wastewatch, and the Feed the 1000 event in Hull. She explained about the size of the problem: 8.3 million tonnes of good edible food wasted in the UK every year, costing £12 billion in wasted production costs, transportation, storage, and disposal.  This works out at an average of £480 per household per year, and if there are children in the house, the average cost of wasted food is £680 a year.  When it is explained that this is about £50 a month in wasted food, many families do want to reduce that cost, and save the money.   The environmental cost, in terms of unnecessary carbon emissions, wasted resources, other pollution, is enormous.

So, there were some good questions from the students, and the discussion which followed helped us crystallise what is needed to happen next, a preferred option and a 'plan b'. And a long list of people who want to be involved in the organisation of the event.  Briony said she'd sort out a facebook page to help co-ordinate and facilitate communication.  So we all left feeling very positive.

I cycled along to Melody to collect the unsold dried fruit from the LETS fair, and left 2 jars in swap for the little bottle of truffle oil that her son had prepared.  He did really well selling his chili oil, truffle oil and herb-infused oil.

I collected 2 logs in the snowstorm and came home, and watched the More 4 programme on how the British National Party got trashed at the last election.  Very interesting, a good watch.

Monday 29th November 10

Well a very snowy day, it had snowed heavily overnight, but this didn't stop me doing what I needed to do.

My first appointment was at my dentist's in town, so I set off in good time and had no problems with cycling until i got to Deangate, which had deep slushy icy snow, broken up by assorted vehicles and was difficult to cycle through.  I fell off once here, which was funny as I was expecting to come a cropper somewhere along the route, and it happened just before I got to my destination.

So, had my teeth cleaned and I bought more TePe interdental brushes and cycled home, without incident.

Then we had a meeting at home with one of the teams who's helping us, to discuss home education.

Then we had lunch. 

I managed to chat to someone high-up at York College who may be able to help with the Waste Food Feast, and he gave me some good advice about what might be possible and what wouldn't.  I hope he gets to the meeting tomorrow.  I also made initial contact with someone from York St John University Student Union, as I want these students involved too.  Looks like the Waste Food Feast is slowly coming together.

Sometime during the afternoon a neighbour came round asking for a wheelbarrow of logs as they have a chimera thing in their back garden, so I reluctantly let them have a few, but I really don't feel able to let many logs go, as we need them to keep the house warm... there is no such thing as a spare log here.  The same can't be said for compost or dried fruit, I'm happy to get rid of some of those!  But I like to keep relationships sweet, so it was more of a social thing than anything.

In the evening I had a headache and I went to bed for a couple of hours but got up at 10 when the boys went to bed, as they woke me up.  Gill and I watched a programme on BBC iPlayer about bullying; very interesting.