Tuesday 10th August 10

We were woken early by an excited little boy who is 11 today... he had woken at 4am and was too excited to go back to sleep, so he'd been reading but was hungry, at 7.40. Gill got up and told me to go back to sleep.... I'm not an early morning person, and am up til 2am, whereas she sleeps in the evening when I'm doing things and she then gets up at 6am.

So, at about 9 I was woken again, the Birthday Boy had held on and wanted desperately to open his presents. So I decamped into his room and sleepily watched him open a box with some Lego figures in it, including a jester and a magician, and his older brother had made him a wand out of a stripped holly stick and in the split handle was a trapped pheasant feather, some kind of (imaginary) 'power' that I don't understand. I don't get make believe, never have really, it's an Aspergery trait.

We all breakfasted and I wrote a letter to the Neighbourhood Unit about the Funding shenanigans I've found myself having to deal with. Then before lunch, their friend came down to join us with a trip into town. I cycled in, stopping at Woodlands as one of my documents hadn't photocopied properly, and they wanted to re do it, and then to chat to some chaps who were taking down an Ash tree.

The boys and Gill caught the bus into town, and I'd arranged to meet them at the Museum Gardens after I'd met up with the Neighbourhood Unit to explain the position of York in Transition about 'sponsoring' another organisation, or rather, not being able to. I met them on the steps of the Yorkshire Museum, which has recently been refurbished. We spent quite a long time in there, and it is improved, although some things aren't yet labelled/numbered, and I spotted at least three mistakes, one was a spelling mistake, another a text layout error and there was a factual error too, but I can't remember what that was.. But I liked the use of the Tempest Anderson Hall as a film theatre, and I liked the more open space with the reference books visible on the floors above the exhibitions.

After this the boys wanted to wander through town looking at shops, my idea of Hell, so I cycled home via the Edible York Raised Bed,where I saw my friend Lizzie talking to the Radio York presenter next to his car with the aerial up. I stopped, and found out they were about the do an interview. Chloe turned up, and all three of us were briefly interviewed on live radio... what a surprise! I talked about the Transition to a low carbon economy where we grew more of our food locally, and the presenter introduced me as Compost John, responsible for 30 sacks of compost getting to this bed.

But I needed to get back, and when I did, I spent an hour getting about 400 or 500 kg of Ash logs onto my trailer, I think I did 6 trips, before the time came for my 4pm appointment, the York Environment Forum which I occasionally attend.

This was at the Guildhall, and was a special meeting to ask questions of Andrew Cousins from the Allerton Waste Recovery Park, or Anaerobic Digester/Incinerator plant. We had a series of questions and I asked a couple of supplementary questions based on the wide-ranging conversations I had with Andrew at The Hospitium. It was a good meeting and we agreed to write a position statement about this development. We also debated our Vision Document. We finished well after 6pm.

I came home and loaded lemon halves into a heap and came in quite tired to have pasta for tea.

Saturday 4th April 09

Excellent day... spent lots of it outside working. Kids played, all was happy.

Our youngest went to the Yorkshire Museum quite early, with Ros and her son, to wave the 'Roman Coin' at the Portable Antiquities people. The consensus was that it was a reproduction... what a pity!

Simon came round with his son, and our eldest played with him whilst Gill and I chatted with Simon over a cuppa. I then cycled over to Goodramgate to visit Oxfam which sells big tubs of Cafedirect instant FairTrade coffee, 500g for £14.99, a somewhat better price than the Scummerfield 100g jar I got yesterday (as we'd run out!) for something like £3.40 I think. Anyway, I like to buy stuff from Oxfam. I then went on to Sainsburys and spent the same again on assorted things and came back along the cycle path and brought back sticks.

Then did a load of composting jobs... dug out a static tumbler (one which has ceased to rotate as the frame broke but I still use the drum for putting tumbled compost in, to mature) and then emptied the Compostumbler 600l machine, forking the stuff into a dalek. The children helped me with some riddling, using the Rotaseive. Did loads of this, after they'd done a couple of loads. They played on the trampoline and made mud bricks and built a wall.

A lovely but hard working day.

Saturday 7th March 09

I woke as Gill was doing something in the bedroom, and she said she was going to the garage to get our eldest child's bike out, but I knew it was kinda tangled up with other bikes, or at least mine would have to come out first, so I said I'd do it. He'd been invited to go to the Yorkshire Museum by Simon and his son, as there was a 'Portable Antiquities Open Day' event there, and Simon's son has been doing some field walking near where the new sewer has been put in between the new University Campus ('Heslington East') and Elvington... and has found lots of pottery and one enormous iron nail.

So our lad set off with just one item.... a clear glass bottle with a marble stopper and the original rubber seal ring which I found near where the University had trashed a stretch of woodland.

I got a delivery of a HUGE poster from The Age Of Stupid. I'd like to find somewhere sensible to put it up...

So, a peaceful day ensued... I did some paperwork... an invoice (on reused paper, as usual) and a couple of other bits and bobs, including watching a 50 minute film about the making of The Age of Stupid. This was fascinating... the concept was born in 2002, as 'Crude' and used a novel approach to funding, called 'crowd funding' with 'shares' being sold (the first batch were £500 each), and then the subsequent evolution of the film, with Pete Postlethwaite being invited to be the crux of the film right at the last minute. Really worth watching... I am so looking forward to seeing the film on the 15th... next weekend.

I got a phone call from a chap round the corner who had got some waste wood outside his house I was interested in, and I'd left a note saying if they didn't want it, I would be happy to recycle it for them. He rang as he was clearing out a house in Tang Hall/Heworth area where a relative had died last year, and there was some wood in the garden he was wanting rid of. So I said I would come round within half an hour and see what there was. He admitted he'd already disposed of some stuff on a bonfire. Anyway, I easily found the house as the whole of Heworth was full of the smoke from his bonfire... There was quite a bit of wood left, and I sorted out the stuff I wanted from the non-burnable wood, and advised him to get the rest of it recycled at Hazel Court. There was also a couple of rolls of chicken wire which they wanted rid of, and I was glad to have this! As I was leaving, he offered me a pair of unused wellington boots with steel toe caps... my size too!

So I cycled into town with a trailer full of wood and wire netting and the wellies too, and went in search of a beard trimmer. My research had not found a wind-up model although there are a couple of wind-up shavers available, just not beard trimmers. So I went to Boots and got a model by Remington with rechargeable batteries, costing £25.

Came home via Country Fresh, and once I got home and unloaded, I popped back down to Freshways to pick up their 'resources'. After a coffee I did an hour's worth of filling the Compostubler with a mix of fruit and veg, shredded Christmas tree, sawdust stuff which was too big to go through the riddle and unwanted bokashi bran which St Nicks didn't want, as it had got damp and partly gone mouldy.

Spent quite a bit of time preparing pears... I have absolutely loads from the collections over the past few days. I wash each one and let it drip dry on the plate drying rack, then cut it in half from the stalk to the flower remnant, take out the core, flower, strings up to the stalk and the stalk, then peel it, taking out any bruises or damage. Then I cut each half into three, lengthways, resulting in 6 slices per pair, put on the cake racks for drying. Dried pears are one of my favourites!

Our eldest son came in having had a good time cycling and playing. We had tea... home made tomato soup and a Thomas' Vegetable Pastie. Not too bad an evening, although there was noisy resistance from the children to being asked to go to bed at 10.20.

I stayed up late whilst Gill slept on the sofa next to me as usual, until the early hours when I go to bed and she comes up too.

Thursday 22nd August 07

Didn't get a lie-in as at 9 we were expecting our friend to bring her son to spend the day with us as she's working. So we decided to go to the Yorkshire Museum's 'Wild Wednesdays' event in the Museum Gardens, which was a natural history event, with minibeast searches, and aquarium, moths caught last night, and more.

Gill went down on the bus and I cycled, as I had a pick-up to and something to find for my eldest's birthday tomorrow. Gill had got him a walkie talkie, and last night we tried it out and it was rubbish, it was supposed to be able to communicate 'up to 60 metres' but it didn't even do 6. We were not happy, and National Geographic, the sponsors of this kit, should be ashamed for such a waste of resources.

We met up in Museum Gardens, Gill handed over the kiddies to me and she went to get her money back for the next to useless walkie talkie, whilst we boys enthused about insects and minibeasts, including a bug hunt (Gill arrived back in time for this) and a visit to the observatory, where I learned about a chap called Goodricke who discovered a variable star, and I think worked out that it was two stars rotating around each other. There was also internet pictures of the Sun from the SOHO satellite, wonderful stuff. Boys mostly loved it.

Gill took them back home on the bus, via a bakery for a spot of lunch. I cycled off to Out Of This World for a compostables pick up.

Then I went to 'E Roy' in the little street near the market place, and they had a very usable walkie talkie system , with a range of 'up to 5 km', he said it would work just fine for our needs, however it was £50, ie not a toy but a useful gadget. I bought it, I'm not sure my son deserves it, but it'll be useful to all of us, hopefully.

Called in on Anita on the way back and had our usual coffee and chat. Then onto Hes Road for another couple of boxes of stuff.

I made my own tea, rice and beans with some tomato stuff out of the freezer, to make room for fruit.

Long computer session in the evening, various searches on the net, good chats with K in America, as usual. Intense, but worthwhile.

Weds 11th April 07

A lovely day weatherwise so got started early with some Green Party local election leaflet deliveries. I went with Debbie who enjoyed the round last time and had asked that she could help again. This delivery was Fishergate Ward, but a different area, someone elses round. It didn't take long with the two of us and we visited some housing we hadn't seen before, new flats and small houses off Hull Road.

I cycled into town to do my Wednesday compostables pick up, and got some vegan ice cream for Gill who reacts badly to cow's milk products. Vegan products also have less of a carbon footprint too, as cows produce loads of methane and use lots of resources such as water and feed, which has it's own carbon footprint. The 'Swedish Glace'ice cream also tastes lovely, but is a lot more expensive than dairy.

I also visited the Yorkshire Museum with the Morel fungus I found over the weekend on the allotment. Pip Strang the expert there says she will identify it... I was suprised to hear from her that there are 18 British species, my book lists just two! She'll contact me with a identification in a couple of weeks.

During the afternoon I did a lot of riddling of finished compost, to make the stuff usable and separate the uncomposted sticks and non-compostables (stones, little bits of plastic) from the fantastic crumbly rich particles of 'humus' or biologically active carbon-rich matter, perfect for adding to growing media for healthy plants and crops. The seeds are in, I need lots of compost to add to leafmold and loam to grow them in. So I'm bagging up the riddled stuff ready for this season. My riddle is a sheet of chicken wire mounted on a wooden frame, about 1.5m square. I also have a 'rotaseive' which is smaller and has smaller holes, producing a finer grained compost.

This afternoon's York Press had our letters published, mine about the lack of response from Lloyds TSB about my offering to help them with reducing waste, and one from Gill saying she considered me an Eco-Lover not an Eco-Warrior.

In the evening I attended the first meeting of York CRAG, Carbon Rationing Action Group. This was interesting and I enjoyed it a lot. The basic idea is to help citizens to reduce their carbon emissions and save resources for future generations. This will be done by offering a carbon calculator to measure annual emissions, and setting a target to try to aim for (or under!). There will be regular meetings to inform, educate and encourage, perhaps themed to get people with different interests involved and on board. We may perhaps set a penalty for those who go over the target, a financial penalty per kilo, which would be paid into an account and used to offset those extra emissions. The offsetting could be local, such as helping to pay for insulation or energy efficient lightbulbs for a CRAG member who's finding the target difficult to attain. We're meeting in a fortnight and will debate and agree Mission, Aims and Objectives plus discuss (and agree?) the structure of the group.

I got home just in time to see the Newsnight 'Ethical Man' special, in which I featured, helping Justin Rowlatt with composting and helping Ethical Man go on his way ethically, by composting him. It was a good programme and I think was a fitting end to his year-long project. And I've benefitted as I now have a column in Community Care magazine (starting at the end of the month) and a new career begnning.

What a day!

Wednesday 14th March 07

Woke feeling just a little sad at last night's email from the Yorkshire Post, but glad I'd responded politely as I like to keep options open and not burn boats.

When I was offered my column I contacted my friend Kate who writes a column for the York Press and asked her if she'd give me some tips and advice. In return, she asked me to help her with her compost bin which she's had for just over a year, and needs some management. Of course I was happy to help with her composter, and even if she now no longer needs to give advice to this non-columnist. I dug out the bottom of the dalek, the material was mostly well rotted and will need a short while maturing before it is used in her garden. The plastic and unrotted bits were taken out and put in their respective places (dustbin and top of compost pile) and the semi mature stuff put in a polybag for revisiting soon, when I'll Rotaseive it, a hand-powered mechanical riddle which separates small particles from larger sticks, etc.

I didn't have time to sit and have a coffee or a chat about the gutter press, as I was due at Askham Bryan Agricultural College for a short course about trees, evaluating the amenity value of trees and evaluating the different calorific value and burning quality of different types of wood. This latter issue is close to my heart, as all these blogs are written in front of my 4.5kw Clearview smokefree woodstove, which heats the front room and the bedroom above. So I learnt less from the second worksshop, apart from some numerical stuff such as how many BTUs (British Thermal Units) are in different species of tree's wood, fresh cut, air dried and kiln dried. The amenity value evaluation was completely new to me, a rather complicated and not very precise set of calculations called the Helliwell Method. However we were novices and if done by someone who knew what they were doing, it is a reasonable way to calculate an objective value of a tree from factors which are mostly subjective. Different people value trees for different things... an artist will see the shape and form, a biologist will see the ecological value, a timber merchant or woodburner will see something else. The method also enables a value in pounds sterling to be made, for compensation claims perhaps. We went into the grounds and attempted some amenity evaluations, then retired to the classroom to ccompare notes and discuss. Very interesting.

Then bombed back into York and filled up the cycle trailer with compostables and got home in time to meet up with a zoologist/entomologist from the Yorkshire Museum, who had been very interested in my find of some Minor Stag Beetles in a partially rotten log which I'd split. Often I put obviously rotten logs under a hedge in the garden so that beasties get a chance to live and breed, but this log didn't appear that bad, as it was mostly sound and would be good for burning. However when it split, a load of juicy woodboring beetle larvae fell out, plus a couple of adults, easily identifiable and in my book, rare and not found north of Nottingham. Pip the bug lady told me that they had actually been found as far north as Edinburgh and were found in the York area. Still a nice record for them, and Pip enjoyed the stroll down the garden and was pleased to see our Goldcrests which love the trees above my fruit-fly infested composters, and feast on the little blighters. How nice it feels to take materials which would otherwise be landfilled and lost for ever, and turn them into Britain's smallest bird plus a material which traps carbon into the soil and helps us grow delicious squashes and sweetcorn.

Our garden also has good populations of blackbirds which enjoy turning over mulches and flicking them around, also pecking at unsold apples which I often deliberately throw onto the lawn for them, and robins which love it when I move bags of compost around and reveal worms and other invertebrates which they hop down and eat. When working in the garden I always have their company. I'm not good at identifying other birds, but Gill has identified Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, House Sparrows and Dunnocks, Blue/Great/Long Tailed/Coal Tits, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Siskin, Starlings, Collared Dove and Wood Pigeons, Magpies, Wren, Treecreeper, Redwing, Blackcap Warbler, Fieldfare, a Kestrel (swooping towards the bird table) and Mallard Ducks visiting next door's pond.

It is very satisfying to have so much life enjoying our land, of which we are temporary stewards. The garden looks messy to people but is a haven for animals, plenty of nesting areas and ecological niches.