Tuesday 8th February 11

A slow start to the day but soon got busy, made up my muesli... this time with dried banana chunks, pineapple, nectarine or peach, and some almonds, either the foraged ones or some that Melody and Simon harvested and gave to us as they had so many.  Oh, and my home-peeled pumpkin seeds.  I do love my muesli.

Gill was preparing for a visit tomorrow from someone from the Council Education department, to check that we're home schooling well enough.  I sorted stuff out in the kitchen whilst she vacuumed and tidied.

I had a meeting at 4pm at the Guildhall, the monthly Environment Forum, and I planned to come back via the cycle path where there were some pruned-out trees which I could harvest, so I took my loppers so I could tidy them up for transport.

The Environment Forum was very well attended... over 20, which I think is a record.  I was pleased to see two new members from People and Planet, whom I'd introduced to Kate Lock, our Chair, yesterday at the Green Party talk.  Kate steered us through a packed agenda, including info about the Local Sustainable Transport Fund, which could have been used to fund a city-wide 20 mph limit, except that Steve Galloway, one of the Lib Dem Councillors (who in this case is the decisionmaker) wasn't convinced that there was enough evidence that it would make York's streets any safer, so he vetoed it. I wish we had Councillors who were a bit more bold and had a vision of a sustainable city.  Guy Wallbanks presented a piece on the Local Transport Plan, and Chloe Smee told us about Edible York, which got a round of applause!  Then there was a fairly long discussion about the Vision Document which several members have been preparing, and I offered to ask Jim Semlyen if he could put a website together for us, as we don't want to print such a big document, and publishing online would be best.  There was information about a tree-planting strategy which Kate has called Treemendous York, and there are quite a few different tree-planting projects happening already, including a BTCV-run 3500 tree project on Bootham Stray.  Finally there was a bit about Climate Week, which is March 21-27. 

I chatted with a new member Gwen, who works in developing countries, and then cycled off and headed to the cycle track, and gathered the branches I'd had my eye on for a while.  There was another bit of wood I've been thinking about for months... at the entrance to flats called Tradewinds on Hull Road, there's an ornamental tree which last September had a branch partly torn off.  I spent a few minutes lopping it off.  Whilst I was cutting it up for my trailer, a young lady approached me and asked if I was 'Compost Tom' so I said nearly, and she said she'd met me at the Caleb for Heslington Launch Party.  Her name was Alice.  We chatted for a bit an she continued walking up Hull Road, and I finished loading up my trailer.  I overtook her a minute or two later and asked where she was going.  She was heading for People and Planet.... except she was about an hour late!  And she was going in the wrong direction... she wasn't from York University and didn't know where she was going.  So I unloaded my sticks and walked to the University with her, and then cycled home, getting in after 7.30.

I had a mix of tomato and squash soup plus a hommous sandwich for tea, and spent well over an hour sorting through about 30 red peppers, putting strips of good firm flest to dry, to make sweet red pepper paprika.  Bed earlier than yesterday.

Monday 16th August 10

Awake early again as the curtains are far too thin, and I got up and after breakfast went to explore the footpath behind the house, and I found some nice lumps of dry wood which I brought back in case we light the stove on Tuesday evening when it could be cold and wet.

Then Gill and I walked into Mumbles together and had a wander around and did some shopping, and found two greengrocers and a health food shop, a love spoon shop and two charity shops. We spent more than an hour out of the house... and when we got back we thought the boys hadn't noticed that we'd gone, as they were so totally immersed in their DS games. So we had lunch and then had a family conference about what to do with the afternoon. Both the boys wanted to go and play Crazy Golf, as there is a place just at the bottom of Village Lane. So we all walked down and on the way we met a friendly Australian-sounding chap called Karl, who's currently teaching physics but is interested in working in a more creative way, and we immediately hit it off, and chatted for a short while.

I'd never played Crazy Golf before, but the idea is to knock the golf ball along the concrete playing area, past or through the obstacle, and into the hole at the end. This course had about 12 playing areas, all with different shaped obstacles. We all had our own club and different coloured ball, and four score sheets and a pencil. We just totted up the number of putts we each needed to get the ball in the hole, and at the end of the round, we totted up the number of points... and the person with the least had won, and, amazingly, that person was me. Beginners luck!

This was enough activity for most of the family so we came back home. Gill had prepared some tea earlier, a mix of Bulgar wheat, finely chopped onion, mixed seeds and grated carrot, and the middles of the hollowed-out mini-marrows, brought from home. The marrows/large courgettes were stuffed with this and baked with some grated cheese on top. We had this at about 6pm and it was really nice.

Before dark I went to a hedgerow where I'd seen a lot of dead wood and came back with a bag full of lengths of stick, which I may use if we have the stove going sometime.

In the evening I added chopped cooking apple to the de-stoned York cherry plums, and Gill's going to make a crumble with it to take to George and Rhona's.