Monday 31st January 11

Gill woke late and leaped out of bed at 7.30 to get our youngest off to school in the taxi she booked last night.  We are using the taxi today as Rachel has offered him a lift back home on Mondays after school.  Gill was then going on to the Credit Union to get a big cheque out, almost the last of the Uncle Tom money, to pay for one term of the Steiner School.

I was woken by the phone.  I got downstairs just too late to speak to the caller, but used 1471 to get the number and ring back.  It was Justin, our electrician friend... and yes, he'd rung last week and said he'd be available on Monday, to check our rather dreadful wiring.  We've had to turn the loft spur off as when we used it, it tripped fuses, and the 'under the stairs' area looks like electric spaghetti.

So Justin came back and explained that he would first check the state of the sockets with the power off, then with them on.  But when he got to the junction box, it was such a mess that he said it needed to be replaced, so he got on with that.  It'll cost us a small fortune, but we really do need the wiring sorting.  When we bought the house, we took advice from my father not to get a survey done.  We are now regretting that as we didn't know that actually, the best thing to have done would be to rewire the house.  It has been installed by a succession of amateurs, and bits added here and there, and it is a fire risk.  Hopefully, two days of Justin will make it a bit safer.

So, we had the whole day with no electricity.  Glad to have the stove to make hot drinks.  I got on with some tidying outside, stacking, pruning and tying in the loganberries.  Gill set our home-schooler a task.  We kept Justin fed and watered.

Half-way through the day our Polish roofer friend Artur arrived... I'd seen him in the street a while back and asked him to come and fix a couple of slates that had been dislodged by the chaps who took the chimney down and installed the solar panels.  Artur and his chaps fixed the missing slates in about 15 minutes.  Good to get that done.

Justin worked til after 4pm, and will be back at 10 tomorrow.

I cycled round to Amanda's to pick up another load of her waste wood.   I started to riddle the sawdust from the front, to separate fine sawdust from bigger bits of twig, wood etc.  The sawdust is my compost toilet cover, and the bigger bits of woody stuff goes in layers with the fruit and veg composting, so a productive day.

Friday 14th January 11

A really good day!  Up bright and early as I had an interview at Archbishop Holgate's School at 9.15 with the Head Teacher.  As Gill was taking our youngest down to the Steiner School, she couldn't come to this meeting.  So, yesterday, our lovely friend Melody had agreed to come to the meeting and represent Gill, and take notes.  In meetings with teachers at her son's school, Melody routinely records the conversation on a dictaphone, so she brought one of those with her, and arrived sometime before 9am so she could walk up with me.

So, we walked up to the school and the Head and the head of Pastoral Care met us and invited us into the office.  However, they weren't happy to have the conversation recorded, saying it was 'confrontational'.  They offered a note-taker and promised to email the notes to me so Gill could read them.   I explained I wanted to set the scene and review what had actually happened to our son over the two years there, and to briefly outline what I felt the problems were within the school, with the only aim to help other pupils (and their families) avoid similar problems.  So, it was a good meeting as I'd started with this positive approach.  Both the teachers offered sincere apologies about what had happened.  They were shocked that the nice policeman who'd visited us about one incident had said that the school didn't want to admit there was a problem with bullying as they'd then have to deal with it.  But in general, it was a good meeting and it is possible that the school may make some changes to improve communication and to hopefully do more to prevent the bullies, and engender a culture of respect and love.  But maybe that's asking a bit much from today's society?

I walked back with Melody feeling happy.  Our boys are happy now they're not in that school.  Melody came home and had some lemon cake that Gill had made specially for her, as a thank you for going this morning.

I then went and did a lot of pruning, and just about finished the loganberries.  I'll need to tie in the canes which will fruit this year.  I did a bit of compost heap adding and a bit of logpile building.  Also visited Richard to get veggies and came home with a large stash of compostables.

In the evening I went down to Heslington with our eldest for his weekly Computer Graphics lesson, and came back via a logpile, cycling back again for 8pm and had a nice walk back.  Our youngest son has had a lovely week at the Steiner School, which is great!

So, a good day and hopefully now things with the children will settle down and our lives will become easier.  I look forward to not needing to mention them in this blog... it isn't about them, it's about how I live a low carbon lifestyle but recently my life has been almost completely overtaken by stuff to do with the difficulties at school.  I feel today has somewhat drawn a line under that.

Tuesday 15th November 10

A kind of nothingy day, although I did have a bit of an odd Fiddlesticks enquiry in the morning.  It was from a GCSE pupil who was at school and arranging some sort of school celebration where an entertainer was needed.  She wasn't very experienced at talking to a service provider over the phone, and I have no idea whether she'll come back to me.  I'm not sure she understood how I negotiate the fee.  But, we'll see!

Apart from that it was a quiet morning, and in the afternoon Gill went to town and I went out on the bike and came back with some logs. I did do some bits in the garden... pruning loganberries amongst other activities.

Probably the most notable thing today was that Gill got the next bit of secondary glazing done, in the downstairs loo, with a sheet of perspex and magnetic self adhesive stuff.  She had a slight accident with the self adhesive strips but it still works, and immediately the house feels warmer. 

I made tea... pasta salad and slices of stove-fried squash.  But a pretty low key day with lots of this and that, bits and bobs.  Tomorrow might be more focused.

Friday 8th October 10

A good day.  I did a fair amount in the garden; I had about 6 sacks of greengrocers stuff waiting to be slopped onto the heaps, so I pruned loganberries and blackberries, the bits which fruited this year, and they formed a good 'airy' layer to put some cardboard on, with the really wet fruit and veg on top of that. 

I also almost finished the new stack of fuel next to the front door, started yesterday.  I did a lot more fruit drying... I'm speed-drying apple rings now, in about 24 hours.  I could do with more drying space as I have more apples than I can cope with.  In between times I stripped cable to get the copper wire out, so I had a busy day.

At 5pm, Barry from Transition/Abundance came round to pick up the fruit press and apple crusher, to be used at tomorrow's Eco-Family Day at St Lawrence's School and Family Centre.  I'm on the Transition stall, but I expect I'll help with the apples too.

Not sure what else happened today, but I'm feeling happy at the end of it.  Maybe it's because Steve Miller Band is on Jools Holland...