Friday 22nd October 10 Sunderland Food Waste Day

Wow, what a fab day!!!  A very early start, a long day, very stimulating.

So, after 4 hours sleep, got up at 5.30 and before I cycled down to the station, I remembered that I wanted to take some extremely well rotted humanure compost with me, as I thought the children would be interested in that.  I'm really glad I did!

So, with a small rucksack and two canvass bags, I set off to get the 06.37 to Newcastle, with the tickets which had been sent to me by the Sunderland Sustainability Team.  The trip up was uneventful... I kept on failing to read my NewScientist as I was too tired, and the highlight was pre-dawn Durham, and then the Metro trip to Park Lane, which I got to soon after 8am.  David, one of the Sustainability Team people picked me up and drove to an industrial estate where there was an office complex with a large meeting room suitable for the groups of schoolchildren visiting the assorted stalls.

I was pleased to meet Suzanne from Peta, who was doing fruit and veg kebabs and presenting information about Meat Free Mondays. There was also a nice gent called Craig from Groundwork who was making things out of waste... hanging baskets out of plastic milk bottles and paper pots from newspaper. Then there was an excellent project fronted by Richard Smith, called Dig It,  They were doing seedling based stuff, parsely seeds I think.  Another lovely chap was Paul from Food for Life, he did a little presentation at the end too.  There were also people doing a taste test between quorn and beef mince and tasting unusual fruit.

My stall had several items of 'going off' fruit and veg including a mouldy cauliflower and a carrot with black patches, a small collection of other suitable compost items such as a loo roll, a balloon, a bit of wood, some EcoLeaf toilet roll packaging, which is compostable plastic made out of potato starch, and another small collection of non-compostables.  Then there was a box of compost beasties... worms, slugs, woodlice, a few centipedes.  Always popular, these!  I'd prepared two compost bottles (which I think is my invention as I've never seen them elsewhere) (OK, I just found these, but my design is simpler and better!!!) (OK, I've just found loads of similar designs on the net.  How could I have thought that I invented these?) I suggested to the groups that they might like to try making compost bottles.  I had 3 bags of compost: one with material just a year old, then one with riddled and very mature, and finally, the bag of humanure/sawdust compost.  This was just SO popular, with loads of questions and interest.  At the question and answer session at the end, most of the questions were on this.

I enjoyed chatting over lunch and loved doing the composting stuff with the small groups of 9 to 11 year olds.

However, I was glad to be packing up at about 4pm, and to get driven to Sunderland train station for the 5.30 Grand Central train back to York.  This got in at 7pm and I cycled home quickly, tired but elated.

Later Gill and I watched BBC2's 'Life Without Work' which focussed on York's Seebohm Rowntree's report on poverty about 100 years ago.  An excellent programme, and available on iPlayer for a short while.

Tuesday 20th January 09

A very smooth pre-school time... both boys got out of the house without a hitch, and in good time. I took our youngest down to school and bombed back to spend a little bit of time with Gill before her sister Jane arrived and the Media students came for their second day with me. They were due to come at about 10.30, but rang then and said they were having difficulty getting away from the campsite, apparently unable to find someone to pay!

So they rolled up at sometime after 11 and we headed off to St Nicks to see the assorted demonstrations of sustainable living..... things I don't have such as photovoltaic panels, rainwater harvesting, a solar hot water panel and the wind turbine. I found some more oyster mushrooms, demonstrating one aspect of 'Freeganism', ie free wild food, and on the way back, harvested some logs and sticks and popped into Freshways where Raj was most complimentary about the service I freely offer.

Over lunchtime, I cooked the mushrooms on the woodstove and had a long rambling interview covering much more than low carbon choices and freeganism. I think they enjoyed themselves. I was asked to do a bit of devilsticking and we had a final trip down the garden, which might be made into a speeded-up walk with normal-speed bits where I'm pointing things out, such as various fruit trees and other features. They left just before 3, in time to have a quick coffee and cycle down to school for the usual school-run.

Jane stayed for a bit to see the boys, and I started to try and tidy the conservatory, which is embarrassingly chaotic and cluttered. Mike her husband came to take her back home, and we all then sat down to watch Barack Obama's inauguration, which I found very emotional and tear-jerkingly wonderful. I spent quite a bit of time sorting out a sack of envelopes that school had given me to recycle... I removed excess sticky tape, tore off stamps, tore out plastic windows and screwed up the rest of the paper so it can form a carbon-rich layer in the latest heap.

I had some leek and potato soup and a chocolate bar a child wouldn't eat as it had got damp, and at 6 headed out to the Burton Stone Lane Community Centre, the other end of the route 66 cycle track. This was to participate in a Waste Watch and York and North Yorkshire Waste Partnership training session on reducing food waste. Luna and Felipe made it a really good session... there were lots of 'party games' as well as facts and tips. The aim is not dissimilar to York Rotters: once trained up, we are in a position to help others reduce their food waste... so we could attend roadshows or chat to colleagues, neighbours and family.

This finished between 8.30 and 9 and as I came home along the cycle track, I arrived home dragging a tree with me.

Gill had just woken up after dozing for two hours whilst the boys were playing on the computer... they headed up to bed pretty sharpish and I got on with various computery stuff. I still have to write a column before tomorrow morning....