Monday 19th October 09

A bit of an unusual day as our youngest is heading off to Todmorden to have three days of fieldtrip. So Gill and our little one headed off at 7.50am, on foot, to get to school by 8.15. I spent time with our eldest, and chatted carefully about things which I hoped wouldn't piss him off, and he got out of the house at the normal time.

So at 8.45 I was out in the garden finishing off the shredding of the twiggy bits of hedge... and completed this job! Hooray!

I also unloaded a couple of sacks of compostables from either Country Fresh or Freshways and found a large stash of tomatoes, of which about 25% were compostable and the rest washable and I therefore brought them in and washed them, fried an onion on the stove (in a pan, lol) and added about 40 small to medium tomatoes and a stick of celery, and cooked that up on the stove top to make a delicious soup.

Then I made sandwiches and had them before cycling off to the station to get on the 13.11 to Harrogate for my last acupuncture session with Karen. I fell asleep on the train and again on the acupuncture table. I asked her quite a few questions today, about what she was doing. Few of her answers made any sense to me, but I do come from 'Western medicine' background. I decided not to take her up on a further two sessions as although I've enjoyed this experiment, I haven't really got anything positive out of it. I agreed to fill in her questionnaire at the end of this week.

I cycled quickly back to Harrogate station and got the train to Knaresborough, and then mooched around the tile and stove shop whilst waiting for the York train. I had a fiddle with a Dovre stove and chatted to the shop assistant about flat irons and stoves. Then the York train came and took me and my bike home.

Gill had taken a phone call from a Dave on Windmill Lane, who's taken down a cherry tree and has offered me the branches. He wanted me to go round after 6pm, so I did and picked up a trailer and panniers full of freshly chopped cherry logs. He hadn't managed to take down the trunk and asked me if I had a chainsaw and could do it? So I'll go round in the next few days to help him out. Then I popped down to see Raj as he had asked me to help him with something, and after I'd spent half an hour with him, he gave me two veggie samosas.

Then I came home for tea, at about 7pm. Once again, a good tea... tomato soup followed by cauliflower, macaroni, potatoes, quiche, salad, olives... yummy!

Enjoyed some telly and tried to catch up with emails which are again building up...

Saturday 24th May 08

An early start but the taxi arrived at 9 and we were ready...just! We got the 9.44 train to Leamington Spa... the Bournemouth train, and it was quite busy. We were in the quiet carriage but it was far from quiet... a chap near us was talking very loudly to the ticket person (are they still called conductors?) and we could hear that he wanted to go to Sheffield, but our train was going via Leeds, Wakefield and then Chesterfield, by-passing Sheffield. The chap seemed agitated, and before Leeds loudly announced that he was completely deaf and wanted to go to Sheffield. Everyone else had heard that to go to Sheffield, people should change at Leeds. So Gill found a sheet of A4 paper and a felt-tip pen (we carry these to give the boys something to do if they announce 'I'm bored') and wrote on it "You need to change at Leeds" and I took it to the chap who then shouted 'B****r Off' at me! So I sat down, and another chap got up and approached him and signed something... and he got similar treatment. There was quite a bit of a stir in the carriage because of this! The chap didn't get off at Leeds but we think disappeared at Chesterfield and presumably travelled back North again to Sheffers.

At Chesterfield though, a group of perhaps 6 young women got on and it was obvious that they'd been out the night before 'on the lash' and were either hung-over or still drunk and very loud and girly, and off to a festival or some type of camping trip. It took til Derby for them to notice that it was the quiet carriage..by this time my rather intolerant child was getting ready to say something to them. I was reminded of my festivaling days, and was a bit distracted by their short skirts and long legs. Fortunately I didn't spot something that Gill told me about afterwards, that one of them was flashing her see-through knickers! That would have made it an even more interesting journey! They got off at Birmingham New Street and a quiet chap got on near us... I had a chat with him; he was just finishing his degree on Sustainable Architecture, his dissertation was on sustainable interior design. We had a good conversation and a bit of a laugh about various things.

Then we were in Leamington and Katharina and her two boys met us at the barriers and we walked to her house through the town, passing through a lovely park with a bandstand which I remember from years ago when I performed at the Leamington Peace Festival. There was a Farmers' Market and I bought 4 little bottles of perry, locally produced. Katharina's house was another 15 minutes walk through the town, on the Kenilworth Road in a very large house, now split into several smaller residences.

My boys were very happy to see their old friends, and Katharina was pleased to show us her new house which they've had re-vamped, with new flooring (following removal of dry-rotted wood) and a wonderful new woodstove, apparently partly inspired by seeing ours. Katharina and Ulrich have liked the idea of a woodburner for a long time, as in Germany they are more common, but they've lived in rented property since living over here. So they have bought a HWAM 'Beethoven' with Soapstone surrounds, which slowly heat up and keep the heat really well! It is a very stylish, having a curved glass door and it's a lovely grey colour. It's a smoke-free model.... Ulrich had been wanting the version which heats water, but it's not legal to have it in a smoke control zone.

I felt very tired and very relaxed, and as the boys all sat on one of the futons playing with a computer game, I went to sleep on the other! Just for a few minutes though, nothing too antisocial. I heard Ulrich come home and soon roused myself and was more sociable. However it is lovely being 'on holiday' and with people whom I feel very relaxed with.

We had a simple tea, pretty late, and a game of Scrabble with everybody else doubling up in teams, and me by myself... but their partnerships obviously hampered them and I won! Gill and I slept on a futon in front of the stove, which was wonderful!

Monday 17th December 07

A lovely lazy morning following exertions yesterday, read lots of NewScientist and sent a letter to them for publication about particulate emissions from woodstoves, and how woodstoves can reduce someone's fossil carbon footprint.

The rest of the day was good too, put a couple of layers on a sit and wait compost heap, and dug out the 'Compostumbler' and put the contents into a 'dalek' to complete the process. Found the 'Belu' bottle, disintegrating quite well now, and put it back into the tumbler for another 'cooking'! Started to refill, including the roadkill from yesterday and woodchips from stumpgrinding ops over the road. Late lunch, started working on my book's questionnaire again, after several months away from the project. Collected the kids at 3.15 and then stayed in and made carrot and orange soup for our tea. Continued doing my questionnaire on the laptop. The next thing is to find a way of distributing it, may use 'SurveyMonkey'.

Weds 4th July 07

I took the boys to school and then did housework and some email answers, put some info on the CRAG forum on woodstoves, about wood and its burning characteristics, including a great poem about logs, which I got from a workshop on wood fuel at Askham Bryan College a while ago.

Then at 11 am, Max from YellowTom came to pick up my cheque and we didn't spend much time together but he did demonstrate his brilliant Blues Piano playing skills. He liked out 'honky tonk' type piano and told us it sounded fine, didn't need tuning (for his type of playing anyway!)

Then I went for lunch with Jo, at her house for the first time, and was fed well and we had some good chats until about 2pm.

After lunch I zoomed into town to do my pick ups from Out Of This World and the greengrocers and got back in time to go and pick up the boys. Asked the head-teacher if ITV are allowed to film me next Wednesday doing my usual routine in the school playground after school and cycling back with the boys. I told her that the TV people would be ringing her.

Spent most of the evening trying to do the difficult risk assessment.

However did have some good communication with K. in US of A over Googletalk, which was lovely.

Friday 8th June 07

As Gill's legs still hurt following the physio, I took the boys to school.

The morning was mainly concerned with creating a placard for Santa to carry whilst unicycling on the World Naked Cycle Ride. Gill and I finished the poem, which was started with help from our eldest son:

OH, OH, OH,
How will I cope
With not enough snow?
It won't be as nice
With much less ice.

Ho, HO, HO,
A solution I like
Abandon your car
And get on your bike
Take the train or bus
Or travel my way...
Unicycle or reindeer sleigh!

This was carefully written on a large piece of cardboard and the backs of posters found outside the Lloyds TSB, put for landfill!

Also did various bits of housework and garden jobs. Early on our Polish roofer Artur arrived to repair the tarry sheets on the studio roof, which had perished. Some of the wooden batons underneath have perished and will need replacing, but he reckons that it will be ok for another 10 years.

Next door are having scaffolding erected to replace soffit boards, finish their loft conversion and do some repointing. Good banter with Lee the scaffolder, who has a stove for sale. Contact TB scaffolding for this!

During the middle of the day Ken our neighbour popped round to tell us we had a swarm of bees in our garden... infact it is 8m up a conifer in the other next door's garden, overhanging our garden. Barry, friend of Ken, suggested putting a box with honey smeared inside, and a hole or two in, which might attract the bees so they could be taken away and rehoused, but by nightfall they had not found this and were a tight ball in the tree.

At 2, a lady who advertised in the back of the Press came and had brought round her son's 2 yr old bike, suitable for a 10 yr old. Our eldest who has wrecked his bike needs a new one so we bought this for £30.

I took it down to the school (pushing it whilst riding mine) and he was delighted and promised to look after it. Came home with D and J, friends of our boys, as their mum is unable to pick them up until 5pm, which she did.

I left shortly after this and took my unicycle on my trailer, plus costume and placard, and parked in the Out Of This World car park, and unicycled to the Memorial Gardens to get dressed up as Santa Claus. Lots of seminaked and bodypainted folks, and minutes from leaving lots of people went totally naked for this local expression of a global protest/celebration. The route was fairly gruelling for a unicyclist in a Santa outfit, quite a sauna.

Afterwards went for a pint at the King's Arms, which was lovely and refreshing.

Home and I created a quick tea of onions, vegetarian black pudding and goat's cheese, with rems of quiche from yesterday. Ate this at 10pm, collapsed after and watched a bit of TV, then did a quick email and blog, and watched Joolz Holland with Paul McCartney and Bjork.

Sat 31st March 07

A very nice family day, with an early start as the Green Party are doing a candidates launch this morning at Clifford's Tower. As Gill and I are both candidates, we had to be there for 9.30am for the group photo. I cycled down with the boys and Gill followed on, a different route as she doesn't like cycling down Heslington Road for some reason. But there's many ways into town and Gill got there about 10 minutes after we did, on time for the photo. We all stood on the steps of Clifford's Tower with our 'Keeping York Special' banner.

I was very pleased to meet up with John Gray, whom I first met years ago through AVP York, the conflict resolution group Alternatives to Violence Project. He's an experienced facilitator and helped run some of the workshops, but he left the group to start Face to Face, a neighbour mediation service, I think. It's such a long time ago... and he's now married with two children. This is the first time he's stood in an election.

My sister Anna rang yesterday and told us that she'd like to take our boys to see 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat' musical at the Grand Opera House in York in April. She asked me to get tickets so after the photo session I queued in the GOH ticket office and bought 3 tickets for the Saturday night show. The boys waited outside with the bikes, and then we walked on to Barnitts to buy some seeds as a treat for the boys, who want to buy, sow and grow some of their own vegetable seeds in their own bit of garden. I'm so glad that they are becoming keen on gardening. They got Morning Glory (Ipomea) Heavenly Blue, 'Walking Stick' cabbage which grows very tall and has a tough stem similar to the Brussels Sprout, but it can be made into a walking stick as it's name suggests. I got some Crown Prince Squash and Russian Giant Sunflower, and chose some free Purple Sprouting Broccoli seeds as I'd purchased two packets of Thompson and Morgan veg seeds. A good bit of shopping! Boys happy, Dad happy, nice cycle home along the cycle path, and a 15 minute stop at the St Nicks play equipment.

Home in good time for lunch. After lunch I went to the lottie and planted a crown of rhubarb given to me by Linda and Duncan. They've taken several of them out to make raised beds for Linda's vegetables. I'll donate a couple of sacks of finished compost to them for this project. I like this giving culture!

At 4 our friends Bill and Dinah came for a visit, as Dinah hadn't seen the garden, and I'd responded to a Freecycle offer of a nearly perfect black plastic dustbin... I'll find it useful to store 'dry, carbon rich' materials in, to layer with the copius quantities of 'wet, nitrogen rich' materials I bring home for composting. Bill had borrowed a couple of books, one on compost toilets and 'The New Woodburner's Handbook' which has inspired him to install a woodburner in the skate park shed he's been responsible for. He gave me a bottle of wine as a thank you for the loan. Had a nice tour round the garden and a cuppa afterwards. They are easy people to be with, and we enjoy their company. We gave them an open invite to come again and spend a chunk of evening with us sometime.

Boys to bed after Dr Who and Gill and I really enjoyed 'About Schmidt' on telly, a thought provoking film with one of my favourite actors, Jack Nicholson.

Recorded a film late into the night which I've been looking forward to seeing, the final offering in the Koyaanisqatsi/Powaqqatsi trilogy, Naqoyqatsi, with music by Philip Glass. Koyaanisqatsi is one of my favourite films, it's fabulous.

26th Feb 07

A day with not much on, so a late start and then my usual monday cycle into York to collect compostables from Out Of This World ethical supermarket, via Richard the greengrocer, who was a happy recipient of a super selection of home-made dried fruit, as a thank you for his sorting out materials for me... and keeping them out of landfill. So OOTW had about 40kg for me and on the way back, Richard gave me another 15 or 20 kg. I know the approx weights as when York Rotters got its first funding, DEFRA requested information about weights of materials being diverted away from landfill. I bought a pocket-sized spring-balance from Barnitts and weighed my compostables for months and months, and recorded the weights and types of material (ie from our kitchen; commercial fruit/veg; cardboard; neighbours garden materials; my compost toilet materials) and so I know approximately how heavy any particular bag or brewing bucket is. So today I diverted about 55 or 60 kg from landfill into my lovely compost heaps.

I know I've got OCD (Obsessive Composting Disorder) but at least it's a healthy pro-sustainability obsession. I also love doing my dried fruit on the logstove. I gave Richard a selection including blackberry and apple leather, pomegranate and apple leather, pear slices, apple rings, experimental dried lychee blobs, melon strips, mango slices, a single strip of pawpaw, a jar or stove-dried raisins and ditto of stove-dried bananas. Richard wanted to have a snack which was healthier than biscuits, so he was happy with the delicious fruit.

When I got home I bunged some of the manky stuff on the current heap and then I started to prepare the leafmold for this year's seed compost. I collect aunumn leaves from the side of roads, Windmill Lane is good as I can cycle fast down it and then put my booted foot down in the gutter and scrape up a big pile of leaves as I come to a halt. Then I put this pile in the trailer and do another acceleration and foot down scraping action for another load. All these leaves are collected in a chicken wire leaf-mold holder and left for a year. Before I collect the next year's autumn crop, I put the partly rotted leafmold into plastic sacks, removing 'contraries' as I do this (fag ends, plastic bits, broken glass etc) and also sticks which go into the fruit/veg compost. A year later these bags are rotaseived into a 'dalek' composter, layered with comfrey leaves to add some nutrients. This well rotted and by now very fine material is an excellent alternative to peat, and I use it in seed compost as the major constituent, and in my potting composts as a third of the mix. So I got together a sack of ready-to-use leafmold and also riddled (with the rotaseive) some fresh stuff into the top of the dalek. No comfrey at this time of year, but it isn't essential.

I went to the school with my wife to meet with one of my boy's teachers, to discuss how he was doing. Apparently his behaviour is OK at school, and he keeps his loud outbursts for us at home. This is very common, as other parents have mentioned it. Both boys requested 'bundles' when they got home, so I obliged after a half hour of bow-sawing some oak logs. I like to do a bit of logging fairly often. The bundling was a little rough but tea being served put a stop to it.

Tea was omlette done on the woodstove, even though Gill said it wasn't hot enough and would make a rubbery omlette. If I lived by myself I wouldn't eat omlette, infact I probably wouldn't eat eggs, as I would probably go vegan. A vegan lifestyle is the lowest carbon diet, and of course it's the most respectful of animals. It's funny, I love animals but would prefer not to see them in the fields or being used as pets or for entertainment, unless they were wild animals such as birds in the garden and other wildlife. I like the spiders and the silverfish sharing the house with us, though. But not mice, which I admit to trapping and composting. Mice in the house are not acceptable, mice in the compost heaps are. Rats in the compost heaps are not acceptable and I disturb them to encourage them to go elsewhere. It's odd, I have different standards!