Sat. 7th April 07.

Went to the lottie in the morning, to prepare for the spuds going in. I wanted to take both my boys as Gill wanted to pop into town to get some 'little fiddles' (as she calls presents) for the boys to put in their reusable papier-mache easter eggs, to go with their Dubble 'fair trade' chocolate ones. However, our 9 year old refused to come with me, and I don't like taking just the younger one as he gets bored by himself, won't help on the lottie and needs lots of management, and then whines or cries. He's only 7 and still quite babyish in many ways. If they both come, they play together, sometimes spend a few minutes helping with something and are generally easier to deal with.

So I 'laid down the law' with my bigger bolshier one, and, much shouting later, he grumpily went to bring his bike to the front, as I'd got it out so he could come. He found it had a flat tyre so he couldn't come. So they both stayed at home, and because of the shouting at me, they won't get any extra presents tomorrow. Gill mended his tyre, she's getting good at it.

On the lottie I didn't manage to do much prep for potatoes. I cut back lots of old dead brambles and chopped them up onto one of the compost heaps (always a priority with me!) and did some digging out of dandylions and clumps of grass in the place where I thought the spuds could go. They probably still can, but not yet. More work to do.

One brilliant thing, though, I found a Morel, a rare fungus which in theory is edible, except this one had been alongside a weed and was damaged and covered in soil particles. It's the first Morel I've ever found. I brought it back and will try to identify it, whether 'common' or 'edible', except they are both edible and apparently delicious.

Home for lunch, house smelled lovely as Gill was making leek and sweet potato soup (yesterday's compostables included a large pile of leeks with some slightly yellowing leaves, the stems were fine!) and she'd done the bike, just needed help getting the tyre back on.

The boys wanted to go to the woods where Simon had taken them a few days ago, so we three set off and they took me to beyond Heslington, past the 'Outgang' and down a track to a small patch of woodland. The dens made by Simon's son were there, one a 'lean to' of sticks against a tree and the other a 'bender' with interwoven sticks. We played a bit, and I picked up a load of beer cans which had been left lying around, so I could bring them home for recycling.

When we got home, the Press had been delivered and I was in it with my Lloyds TSB rubbish bag story and photo. Then there was a phone-call, a woman wanting to remain anonymous, but congratulating me on 'doing the right thing'. She said she was nearly 80 and regularly picked up litter for recycling, and was right behind me with my direct action. How nice of her to ring with her support! She said that she expected me to get some flack over it, so she was ringing with 'a bouquet'. Later, when I went to the front door, tucked up against it was a box with a pack of four fruit and yoghurt deserts. They'd been left there, as a gift. Was this the same person? Was it someone else, with a positive response to the media report? Was it unconnected with the Press article... We may never know!

The sweet potato and leek soup was stupendous, with olive bread and toasted cheese. Followed by Strawberry flan and raspberry trifle and one of the fruit desert things, once again Gill said, 'don't we live well?' This always makes me laugh, I'm glad she's happy. We all are, it's the real 'Good Life'.

Friday 6th April 07, A 'Good Friday!'

Today really started with a phone call from a photographer from the Press who was supposed to come at 10am but rang wanting to come earlier... so he arrived at about half past nine to get an image of me with a bin bag I took off the pavement outside Lloyds TSB in order to find out what kinds of materials they were throwing away, and if there was any personal information that people could get at... I found lots of recyclable materials and evidence of very wastful practices, so I recorded the evidence and wrote to the bank complaining. I copied the letter to the council to keep them informed, and eventually recieved a reply which thanked me for my committment to waste reduction and warned me that if I removed bin bags off the pavement again I could be prosecuted. This juxtaposition warrented more publicity so I contacted the Press.

Soon after he went, my friend Suzanne arrived, with her daughter who's in our youngest son's class on Fridays, as she goes to another school for the rest of the week. She has dyspraxia and recieves special help in the other school, but when she goes to the secondary school she'll do better if she has some friends there. Suzanne came round to see the garden and recycling, and I gave her some plants ('Poached Egg', Limnanthes) which are good at attracting beneficial insects. Had a really nice chat and cuppa, she left at midday.

I went into town after lunch, to deliver some leaflets about next Thursday's CrUST meeting about the Green Festival, and to pick up the compostables from Out Of This World. Whilst cycling round to give out the posters about the meeting I visited Miller's Yard in Gillygate, wher my friend Dylan and his partner have set up a healthy living centre. I used to work in the same buildings nearly 20 years ago, when Gillygate Wholefood Co-operative was there. I had one summer's employment and fell foul of the two feminist lesbians who ran it. One morning I greeted them with 'Hello Ladies' and they took umbridge and growled at me that they weren't ladies, they were women. I didn't understand, but this confrontation led me to discover a bit about sexual and gender politics, feminism, and from there, discovered the Green Party and 'environmentalism' (later known as sustainability)and the rest is history.

I hope Dylan's venture succeeds. He has a cafe which just sells hot drinks and juices so far, and a series of treatment rooms and a meeting room and a yoga/pilates room. He's invested everything he has into it, and he's the lovliest, gentle, kind chap. I hope to be able to have some meetings there.

So home with compostables to process, which included a large number of punnets of strawberries, each with about half the fruits inedible and going soggy, and the other half perfect for making into fruit-leather. So at midnight, after having much trouble trying to write my blog and failing to get it to publish (lost an hour's worth of typing, very annoying) I chopped up the strawberries and some apples, liquidised then, rubbed the puree through a seive and poured the slop into one of the non-stick trays we have primarily for drying fruit. This was balanced on the stove for an overnight drying. It should take just a couple of days befor it is dry enough to turn out onto another non-stick sheet and finish off the drying. Then I'll get busy with the scissors and create a jar-full of delicious strawberry snacks...

Thursday 5th April 07

A fairly quiet day, compared with yesterday. Lovely sunny weather and a good day for doing stuff in the garden, however did pop into York to visit a Freecycler who had offered some veg seeds, and to pick up my 'Wednesday's' Out Of This World compostable materials.

Simon invited the boys to go and play with his son, who has created a den in the woods. Gill made a picnic for them and they all cycled off had a good time. Gill spent quite a lot of the day trying to book a late summer holiday in Norfolk, just before her older sister's 60th, to which we're invited. I think we've secured a week in a static caravan in Wells Next The Sea!

Gill also put up a small shelf in one of the boys' rooms, and doing that, knelt on the the bit of the futon on the 'stomper bed' which cannot take that weight, and it broke under her. I had rescued some nice pine boards from a skip just last week, and fortunately these were of a size which fitted, when sawn to 59.5cm long. I got two reclaimed supports from each board, and put 8 of them in. I think they'll be stronger than the original chipboard.

I got a phone call in the morning from one of my LETS friends Patrick, who occasionally borrows my quiet shredder. He was dismantling a willow bender in his garden and wanted to render it into a mulching material, so he drove round and picked it up, delivering it back just 6 hours later. He brought it back with his partner Jo and she spotted some 'three by two' wooden lengths in the front garden, again rescued from a skip, and asked if she could have three for a little job in her bathroom. I am only too happy to see stuff being reused, and I'm glad I hadn't sawn them up immediately. They looked as if they could be reused. There's lots more, so they'll go in my garage waiting to get another life. I was happy to be offered 12 Yorkys for the shredder loan and the wood.

As well as doing the usual composting jobs, I sowed some basil seeds in modules, plastic trays with planting voids, each with a drainage hole. I put in 3 types of basil; bush (small leaves), Genovese (larger leaves) and 'Freecycled' (looks like the Genovese on the packet!).

Nutloaf from Tuesday for tea, with a quick ratatouille stewy thingy to add moisture and interest. Enjoyed 'It's Not Easy Being Green' on telly, caught up with e-paperwork.

Wednesday 4th April 07, Day out in Whitby

Up early as we were having a day trip to Whitby as a holiday. Got up early enough to get the bus to the station where the Whitby Coastliner leaves at 8.15am, and goes via Malton, Flamingoland zoo and funpark, Pickering, Thornton Le Dale, Goathland and Sleights. Whilst waiting in York met a very pleasent lady called Helen from Derby, and when all the teenagers got off at Flamingoland, we were able to chat with her.

Whitby at about 10.30 and set off for Shepherd's Purse, which has been a good veggie place for food and drinks, but the food and drink place is now seperate and is accessed from a passageway nearby, but we had a lovely coffee/hot chocolate break there. Then onto the main reason we were going to Whitby, according to our children, the 'lucky duck' shop where tiny glass ornaments are made. The lucky ducks have some old story behind them, I just think the story confers luck on the shop owners and workers, as they sell lots of them and make a living selling them. However they bring happiness to my little boys and they had a lucky duck and a serendipitous serpent bought for them by me. Gill was going to get one, and I said I wasn't going to as it's carbon footprint was too much for my low impact lifestyle, and suddenly Gill didn't want one either.

Climbed the 199 steps to the Church and Abbey, and went into the Abbey visitor centre cheaply as we'd got some money-off vouchers along with our bus tickets. I'd not been in the Abbey before, and it was beautiful, especially when the sun broke through the sea-fret. The boys were trying out a couple of point and click cameras, and got very enthusiastic about pointing and clicking. We had lunch, a simple picnic Gill had made, lovely in the warm sunshine and with the splendid view. Then down into the town again, over the swing bridge and to the beach. The tide was coming in, ideal for building sandcastles and watching them being engulfed. Lots of fun.

Then, as the beach was rapidly disappearing, we walked up the slipway and spotted a steam-powered charabanc, which was doing tours of the town. The boys were enthusiastic about a trip so we got on and paid up £8 for the pleasure of a ride in 'Elizabeth' a steam lorry converted to carry passengers. She consumes a third of a tonne of coal per day and spends most days going round Whitby giving tourists an unusual ride around, the noise being the weirdest thing about the experience for me. It was a circular tour so we were soon back where we started, so a walk out along the harbour wall was called for. The lighthouse was open for visitors, and as Gilly doesn't like heights, just the three of us went up. After a bit more exploring and watching the impressive waves crashing around, we went looking for food for tea, from a local bakers, greengrocers and co-op shop. There is just one chip shop in Whitby that we know fries in vegetable oil, so we got chips there and had them overlooking the harbour with our pastie, egg sandwich, flapjack and fruit. The 6.10 bus departure was coming soon but popped into the train station to check out the timetable for the new Pickering to Whitby service from the North Yorks Moors Railway which starts soon. We like the idea of getting a steam train into Whitby, perhaps later in the year, in Summer maybe.

The York-bound bus was busy but the journey went quickly as I chatted all the way to a couple of Americans who were visiting the UK for a few weeks. Lots of interesting chats, about politics and the church, habits and giving them up, carbon emissions and ethical living, international businesses and local goods and services. I may be hearing from Marsha again, I hope so as we got on swimmingly. We got off in Heworth and walked the mile or so to our house, arriving in at 8.40pm, tired but all very happy.

Tuesday 3rd April 07

An active day, a fair amount of housework during the morning, and a SUMA delivery. Gill and I have for several years been running a food co-op for ourselves and some friends, and we get a few regularly-used items like peanut butter, loo paper, muesli base, pasta. As we buy it in bulk it means we can afford to buy organic, supporting agricultural practices which do less damage to the environment and are better for wildlife, and fair trade, which gives a better deal for the producers.

After lunch went to St Nicks as agreed with John the Centre manager, to chop some logs. I'd suggested I could do this for St Nicks, as I sometimes take logs off the pile which is regularly added to by tree-surgeons offloading their unwanted tree wastes, and it is only fair if I give something back. A poplar had come down and been sawn up into rounds, and needed splitting.

The centre has many visitors, today it had a group of youths, teenagers, who had come into contact with the authorities through anti-social behaviour or misdeeds, and were under the care of 'Crossroads'. I know nothing about this, they seemed like fairly ordinary young adults to me, and I was assigned several volunteers to teach how to split logs and stack them. These tasks may seem simple but there is a knack to both. For instance, rounds with a side branch split best when done in line with the side branch, so it splits too, rather than at right-angles to it which can be more difficult as the knot may extend into the log. Rounds with side branches also split best from the lower cut surface, ie with the log upside-down as the branch leaves the round at an angle and having the split start where the branch begins to leave the trunk seems best to me.

Also stacking a logpile is quite an art if it isn't to fall down. The activity attracted a queue of participants, male and female, all wanting a go at smashing the rounds in two. Even the leaders had a go. We also had to use the centre's 'log grenade' too, a wedge in a sort of pyramid shape which is incredibly effective at blowing apart difficult to split rounds.

We all had a lot of fun, I gave lots of positive feedback and encouragement, and just occasional direction, mainly putting the rounds in the right orientation for easiest splitting, and getting out of the way quick. I was pleased to meet a friendly leader, Chris from Crossroads, who seemed fascinated by my lifestyle and told me he'd invite me out for a drink, I hope he does. He said that the youth service should be paying me for the help I'd given, and I gave him my Professor Fiddlesticks card as I may get some paid work with the group.

I'd cycled to St Nicks with my boys, my mate Simon and his son. Simon spent time with the three boys, playing, exploring, keeping the peace. I am very grateful to Simon for being a lovely responsible grown-up with my boys, I couldn't have done the logsplitting work without his help.

Got home and quickly made a nutloaf with bread, peanut butter, onions, rice, grated carrot and seeds, bound with egg and microwaved and then put in the oven along with a chocolate cake Gill was baking. Had this with a cheese sauce and new potatoes.

Put the boys to bed early as we've a busy day tomorrow with an early start.

Enjoyed learning about the connection between Tourettes and creativity. I have an interest in such disorders as I have many of the traits of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and I am a very active, enthusiastic and creative person. I haven't had a diagnosis but I would love to know if I do have ADHD. Lots of the people who know me think I do, and I feel more comfortable with that label than what I have previously been called, such as 'eccentric'. ADHD is thought to be connected with lowered levels of dopamine in the frontal lobes of the brain, and Tourettes is also connected with dopamine, but increased levels in temporal and frontal lobes. Interesting stuff.

Monday 2nd April 07

Easter Hols, for the children, so had a relatively late morning in bed. Spent some time re-reading 'The New Woodburner's Handbook' by Stephen Bushway, which Bill and Dinah brought back to me. It's American but an excellent overview with much detailed analysis.

Once I'd got up properly I did some outside stuff, including making a lot of seed compost as the boys want to plant their Morning Glories, Sunflowers and my Squash seeds. There's lots more to plant too, so I made a lot. It's mainly leafmold with a small amount of seived loam and garden compost. I also added a quarter bag of commercial seed compost from a bag rescued from a skip.

When Gill had come back from getting bread and milk (although we have a doorstep milk delivery we sometimes need to 'top up' with Co-op shop milk in plastic bottles, which are recyclable but not reusable like glass milk bottles) I went to town to pay in my Out Of This World composting money into York Credit Union, collect the OOTW compostables, buy some goats cheese for Gill and zoom home in time for lunch.

A lovely sunny day, spent much of the afternoon in the garden, as did the kids.

YorkLETS had a meeting in the evening, and it was a good one although not many turned up. We discussed whether to put an advert in the Local Link magazine for new members, and also a combined LETS/Freecycle social. I agreed to contact CAB because they are helping people find ways to get by using less money, and may be holding an event later in the year which we could be invited to. I reported my successful York Co-op Members talk about LETS which resulted in one new member. We planned the AGM in June. A good meeting.

Watched Newsnight hoping that Ethical Man would be on, but he wasn't. Never mind, it could be tomorrow, or sometime later in the week.

Sunday 1st April 07

A rather late morning, as was up very late last night. I watched the third 'qatsi' film, whilst having a Googlemail conversation with a friend. This was a first as I've not used this service before. It was great, a sort of instant email chat. I hope we'll do it again sometime...

So slept til about 9.30 andwas woken by my wife coming back to bed... at about 10 got up as the boys were making a lot of noise and wanting some grown-up attention. What they're really into is 'bundles' which is basically play-fighting, wrestling, attempting to overpower me, which they can't do yet. They are capable of hurting me but I always 'win', so far anyway. A time will come when they are too strong, and perhaps they'll grow out of it, one or the other! So I watched 'Countryfile' whilst being bundled. After this we had lunch, and as Gill wanted some tomatoes in order to create a pizza, I volunteered to cycle down to Martins Country Fresh. With a small amount of persuasion the boys came too and as I'd picked up some compostables they suggested we go to the allotment. They weren't interested in the allotment at all really, they wanted to utilise the slope of Lamel Hill to cycle fast down whilst I attended to the four 'New Zealand bins' I have there, and chatted to a friendly older lady called Josephine who was a gardener in her younger days and now lives in Dower Court, the block of accommodation near the lottie site.

Got back and Gill had been busy in the kitchen making pizza dough and an apple and loganberry pie. Our Bramley apples from the garden, stored since picking last autumn, are getting to the end of their stored life, but still some usable apples amongst them. The loganberries are very prolific and we 'open freeze' them on a tray, and when frozen, pour them into a polybag and put them back into the freezer. We've still got some left, even though we use them all through the winter as a taste-memory of summer.

I spent a while in the garden, doing some riddling of mature compost ready for the coming season's planting. The boys played in their play-house which Gill made from a shed that a friend was going to dump and on the trampoline, lots of laughter there.

The pizza and salad was lovely. I am so lucky to have a great cook as a wife, and she enjoys creating lovely food. On my pizza I had a large, home-grown shiitake mushroom, in thin slices. The large oak log it grew on was innoculated with mycelium a couple of years ago, by inserting dowels with the mycelium growing in them. I placed the log in a north-facing shady area and waited. The fruiting bodies come in flushes all year round, with up to 12 weeks gaps between the fruiting. They taste great and they are my second-favourite edible mushroom, my favourite is 'chicken of the woods' and I have a tree trunk innoculated with that too. It's fruited twice in two years.

In the evening I popped out on my bike to the lottie with the rhubarb and was busy til dark.

A very nice day, didn't feel too shattered from last night's late finish. Earlier to bed tonight...