Sat 14th April 07

Awoke at 9.10 and got up quickly as I was due at St Nicks for 10! I have been booked by Keely to teach at the latest York Rotters training session, to do the 'basic home composting' part of the course.

This covers what composting is, and some terminology, and where it happens in the wild, and how we tame it for our benefit. I talk about why it is good and why the alternatives are bad, and the range of materials which can be composted. This includes the two basic types of materials, greens and browns, or wets and drys, or high nitrogen and high carbon, which when layered or mixed make a good heap. We briefly discuss the living organisms which populate a typical 'cold' heap and 'do' the composting for you, fungi, bacteria, protozoa, worms, insects, mites, other arthropods and the complex ecosystem within, and of course how the heap's diaspora fuel the wider ecosystem of arachnids, amphibians, birds and mammals. And of course this touches on some of the percieved problems of composting, flies and rodents, and how to dissuade them.

We covered hot turned piles and cold 'sit n wait' heaps, different compost bins and containers, and how to use the material once made. We went outside to view the range of composters on display at St Nicks, and the leafmold pile and the wormery. This led onto 'advanced composting' which Keely led, on composting in urban yards and how to do cooked food, including using 'bokashi' which is a pre-treatment with a culture of bacteria and fungi which 'pickle' the food materials anaerobically before they are composted, making them much less appealing to vermin. I was allowed one minute to talk about my compost toilet, and how I use partially composted sawdust to cover and compost the humanure with.

Then we had lunch which was an opportunity to chat with some of the new people who had attended and re-connect with some old friends who had come for their first official compost training or for a refresher. I was pleased to chat with 'Kate the Columnist', perhaps gathering more material for her writing, my good friend Jenny who helps run AVP Britain, and I first met over a decade ago through the New Economics Foundation before we started York Local Agenda 21 and before I went on my first conflict resolution workshop run by the new AVP York, which I then joined and helped to manage for the next 10 years or more. We have now morphed into AVP NEEM (Alternatives to Violence Project North East and East Midlands)! And I was delighted to chat with an old LETS contact Anneliese who is a fabulous poet and wordsmith and is gathering ideas for a series of poems about, you guessed it, home composting!

After lunch and chat we met up with Izzy and Hel from WRAP who'd come to teach us 'compost drumming', samba rhythms performed on compost bins and caddies and other items connected with recycling. I've tried drumming before and never really got on with it, but Hel was a good teacher and I did better than ever before. We learnt a basic rhythm and a few breaks and are now ready to perform at the May 6th York Green Carnival... except I have paid work on that day and won't be able to fully participate. But I'd like them to come to the Green Festival in July.

One of the new Rotters, a South African called Sarah, was interested in seeing my composting demonstration garden, and as there was no reason to defer this, she cycled back with me and had the tour. She was also interested in the Ethical Man stuff, and as she doesn't watch much TV, I put the tape on and put a glass of juice in her hand and let her see what the Beeb has been doing over the past year.

Gill and the boys had gone into town on the bus to go to the City Art Gallery for a hands-on art day, and they also went to the Yorkshire Museum for a dinosaur exhibition, and between these visits had gone on a boat trip up and down the River Ouse, and eaten a picnic they took with them. They came in just before Sarah went, and they'd obviously had as enjoyable a day as I had.

We concocted tea between us, a stove-top stirfry of pumpkin/squash slices, mushroom (including home-grown shiitake), tomatoes and vegetatian sausages, with baked beans, cabbage salad, pickled beetroot and guacamole. As this was nearly ready, a person appeared at the front door, a woman who we've been friendly with in the past, but whom had on one occasion been very agitated and abusive, and then on a subsequent occasion apologised and told us she had a mental health problem and had been admitted to Bootham Hospital because of this. She was in an agitated and paranoid state, and was saying that she was unable to return home because her neighbour was persecuting her and the police would be waiting, and she had nowhere to go. I offered her the chance to sit in our garden with a cuppa in order to calm down, and I'd talk with her when I'd eaten my tea. I made her a herbal tea and had my meal, and then went to see if there was anything I could do to help. She was unable to suggest any practical actions I could do to help, and refused/ignored all my offers, as I would have really liked to help as she was in distress. I told her she seemed agitated and that I couldn't just listen to her tales of woe, and she became abusive to me saying that I was as bad as all the others and she left in a huff, saying she was just going to have to walk the streets of York all night with nowhere to go and no warm clothes. I was left feeling quite sad as I wanted to help but her mental state wasn't compatable with being able to accept help. I feel sure that she will probably spend some more time in Bootham. I will talk to her about what I should do if she turns up like that again when she is out and more rational.

This occurance rather put a damper on a good day. Another damper was that late at night when I'd spent an hour doing my blog, it refused to publish and I couldn't do anything about it. I lost the lot. I had to retype it all in on Sunday morning.

Friday 13th April 07

Woken up by our boys fighting outside our door, shouting and throwing things at each other. Oh dear!

The day didn't get much better really, as they were bad tempered and we sent them out into the garden and we went back to bed, which was nice, but one of them came back in and disturbed us and rather spoilt the moment... oh dear.

Anyway, we got up and on with parental responsibilities. I popped out on the bike to get some groceries and when I got back a bag broke and a bottle of perry fell and smashed all over the kitchen floor. Oh dear again.

At 1pm a photographer, Simon, was due to come to get some images for the Community Care mag to use, he was late and we spent nearly 2 hours getting a wide range of shots, including woodchopping (axe and saw) posing by woodpile, riding bike with load of compostables, compost heap posing, riddling, digging up parsnips and more. He was nice enough but I had a headache. I hope it doesn't show on the pictures!

Then I had to go to see my GP who has had a message from the Primary Care Trust, who are willing to send me to the Maudsley in London for a diagnosis to find out if I have ADHD (or if I'm just a Great British Eccentric!) IF the Maudsley wants to see me! A bit odd but I'll go with the flow, I don't really mind either way at the moment as my life seems to be going well and I'm using my high energy levels productively.

Did a short Sainsbury shop for cereals and some wine and visited Out Of This World for my recycling pick up.

Still headachey but a productive evening with various paperwork accomplished and the usual e-communications.

Thursday 12th April 07

Up early again, and I have to go to Abbey to sort out the problen they're causing for YorkLETS. I was dealt with swiftly this time, and by an efficient person who understood the problem and hopefully managed to sort it out. Although she was able to provide the paperwork which will enable us to open our Co-op account, she wasn't able to give the passbook back or pay the closing balance, and she said that head office had no record of the passbook being sent to them. I'm afraid I will have to write to the Financial Services Authority about their appalling service. I will do this to try to protect other community groups falling foul of the same poor service and inconvenience and waste of volunteer time.

Anyway, left Abbey with some paperwork to pass onto Co-op. I visited another organisation's office about a book I'm writing (sorry this has to remain secret, but it's too sensative an issue to share in a public diary YET... when published though, it will be public!) After this visit I popped into Out of This World to pick up some items left yesterday, and onto Liz from LETS to drop off the Abbey info, but she wasn't in so I just left it for her.

Then I dropped into Miller's Yard where Dylan and Claire were just opening up. We discussed composting and other aspects of life, and I had a coffee mocha which was nice. The healthy living centre cafe sells Belu bottled water, which I met first at last year's Big Green Gathering. the bottles are made of a biodegradable plastic called PLA, I think polymerised lactic acid, which will rot in 'commercial' heaps which stay warm for ages. I am trying to compost one in my Compostumbler, which does get hot for weeks at a time. I won't be taking the Miller's Yard Belu bottles though, but I did offer to see if I could broker a deal between Yorwaste and Dylan, as I'd have thought that Yorwaste would like to do a trial in their big hot heaps.

Got home and took the compostables down to their destination and had lunch. Had a visit from a Freecycler I'm doing a swap with, he (David) had some blue storage jars and wanted some compost to add to soil to grow some salad in. Freecycle is rapidly becoming a social networking tool! He enjoyed the tour of the garden and we had some interesting chats.

I had to prepare some paperwork for tonight's CrUST meeting, and then go to an anti incinerator demonstration organised by YRAIN, York Residents Against Incineration who are lobbying the City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council not to put in a PFI bid to build a waste incinerator. We stood next to a scaled-down chimney and I had supplied smoke pellets (from my environmental health training days) and the Press took photos. I personally don't want an incinerator built as they burn fossil fuel (plastics) which should be recycled and conserved for future generations and not added to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. I also think there is more than a chance that human error or mechanical breakdown will allow dioxins to get into the air we all breathe, and we don't need any more carcinogens around us. Finally, having an incinerator alters the economics for recycling, making it less likely that there would be investment in materials recycling. As I'm pro-composting, I feel that putting compostable materials in with the plastics is a waste, and there is still a landfillable proportion left after the incinerator has done its work.

This demo only took 10 minutes, so I bombed off down the Tadcaster Road to pick up more Freecycled stuff, this time some plastic planters from Felicity. They'll be good for tomatoes and other crops.

Got home across the Racecourse, Millennium Bridge and Low Moor for ten to seven, gathered my CrUST stuff together and got to Space 109 on Walmgte for about seven fifteen, just one minute before Tracy who had arranged the venue and had the keys. The meeting went very well, Tracy chaired and there were several new faces and lots of contributions.

Weds 11th April 07

A lovely day weatherwise so got started early with some Green Party local election leaflet deliveries. I went with Debbie who enjoyed the round last time and had asked that she could help again. This delivery was Fishergate Ward, but a different area, someone elses round. It didn't take long with the two of us and we visited some housing we hadn't seen before, new flats and small houses off Hull Road.

I cycled into town to do my Wednesday compostables pick up, and got some vegan ice cream for Gill who reacts badly to cow's milk products. Vegan products also have less of a carbon footprint too, as cows produce loads of methane and use lots of resources such as water and feed, which has it's own carbon footprint. The 'Swedish Glace'ice cream also tastes lovely, but is a lot more expensive than dairy.

I also visited the Yorkshire Museum with the Morel fungus I found over the weekend on the allotment. Pip Strang the expert there says she will identify it... I was suprised to hear from her that there are 18 British species, my book lists just two! She'll contact me with a identification in a couple of weeks.

During the afternoon I did a lot of riddling of finished compost, to make the stuff usable and separate the uncomposted sticks and non-compostables (stones, little bits of plastic) from the fantastic crumbly rich particles of 'humus' or biologically active carbon-rich matter, perfect for adding to growing media for healthy plants and crops. The seeds are in, I need lots of compost to add to leafmold and loam to grow them in. So I'm bagging up the riddled stuff ready for this season. My riddle is a sheet of chicken wire mounted on a wooden frame, about 1.5m square. I also have a 'rotaseive' which is smaller and has smaller holes, producing a finer grained compost.

This afternoon's York Press had our letters published, mine about the lack of response from Lloyds TSB about my offering to help them with reducing waste, and one from Gill saying she considered me an Eco-Lover not an Eco-Warrior.

In the evening I attended the first meeting of York CRAG, Carbon Rationing Action Group. This was interesting and I enjoyed it a lot. The basic idea is to help citizens to reduce their carbon emissions and save resources for future generations. This will be done by offering a carbon calculator to measure annual emissions, and setting a target to try to aim for (or under!). There will be regular meetings to inform, educate and encourage, perhaps themed to get people with different interests involved and on board. We may perhaps set a penalty for those who go over the target, a financial penalty per kilo, which would be paid into an account and used to offset those extra emissions. The offsetting could be local, such as helping to pay for insulation or energy efficient lightbulbs for a CRAG member who's finding the target difficult to attain. We're meeting in a fortnight and will debate and agree Mission, Aims and Objectives plus discuss (and agree?) the structure of the group.

I got home just in time to see the Newsnight 'Ethical Man' special, in which I featured, helping Justin Rowlatt with composting and helping Ethical Man go on his way ethically, by composting him. It was a good programme and I think was a fitting end to his year-long project. And I've benefitted as I now have a column in Community Care magazine (starting at the end of the month) and a new career begnning.

What a day!

Tuesday 10th April 07

A good morning as I had some post from the BBC, Sara the Newsnight Ethical Man reporter sent me 2 DVDs, one with the Panorama programme and the other with the filmlet about water which went out on Newsnight last year and featured my compost toilet. She advised me that the 'Death of Ethical Man' filmlet was due to go out on 11th, that's tomorrow!

After an early lunch went into St Nicks to meet up with the 'Crossroads' crew and split logs with them (rather, oversee them splitting logs with an axe!) and I met the Crossroads boss, and gave her my card in case she wants to have me for anything. We managed to finish splitting the logs and stacking them, well done all!

Monday 9th April 07

A fairly early start and as a nice day I bombed into town to do a visit to Out Of This World, who had obviously been having a clearout, and waiting for me was a large pile of assorted stuff for my to recycle, some to compost and other stuff to recycle in other ways!

The most exciting thing that happened today was a visit from Dave Taylor (Green candidate, Fishergate Ward), with his 'Castle Area Campaign' hat on, with some posters about the forthcoming election and which parties and candidates had opposed the proposed development of a shopping mall around Clifford's Tower, and a brief note about those who had been in favour of the unpopular development. As I spoke at the Public Enquiry about the development, and don't support the building of yet more shops, especially in that area, I am listed in the 'Vote For' section, as are lots of other Green Party candidates, some Conservatives, a Labour candidate, a Liberal, the Respect Candidate and the Looney. The Lib Dems are the only political party who have sided en bloc with the developers, and the Castle Area Campaign suggests voting tactically to push them out.

The next most exciting thing was that I made such a filling tea, and the boys had eaten so much chocolate, that halfway through tea, as they were struggling, Gill suggested taking them on a cycle ride to check out the Fair on St Georges car park. So we cycled up to Green Dykes Lane, to the University and accross Walmgate Stray through the Barracks and down to the River Ouse near the Millennium Bridge where we turned right and went all the way into York. We walked our bikes round the Fair but it wasn't that exciting as hardly anyone was there, so we cycled on and then through town, Coppergate, Piccadilly, Walmgate and home along the Hull Rd. Their cycling is getting so much better! When they got home they both finished their tea.

Gill and I had the same basic nosh, marmite water bulgar wheat and couscous (washing out a finished marmite jar) and a stew of leeks, tomatoes, chard/spinach from the garden and cashew nuts. I also had a 'sea cake', a tofu burger with smoky seaweed from Out Of Date World!

During the day I made up some more seed compost and planted a load of pumpkin, squash and cucumber seeds. I've planted over 20 Butternut squash as they seem to do well on the allotment and I can't get enough of them. I'd eat it every other day if I could.

My evening included washing up, making raisins by blanching grapes and setting them to dry, and having a very long e-conversation with an old flame I'm back in contact with.

Another satisfying and productive day.

Sunday 8th April 07

Easter Sunday, and before I awoke Gill went into the garden to hide a load of milk chocolate mini eggs, wrapped in coloured aluminium foil, which were given to her from her sister Jane for the boys. Gill hid them in twos, plus the two Dubble larger fair trade chocolate eggs in their play shed toy oven. This egg hunt is a bit of a tradition, and the boys love it, as does Gilly.

So when I got up they were just on the way out to search for them. I don't do Easter really, but Gilly's a bit more traditional, although not religious. I didn't even have an egg for breakfast, just my usual bowl of cereal.

A quiet morning, just a bit of stuff in the garden and then a break inside for Countryfile and lunch.

Then a phone call from a friend from school, Rolf from Germany, father of a super little boy in our youngest son's class, who's seemingly very fond of me, asking when would be good to come round. Before the end of term we suggested they visit over the holidays and try out the trampoline one day, so today was that day. I had a quick cycle over to the other side of York to a Freecycler Shirley, who has offered a 220 litre 'dalek' compost bin, and by some chance I got it, lucky ol' me!

So I cycled this home and joined in the trampoline fun, instigating a game of headstands... I can do a good long headstand in the centre of an unmoving trampoline, and it's a safe enough place for others to learn the technique. Which is, for those blog readers who find that somebody elses online diary isn't that interesting enough, try putting your hands and head in a triangle shape on the flat still surface (a cushion on a floor is fine!) and slowly pushing your back up, and when that's upright, slowly lift your legs up, perhaps resting them on your arms as you push up. Don't do any movements quickly! Come down slowly the way you went up, or if you come down onto your back, make sure first that there's enough space around so that you don't hit anything.