A good day but where did it go? Still feel as if we're recovering from the holidays, and the morning went by very quickly... after taking our youngest into school, and picking up some branches on the way home and prepared them into kindling, bought bread and brain flakes and bingo, it was lunchtime! After lunch we had a visitor, and bingo it was time for me to go to school and pick him up again!
Did a little bit more in the garden and popped down to Freshways... Gill made a nutloaf with some extra spaghetti from yesterday.
So, not much to report today, but survived it... just. Probably the highlight was a heated discussion on one of the email lists I'm on, or possibly the new series of 'It's Not Easy Being Green' on BBC2, with the irrepressible Dick Strawbridge and just a quick flash of his lovely wife Brigit. I might try the carbon calculator they used, or rather the very wasteful flash cricketer whose name I cannot remember...
Having done that calculator, I'm not that impressed, as it wasn't as detailed as some I've used, but it's a start. I was rated as 1.61 planets/year, which is more than most of the more detailed calculators which take more lifestyle choices into account. A reasonable introduction to carbon calculators for novices though!
Thursday, 8 January 2009
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Tuesday 6th January '09
Quite an early start, as taking our youngest into school at 8.30ish... cycling in was really cold but no ice on the roads, fortunately.
Had a busy morning.. lots of paperwork to do and admin which hasn't got done whilst the boys have been at home over the holidays. So registered to do my tax online and a variety of other things, including jarring up dried fruit. But also played some Scrabble on Facebook! Gill went for lunch in town with Alison and Melody.
Kept the stove going all day and toasted crumpets for lunch, well, part of lunch. The day went oh so quickly... and before I knew it, 3pm and time to cycle down to school again and pick up out little 'un. The Green Thumbs assembly about the Blue Peter Mission Nutrition Bring and Buy Sale is on Friday so chatted with Julia about when this is going to be practiced. fortunately I don't need to be there... just to attend the assembly.
I did a little bit of logpile management and came in to have tea... spaghetti and tomato/broccoli topping, all done on the woodstove.
Then off out to the Tang Hall Community Centre to facilitate the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel meeting... dealt with just two applications but it was good to be with Andrew and Stephen who are both more knowledgeable than me about planning matters. Carolyn didn't turn up... I rang her when I got back and she'd fallen asleep and missed the meeting. She was glad I'd checked on her, as she's usually very reliable and knew that if she'd fallen or something, I'd be able to alert someone or do something... although thinking about it, not sure what.
This meeting took an hour and I came home via the cycle track to pick up sticks for kindling and logpiles.
Boys finished a game of Yu-Gi-Oh and went to bed. I typed up minutes from last night's LETS meeting and sent them off.
Had a busy morning.. lots of paperwork to do and admin which hasn't got done whilst the boys have been at home over the holidays. So registered to do my tax online and a variety of other things, including jarring up dried fruit. But also played some Scrabble on Facebook! Gill went for lunch in town with Alison and Melody.
Kept the stove going all day and toasted crumpets for lunch, well, part of lunch. The day went oh so quickly... and before I knew it, 3pm and time to cycle down to school again and pick up out little 'un. The Green Thumbs assembly about the Blue Peter Mission Nutrition Bring and Buy Sale is on Friday so chatted with Julia about when this is going to be practiced. fortunately I don't need to be there... just to attend the assembly.
I did a little bit of logpile management and came in to have tea... spaghetti and tomato/broccoli topping, all done on the woodstove.
Then off out to the Tang Hall Community Centre to facilitate the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel meeting... dealt with just two applications but it was good to be with Andrew and Stephen who are both more knowledgeable than me about planning matters. Carolyn didn't turn up... I rang her when I got back and she'd fallen asleep and missed the meeting. She was glad I'd checked on her, as she's usually very reliable and knew that if she'd fallen or something, I'd be able to alert someone or do something... although thinking about it, not sure what.
This meeting took an hour and I came home via the cycle track to pick up sticks for kindling and logpiles.
Boys finished a game of Yu-Gi-Oh and went to bed. I typed up minutes from last night's LETS meeting and sent them off.
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Monday 5th January 09
The last day of the Christmas holidays. Boys bouncy and excited... not sure what about though.
Gill took our eldest into town to try for a third time to find trousers that fitted him, and I think they were successful, as most of the evening Gill was putting in new hemlines and sewing in nametags...
Our youngest took advantage of the time and space to have numerous Wii race games. I spent some time on the computer and got a message which looked like it was from windows, so downloaded it and oh n, it was a virus called Antivirus 2009 which proceeded to perform a series of pop ups warning me of virus infection and inviting me to pay for a patch to get rid of them... I realised this was a con, and went hunting for solutions, not easy as one of the things the virus was also doing was blocking most of the web pages I tried to look at, again suggesting they had bad software in them.
It was very frustrating. I got quite annoyed. This was obvious to the other family members and the children offered to help me get rid of the problem, which was sweet of them but just not helpful and I wasn't as empathic and gentle as I could have been and this caused a row just before I had to go out to the LETS meeting... not a nice situation to leave Gill with.
But I had to go to the meeting as we were expecting some visitors from the Council who wanted to know more about LETS and how it could be part of a toolkit connected with social inclusion etc. I think we looked reasonably together to them, and there should be some mutual help. However, I have to organise our bank account to get new signatories, and then get together with my favourite funding advisor Melody to get a grant for our new software... more work!
But had good chats to them afterwards about Local Agenda 21, York Credit Union, York Rotters, my book and much more.
Home to try and sort out my computer... found some 'open source' freeware called Malwarebytes which was very easy to install and it removed the crazy virus rubbish. Whilst the scan was going on, did a batch of washing up whilst Gill ironed for tomorrows 'back to school' event!
Gill took our eldest into town to try for a third time to find trousers that fitted him, and I think they were successful, as most of the evening Gill was putting in new hemlines and sewing in nametags...
Our youngest took advantage of the time and space to have numerous Wii race games. I spent some time on the computer and got a message which looked like it was from windows, so downloaded it and oh n, it was a virus called Antivirus 2009 which proceeded to perform a series of pop ups warning me of virus infection and inviting me to pay for a patch to get rid of them... I realised this was a con, and went hunting for solutions, not easy as one of the things the virus was also doing was blocking most of the web pages I tried to look at, again suggesting they had bad software in them.
It was very frustrating. I got quite annoyed. This was obvious to the other family members and the children offered to help me get rid of the problem, which was sweet of them but just not helpful and I wasn't as empathic and gentle as I could have been and this caused a row just before I had to go out to the LETS meeting... not a nice situation to leave Gill with.
But I had to go to the meeting as we were expecting some visitors from the Council who wanted to know more about LETS and how it could be part of a toolkit connected with social inclusion etc. I think we looked reasonably together to them, and there should be some mutual help. However, I have to organise our bank account to get new signatories, and then get together with my favourite funding advisor Melody to get a grant for our new software... more work!
But had good chats to them afterwards about Local Agenda 21, York Credit Union, York Rotters, my book and much more.
Home to try and sort out my computer... found some 'open source' freeware called Malwarebytes which was very easy to install and it removed the crazy virus rubbish. Whilst the scan was going on, did a batch of washing up whilst Gill ironed for tomorrows 'back to school' event!
Monday, 5 January 2009
Sunday 4th January 09
Not such an early morning today... but had to get up as we'd promised to have a game of Ug-I-Oh cards this morning to appease one of the boys yesterday who was going on about it. I had a bath first thing and whilst drying off we formed two 'teams' but it is a complicated and long game which neither I or our youngest understands so it disintegrated as there was only one keen player.
I had an early lunch as I was working today, and was picking up David the photographer at just after 1 so he could continue to get some pics for my new flyer. So we cycled along the river to the Millennium Bridge and onto Bishopthorpe Road and then to the venue, St Chad's Church Hall.
An excited 4 year old was awaiting... soon to be 5, and 34 of his classmates arrived within half an hour, after I'd got changed and introduced David to the parents (who'd agreed his attendance beforehand). At the beginning of the show I introduced David to the audience, and then got on with the entertainment. As per usual, the show went really well... lots of laughter and participation... did both shows, circus and balloons, and everybody enjoyed it. I think David was impressed... this was the first time he'd seen my full routine. I hope he got some good photos.
We came back together at 4.30 and then I popped in to Freshways to see if they had any compostables, so came back with an extra load alongside the bag of circus gear and unicycles.
Gill was then able to get on with finishing tea, virtually impossible with demanding children needing her attention. Tea was lovely... macaroni cheese with cauliflower, and I had an extra 'use it all up' tomato and bean thing. The boys were perfectly behaved.
I had been asked by a friend to go and help break up an old wardrobe as my friend was moving house, so I popped out just before 7 and got back at 9pm. Gill had had a very tough time and was glad to see me. I sat with the little darlings and watched Swarm with them which was excellent and quite amazing. As soon as that finished they went to bed and we relaxed a bit... I peeled more bananas for drying and did my emails whilst half watching the telly.
I had an early lunch as I was working today, and was picking up David the photographer at just after 1 so he could continue to get some pics for my new flyer. So we cycled along the river to the Millennium Bridge and onto Bishopthorpe Road and then to the venue, St Chad's Church Hall.
An excited 4 year old was awaiting... soon to be 5, and 34 of his classmates arrived within half an hour, after I'd got changed and introduced David to the parents (who'd agreed his attendance beforehand). At the beginning of the show I introduced David to the audience, and then got on with the entertainment. As per usual, the show went really well... lots of laughter and participation... did both shows, circus and balloons, and everybody enjoyed it. I think David was impressed... this was the first time he'd seen my full routine. I hope he got some good photos.
We came back together at 4.30 and then I popped in to Freshways to see if they had any compostables, so came back with an extra load alongside the bag of circus gear and unicycles.
Gill was then able to get on with finishing tea, virtually impossible with demanding children needing her attention. Tea was lovely... macaroni cheese with cauliflower, and I had an extra 'use it all up' tomato and bean thing. The boys were perfectly behaved.
I had been asked by a friend to go and help break up an old wardrobe as my friend was moving house, so I popped out just before 7 and got back at 9pm. Gill had had a very tough time and was glad to see me. I sat with the little darlings and watched Swarm with them which was excellent and quite amazing. As soon as that finished they went to bed and we relaxed a bit... I peeled more bananas for drying and did my emails whilst half watching the telly.
Sunday, 4 January 2009
Saturday 3rd January 09
Another good day, although was awoken early by a child wailing as he hadn't got a handkerchief and had got something to put into one... the joys of parenting!
But the rest of the day was good.... I did a bit of wooding, a bit of composting, lunch, family chats... my eldest went to a party and we had a peaceful afternoon.
I visited David my photographer friend later on in the afternoon to see the pics he took on Christmas day, and to discuss how to deal with the inadequately filled-in 'Model Release Forms'. The photos had some really good ones in, certainly one or two suitable for my new flyer.
Made several phone calls in the evening, one to our friends Mark and Jennifer in Hebden Bridge, as their son has a birthday and our eldest is friends with him, and to our good friend Dawn in Sheffield and her nearly grown up son, and finally to my Dad who also has a birthday today, so the boys could sing to him. I expect this was a bit of a surprise!
A very quiet evening.... spent another hour or so peeling plastic off copper wire. It is a very tedious job, and I bet I'll only get a few quid for the stuff I've reclaimed!
But the rest of the day was good.... I did a bit of wooding, a bit of composting, lunch, family chats... my eldest went to a party and we had a peaceful afternoon.
I visited David my photographer friend later on in the afternoon to see the pics he took on Christmas day, and to discuss how to deal with the inadequately filled-in 'Model Release Forms'. The photos had some really good ones in, certainly one or two suitable for my new flyer.
Made several phone calls in the evening, one to our friends Mark and Jennifer in Hebden Bridge, as their son has a birthday and our eldest is friends with him, and to our good friend Dawn in Sheffield and her nearly grown up son, and finally to my Dad who also has a birthday today, so the boys could sing to him. I expect this was a bit of a surprise!
A very quiet evening.... spent another hour or so peeling plastic off copper wire. It is a very tedious job, and I bet I'll only get a few quid for the stuff I've reclaimed!
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Friday 2nd January 09
An excellent day! It was a relaxed morning with no shouting or aggro, and then Gill went into town on the bus to try and find trousers for our eldest and so he could get a birthday present for his friend who's party he's going to tomorrow.
I took this opportunity to play with our youngest, he wanted to play on 'Mario Karts' on the Wii... and oh God it was difficult! I was rubbish... came last several times, but hey I'm a beginner and I'm old so both count against me. Half an hour left me exhausted! So much concentration... and then the phone rang and it was Rose up the road asking if our eldest was needing a lift to the party tomorrow... and I asked if her son was in and wanted a playmate? He was and did, so we walked up there and I came back to do a composting job which has been needing doing for a while: the bin made of Anderson Shelter corrugated iron was very well rotted down... I dug it all out and put the stuff in a builders bag, from where I'll bag it up or riddle it and bag it...
Then Gill came back, our eldest with no trousers but a nice appropriate prezzie for his friend.
I then bombed into town on the bike to pay our annual electricity bill to Good Energy through the bank (electronic transfer) and put in a cheque for £30 for 6 sacks of compost Alison had off me yonks ago, the stuff Barry Potter took up on his return journey from delivering the cider press back to me...
Back in time to put some rather overdue compostables which have been hanging about into the newly vacated container, and collect a pile of electrical flex I rescued a while ago which I've been putting off sorting. However, once I'd sat down and got going with the craft knife (pulling the flex into the blade, the blade held still next to my trousered leg), my eldest started to help by pulling apart the grey outer insulation and removing the inner thinner wires, and then when I'd shaved off a long sliver of plastic from the copper wire, he extracted the wire from the throw-away plastic sheath.
We did about two hours worth... a most excellent Father/Son activity, and we did about a quarter of what I've collected recently. Enjoyed the Royal Institution Lecture again, and took wood-heated bathwater up for the older boyo to have a bath before his party tomorrow.
A most enjoyable day. I want, no, NEED more days like this, where I feel like a good parent doing the right things re my offspring. All too often these days I feel like I'm just not coping, but today was a blinder! Mainly due to excellent behaviour from both boys.
I took this opportunity to play with our youngest, he wanted to play on 'Mario Karts' on the Wii... and oh God it was difficult! I was rubbish... came last several times, but hey I'm a beginner and I'm old so both count against me. Half an hour left me exhausted! So much concentration... and then the phone rang and it was Rose up the road asking if our eldest was needing a lift to the party tomorrow... and I asked if her son was in and wanted a playmate? He was and did, so we walked up there and I came back to do a composting job which has been needing doing for a while: the bin made of Anderson Shelter corrugated iron was very well rotted down... I dug it all out and put the stuff in a builders bag, from where I'll bag it up or riddle it and bag it...
Then Gill came back, our eldest with no trousers but a nice appropriate prezzie for his friend.
I then bombed into town on the bike to pay our annual electricity bill to Good Energy through the bank (electronic transfer) and put in a cheque for £30 for 6 sacks of compost Alison had off me yonks ago, the stuff Barry Potter took up on his return journey from delivering the cider press back to me...
Back in time to put some rather overdue compostables which have been hanging about into the newly vacated container, and collect a pile of electrical flex I rescued a while ago which I've been putting off sorting. However, once I'd sat down and got going with the craft knife (pulling the flex into the blade, the blade held still next to my trousered leg), my eldest started to help by pulling apart the grey outer insulation and removing the inner thinner wires, and then when I'd shaved off a long sliver of plastic from the copper wire, he extracted the wire from the throw-away plastic sheath.
We did about two hours worth... a most excellent Father/Son activity, and we did about a quarter of what I've collected recently. Enjoyed the Royal Institution Lecture again, and took wood-heated bathwater up for the older boyo to have a bath before his party tomorrow.
A most enjoyable day. I want, no, NEED more days like this, where I feel like a good parent doing the right things re my offspring. All too often these days I feel like I'm just not coping, but today was a blinder! Mainly due to excellent behaviour from both boys.
Thursday, 1 January 2009
Thursday 1st January 09
Woke late... as expected having eventually got to bed after 2am fairly loaded with Russian redcurrant spirit.
Decided to get out into the fresh air and go and collect some logs I rooted out last night... and then chopped them, finishing for lunchtime.
The boys had a friend around during the afternoon, which kept them quiet and happy.
I did a bit of compost management, and more importantly, sorted out a new supply of partly composted sawdust for my toilet... it's the ideal cover material as it's biologically active and any smell molecules will emanate from the 'deposit' are adsorbed into the particles of sawdust, where microbes use them as a feedstock. If dry sawdust is used, the deposited material is covered but odourific molecules may pass through the dry sawdust. Sawdust is used as it is mainly carbon, which balances the humanure which is high in nitrogen when it composts down. I leave it for about 4 years, by which time it is a very fine lovely compost, ideal for mixing with various other media for growing tomatoes etc in.
Did this til nearly dark, came in and watched some telly whilst warming up and doing emails. Gill had made a dough for pizza, and used the tomato/onion thing I made yesterday as the stuff on top. She does make a good pizza!
A good evening... rang round a few friends to wish them a HNY and visited Debbie to give her some bananas and wish her well with her difficult New Year's Resolution.
Made a carrot and tomato soup quite late on, whilst watching the 1980s remake of The Fly... I've seen it loads of times, first when it came out and I saw it in the cinema.
Decided to get out into the fresh air and go and collect some logs I rooted out last night... and then chopped them, finishing for lunchtime.
The boys had a friend around during the afternoon, which kept them quiet and happy.
I did a bit of compost management, and more importantly, sorted out a new supply of partly composted sawdust for my toilet... it's the ideal cover material as it's biologically active and any smell molecules will emanate from the 'deposit' are adsorbed into the particles of sawdust, where microbes use them as a feedstock. If dry sawdust is used, the deposited material is covered but odourific molecules may pass through the dry sawdust. Sawdust is used as it is mainly carbon, which balances the humanure which is high in nitrogen when it composts down. I leave it for about 4 years, by which time it is a very fine lovely compost, ideal for mixing with various other media for growing tomatoes etc in.
Did this til nearly dark, came in and watched some telly whilst warming up and doing emails. Gill had made a dough for pizza, and used the tomato/onion thing I made yesterday as the stuff on top. She does make a good pizza!
A good evening... rang round a few friends to wish them a HNY and visited Debbie to give her some bananas and wish her well with her difficult New Year's Resolution.
Made a carrot and tomato soup quite late on, whilst watching the 1980s remake of The Fly... I've seen it loads of times, first when it came out and I saw it in the cinema.
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