Up early to get a train to Sheffield... I needed to get the 8.44 in order to be in Sheffield for 9.51 which was a convenient time for Sam to collect me from the station, to take me up to Whirlow Farm to the Sheffield Autistic Society Playscheme.
It was good to be asked back for a second time... this is the biggest compliment an entertainer can get. So this time, I did what I did last time, like I do every time, a circus skills show and workshop, and after lunch, some balloon modelling.
I got some lovely feedback afterwards... one chap who had been expected to be very vocal and disruptive was actually quiet and attentive, and another chap who never participates joined in and did several different things. The combination of these bits of information made me very happy. Sometime after 2pm, Sam took me about 5 miles to Ali's house, where I am staying as tomorrow I have a gig in Warrington, and Sheffield is much closer to Warrington than York, so it makes no sense to go back to York and then all the way to Warrington tomorrow morning.
Ali wasn't in, as she was coming back from her summer holiday in Edinburgh, so her teenage son let me in. I read NewScientist for a while and then fell asleep. Ali got in after 4, and I helped unload the van before going to the nearby Co-op shop with her little daughter to get some provisions.
Later in the evening, we had a Chinese takeaway which I really enjoyed. One of the best dishes was a 'mock duck' dish, made of tasty tofu and little worms of prawn cracker material (which of course doesn't have prawns in it) and 'seaweed' which is in fact fried cabbage. A really nice meal.
A very pleasant social evening with Ali's family, a glass of Lambrini and some good chats.
Friday, 7 August 2009
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Thursday 6th August 09
Up at a reasonable time as had to go to a York Rotters meeting at 10am and got there on time, to meet the two Waste Minimisation Officers, Rachel and Sara, plus management group members Pat and John, and our employee Catherine.
It was a good meeting. I found out what is going to happen at Lord Deramore's re sustainability and of course, composting, and we talked over the forthcoming fifth birthday party on the 4th September. Gill is going to do a cake in the shape of a compost bin or heap. The WRAP subsidised compost bins finish at the end of September and we discussed what to do after that, to keep affordable compost bins available to members of the public. We had a discussion about a social with information about the micro-organisms which do the work in the compost heap, inspired by a talk Catherine went to at the recent Master Composter event, at Ryton I think. She wasn't that impressed with how that was presented (not enough microscopes for the large number of people who attended) and I think we can do better. Finally, St Nicks has had a bit of contact with the Mosque which is next to it on Bull Lane, and we had a chat about how we could engage the community which uses that. I agreed to do some research. The meeting finished but we kept on chatting for quite a while.
I collected a couple of stray logs (tree surgeons dump them on St Nicks quite often) and called in on Raj at Freshways to ask him about how Islam approaches environmentalism, and if he thinks he knows how York Rotters could work with Muslims to get them enthusiastic about composting. I spent half an hour in there, as he was busy with customers, but I did learn quite a bit. One of the tenets is cleanliness, so keeping the atmosphere clean, the garden tidy etc would be one angle, another is appreciating beauty, so a garden with plenty of compost added would be more beautiful than one without. I'll find out more from various translations of the Quran and associated discussion... I found this quite easily but haven't yet explored it much.
Home for a late lunch and a frustrating afternoon as my normal email is completely unavailable, both on Thunderbird and on Webmail. Fortunately I have an emergency email with Google, which I was able to use to receive a document from the council and then forward that to my colleagues at York Green Festival.
I didn't spend all afternoon being frustrated with the computer... I did a lot of chainsawing and splitting which was very satisfying and also dug out a compost heap, turning it into a builders bag, and admired my growing pumpkins which are doing really well.
I had a late tea as I was out in the garden til after 7pm. I had a beard trim and a bath as I'm working tomorrow and Saturday.
It was a good meeting. I found out what is going to happen at Lord Deramore's re sustainability and of course, composting, and we talked over the forthcoming fifth birthday party on the 4th September. Gill is going to do a cake in the shape of a compost bin or heap. The WRAP subsidised compost bins finish at the end of September and we discussed what to do after that, to keep affordable compost bins available to members of the public. We had a discussion about a social with information about the micro-organisms which do the work in the compost heap, inspired by a talk Catherine went to at the recent Master Composter event, at Ryton I think. She wasn't that impressed with how that was presented (not enough microscopes for the large number of people who attended) and I think we can do better. Finally, St Nicks has had a bit of contact with the Mosque which is next to it on Bull Lane, and we had a chat about how we could engage the community which uses that. I agreed to do some research. The meeting finished but we kept on chatting for quite a while.
I collected a couple of stray logs (tree surgeons dump them on St Nicks quite often) and called in on Raj at Freshways to ask him about how Islam approaches environmentalism, and if he thinks he knows how York Rotters could work with Muslims to get them enthusiastic about composting. I spent half an hour in there, as he was busy with customers, but I did learn quite a bit. One of the tenets is cleanliness, so keeping the atmosphere clean, the garden tidy etc would be one angle, another is appreciating beauty, so a garden with plenty of compost added would be more beautiful than one without. I'll find out more from various translations of the Quran and associated discussion... I found this quite easily but haven't yet explored it much.
Home for a late lunch and a frustrating afternoon as my normal email is completely unavailable, both on Thunderbird and on Webmail. Fortunately I have an emergency email with Google, which I was able to use to receive a document from the council and then forward that to my colleagues at York Green Festival.
I didn't spend all afternoon being frustrated with the computer... I did a lot of chainsawing and splitting which was very satisfying and also dug out a compost heap, turning it into a builders bag, and admired my growing pumpkins which are doing really well.
I had a late tea as I was out in the garden til after 7pm. I had a beard trim and a bath as I'm working tomorrow and Saturday.
Wednesday 5th August 09
I was woken by Gill as there was a chap with a large van who was offering me some logs. It was the man from around the corner who had invited me to take the logs from the front of his house... I'd taken quite a few in the bike trailer but obviously he wanted his driveway clear. I helped him unload and thanked him, and then had breakfast.
A relatively quiet day, including washing up, nice lunch and another visit from a chap offering me logs. He too lives round the corner and told me he'd cut down an apple tree and did I want the proceeds. Well of course I did, so I went round to his house and helped him take the logs from his back garden to his front drive, and then I got my wheelbarrow and took 6 loads back to my house.
The front garden is beginning to look a little full! But it's OK, I do a bit every day, mostly. So I did about half an hour with the chainsaw... but it was a very warm day so I got decidedly sweaty.
Whilst Gill was in town with our eldest I spent some time in the back garden with our youngest, as Gill had asked him to harvest some poppy seeds and had provided him with a paper bag to put them in. I cut off the ripe seed pods and he did the seed removal, and I did a load of weeding and removal of perpetual spinach beet flower spikes, some of which are as tall as me and are flopping all over the place. They have self seeded for years now, and there are loads of new ones coming... we harvest leaves from them regularly.
So a hard-working day, but very little happened really.
A relatively quiet day, including washing up, nice lunch and another visit from a chap offering me logs. He too lives round the corner and told me he'd cut down an apple tree and did I want the proceeds. Well of course I did, so I went round to his house and helped him take the logs from his back garden to his front drive, and then I got my wheelbarrow and took 6 loads back to my house.
The front garden is beginning to look a little full! But it's OK, I do a bit every day, mostly. So I did about half an hour with the chainsaw... but it was a very warm day so I got decidedly sweaty.
Whilst Gill was in town with our eldest I spent some time in the back garden with our youngest, as Gill had asked him to harvest some poppy seeds and had provided him with a paper bag to put them in. I cut off the ripe seed pods and he did the seed removal, and I did a load of weeding and removal of perpetual spinach beet flower spikes, some of which are as tall as me and are flopping all over the place. They have self seeded for years now, and there are loads of new ones coming... we harvest leaves from them regularly.
So a hard-working day, but very little happened really.
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Tuesday 4th August 09
Quite a frustrating day as I spent quite a lot of it trying to deal with email problems. I also was aware that today would have been the day I left the BGG site and came back to York. So I had a low mood day generally.
Cycled into town to pay in a cheque, get two cheques out, give the maps back to the library, and at the library there was an ex stock sale and I got 3 CDs for a pound each.
When I got back I did some housework, but didn't get very far. One thing I did succeed with was getting my eldest son to help rig up a string from an upstairs window to allow a rampant bean to climb higher than the bamboo canes it is currently waving from the top of. It can now go to the first floor of the house! I picked some beans and Gill added these to a fantastic dish she made, using mashed broad-bean inners to create bean burgers (cooked in non stick mince-pie tins!) and yesterday's macaroni cheese. A delicious meal, especially the bean burgers.
At 6.20 cycled off to the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel at Tang Hall Community Centre, where Vicky was in charge and I was happy to be just a panel member. The chat and repartee cheered me up. The main topic of conversation was whether we should join the York Open Planning Forum. One of our members was at a meeting a few weeks ago which the chair of the YOPF also attended, and the abominable behaviour of this person, who interrupted and was rude to people, meant that our member wants us not to join the YOPF. Our new Clerk, who has now fully taken over from me, will find out how our group would benefit from joining the YOPF and bring that info to the next meeting and we'll take a vote.
I came back from this meeting via the St Nicks compost piles and put on a layer of veg and fruit stuff, covered with a layer of pet shop waste.
Home to try to relax... lit the stove as I need to do more washing up and I've got some fruit to dry.
Cycled into town to pay in a cheque, get two cheques out, give the maps back to the library, and at the library there was an ex stock sale and I got 3 CDs for a pound each.
When I got back I did some housework, but didn't get very far. One thing I did succeed with was getting my eldest son to help rig up a string from an upstairs window to allow a rampant bean to climb higher than the bamboo canes it is currently waving from the top of. It can now go to the first floor of the house! I picked some beans and Gill added these to a fantastic dish she made, using mashed broad-bean inners to create bean burgers (cooked in non stick mince-pie tins!) and yesterday's macaroni cheese. A delicious meal, especially the bean burgers.
At 6.20 cycled off to the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel at Tang Hall Community Centre, where Vicky was in charge and I was happy to be just a panel member. The chat and repartee cheered me up. The main topic of conversation was whether we should join the York Open Planning Forum. One of our members was at a meeting a few weeks ago which the chair of the YOPF also attended, and the abominable behaviour of this person, who interrupted and was rude to people, meant that our member wants us not to join the YOPF. Our new Clerk, who has now fully taken over from me, will find out how our group would benefit from joining the YOPF and bring that info to the next meeting and we'll take a vote.
I came back from this meeting via the St Nicks compost piles and put on a layer of veg and fruit stuff, covered with a layer of pet shop waste.
Home to try to relax... lit the stove as I need to do more washing up and I've got some fruit to dry.
Monday, 3 August 2009
Monday 3rd August 09
Quite a frustrating day in some ways. I had a medium start, ie not a long lie-in, and was able to say bye to our guest from Leamington Spa who was meeting a friend at the station at 10.20 and then getting a train back down south at 10.40. Gill and our eldest (our guests's old classmate) went to the station on the bus and got back two hours later.
I spent the morning trying to sort out the Green Festival insurance stuff and other paperwork. Had a quiet lunch and during the afternoon the insurance got sorted... I paid for it using my debit card. This is a huge relief.
I did some good exercise too... splitting the logs I cut yesterday, and fortunately I'd cut them small enough to split reasonably easily. I popped down to Country Fresh to pick up a few bits of veg and also the weekend's compostables, about four bags or boxes, but I didn't have time to put them on the heap so they are all in the wheelbarrow waiting for tomorrow morning.
Gill made a macaroni cheese with cauliflower for the kids... I had reheated stuff from yesterday with a bit of today's nosh. Then straight out to the LETS meeting, just four of us and although I went down there feeling less than joyous, I left feeling quite a bit more buoyed up, as the company was good.
I just remembered the 'highlight' of the day was when Gill was refilling a 25 litre tub of ecover washing liquid with a 15 litre refill. She was struggling with the opening of the refill box, on the table in the living room, and suddenly it opened and it started flowing but not all of it arrived in the waiting big tub. Plenty of it went onto the short-pile carpet we have. Gill shrieked and I rescued her by holding the tub up whilst she aimed the flow into the opening... Our youngest came running to see if he could help, and found the dustpan and brush, which is what Gill initially used to scrape up the perhaps half-litre of slimy washing liquid which had spilt.
Gill then spent about an hour putting water on the carpet and taking it up again with some of the washing liquid, and again and again... what a huge palaver! I asked Gill to please ask me to help when she was attempting this kind of procedure... sometimes having two people co-operating is better than tying to do a task on your own.
I spent the morning trying to sort out the Green Festival insurance stuff and other paperwork. Had a quiet lunch and during the afternoon the insurance got sorted... I paid for it using my debit card. This is a huge relief.
I did some good exercise too... splitting the logs I cut yesterday, and fortunately I'd cut them small enough to split reasonably easily. I popped down to Country Fresh to pick up a few bits of veg and also the weekend's compostables, about four bags or boxes, but I didn't have time to put them on the heap so they are all in the wheelbarrow waiting for tomorrow morning.
Gill made a macaroni cheese with cauliflower for the kids... I had reheated stuff from yesterday with a bit of today's nosh. Then straight out to the LETS meeting, just four of us and although I went down there feeling less than joyous, I left feeling quite a bit more buoyed up, as the company was good.
I just remembered the 'highlight' of the day was when Gill was refilling a 25 litre tub of ecover washing liquid with a 15 litre refill. She was struggling with the opening of the refill box, on the table in the living room, and suddenly it opened and it started flowing but not all of it arrived in the waiting big tub. Plenty of it went onto the short-pile carpet we have. Gill shrieked and I rescued her by holding the tub up whilst she aimed the flow into the opening... Our youngest came running to see if he could help, and found the dustpan and brush, which is what Gill initially used to scrape up the perhaps half-litre of slimy washing liquid which had spilt.
Gill then spent about an hour putting water on the carpet and taking it up again with some of the washing liquid, and again and again... what a huge palaver! I asked Gill to please ask me to help when she was attempting this kind of procedure... sometimes having two people co-operating is better than tying to do a task on your own.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
Sunday 2nd August 09
Quite a late start, but got up quickly as the boys were bubbling over with energy and needed to do something, so I took them (my eldest and two of his friends) to the nearest park with a frisbee, a football and some fruit juice, and left them to it.
I popped in to Freshways to see Raj and he gave me loads of compostables, and then went to collect some logs from the house on Millfield Lane which has had it's garden cleared, and in a skip found an unopened packet of underlay sheets, so I took them to put on Freecycle. A neighbour round the corner asked me if I wanted a large dining table, so after seeing it and measuring it, I put this on Freecycle too. Good to keep stuff out of landfill and get it reused. A very enjoyable hobby.
So, a happy day dealing with my logpiles, visiting skips, chatting to neighbours, replying to Freecycle messages wanting the underlay, preparing more nectarines for another fruity-tea-pudding.
Gill took four boys to the newly refurbished cinema 'Reel' to see 'G Force' and I got the chainsaw out and did a substantial amount of cutting up the chunky logs from Woodlands. I'm cutting them quite short as the type of wood is really difficult to split, so short logs will be easier to split. I'd love to know what sort of trees they were, but they died standing up so the timber is dry. Different timber has different properties... so beech splits well when green but when dry is really difficult to split. But this tree isn't a beech, it has rough bark (which is falling off) and a very dense grain.
Watched 'Man on Wire' on telly with both my boys and our visitor, we all enjoyed this, although Gill gets vertigo and couldn't watch some bits!
I popped in to Freshways to see Raj and he gave me loads of compostables, and then went to collect some logs from the house on Millfield Lane which has had it's garden cleared, and in a skip found an unopened packet of underlay sheets, so I took them to put on Freecycle. A neighbour round the corner asked me if I wanted a large dining table, so after seeing it and measuring it, I put this on Freecycle too. Good to keep stuff out of landfill and get it reused. A very enjoyable hobby.
So, a happy day dealing with my logpiles, visiting skips, chatting to neighbours, replying to Freecycle messages wanting the underlay, preparing more nectarines for another fruity-tea-pudding.
Gill took four boys to the newly refurbished cinema 'Reel' to see 'G Force' and I got the chainsaw out and did a substantial amount of cutting up the chunky logs from Woodlands. I'm cutting them quite short as the type of wood is really difficult to split, so short logs will be easier to split. I'd love to know what sort of trees they were, but they died standing up so the timber is dry. Different timber has different properties... so beech splits well when green but when dry is really difficult to split. But this tree isn't a beech, it has rough bark (which is falling off) and a very dense grain.
Watched 'Man on Wire' on telly with both my boys and our visitor, we all enjoyed this, although Gill gets vertigo and couldn't watch some bits!
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Saturday 1st August 09
A late start to the day. But a bit of a frustrating day as I'd intended to spend it at my half-allotment but it rained and rained, so I mooched around inside, read, did stuff on the computer and made a meal for all of us to have for tea. It was a mix of lasagne and moussaka... layers of the small sliced aubergines I rescued from the compostables last week and sliced and partially fried last night, tomato/onion sauce, made with sweet pepper paprika and fresh home-grown basil, some slightly out of date no-pre-cook sheets of lasagne and a brilliant cheese sauce made with wholemeal flour, goats milk and goats cheese (so Gill could have what everybody else was having) and my special ingredient for cheese sauce, a teaspoon full of french mustard.
I also sliced a butternut squash and baked that at the same time. The meal was delicious and Gill was really happy that I'd done that with my spare time.
I did have some time outside, splitting some logs and filling the wheelbarrow full of softwood sticks I cut yesterday, and stacking them carefully on the side of the shared passage between us and our neighbours.
I was very happy to get a fan-email from someone who came to Middleton Park a few weeks back, apparently her autistic daughter loved what I did and volunteered lots, and they are looking forward to seeing me again at the end of August. Glad the messages I get saying Professor Fiddlesticks is good far outweigh the few that I get who don't like what I do!
Whilst on facebook someone posted a comment upside down
uʍop ǝpısdn ʇuǝɯɯoɔ ɐ pǝʇsod ǝuoǝɯos ʞooqǝɔɐɟ uo ʇslıɥʍ
like this, and when several people had asked how it was done, they posted the URL:
http://www.sherv.net/flip.html and if you have a look further down the page, you'll find a way of making weird writing too. I'm not really into emoticons but this website has loads of these too! Fun and silliness on a wet day...
I also sliced a butternut squash and baked that at the same time. The meal was delicious and Gill was really happy that I'd done that with my spare time.
I did have some time outside, splitting some logs and filling the wheelbarrow full of softwood sticks I cut yesterday, and stacking them carefully on the side of the shared passage between us and our neighbours.
I was very happy to get a fan-email from someone who came to Middleton Park a few weeks back, apparently her autistic daughter loved what I did and volunteered lots, and they are looking forward to seeing me again at the end of August. Glad the messages I get saying Professor Fiddlesticks is good far outweigh the few that I get who don't like what I do!
Whilst on facebook someone posted a comment upside down
uʍop ǝpısdn ʇuǝɯɯoɔ ɐ pǝʇsod ǝuoǝɯos ʞooqǝɔɐɟ uo ʇslıɥʍ
like this, and when several people had asked how it was done, they posted the URL:
http://www.sherv.net/flip.html and if you have a look further down the page, you'll find a way of making weird writing too. I'm not really into emoticons but this website has loads of these too! Fun and silliness on a wet day...
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