Tuesday 1st November 11

A hard-working day.  I went to Ginnie's to dig out her coal hole.  I'd spent some time thinking hard about this issue. 

Ginnie moved into the house about 20 years ago and there was a pile of coal in an outhouse... they didn't use solid fuel and it sat there.  She's selling up and wants the place as tidy and clean as possible, so she asked me if I wanted the coal.  Our stoves are 'multifuel', meaning they'll burn wood or coal in a smoke-free way, so that meant I was in a position to say yes.

However, this carbon was fossil carbon, extracted from the air millions of years ago.  And I've made a conscious decision to be as 'low carbon' as possible... that's mainly fossil carbon, but it also pertains to not wasting renewable energy too.  So, a dilemma.  What to do with this coal?  Should I say, no, I don't want it, and let her find someone else to dig it out, bag it up, drive it somewhere and burn it?  Or should I spend time bagging it up, to help Ginnie, and then take it to Hazel court to be landfilled, or find somewhere to bury it?  These last two options would mean the fossil carbon would be locked up underground, the ideal situation. But if I used the coal, it would add a little to my carbon footprint... which is about a twelfth of the UK average... so this 'carbon expenditure' wouldn't make my footprint particularly large, just a bit bigger than it would be if I'd just carried on using wood.  It would add carbon dioxide to the air, probably a similar amount that the logs would, that I would need to burn to get the same amount of heat. There is a theoretical difference between carbon locked away millions of years ago and that sequestered by plants more recently, although the molecules of CO2 are exactly the same.

I decided to help Ginnie, and to bring the coal home, and use it to supplement our log piles. 

So I filled lots of sacks and bags with the whole lot, probably about 250kg, and did several cycle rides back home with them in my trailer.

Later, I asked my facebook friends what they suggested I do with it.  Several said 'make an artwork' out of it (my mind boggled at how I should do this!) and several others said yes, just use it, as my years and years of being low carbon would not be undone by this small high-carbon act.  The burial solution was mentioned too, but by this time I'd spent several hours digging the stuff out, and the idea of chucking it away wasn't that appealing.

I'd love to know blog-readers' opinions.  Am I a hypocrite?  Am I just taking advantage of a freebie?  Does this 250kg coal being burnt 'matter' in the bigger scheme of things?  Should I burn it with a clean conscience?

Monday 31st October 11

A good day, despite going to bed at something like 4am and being woken up at 8.50am by a phone call from Ben, asking if I'd like to take my laptop round to have the power jack repaired.

So, after breakfast I went round with my laptop and power lead, and some fresh pears, and a bag of dried apples and pears, and some walnuts.  These were partly as a thank you for his offer of help, and partly as it is his birthday.  He asked me to come and collect it later.

I then spent a good hour or more dealing with the last of the pumpkin seeds left over from last week's York Rotters Pumpkin Evening.  I put the pulp and seeds into a bowl of water and the seeds tend to float, so I can skim them off into a drainer and from there onto sheets of paper to dry in front of a stove.

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur.

Sunday 30th October 11

I had a quiet morning, keeping out of the way of Gill and the boys who were getting ready to go to Sheffield, to stay with their grandparents, see their Uncle Thomas and their cousins, and take part in Sheffield's 'Fright Night'. I had already agreed to work for David tonight, so I couldn't go.

Also, I was feeling lousy.  A running nose, sneezing, blocked sinuses.  So I had a very sedentary day, and during the afternoon, I decided that I should tell David that I wasn't well enough to work.  However, his phone wasn't answered, so I kept trying.  He still wasn't answering at 5.40, and I became worried that something had happened to him, so whether I was poorly or not, I had to cycle in to see him.
The cycle ride made me feel somewhat better, and when I arrived at David's I wasn't feeling like going home, although I told David that if he wanted me to go I would.  However, he was happy for me to take him to the William Temple Association talk, and he had a nice time. 

Saturday 29th October 11

I woke having had an odd dream that a young foreign woman had come to the door saying her business needed to recycle some food scraps, and would I help.  Gill had answered the door and sent them away saying that we didn't need yet more composting going on, and then I got to the door and called the woman back and it turned out she was from somewhere like Norwich Union, and I got a contract with them to set up a Jora system, composting at their premises, and managing it too, so an ongoing 'job'.  Funny dream!

There wasn't much morning left after I got up and breakfasted and got dressed....

The afternoon was good as I went up Marion and Dave's Winter Pear tree again.  I saw Marion on the way down the garden and she said she was very happy with the 3 trays of pears I'd taken up the garden for her, and I could have all the rest.  I'm very happy with that!  I picked a load more but there's still more to get.

I'd agreed to go over and see Anna, Douglas and Loony, in Sheffield, and Anna had suggested we have a meal out, and said could I be at the station for 5.30?  I got the 4.09 which went via Leeds, and I chatted a bit with a pleasant young law student called Natasha, from Newcastle, and visiting a friend in Birmingham.  I also took my pumpkin seeds (last years) and peeled the outer layer off them, one by one.  I got a lot done, on both legs of the journey.

Anna and Douglas like a particular Chinese restaurant called the Hong Kong Wok, and they'd booked a table. I had spring rolls and a green pepper in batter for starters, and then tofu and veg with egg fried rice for main meal.  It was lovely to have some relaxed chats with Anna, sitting opposite me, and Loony's 3 year old daughter was very entertaining too.

We spent just over an hour here, and then Anna drove us back to Middlewood where she and Douglas live, very close to the end of the tram line.  I had a coffee and shelled more pumpkin seeds, and at just after 9 set off for the tram, the 9.26 which would get me to the station for my 10.06 train back.

A late night but all went like clockwork, very smoothly.  A lovely evening, thank you Anna and Douglas.  

Friday 28th October 11

A really excellent day.  I was woken up just before 10 which gave me about 45 minutes to get ready and out of the house to get to work.  Quick breakfast and emails, gathered jugglestuff together, Gill plaited my hair and I left with all my work equipment at 10.45 to get to the station for a train soon after 11, as I was being met at midday in Leeds.

Nice conversation on the train with a couple from Darlington, heading for Stockport, which made the journey go quickly and I was in Leeds by 11.50.  Paul from Middleton Park met me at the back of the station and took me to the usual place, the building in Middleton Park which is due to be knocked down soon and a new centre built, hopefully by next summer!

This gig they'd booked me for was not well advertised, as they'd got some extra funding quite recently to put on kids events during this half-term, so it didn't go out in their usual literature, but was on their website, in the papers and on the radio.  So at 1pm, when I was all dressed up and ready to entertain, a family group of 4 wandered in.  And then a few more.  There can't have been more than 20 people there all day, but several of them worked really hard with the circus skills, and I got nearly everybody, including grown-ups, having a go with the flower sticks owned by Middleton Park, and with some juggling too.  It was a very successful event, because of the amount of one-to-one teaching and other interaction.  I really enjoyed it, despite not following my usual routine.  3pm soon came and I helped tidy up and by quarter-past, I was in Paul's car heading for the station again.

I soon got a train to York and was home by 4.45.  I had planned to do some stuff in the garden before going to work for David, but I had to do some sorting out about the gig tomorrow in Ashton Under Lyne.  I'd got a provisional booking for an event there back in July, and as usual, just put the contact name and phone number in my diary, and waited for confirmation.  Nothing came, so I left it as I don't tend to chase people until I need to.... either when I get someone else wanting me on the same day, or as the date get nearer, to check that the client still wants me.  Well this person was playing hard to get.... a phone number with either an answerphone, or engaged.  And then they left a garbled message on my answerphone with no phone number to ring and a very indistinct email address which neither Gill or I could work out what letters were being said.  However, this evening, the client rang and I spoke to him!  Hooray!  Except he cancelled the booking.  He sounded shifty about what had happened... first saying he'd booked me and the event was going ahead, then saying he'd booked another entertainer, then saying the event was cancelled.  I have no idea what the truth was, but I'd rather not work for someone so disorganised, and, to my mind, untruthful.  It would have been far better if he'd said that he had made a mistake, which is what I think the truth was.

So then I went to work and got to David's on the dot of 6pm.  We had a little chat and then I took him to City Screen, and after that to the Envisions light show (Illuminating York) which was at the Castle Museum.  This was mindblowing, really good.  Neither of us expected it to be so powerful and enjoyable.  We got a really good place right in the centre, and saw the whole sequence right from the start.

I got him back to his place and made some food and was finished by 8.10.  I rang Gill to suggest that if one or both of the boys were ready to go out with me when I got back, I'd take them to see the show.  I was really pleased that our eldest was up for this, so I got his bike and we went the quiet way down to the Eye of York and waited about 10 minutes for the show to get to the change over time, and took our blanket thing and sat down right in the middle, at the front.  It was well worth it.  Here's one YouTube video of it, but there are plenty of others.

Thursday 27th October 11

Well a bit of a frustrating day in a way, as I spent quite a long time sorting out my laptop, or trying to... I plugged it in near the WiFi box and plugged in the Ethernet cable, and Ian talked me through how to let the machine complete the process of installing the new Ubuntu version, which had got stuck... possibly because my computer switched itself off because of it's problem wobbly jack-plug.  Anyway, Ian got it back to a working computer, but the plug was so wobbly that I still cannot use it and I messaged Ben to ask if he'd sort it out.  I will pay him handsomely when he fixes it, which is probably just a 20 minute job.

At midday the Yellow Pages guy came back, with his colleague who I think was a more senior chap, and had re-done an advert for me with two versions, neither of which I liked.  I like my existing advert, which looks like a bulls-eye, but I said I was happy for him to tweak it to make it stand out more. They spent quite a long time working out a trial Google Ad Words thing for me, and I was prepared to try a 4 month trial at £39.50 per month, but when it came to the crunch, they asked for my bank account number and I don't pay anything for my Fiddlesticks work from my bank account; I use a dedicated Building Society account, and I do not do any Direct Debits.  I said I'd pay for the full 4 months in advance, by cheque, but they apparently can't accept cheques for Google Ad Words.  I said either they should change the rules or I'd have to put £39.50 from my Building Society into my bank to have the DD go out of my bank, and I wasn't prepared to do that.  So I said scrap the Ad Words idea.  They were here for 2 hours, but eventually left as they couldn't get the form to work that they'd have wanted me to sign.  I didn't want to sign today anyway as I wanted to ask Gill about this cost.  He said he'd call tomorrow but I'm going to ring him and ask that he comes next week.

I popped out to get two cheques made out, one for the glass I put my hand through at the gig in Poppleton (cost me £40), and one for my National Insurance contribution.

I made some soup, out of the pumpkin bits I was given yesterday.  I put in onion, butternut squash, a cooking apple, some carrot, and flavoured it with herbs, Balsamic vinegar and a bit of soy sauce.  I had it ready for when Gill and the boys came back at 7pm.  They were glad I'd done that!

The other annoying or frustrating thing today was that I tried to contact someone who has provisionally booked me to work this Saturday in Ashton-Under-Lyne near Manchester.  I'd rung the number which is in my diary, and got a message through to the answerphone, and he'd rung me and left a very fuzzy message on there, and crucially not left his contact number or email address.  In my message I clearly ask that people leave their phone number if they want me to get back to them.  I phoned the number I have got about 30 times during the day, and each time it was engaged.  When I went out to buy bread, ARGH he phoned and once again didn't leave a contact number.  How incredibly frustrating.  I am available to work on Saturday, but I need to know where it is, what it is, and how much I'm going to get paid.

Gill came back at 7 having had a really good time in Norwich with her sister.  The boys were happy too.  I then went out, at about 7.45, to see my favourite local band The Falling Spikes.  I had a lovely evening, one of the tracks they played had me in tears it was so wonderful.  The band they were supporting weren't nearly as good, for me, and I left halfway through their set.

Wednesday 26th October 11

Woke soon after 9 and had a productive day, including another round of pear picking.  I picked 4 trays full, and took 3 up Marion and Dave's garden and left them near the house, so they can put them in their garage and wait for them to ripen.  I went to Alligator to check the prices of pears there, and also dried fruit, to get an idea of how much I should ask Scoop to pay for my pears and dried fruit.

I collected compostables at Alligator and Country Fresh,and then headed over to St Nicks to help with the pumpkin evening.  I served soup and showed children how to peel the outer shells off pumpkin seeds.  I was impressed by the size of the winning big pumpkin, which came in at 25 stone (about 160kg) and I asked the growers if they would be willing to let me have some seed.  I wonder if they'll send me any?

I came home with all the pumpkin innards, and spent some time sorting out some of the seeds, and also saved a load of the flesh to make soup out of.  Did loads more dried pears, and a few apples.