Human Lifestyle

I had a slow start to the day as I'd worked hard yesterday but after lunch I decided to get my trailer mended, and as I got it ready to put on my rack to cycle it down to James St, a wiry old chap walked past and stopped and came down the drive asking where I got it made, or if I'd made it myself. I told him a friend had made it (Rob Kay) but I was getting it mended and was just off down to The Raylor Centre where there is a welder and car bodywork repairer. Tom, his name was, suggested that I should go to 'Blackers' in Osbaldwick, and then proceeded to tell me how to get there three times in a row! He said they'd do it for a couple of quid and on the spot, there and then.

So, I decided to give his suggestion a go, as the place at the Raylor Centre always needs me to leave it overnight and charges £10 cash or £20 with a receipt. I easily found Blacker Steel and a gent said he'd do it there and then... and indeed, only wanted a couple of quid for it. I gave him a fiver. I'll use that company in future!

On the way back I noticed an apple tree in the hedge which I went to look at, and then a greengage. I picked a couple of greengages but most weren't ripe, and a very little old lady came past and pointed down the Osbaldwick Link Road and said there were sweeter ones down there. So I went to look... and found two yellow cherry plum trees, one still with lots on the tree but lots on the ground, so I picked up quite a few there. Then I continued towards Hull Road and found another similar tree, with almost the whole crop on the pavement; it was thick with yellow cherry plums, and I almost filled the carrier bag I had. Opposite here were some damson trees absolutely laden. I have put these trees on the York Wild Fruit map which is part of the Edible York project.

I came home and my youngest son was enjoying his birthday party... although he had his big day earlier in the month, his party was today and he had 3 friends round, and they were all playing computer games together. I did a big load of chainsawing.

A Freecycler came round and picked up our unwanted armchair, at last! We advertised it yonks ago but it wasn't picked up... but Mairi posted a wanted and she came to see it and loved it... and put it in her car. Great!

A bit later, Melanie came briefly to pick up a carrier bag of compost.

I stacked logs and prepared a few plums from our Victoria Plum tree, then worked til 3am doing various things including a VAST pile of washing up. Enjoyed Ideal on BBC3 and Glasto revisited on BBC4.

Today I don't take you to a french chateau or something like that. Today I took some pictures from the park next to my new office. Our last office was next the Botanic Gardens. A wonderful place designed by René Pechère I wrote already an article about this master in gardens.

As usual, during a travel in a new country, I'm fashinated from the local goods..and I think that they are not just objects, but things that could help me to remember that country in the future.
Here some pictures!





Come di consueto, durante un viaggio in un nuovo Paese, sono affascinata dai prodotti locali..e penso che non siano solo oggetti, ma cose che potrebbero aiutarmi a ricordare quel Paese in futuro.
Ecco alcune foto!

Up early as work today. I got washed, breakfasted, all my stuff together whilst Gill ironed my costume and made some sandwiches. Then I went down the garden with Janie and picked some beans, and found some windfall James Grieve apples for her. I got both our bikes and loaded up mine, minus trailer, in a way I'd not done before.

I put both unicycles on the luggage rack with their stems either side of my saddle and their saddles on my cross bar. My bag of sticks etc then went on top of the unicycle wheels, and was bungied on. In my rucksack I had costume, the fun wheels and pedal go. In a pannier I had my canvas bag with sandwiches, journal and No Impact Man (the book, not Colin himself!).

Janie and I cycled slowly down to the station... using the cycle track and then Monkgate and Goodramgate. We got there at 10.45 and had 10 minutes before her Manchester train went, and my Starbeck train left 10 minutes after that.

I was met at Starbeck by a nice and very chatty bloke called John who took me to Spofforth, where the Gala was just getting going. I'd been asked just a few days ago if I'd come and entertain, as the magician who'd been booked was ill. So I was due to do a half hour show at 1.15 and another at 3.15. Between these times I was very busy doing workshops, unicycling round and doing devilsticks really fast to a Samba Band, and towards the end, making a lot of balloon animals. Lots of people said they were pleased to see me back, which was nice.

Right at the end, the treasurer came to pay me and reimburse my train fare. John the chat gave me a lift back to Knaresborough. I got changed on the station platform! I tried to read on the way back but dozed... gigs always wear me out.

I was quite grumpy when I got back as I was really tired but there was fighting, taunting, screaming, crying etc and I lost my cool and swore, which I later apologised for. It took me quite a while to shake off this mood, but at midnight I found the second episode of Ideal on iPlayer and that cheered me up. Bed at 1.30ish.

I'm in love for Portugal!

Sono innamorata del Portogallo!

Ho trascorso con mio marito e una coppia di amici, due settimane circa in Portogallo. A partire da Porto abbiamo visitato Braga, Guimaraes, Vouzela (un piccolo villaggio vicino a Viseu), Coimbra, Peniche, Lisbona, Sintra, Odemira e le belle spiagge nell' Alentejo, Faro e Tavira.

Abbiamo avuto bel tempo (35-38 gradi, ma sempre ventoso .. perfetto!), ottimo cibo (soprattutto pesce) e ottimo vino!

Peniche e Lisbona sono stati i miei due posti preferiti: Peniche per il mare e la bella e rilassata atmosfera, Lisbona per i colori, la gente e il "nostro" quartiere dell'Alfama.

Ho incontrato un sacco di gente simpatica: Antonio, il proprietario dell'albergo Casa Museo a Vouzela (http://www.casamuseu.com/), Kay, la proprietaria (con il marito), della Quinta do Tedo (http://www.quintadotedo.com), Glauco, un ragazzo dello staff del Peniche Hostel (http://www.penichehostel.com/) ed Eugenio (un ospite da Roma), e a Sintra ho incontrato Luz (http://www.flickr.com/photos/23086952@N00/), un' amica di Flickr, e ho passato una piacevole mattinata nella sua bella casa e nel negozio dove lavora (http://www.zenfamily.org).

Spero di avere l'opportunità di visitare nuovamente il Portogallo .. molto presto!

I've been dying to share this great pair of lamps I found last week.  After neglecting Anthropologie for far too long, I stopped in on a whim and found this pair of lamps sitting on the clearance table for 80% off, which means that they were only $29.99 from their original $150 price tag--score!


I'm excited to get back to working on my own projects and anxiously awaiting completion of this last week of school so I can get back to spending quality time refinishing furniture & accessories.  It's so close I can taste it!

I had a good day... it started nicely and just got better.

So, I had a bit of reading No Impact Man; it is really well written and very 'digestible'. I got up and got busy, although it was windy I did a bit in the garden and before lunch, cycled down to see Richard, minus trailer, and came back with two boxes and a sack strapped onto my luggage rack, plus a canvas bag of veggies.

After lunch I picked some beans for the boys' tea and collected more windfall fruit, as there was quite a bit as it was windy.

Then after 3 I got myself ready to go to the station to pick up Janie, as she was coming over to York for the York Flashmob's 'Night of a Thousand Lanterns' event. She came with her bike so we cycled down to the Millennium Bridge and then back to Hull Road via Walmgate Stray and the University.

After a coffee we went down the garden as Janie wanted to see the results of my composting Jeans; the only things which survives the process are the zipper, stitching and pockets, plus any rivets which go through any of this material. The pockets and stitching is nylon, which doesn't rot, but most of the trousers are cotton, which turns to compost in a year or two.

Then we picked nuts! I'd picked a hazelnut or three a few days ago to see if they were ripe. Eaten immediately, they weren't very good, but leaving them for a few days rendered them delicious. So they were ready for picking... and the trampoline was in just the right place for getting most of them, and I dangerously balanced the ladder to get the rest. Janie caught the nuts as I lobbed them down to the trampoline and put them in a bucket, which we completely filled.

Here's the result:

I was extremely happy with this... I'll have to let them dry off a bit by spreading them out either in the loft or the front room floor.

Then I had my tea... home grown beans AGAIN and potatoes and the last of the veg cobbler from yesterday. After which I took Janie to see the strip of woodland next to Windmill Lane, and we had a quick look at the new University Campus buildings before coming back. Then, after some nice chats with Gill, we cycled off to what I think is called Siwards Hill, between the Retreat and the Allotments, near the entrance to Walmgate Stray/Low Moor from Heslington Road. This hill is where I suggested Janie might want to release her lantern, as it has some protection with walls and trees but is one of the highest points in York.

Although it was windy and gusty, we managed to get the lantern lit and let go... it blew along the grass for a while and then took off and soared away. It was spectacular and a very moving experience. We then saw quite a few others floating by... maybe 15 in total, singly and in groups of two or three... it was lovely. For Janie, this was a meaningful ceremony, and signifies letting go of some things in her past and starting afresh.

So, a cycle home with the moon rising and then a very nice evening chatting and enjoying the stove, I prepared some windfalls for drying, Janie went on facebook whilst I washed up, and Gill tried to find a holiday cottage for next summer on various websites.

A memorable day. Lovely.

A kind of relaxing day, except that I had an accident with the blackberry and apple fruit-leather-to-be. I was using the vacuum cleaner to remove the fruit flies which were being a bit too interested in the tray, balanced on the big saucepan on the stove. I'd lined the pan with a plastic sandwich bag, as when the leather dries, it is really easy to take the sheet of fruit pulp out and peel the plastic off it and put the damp sheet on a rack to dry further. BUT the vacuum cleaner sucked the plastic bag and dislodged the tray, which spilt all over the top and side of the stove, hearth, and carpet in front. Whoops.

I was able to pour the rest of the blackberry and apple into a receptacle, as I hadn't lost all of it, but I then had to do quite a bit of clearing up. I was very annoyed with myself, as preparing the fruit took AGES!

The rest of the day was just fine. I received two books I bought yesterday from Amazon, using a gift voucher for £20 which I got for filling in a questionnaire months ago. As I've been asked to speak at the screening of Colin Beavan's 'No Impact Man' on 7th September, I've bought the book so I can read it first. I also bought Mark Boyle's book 'The Moneyless Man, A Year of Freeconomic Living'. So I've got a lot of reading to do now... as if I hadn't already!

I did some work outside too, picked beans and a tromboncino squash, and windfall apples for drying, and I dug out a dalek bin of very mature compost into sacks which I've stored in the broken Compostumbler, and half-filled the newly emptied dalek with material from the medium sized Compostumbler. I then started to fill that Compostumbler again.

I really enjoyed an hour of weeding the pond-to-be area, another patch of ground elder, it is most satisfying.

Apart from that, I did relatively little today!

I got up earlier than I'm used to as my friend Tara had asked me to come over and help install her compost bins. But that wasn't all... she also requested that I have a go at using the borrowed pick axe to break up the large lump of concrete which we managed to get out last time, and there were also 3 water butts needing to be installed. This seemed a lot to fit into a 10 til 1 slot.

However, the compost bins were easy to do... I used the outline of the base of the bin to make a little trench which the foot of the bin sat in, and the soil that was removed was then put back in the edge of the trench and on the lip of the bin to secure it. We put both of them next to each other in a sunny spot. Whilst I was putting the second one in, Tara chopped up some beech twigs to make an aerated base for the first one.

Then we undid one of her pots of potatoes, there were some but I think they could have been bigger, so I suggested the rest should stay. Then we had a look at her tomato plants which she's been growing on a window sill. They needed a bit of pruning but several of them had tomatoes on, and some will still produce a few more.

We were able to do some of the first water butt installation, by removing a section of down pipe, but then we got a bit stuck with drilling a hole in the side of the butt, so Tara made lunch and I had a bit of a bash at the concrete but I only got a few bits off, and some of these struck me on the face; one cut me and I decided that I didn't want to continue with this.

I enjoyed a cheese and onion sandwich and a hummus and tomato, plus dry roasted peanuts, one of my favourite treats, and then i had to go as I told Gill I'd be back around 2pm. I loaded up my wrecking bar on the trailer (I'd brought this in case we needed to lever the concrete somewhere) and set off, but I didn't get far before my trailer parted company from it's front part; the weight of the wrecking bar had caused one of the weak points of the trailer's metal bars to fatigue and break. It has broken there before, and been welded back together. I managed to fix it with bungees, and fix the wrecking bar alongside of my top bar on my bike frame also with bungees (I should have carried it here before, thinking about it) and gingerly cycle home, hoping that the bungees held the trailer secure.

As soon as I got in, Gill went to town to try to find some clothes for the boys for school.

I had a bit of time on the computer and did some housework.

At about 7pm, we all set off for Simon and Melody's party. I cycled down and Gill and the boys got a lift with Ros and her son in their car.

I had a great time, enjoyed chatting to Phil, and then Lynn, and briefly with Kate and Alison, and I prized myself free after 11.30. A really good social time!

In 1997, I had just graduated from law school (with tons of student-loan debt) and was interviewing for high-paying positions at big firms. The problem was, my heart wasn't in it. So I took myself out of the running in order to build a small Internet publishing company with a friend. After a year of barely staying afloat, our venture went the way of a 404 ERROR message. I was broke and unemployed, and Sallie Mae was hot on my tail. I wondered what endeavor I should try next.
It sounds crazy, but once again I decided I should just throw caution to the wind and do what I wanted.  I began working as a trial attorney for the US Department of Justice. Over the next few years, I held a wide array of fascinating jobs that I took because they captured my imagination: serving in the military, reporting from Iraq for the Washington Post, and, most recently, becoming a full-time author. Some might consider me flighty for changing careers so often, but I contend that they key to professional happiness is asking yourself two simple questions everyday: Are you passionate about what you do? And if not, what are you going to do instead?
                                                                            
                                            Bill Murphy Jr., author of The Intellegent Entreprenuer (via Real Simple)

I had a very sedentary day, doing mainly paperwork and admin.

I created an invoice for a gig in a few weeks time and sent it electronically to my client, a Housing Association. I wrote a confirmation letter to a lady who's booked me for her retirement party. I confirmed a gig in Preston with my agent and sent a Freecycled DVD to someone who'd requested it, one of a large pile of DVDs and CDs I'd found in a skip. I decided I'd see if anyone on Freecycle wanted the insulating plastic flex from all the copper wire I've been stripping, and was amazed and delighted to get a taker.... but I don't know what she wants it for yet! (not that's any of my business, but I'm curious!)

I also found several bills which need paying and some paperwork which needs filing. However I didn't find the paperwork from the WHSmith gig in Malton weeks ago, which I need to process before I get paid. More searching tomorrow. One of my facebook friends joked that I needed an administrator and yes, I reckon I could use her.... I think she works in an office and seems very organised!

Before tea I went down the garden for an hour of compost tumbler filling, bean picking and windfall collecting.

After tea I chopped up a lot of James Grieve windfall apples and liquidised them with the stewed blackberries, then put the puree through a sieve, and the seed-free and fibre-free slurp went into a non stick tray on the stove and will end up as fruit leather. The stuff that didn't go through the sieve is going to be mixed with water, boiled on the woodstove and left to drain through the sieve to make a blackberry and apple drink. I really like to get the most off my home grown fruit crops.

Last week I discovered this very nice site on the web. Don't ask my how I found it, I just don't know anymore. But who care's the interesting part is that we all can enjoy them and drool on the pictures.