Human Lifestyle

Up early as builders coming to remove the unused chimney and put on new boards at the edge of the roof.

But it was raining hard and when they came they realised that my logpiles had to be moved. The workers rang the boss and he rang me back to say they'd be around on Thursday. And yes, I do have to move the logpiles. They offered to do it, but building a new logpile is an art, so I'm doing it. I've never seen somebody else build a better logpile than me, apart from Alastair Heseltine, who is an artist and sculptor whom I think is inspirational. Do have a flick through his website, click on the photos on the left of the screen to move around...

I moved one of the two logpiles at the side of the house to the side of the passage between our garden and our next door neighbour. I'll move the other one tomorrow, and tidy up. I didn't move the second one today as there was a thunderstorm with hail and driving rain.

I spent some of today peeling and slicing and drying a huge load of Persimmon, sometimes known as Sharon Fruit. They naturally have a couple of dark marks on them, and can get very soft and squishy but are still delicious and edible. However, one of the greengrocers has chucked out about 20 to 30 boxes, each with six fruits in. Each fruit makes 4 slices so that's a huge amount of dried persimmon, but it is really worth it as it's lovely, a great texture and flavour!

I got ready for work at about 4pm, as was booked to go and entertain at the 20th anniversary of the University of York Nursery. I was able to take my bike and trailer through to the back where there is a covered outdoor area with a soft surface, and I did about half an hour of walkabout and making faces to the kids inside the building, their laughing faces pressed up against the window, and me either sticking my tongue out or crossing my eyes, or thumbing my nose... all silly but good fun interaction. Then I did my show... a big audience of at least 40 children and same numbers of adults, a very quick show but a good un! Finally, I made a lot of balloon animals, just giving them out to whomsoever wanted them, til about 6 when there was a firework display at the front of the building. I had a baked potato with beans and cheese, packed up and cycled towards home. Lovely!

I popped in to Simon and Melody as both their children went to that nursery, and I had mentioned this during the booking discussions and as I left today, one of the staff said to give their regards to the family. So I did so.

Home for a bit of fruit, cake and ice cream, and out again to the Seahorse for the first 'Climate Argument Club', an offshoot of York in Transition. Some of us are engaged in debates, discussions or even arguments with people about things connected with climate change, so we met to discuss how to handle them, and whether to do some kind of training to help us deal with the sorts of arguments and opinions we face. We felt that if people understood the science, then we wouldn't need to do too much else, but we also recognised that people are affected by emotions, traditions, religion, 'gut' feelings, where their heart leads them and of course, misinformation and propaganda. We didn't come up with any firm conclusions, but I'm sending a couple of files and links to Bryony, Dan and Sue, as these would help or come in useful.

I had promised Gill that I'd be in by 10pm... I just managed it!

But I then had a lot of email and facebook stuff to do, plus the obligatory blog post, and there's space on the drying racks as stuff shrinks.

A fairly uneventful Monday morning. I cycled our youngest to school and on the way there saw that the developers of the new University campus had trashed a stand of trees... what used to be a nice little woodland is going to have a road through it. Most of the trees had been cut and removed, the smaller bits shredded, but on the way back I had a look around and got a trailer-load of logs to take home. What a shame. I wonder what has happened with the trunks and big branches?

I enjoyed the good weather and did quite a bit of work outside, including an attempt to do something like Alastair Heseltine's fantastic arty logpile, called 'Seasonal Sculpture':


My attempt was obviously a lot smaller and only had a small amount of patterning, but it's a start. I also ran out of uniform logs which was not helpful. I hope to add another layer and make it pretty. My attempt is crap compared to this wonderful sculpture, but I'm pleased with it as my logpiles have always looked nice, and now I have something even better to aspire to!

During the afternoon I made some carrot soup... well, I started making it last night and finished it this afternoon.

So, a creative and fulfilling day... I picked up the little one at 3.15 and another load of trashed woodland on the way home. Not enough to continue with my sculptural logpile.

I cleared up my mess from chainsawing etc before going down to town to put a cheque in and pay the water bill... but I arrived a minute after the bank had closed. That'll teach me to stop and chat to Steve the Roofer! So came home feeling silly, but picked up a load of compostables from Freshways so it wasn't a completely wasted trip.... I'll do it first thing tomorrow, before the Irish Radio station rings me to discuss low carbon/low cost living. That's at 11.30ish on Shannonside.

After tea, which was the carrot soup and a slice of Gill's cold pie left over from yesterday, I went down to town again (no stopping the bike to chat this time!) and attended the York Green Festival planning meeting, at the Golden Fleece, which was loosely chaired by Martin our treasurer. This meeting didn't last too long... finished before 9 and we had some jovial chat before and after.

I got home to a quiet house, and did some washing up and tried to make space to dry some more fruit. I have too much fruit and not enough drying racks...