Human Lifestyle

We were woken early by an excited little boy who is 11 today... he had woken at 4am and was too excited to go back to sleep, so he'd been reading but was hungry, at 7.40. Gill got up and told me to go back to sleep.... I'm not an early morning person, and am up til 2am, whereas she sleeps in the evening when I'm doing things and she then gets up at 6am.

So, at about 9 I was woken again, the Birthday Boy had held on and wanted desperately to open his presents. So I decamped into his room and sleepily watched him open a box with some Lego figures in it, including a jester and a magician, and his older brother had made him a wand out of a stripped holly stick and in the split handle was a trapped pheasant feather, some kind of (imaginary) 'power' that I don't understand. I don't get make believe, never have really, it's an Aspergery trait.

We all breakfasted and I wrote a letter to the Neighbourhood Unit about the Funding shenanigans I've found myself having to deal with. Then before lunch, their friend came down to join us with a trip into town. I cycled in, stopping at Woodlands as one of my documents hadn't photocopied properly, and they wanted to re do it, and then to chat to some chaps who were taking down an Ash tree.

The boys and Gill caught the bus into town, and I'd arranged to meet them at the Museum Gardens after I'd met up with the Neighbourhood Unit to explain the position of York in Transition about 'sponsoring' another organisation, or rather, not being able to. I met them on the steps of the Yorkshire Museum, which has recently been refurbished. We spent quite a long time in there, and it is improved, although some things aren't yet labelled/numbered, and I spotted at least three mistakes, one was a spelling mistake, another a text layout error and there was a factual error too, but I can't remember what that was.. But I liked the use of the Tempest Anderson Hall as a film theatre, and I liked the more open space with the reference books visible on the floors above the exhibitions.

After this the boys wanted to wander through town looking at shops, my idea of Hell, so I cycled home via the Edible York Raised Bed,where I saw my friend Lizzie talking to the Radio York presenter next to his car with the aerial up. I stopped, and found out they were about the do an interview. Chloe turned up, and all three of us were briefly interviewed on live radio... what a surprise! I talked about the Transition to a low carbon economy where we grew more of our food locally, and the presenter introduced me as Compost John, responsible for 30 sacks of compost getting to this bed.

But I needed to get back, and when I did, I spent an hour getting about 400 or 500 kg of Ash logs onto my trailer, I think I did 6 trips, before the time came for my 4pm appointment, the York Environment Forum which I occasionally attend.

This was at the Guildhall, and was a special meeting to ask questions of Andrew Cousins from the Allerton Waste Recovery Park, or Anaerobic Digester/Incinerator plant. We had a series of questions and I asked a couple of supplementary questions based on the wide-ranging conversations I had with Andrew at The Hospitium. It was a good meeting and we agreed to write a position statement about this development. We also debated our Vision Document. We finished well after 6pm.

I came home and loaded lemon halves into a heap and came in quite tired to have pasta for tea.

Up bright and early as had an appointment at 10.30 at the hospital outpatients to have my lipoma looked at by a plastic surgeon. This lump on my forehead has been growing for several years and is very noticeable; several people each week ask me if I've bumped my head, and I have to explain each time what it is. Also, at several recent committee meetings, another attendee has been looking at my forehead rather than at my face and this is somewhat offputting.

So, I showed it to the Doc and told him about my experiences. He without any hesitation said that he would be happy to remove it... because it was still growing and as it was affecting my life in the way that it is. He said it would be done under local anaesthetic, in Leeds, and the procedure would take about 20 minutes, although with all the preparation and stuff, it would be an afternoon.

I did ask if this was a sensible use of resources and he again assured me that it was a small operation and that in his opinion it was definitely the right thing to do. There is always the chance of infection with any surgical procedure, and there will be a scar which may well be red for 6 months and might take up to 2 years to disappear... and there's a possibility it could become a keloid scar, raised up, but that's only a small possibility. So, sometime in the next 16 weeks, I'm due for a lumpectomy.

Before I went I had my nose swabbed for MRSA... I'll be informed if I carry this bacterium and I'm not sure what they do if I have it.

I was out of the hospital before 11am and cycled down to the Museum Gardens to go to a public consultation at the Hospitium. This was about the proposed 'Allerton Waste Recovery Park' which will, if built, deal with the problem of landfillable household waste from York and North Yorkshire. Currently York recycles 45% of household waste via kerbside boxes (and some bring banks) but this leaves 55% to deal with. Currently this is landfilled. There are two main problems with landfill.... space is running out and they emit methane whilst being constructed (although when full, they are capped and this is captured and often used to generate electricity). They also need the liquid pumped out and treated. So, what is the alternative?

Well this project aims to sort the rubbish and remove at least another 5% of recyclable materials (glass, metals, plastics, 'WEEE') before the organic fraction is removed and put in an anaerobic digester, where some of the carbon is extracted in the form of methane, which can be used as a fuel... maybe cleaned up, liquefied and used to power the fleet of lorries which will be needed to bring the waste from all over North Yorkshire. The AD process leaves a sort of compost, which can be used to cover landfill or in landscaping. It is not high quality material as it has lots of contaminants. The remaining non-recyclables and non-organics are burnt in a carefully controlled environment, generating heat for electricity. The ash/clinker left is used in building materials. The emissions in modern incinerators are very low, and I talked to an independent air pollution expert, and she described the assorted arrestation technology used to reduce and capture dioxins, furans and the like. I had several long conversations with one of the gents there, and we covered lots of different areas.... including the possibility that they could build a special AD plant for 'source separated' food waste, which would produce methane but also a high quality digestate/compost.

One of the final things I did was to introduce Jonathan Tyler, chair of the Environment Forum, to Andrew, the chap I had been speaking with. The Environment Forum will be given a presentation in August and a chance to discuss the wider picture of waste with him.

I then came home... walked through town, cycled to Country Fresh, picked up 4 boxes of resources, chatted with Felicia, met Peter, walked to Hull Road with Peter and got home at about 1.45 for a late lunch.

Gill had gone to our youngest's leavers assembly. I had a quiet hour on the computer.

Later I had some very good work in the garden; I moved the SunMar 400 and completely filled it with the materials I'd picked up today and a day or three ago, plus the shredded stuff... it will get very hot!

Gill made a quiche and I had the last chunk of nutloaf.

Not sure where the evening went... but I chatted with facebook contacts, played Scrabble and, via Laura, found a fantastic animator called Cyriak and if you want a giggle, and like cows, do watch this video. I'm an instant fan.