An excellent morning as we had a visit from someone who was able to help us sort out a problem we are having... great advice, lovely chap, very professional and helpful. Both of us felt greatly relieved afterwards.
I had an early lunch and cycled down to town to the Big Green Market, where York Rotters were having a stall. This was my first time back for exactly a year... as it was at last year's Big Green Market that I received complaints about mentioning inappropriate subjects, so I've promised not to mention them, and have a minder to make sure I behave myself. So I did a 12.50 til 1.15 stint, chatted with quite a few members of the public, and LOVED IT. I had forgotten how much I enjoy talking with all-comers about their home compost heap. I love it when they find out that they can put cardboard on the heap, or how they can compost cooked food and meat scraps. Today I also had a 'growing mushrooms' enquiry which was a bit unexpected. And I kept to the subject... or rather kept OFF the subjects I'm banned from talking about, and everybody was happy. Especially me.
I came home via Country Fresh and Richard had a vast pile of stuff for me. I put a carrot sack and a thin polythene banana bag in the trailer and four boxes on top. Two boxes went on the pannier rack. One of the greengrocers who isn't as bothered about recycling had put about 15 bags of English pears and 5 pineapples in the bin, not in the recycling where I could take them. So these got rescued, and later I sorted out the pears (there were 70 in perfect condition) and had a bit of a wobbly about how I was going to use them all. We had pears with chocolate custard for pudding tonight, and I spent the whole of the David Attenborough programme halving, peeling and balancing pears on the drying racks. The pineapples will have to wait!
So, a good day. No money earned, but a lot of resources saved, and information shared about how to reduce waste by home composting.
Showing posts with label Big Green Market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Green Market. Show all posts
An earlyish start as the builders came at 8.30am and started putting up the noisy scaffold tower. I got up and made them tea and coffee, and asked about the TV aerial which is attached to the chimney which is coming down. I was prepared to go and buy a new bracket/fixing, but realised that I'd need a new pole or pole extension... and might also need a cable extension, so I decided to ring round various areal people and see if a professional can do it.
After several phone calls, I found someone who can sort it tomorrow.
Then I had to get rid of a pile of compostables from the kitchen, and whilst I was doing this, collected a load of composting worms which conveniently put themselves in the bin lids... perfect fro harvesting and relocating into my new 'worm cafe' which is already filling up.
Then I cleaned myself up, had a wash and found a clean York Rotters tee shirt. I was due in town for midday for 5 hours of volunteering at the Parliament St and St Sampson's Square 'Big Green Market', where York Rotters and the Council's Waste Minimisation Team have a stall.
As I walked through the market stalls, I wondered why it was called a Big Green Market as the majority of the stalls were not what I'd call green.. Venison burgers and dead duck pate, trinkets from the other side of the world, lots of stuff to buy which had a huge embodied carbon footprint.
But then again, I'm a purist. I found the Rotters stall and locked up my bike nearby and got myself launched into the unsuspecting public, using the usual ruse 'Would you like to tell me about your compost heap?' when someone looks at our cut-out dalek with the perspex sheet in, behind which are examples of assorted compostables. These include a rubber glove and a cardboard box with coloured printing, plus some plastic fruit and veg, flowers, scrunched and shredded paper, some fabric, wool and other bits and bobs. This format is immensely successful... because punters expect you to try to offer them something ('do you want one of these?') but my question is the other way round. But it's a hook. They bite, mainly saying 'yes, my heap is '... and occasionally 'I haven't got one'. This then has a response 'What do you do with your banana skins and apple cores?' Those with compost bins are about half 'working well' and a quarter 'too dry' and a quarter 'too wet', each answer can elicit a question about what do they put in the bin. Anyway, I'm in my element during these kind of events, I really love them, my enthusiasm knowing no bounds.
After each meeting I logged the information about whether they were a 'non composter' or 'existing composter' and whether they were from York or out of York. It's important to record how many people we are engaging.
I went for a wander around for my lunch break at half past one, and got a pastie and a sandwich, and bought a 'turks turban' squash for a pound which will be delicious roasted in the next few days.
During the afternoon I met a young lady I met before on the train coming back from Sheffield Green Fair (she recognised me) and I chatted with her and her partner, who have moved to York... and I think I'll be meeting them again. Also floating around were Kate Lock, on the Oxfam stall, my old friend Mary Brandon, older friends Sue Lister and John Whitworth, Rakesh and quite a few others. Jo turned up, to be the next most enthusiastic Rotter, Candy came too. It was a good session.
I finished just before 5pm and went to the Oxfam shop on Goodramgate for coffee, and popped into Kyi-Po for a vegan mayonnaise but they didn't have the one I wanted. Then onto Sainsburys for a general groceries shop, including goats milk as the nearest Co-op is having problems with keeping enough stock, and have been running out of it. Somerfield never used to! I treated myself to a treat(!)... a few months ago my cafetiere glass got broken, and as I do now and again like 'real' ground coffee, I bought myself another one, for £9. But Gill had also asked me to try to get some sparklers for the boys. Sainsburys had run out. So I popped into the Co-op on the way home but they didn't have any. Quite by chance, Lynn was in there and overheard my request, and she said that she had some spare!
When I got home, Gill reported that some lads had come asking for some logs and she said to come back later when I was at home after the Rotters stall. So I bombed round to Lynns with a bag of dried fruit in swap for 20 sparklers, and cycled back just in time to catch the lads again (students?) who wanted a small bonfire in their back garden. I let them have two half sacks of kindling and about 15 or 20 split logs. They offered me £3.90 in loose change. Seemed reasonable!
Then as I was finishing that transaction, a lady cycled up and introduced herself as the person who had left a couple of messages on the answerphone as she has some apple logs she wants to get rid of and an apple trunk still standing which she wants cutting down. I agreed to go and do this for her next week.
By this time I needed to go in and warm up. I made my own tea... some finely chopped chicken of the woods which Simon found growing on a pile of woodchips near where he works, which he'd shared with me, with 'trombone' courgette/squash, green pepper and the last of our own tomatoes, with rems of nutloaf, with a baked bean and cheese sauce. Terrific! Delicious! The best meal since... well I don't know, but it was very very tasty. Cheers Simon. And I only had half of the mushroom he gave me!
Some nice chats with family before the boys went to bed and I settled down to some email deletion as my inbox is again full. Whoops.
An enjoyable day. Tiring, but I was still up til 2am doing assorted things round the kitchen and on the laptop...
After several phone calls, I found someone who can sort it tomorrow.
Then I had to get rid of a pile of compostables from the kitchen, and whilst I was doing this, collected a load of composting worms which conveniently put themselves in the bin lids... perfect fro harvesting and relocating into my new 'worm cafe' which is already filling up.
Then I cleaned myself up, had a wash and found a clean York Rotters tee shirt. I was due in town for midday for 5 hours of volunteering at the Parliament St and St Sampson's Square 'Big Green Market', where York Rotters and the Council's Waste Minimisation Team have a stall.
As I walked through the market stalls, I wondered why it was called a Big Green Market as the majority of the stalls were not what I'd call green.. Venison burgers and dead duck pate, trinkets from the other side of the world, lots of stuff to buy which had a huge embodied carbon footprint.
But then again, I'm a purist. I found the Rotters stall and locked up my bike nearby and got myself launched into the unsuspecting public, using the usual ruse 'Would you like to tell me about your compost heap?' when someone looks at our cut-out dalek with the perspex sheet in, behind which are examples of assorted compostables. These include a rubber glove and a cardboard box with coloured printing, plus some plastic fruit and veg, flowers, scrunched and shredded paper, some fabric, wool and other bits and bobs. This format is immensely successful... because punters expect you to try to offer them something ('do you want one of these?') but my question is the other way round. But it's a hook. They bite, mainly saying 'yes, my heap is '... and occasionally 'I haven't got one'. This then has a response 'What do you do with your banana skins and apple cores?' Those with compost bins are about half 'working well' and a quarter 'too dry' and a quarter 'too wet', each answer can elicit a question about what do they put in the bin. Anyway, I'm in my element during these kind of events, I really love them, my enthusiasm knowing no bounds.
After each meeting I logged the information about whether they were a 'non composter' or 'existing composter' and whether they were from York or out of York. It's important to record how many people we are engaging.
I went for a wander around for my lunch break at half past one, and got a pastie and a sandwich, and bought a 'turks turban' squash for a pound which will be delicious roasted in the next few days.
During the afternoon I met a young lady I met before on the train coming back from Sheffield Green Fair (she recognised me) and I chatted with her and her partner, who have moved to York... and I think I'll be meeting them again. Also floating around were Kate Lock, on the Oxfam stall, my old friend Mary Brandon, older friends Sue Lister and John Whitworth, Rakesh and quite a few others. Jo turned up, to be the next most enthusiastic Rotter, Candy came too. It was a good session.
I finished just before 5pm and went to the Oxfam shop on Goodramgate for coffee, and popped into Kyi-Po for a vegan mayonnaise but they didn't have the one I wanted. Then onto Sainsburys for a general groceries shop, including goats milk as the nearest Co-op is having problems with keeping enough stock, and have been running out of it. Somerfield never used to! I treated myself to a treat(!)... a few months ago my cafetiere glass got broken, and as I do now and again like 'real' ground coffee, I bought myself another one, for £9. But Gill had also asked me to try to get some sparklers for the boys. Sainsburys had run out. So I popped into the Co-op on the way home but they didn't have any. Quite by chance, Lynn was in there and overheard my request, and she said that she had some spare!
When I got home, Gill reported that some lads had come asking for some logs and she said to come back later when I was at home after the Rotters stall. So I bombed round to Lynns with a bag of dried fruit in swap for 20 sparklers, and cycled back just in time to catch the lads again (students?) who wanted a small bonfire in their back garden. I let them have two half sacks of kindling and about 15 or 20 split logs. They offered me £3.90 in loose change. Seemed reasonable!
Then as I was finishing that transaction, a lady cycled up and introduced herself as the person who had left a couple of messages on the answerphone as she has some apple logs she wants to get rid of and an apple trunk still standing which she wants cutting down. I agreed to go and do this for her next week.
By this time I needed to go in and warm up. I made my own tea... some finely chopped chicken of the woods which Simon found growing on a pile of woodchips near where he works, which he'd shared with me, with 'trombone' courgette/squash, green pepper and the last of our own tomatoes, with rems of nutloaf, with a baked bean and cheese sauce. Terrific! Delicious! The best meal since... well I don't know, but it was very very tasty. Cheers Simon. And I only had half of the mushroom he gave me!
Some nice chats with family before the boys went to bed and I settled down to some email deletion as my inbox is again full. Whoops.
An enjoyable day. Tiring, but I was still up til 2am doing assorted things round the kitchen and on the laptop...
A good day, as I spent a lot of it with the boys... and did quite a lot of housework in the morning, made some mushroom soup for the evening meal.
I had a visitor fairly early on, Sarah the Critical Masser came with some biodegradables which she didn't want to throw away, wanted to recycle and compost, so I invited her to use my heap.
After this I cycled round to the bread shop and the library with both boys, they had ordered some books so we went to get these. On the way back went to the Co-op, then came home for lunch.
After lunch I went to town to the Big Green Market, as I wanted to go on the York Rotters stall again, as I'd enjoyed it so much yesterday.
Spent a couple of hours there, working alongside Jo and Candy, chatting to many enquirers, including Bob Breen, who runs ADDept, a York-based ADD/ADHD support group, and is a friend of mine.
Came home via Martins, who had a massive pile of veg offcuts for me. Home for tea, mushroom soup and a slice of a quiche Gill had created. As usual this home cooking was lovely.
My eldest son was keen on seeing the last night of the wonderfu interactive light show at the Minster (Evoke by Usman Haque) so we cycled down to the centre of York and joined the crowds at the Minster. The light show was good, and was then improved by a percussion duo called Bangon (http://www.bangon.net/) who did a superb performance. Following that there was a fire performance by 'FireSwingers' from Sheffield (http://thefireswingers.com/) They were very good, and used some fire props I hadn't seen before, including fire whip and fire skipping rope. My son loved it, and when we got home, he thanked me for taking him down. Good to be thanked without hinting!
During the evening watched Four Weddings and a Funeral on Channel 4, Gill's favourite film.
Also did some emailing and Googlechatting, but the latter didn't go well as my friend whom I chat with didn't appreciate that Gill asked what we were talking about and I gave her some brief details, then told my dear friend that I'd done this... oh dear, my open-ness and honesty has again got me into deep water. People just don't understand how I am, that I don't understand what is appropriate.
I wish I was a quicker learner!
I had a visitor fairly early on, Sarah the Critical Masser came with some biodegradables which she didn't want to throw away, wanted to recycle and compost, so I invited her to use my heap.
After this I cycled round to the bread shop and the library with both boys, they had ordered some books so we went to get these. On the way back went to the Co-op, then came home for lunch.
After lunch I went to town to the Big Green Market, as I wanted to go on the York Rotters stall again, as I'd enjoyed it so much yesterday.
Spent a couple of hours there, working alongside Jo and Candy, chatting to many enquirers, including Bob Breen, who runs ADDept, a York-based ADD/ADHD support group, and is a friend of mine.
Came home via Martins, who had a massive pile of veg offcuts for me. Home for tea, mushroom soup and a slice of a quiche Gill had created. As usual this home cooking was lovely.
My eldest son was keen on seeing the last night of the wonderfu interactive light show at the Minster (Evoke by Usman Haque) so we cycled down to the centre of York and joined the crowds at the Minster. The light show was good, and was then improved by a percussion duo called Bangon (http://www.bangon.net/) who did a superb performance. Following that there was a fire performance by 'FireSwingers' from Sheffield (http://thefireswingers.com/) They were very good, and used some fire props I hadn't seen before, including fire whip and fire skipping rope. My son loved it, and when we got home, he thanked me for taking him down. Good to be thanked without hinting!
During the evening watched Four Weddings and a Funeral on Channel 4, Gill's favourite film.
Also did some emailing and Googlechatting, but the latter didn't go well as my friend whom I chat with didn't appreciate that Gill asked what we were talking about and I gave her some brief details, then told my dear friend that I'd done this... oh dear, my open-ness and honesty has again got me into deep water. People just don't understand how I am, that I don't understand what is appropriate.
I wish I was a quicker learner!
Wow what a busy and upbeat day.
I took the kids to school as Gill wasn't feeling up to it, and I collected more leaves.
I took them down the garden and did a bit more compost management before getting ready to go to the Big Green Market which has a York Rotters stall alongside a St Nicks and a City Council Recycling stall. I went via Out Of This World and did a little pick up, then on to Millers Yard where Dylan had four sacks of oranges from his orange juice maker for me.
I parked my bike and trailer near the Big Green Market and spent 2 and a half hours advising members of the public about home composting, lots of enquiries, perhaps 50 or so. Very satisfying, how many people want to know how to compost... there was a queue much of the time!
At 2.30 I left as I had told Gill that I'd pick up the kids at 3. I just had time to unload my heavy trailer full and get down to school, but when I got there I discovered my back wheel was loose, so loose that when I lifted up the frame it came out of it's moorings. However, the design of the frame means that it can be ridden even with a totally loose wheel, so I was able to tentatively cycle back home with the kids. I rang Cycle Heaven when I got in, and they were happy to see me at 5.30 to repair the fault.
So had a brief sandwich tea and at 5 went down to town and Ash at Cycle Heaven did something magical and revamped the back wheel. I bought another bell, I now have 3 on my bike! I then made my way to the Minster for the gathering of the Critical Mass people, and we watched the beginning of the light sculpture on the Minster before we left.
There wer 13 bikes on the Critical Mass Cycle Ride, including two recumbents and one with a trike-trailer with two children pedalling away. A very enjoyable ride, almost no aggro.
Ended up back at the Minster at 7, and a few of us went for a drink at the Gillygate on Gillygate. A very enjoyable drink it was too. At 8.30 we all left, I came home via Martins where there was an immense pile of stuff for me to transport home, I'd estimate 100 kg in one trip. Even put a 20 kg sack on my handlebars!
Had a game of Scrabble as soon as I got in, and was winning handsomely until Gill dropped her tiles as she fell asleep and we called it a day, so I watched Joolz Holland whilst writing blog and Googlechatting with K over in America.
I took the kids to school as Gill wasn't feeling up to it, and I collected more leaves.
I took them down the garden and did a bit more compost management before getting ready to go to the Big Green Market which has a York Rotters stall alongside a St Nicks and a City Council Recycling stall. I went via Out Of This World and did a little pick up, then on to Millers Yard where Dylan had four sacks of oranges from his orange juice maker for me.
I parked my bike and trailer near the Big Green Market and spent 2 and a half hours advising members of the public about home composting, lots of enquiries, perhaps 50 or so. Very satisfying, how many people want to know how to compost... there was a queue much of the time!
At 2.30 I left as I had told Gill that I'd pick up the kids at 3. I just had time to unload my heavy trailer full and get down to school, but when I got there I discovered my back wheel was loose, so loose that when I lifted up the frame it came out of it's moorings. However, the design of the frame means that it can be ridden even with a totally loose wheel, so I was able to tentatively cycle back home with the kids. I rang Cycle Heaven when I got in, and they were happy to see me at 5.30 to repair the fault.
So had a brief sandwich tea and at 5 went down to town and Ash at Cycle Heaven did something magical and revamped the back wheel. I bought another bell, I now have 3 on my bike! I then made my way to the Minster for the gathering of the Critical Mass people, and we watched the beginning of the light sculpture on the Minster before we left.
There wer 13 bikes on the Critical Mass Cycle Ride, including two recumbents and one with a trike-trailer with two children pedalling away. A very enjoyable ride, almost no aggro.
Ended up back at the Minster at 7, and a few of us went for a drink at the Gillygate on Gillygate. A very enjoyable drink it was too. At 8.30 we all left, I came home via Martins where there was an immense pile of stuff for me to transport home, I'd estimate 100 kg in one trip. Even put a 20 kg sack on my handlebars!
Had a game of Scrabble as soon as I got in, and was winning handsomely until Gill dropped her tiles as she fell asleep and we called it a day, so I watched Joolz Holland whilst writing blog and Googlechatting with K over in America.
