Human Lifestyle

Got a phone call first thing from Gill saying that after the ward round, and the issuing of some paperwork, she'd be getting in a taxi and coming home.  And had I got money to pay the taxi?

So, within an hour or two, Gill appeared and got a very warm welcome, and I payed the happy taxi chap.

I went round to Thomas the Baker for Yesterbake bread... except on Mondays it's Yesteryesterbake, from Saturday.  Still a bargain, still very edible.  Makes great nutloaf midweek.

I hadn't given blood since May 2009 for some reason... the National Blood Service hasn't contacted me in all that time, and I haven't been proactive and prodded them.  But today was my 25th donation, and I hadn't been able to make an appointment so I arrived at the lovely Merchant Taylor's Hall 10 minutes before the session started, and had to wait 10 minutes... but I was first, and was processed quickly, and I squeezed my pint out in 5 minutes 20 seconds.  I was also given my 'Silver Award' for donating 25 times, a certificate, a thank you letter and a tiny badge/lapel pin thing.

I then went to Salisbury's and had a free mince pie, bought bread, marge, goats milk, cheapish sun-dried tomato salad and two cheap Toblerones for the boys' Xmas stockings.  Came home via one of the many logpiles I know about, and then Freshways where I got a huge overloaded sack of stuff, a third of which i had to decant into another plastic sack which i just happened to have in my pannier.  And home, to take a wheelbarrow full of sacks down to the working compost heaps, one of them running at about 20 Celsius, compared to the ambient temperature of zero.

Then I cycled down to the University to pick up the last of the pine logs, a big load, just managed to get them all into the trailer, panniers and pannier rack.  Probably about 100kg.

I made tea.... rice with carrot and squash, boiled together on the back room woodstove, and in the front room, in a frying pan, a mix of leek, onion, red pepper and tomato, all the frying pan materials were completely free, rescued.  (OK, not the olive oil, bouillon or dried basil)  The family enjoyed it when it came, at 5.45pm, and I had mine quite quickly as I had a meeting, a social, at Delphine's, at 6.30.  I wanted to be there in good time as I had another diary entry for 7.30, York in Transition at Edward's.

I enjoyed talking with Delphine, and then others arrived, and Luke, my University of York Green Party friend... but I had to go and cycle over to Edward's.

But Edward had forgotten the meeting, as I think had everybody else.  I chatted with JZ and Edward for a bit and then went, cycling to Heslington via the Millennium Bridge, and picking up MORE logs, spotted on the way back from the earlier logpile expedition.  And these are oak, a good find.

Gill told me that my friend over the road was being terrorised by someone so I went over and tried to give her some confidence and advice, and spent about an hour with her.  The person she is frightened of didn't turn up, fortunately, but had they done so, I would have dealt with the situation.

When I came in, towards 10pm, the boys were just getting ready for bed and I was glad to be able to wind down a bit.  Quite a day.  Good to have Gilly back.

Another nice 'n' late morning, I'm loving these holidays, not having to get the little darlings up and ready for school.

So, up after 9 and phoned Pauline as there was an outstanding invite from her to go and cut up some old Xmas trees for her little stove. I said I'd be along later in the morning.

So got up and out of the house after 11, and zoomed over to Pauline with loppers and bowsaw to do a few minutes woodchopping, collecting a pallet from a skip for her, and a builders bag so she can turn out her fabric compost bin and refill it. Then I had a real coffee with her, and a very good in-depth chat. She is such a caring person, concerned about a mutual friend and discussing how best to help a complicated situation.

I arrived back home bearing a magazine called Living Woods which she has subscribed to, as she has dreams of owning a little woodland. It looks excellent! I look forward to having time to read it...

I sorted out the sacks of goodies I brought back from Country Fresh, including 3 big red peppers and about 17 big tomatoes. So I washed and trimmed the tomatoes, nothing seriously wrong with them, just some physical damage, so had to reject the equivalent of about 4 of them. The rest I added to a big saucepan with a finely chopped onion, 3 garlics (also thrown away!) and a stick of celery, and stewed this all on our faithful logburner. When simmered for half an hour, I added some basil and bouillon, and Gill whizzed it to make a pizza topping. Gill made pizza dough and then two pizzas.

Immediately after tea, I zoomed off to the Merchant Taylor's Hall in town to give blood. As I hadn't booked in, I had an hour's wait... perfect, just perfect for reading Living Woods, which I really enjoyed. And when the time came to donate, I managed to do my pint (?) in 4 minutes 56 seconds! Fast! And a fast cuppa and biscuit, I cycled home, finding a large willow log at St Nicks and naughtily lifting it onto my trailer. My puncture wound did not explode! I also picked up a couple of sacks from Freshways and was home before 9, feeling great.

Gill gave me some cake and a coffee and I settled down to try to write my last column for Community Care. I am very good at getting distracted, though!

Gilly walked down to school with our youngest, in the snow. Then she went into town on the bus to try to get something dry-cleaned, but town was empty and the dry cleaners was closed. So a wasted trip... and she waited at the bus stop for ages to come home, but there'd been some kind of accident West of York and there were no buses coming through, so she walked home and arrived cold and with really wet feet.

I however had a lazy morning, with just a bit of washing up to do and filling the logbaskets. Read some NewScientist and played Facebook Scrabble until Gill came in at nearly midday.

After lunch I cycled into town to pay some bills and get some cheques out... one for another 3 year's NewScientist subscription, my Equity dues and my Chartered Institute of Environmental Health dues.

Got home on the dot of 3pm and got ready to go to Green Thumbs at school, where Julia had printed off the Assembly text I wrote, and we discussed various ideas with the children. Julia and I read through it out loud and most of the children seemed to like it. We also learned the song written by the 6 year old about Mission Nutrition, with the little girl's mum teaching us the choruses first and then the two verses. It's easy to sing, sounds lovely.

I came home via a logpile and brought another trailer's worth home.

We all had tea together, pasta and veg with yessterday's soup as a sauce for those of us who like sauce. Soon after this I got on my bike again and cycled down to the Merchant Adventurers Hall where the Blood Donation service was holding a session, I'd booked myself in for 7.10 and was processed and out by 8.15... quite quick, and as usual, painless.

Then went to visit Anita to collect the SUMA catalogue and her cheque. I met her friend Bruno whom I got on well with, discussing business waste recycling (he owns a shop) and 70s/80s music (he's a DJ) and Anita gave me a humourous book on parenting. I wonder if it might help us?

Home via another logpile (I know all the tree-surgeons' dumping grounds in York!) but the icy cycle paths made the cycling quite exciting (read dangerous!). Home to an 'on tenterhooks' situation, once again sparked off by someone having to do homework and ending up letting fists fly. Completely unneccessary, very difficult to know what to do about it and leaving us completely mystified why this happens. But both boys got a kiss goodnight from me, and then Gill and I settled down to our usual 'post kids bedtime' routine of washing up and relaxing.

I took the boys to school in the rain.

Had a fairly quiet day. I did go to town and get out the insurance cheque for the Green Festival, and sent it off. I popped in to the Kyi-Po shop for some soya ice cream which Gill likes, and then on the way home on the cycle track, got a trailer-full of logs.

I went to school at hometime to attend the End of Term Green Thumbs Gang party, and took my Fiddlesticks stuff to do a little show which was ok, not brilliant, but it added to the event.

I left early as I had an appointment with the Blood Donor folks and headed down to the Merchant Taylor's Hall and the Blood people took an armful. I like to give regularly, but last donated in March 07 as they lost my details off their computer and didn't invite me to donate... I thought they'd found something they didn't want in my blood and weren't inviting me back. But then last week I got the magazine they send out (so I was still on their system!) and I rang them to see if I was still wanted... and I was. Anyway, I'm usually quite quick with my bloodflow but this time I had a slow-down half-way through, but not enough for them to stop the donation, and I managed to fill my bag and left with a cuppa and 3 biccies in me.

On the way home I couldn't resist picking up another load of logs from the cycle track...