Gill and I both woke fairly late, 9ish, as our eldest son had requested that he see in his birthday, and stay up til midnight. This meant that his little brother was also up... and they didn't get to sleep for quite a bit after that. Excitement!
So, a birthday, and we now have a teenager! He hadn't wanted to go anywhere or do anything in particular, so it was a low-key day.
I did a variety of jobs... went to get bread from Thomas the Baker, and was lucky with a good selection of Yesterbake, unsold bread from Saturday, available at half price and two for the price of one, essentially quarter price. Better for the company than having to pay to throw it away, though!
On my way back from the baker, I noticed a big branch in Hull Road Park, so a bit later, I cycled round to the 'Fast Pack' shop on Lilac Avenue which sells all sorts of nuts, bolts, tools and much more, as one of my unicycle saddles had lost some nuts fixing it to the metal shaft. I got the right size nuts and then went on to the park to chop up the branch with my bowsaw. This was a trailer-full of nice Ash logs.
Later, I used a climbing rope I found a few months ago on a road near Durham to pull the walnut tree more vertical; Gill asked me to do it as it is leaning over, and there are so many walnuts on it that it is weighed down somewhat. Oh, the squirrel trap has had it's first victim. So, more nuts, fewer predators!
I spent a bit of time pruning the tomatoes in the conservatory... taking out unwanted side shoots and the tops of the plants, so they put more of the energy into fruit. I picked about 20 tomatoes too.
I got a Fiddlesticks booking for late September at a Housing Association do, and got a reminder from Book of Green about a bill for the iPhone application.
After tea, which was a lovely nutloaf, tagliatelle, green beans and tomato sauce creation, I cycled round to Nick, a Freecycler, who had put a large television up for grabs, and we'd asked for it as our small TV in the front room is not that good for doing the Wii with... and this reason was enough for him to choose us as the lucky recipients. I took an old duvet with me and this meant I could balance the huge TV on my trailer.
Later in the evening I chopped up more pears for drying. They are SO tasty!
Showing posts with label Book of Green. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book of Green. Show all posts
I spent most of the day on the computer, doing mainly assorted Novaterium based things. I sorted out the UK directory into Scotland, Wales and the different regions of England, and added several new natural or woodland burial sites. I had to ring two up to get the map pin in the right place (I have learned not to trust where the pin is on the particular website, or the postcode of the nearest place... I'm making sure that the pin is exactly on the burial site! This sometimes involves Google Street View... and today I worked out how to get the latitude and longitude of the pin using just Googlemaps, so I now don't need to use Multimap as well. I felt very pleased with today's work.
But I needed to get some exercise so I went to collect our youngest from school, I also delivered two spare climbing pea bean plants to a Freecycler in Heslington. I enjoyed walking home with my lad, despite the rain getting heavier and heavier. But as soon as we got home, the rain got less heavy so I went into the garden for a bit and put more stuff into the Compostumbler.
Gill put together a pasta, cauliflower and cheese sauce meal, and at 7 I got ready to go to the LETS meeting. My old LETS friend Geoff was waiting at the Seahorse, and then some of the regulars turned up, and a new member... another of my friends, Tracy, who helped organise one of the Green Festivals. And another new member came, Doreen, bearing two trays of scones which she was selling, 4 for one Yorky.
I chaired, constructed an agenda and we got through the meeting relatively quickly. We planned the AGM for next month, when we'll launch the website to the membership and vote on re-installing the Social Fund, a sort of voluntary taxation or tithing to help needy members.
I came home via one of the regular pallet dumps and brought two home on the bike trailer.
Then several hours... playing Scrabble, welcoming my old friend Mark onto facebook (Mark was the first person I met in York when I moved here with my previous partner in 1987) and chatting with Rory my Novaterium partner on Googletalk.
Oh, and I looked through The Book of Green eco living directory which came in the post today. Both Novaterium and Professor Fiddlesticks are on page 32. I am happy.
But I needed to get some exercise so I went to collect our youngest from school, I also delivered two spare climbing pea bean plants to a Freecycler in Heslington. I enjoyed walking home with my lad, despite the rain getting heavier and heavier. But as soon as we got home, the rain got less heavy so I went into the garden for a bit and put more stuff into the Compostumbler.
Gill put together a pasta, cauliflower and cheese sauce meal, and at 7 I got ready to go to the LETS meeting. My old LETS friend Geoff was waiting at the Seahorse, and then some of the regulars turned up, and a new member... another of my friends, Tracy, who helped organise one of the Green Festivals. And another new member came, Doreen, bearing two trays of scones which she was selling, 4 for one Yorky.
I chaired, constructed an agenda and we got through the meeting relatively quickly. We planned the AGM for next month, when we'll launch the website to the membership and vote on re-installing the Social Fund, a sort of voluntary taxation or tithing to help needy members.
I came home via one of the regular pallet dumps and brought two home on the bike trailer.
Then several hours... playing Scrabble, welcoming my old friend Mark onto facebook (Mark was the first person I met in York when I moved here with my previous partner in 1987) and chatting with Rory my Novaterium partner on Googletalk.
Oh, and I looked through The Book of Green eco living directory which came in the post today. Both Novaterium and Professor Fiddlesticks are on page 32. I am happy.
Up earlyish and feeling bouncy.
Not sure why but I was feeling good... despite knowing that Gill and I had lots of paperwork and admin to do. So we spent a couple of hours going through a pile of paperwork, ringing people up, putting stuff in envelopes, posting them, putting envelopes into the compost pile, minus their stamps which we occasionally give to a worthy charity. Gill started on the 09/10 accounts.
I bought bread and pasties, and posted yams and pea beans to a chap in West Yorkshire and the same to my folks in Sheffield. The beans they saved from last year didn't germinate, so I hope some of mine do. The ones I've planted are erupting from their toilet roll beds. I love seeing that!
I responded to a Freecycle offer of a commode, to replace the wooden one I got all those years ago for my compost toilet, which is now falling to bits. Jo in Huntington said that I could come and get it. One of her next posts mentioned that she was making a raised bed, so I offered her some compost as a gift. I found her road on Googlemaps and memorised the shortest route, and set out. When I arrived, I realised that I'd forgotten the piece of paper with her actual address on it! Duh!
So, I started knocking on doors and found a Jo... but it was the wrong one. No-one knew the Jo I wanted to find. I had a nice chat to a little tubby man who was tending his garden bare-chested, and I told him that if I couldn't find Jo, I'd give him the compost... which I did as Jo wasn't in the 40 or so houses I tried!
I cycled into town and got two cheques out for adverts in 'Book of Green' and one other cheque for someone. Then I came back via Country Fresh, where Shirley had one box of gubbins for me. When I got back, I rang Jo and explained my stupidity, and asked if I could come at 5.30.
So, I had a bit of time to..... do some pallet butchery! I've collected half a dozen broken or unwanted pallets over the past week or so, which needed dismembering and then chopping up into bite sized pieces. Before I set back out for Huntington a second time, I had the Thomas's pastie, and got another sack of mature unriddled from down the garden to pop in the trailer.
This time, I knew which house I was going to, and Jo and her partner and child were waiting for me. The little boy was fascinated with the compost beasties in the sack, and I worked out how to put the commode into my trailer, and cycled back to my neck of the woods. I'd timed it just nicely, arriving at Tang Hall Community Centre just before 6pm when the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel was meeting. I decided to bring the commode in with me, as it looked far too interesting for the local wildlife to ignore.
I was the first there, followed shortly afterwards by a couple of young men from York University who have joined the panel. One of them is the President of the Student Union, and the other is also a SU officer... they are graduates, not students, but they've joined our group as they represent students and there is a certain amount of tension between student houses and the more permanent community. So they want to learn about the house conversions we deal with every time, enlarging homes from 3 bed to 5, 6 or more, making them 'Houses in Multiple Occupation', and possible scenes of loud parties, messy gardens and other accusations. Not all students are like this, and some non students have untidy gardens too (me, for instance!) but they are an easy target for locals to complain about.
We dealt with quite a few good applications, most of them pretty standard, and some of them house extensions, so our new members saw a good range of applications.
I got in just after 7.30 and did a bit of tidying up in the front garden before coming in and having some potato salad and other salady bits, with olives.
A very peaceful evening... enjoyed the new BBC programme 'The Story of Science', and had a good few goes on Scrabble on facebook.
Not sure why but I was feeling good... despite knowing that Gill and I had lots of paperwork and admin to do. So we spent a couple of hours going through a pile of paperwork, ringing people up, putting stuff in envelopes, posting them, putting envelopes into the compost pile, minus their stamps which we occasionally give to a worthy charity. Gill started on the 09/10 accounts.
I bought bread and pasties, and posted yams and pea beans to a chap in West Yorkshire and the same to my folks in Sheffield. The beans they saved from last year didn't germinate, so I hope some of mine do. The ones I've planted are erupting from their toilet roll beds. I love seeing that!
I responded to a Freecycle offer of a commode, to replace the wooden one I got all those years ago for my compost toilet, which is now falling to bits. Jo in Huntington said that I could come and get it. One of her next posts mentioned that she was making a raised bed, so I offered her some compost as a gift. I found her road on Googlemaps and memorised the shortest route, and set out. When I arrived, I realised that I'd forgotten the piece of paper with her actual address on it! Duh!
So, I started knocking on doors and found a Jo... but it was the wrong one. No-one knew the Jo I wanted to find. I had a nice chat to a little tubby man who was tending his garden bare-chested, and I told him that if I couldn't find Jo, I'd give him the compost... which I did as Jo wasn't in the 40 or so houses I tried!
I cycled into town and got two cheques out for adverts in 'Book of Green' and one other cheque for someone. Then I came back via Country Fresh, where Shirley had one box of gubbins for me. When I got back, I rang Jo and explained my stupidity, and asked if I could come at 5.30.
So, I had a bit of time to..... do some pallet butchery! I've collected half a dozen broken or unwanted pallets over the past week or so, which needed dismembering and then chopping up into bite sized pieces. Before I set back out for Huntington a second time, I had the Thomas's pastie, and got another sack of mature unriddled from down the garden to pop in the trailer.
This time, I knew which house I was going to, and Jo and her partner and child were waiting for me. The little boy was fascinated with the compost beasties in the sack, and I worked out how to put the commode into my trailer, and cycled back to my neck of the woods. I'd timed it just nicely, arriving at Tang Hall Community Centre just before 6pm when the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel was meeting. I decided to bring the commode in with me, as it looked far too interesting for the local wildlife to ignore.
I was the first there, followed shortly afterwards by a couple of young men from York University who have joined the panel. One of them is the President of the Student Union, and the other is also a SU officer... they are graduates, not students, but they've joined our group as they represent students and there is a certain amount of tension between student houses and the more permanent community. So they want to learn about the house conversions we deal with every time, enlarging homes from 3 bed to 5, 6 or more, making them 'Houses in Multiple Occupation', and possible scenes of loud parties, messy gardens and other accusations. Not all students are like this, and some non students have untidy gardens too (me, for instance!) but they are an easy target for locals to complain about.
We dealt with quite a few good applications, most of them pretty standard, and some of them house extensions, so our new members saw a good range of applications.
I got in just after 7.30 and did a bit of tidying up in the front garden before coming in and having some potato salad and other salady bits, with olives.
A very peaceful evening... enjoyed the new BBC programme 'The Story of Science', and had a good few goes on Scrabble on facebook.
