Human Lifestyle

Another early start for me, as due to be in Dewsbury for 10ish, so I got the 8.58 train and chatted with a nice couple, students, heading back to her home village of Giggleswick for a few days over Christmas.

Dewsbury was quite snowy and very cold... there is a big building near the market with a digital display and as well as the time and date, it shows the temperature, which was -7 Celsius, and during the day it got no warmer than -5 C.  However, I was in a grotto which had a little electrical fan heater, which kept it slightly warmer, but the grotto was open to the elements and was I think at or below freezing all day.  A local animal petting place called Ponderosa supplied two Reindeer, which attracted a bit of attention.

But I did 10.30 til 12.30, and was due to restart at 1pm but was called down as a queue had developed.  And I worked on through the afternoon, coming to the doorway when the place was quiet, to wave at passers by and try to attract family groups over to hand their £2.50 per child to have an audience with Santa and be given a pre-wrapped present.  Towards the end of the day we had two incidents.  Firstly, a woman appeared who had brought an 18 month old girl and a 3 year old boy in, either last week or earlier today, and she had both their presents.  The boy had got a board game based on bingo, and the girl a pottery VW campervan moneybox.  She was complaining that these weren't appropriate.  The woman in charge of me, Trish, dealt with the complaint and gave the complainer her money back.  Then at about 3pm, half an hour before our finish time, the rickety fan heater got knocked by my flowing robes and fell on it's front, and burst into flames!  The grotto filled with smoke, Trish unplugged it and put the fire out (not sure how) and went to get one of the bosses.  This person said that we should finish early as the room was stinking of burnt plastic and kids shouldn't go in there.  So I went to get changed and set off for the station at about 3.20.

I dozed on the train as I was very cold, and got into York at about 4.30.  My bike chain had been jumping so I decided to pop in to Cycle Heaven to book my bike in for some work... but amazingly, they said I could leave it there and pick it up at 6pm if I wanted.  So I borrowed a shop bike and sped round to Peter and Jenny's house, where they were having a party.  I explained to them that I'd have to go in less than an hour... but was very grateful of the warm 'port in a storm' which I needed, as I was still cold from the day working in sub-zero temperatures.  I had a couple of mugs of home-made mulled cider, the cider was home made from apple concentrate apparently, and two delicious mince pies.  This, plus the conversation, all worked to elevate my mood. 

At 5.50 I got the bike and cycled back to Cycle Heaven.  They'd found that the jumping chain was due to a stiff link in the chain, but whilst finding this, they'd found my pannier rack was not fixed properly, it had broken, and needed replacing.  However, this would take another half hour, and the shop was shutting, so could I pick it up tomorrow?  I explained that I was going up to Masham tomorrow but should be able to pick it up on Monday, on the way to Huddersfield.

So I cycled home on the shop bike.  There was a parcel waiting for me, from Rory in Canada.... he'd found a jester hat, a stripy cap, stripy socks, stripy jumper thing and stripy waistcoat.  Oh Wow!  A costume rejuvenation!  Not sure how I'll use the cap, but all the other things either will or could come in useful, and I love the socks and waistcoat.  I have no idea what I've done to deserve this from Rory, but it moves me that he has sent this, and several other gifts. 

I had a quiet evening as the rest of the family were watching some dance thing in the other room, and I couldn't get Tracey Smith's radio show to play on Apple am.  Never mind, I kept myself occupied and had a reasonable evening.

A much better day.  I got up early as Gill and the boys were heading to Whitby and I had been asked by Keith to deliver some compost at 10am.  So I gathered four sacks of best mature unriddled from down the garden and one large carrier bag of riddled from the side passage.  I cycled slowly round to Keith's in South Bank.

He had his Thai girlfriend Arie staying with him, so once I'd brought the sacks of compost round the back, and Keith had made me a coffee and we were sitting chatting, lots of the conversation got partially translated into her language, which Keith has been learning for 5 years.  I was pleased to see them both together, they are a lovely couple.

On the way back, clutching my newly-earned £20 note, I went into Cycle Heaven and was surprised to see my friend Dylan T. working there, and he checked my gears which have been jumping a bit.  He adjusted them... and I spent £21 on some reduced-price cycling gloves, as the last ones are wearing through.

And home via Alligator and Country Fresh, the latter to arrange the pumpkin purchase and delivery for Pumpkin Evening on Wednesday at St Nicks.  I'll do that tomorrow.

I got home to find that the family hadn't gone to Whitby.  For assorted reasons, a peaceful day at home was the preferred option.

I went onto my laptop and scanned Freecycle and there was a message from the other Keith, in Burnholme, who had offered some wood for burning which I'd responded to.  He said the bits of wood were taken but there were two tree stumps which needed chopping down, and if I could do that, I could have them.  So I had lunch and cycled round with my electric chainsaw and carefully removed the two large softwood stumps, chopping them into movable pieces for ease of packing and transport.... I only just managed it, there was such a lot!  So a win-win situation there, Keith got his stumps chopped off close to ground level and I got some good chunks of wood. 

I got home safely and had a bit of time in the garden preparing for my next visitor, Fern, another Freecycler.  She'd asked for some compost so I did my usual thing and said she could have one free bag or sack, no obligation, but that if she wanted more, that I'd be happy to come to an arrangement.   So she came round at 4, and was keen to learn about composting, as currently she's just collecting kitchen scraps in a bin liner.... not a good method!  I showed her all the different composting systems including the wormeries and tumblers, the different stages of composting, the sorts of things that can go in and how different things decompose at different rates.  She was happy with the free sack and wanted another 5. I was happy to oblige.... and earn another £20. I took the barrow full of compost sacks to her car.

I did a bit of wood chopping and stacking and at 6pm had a chat with a journalist film-maker who was researching something, and then later, after a cauliflower cheese tea, I visited a friend who is feeling lonely because their youngest child has left home and they are all alone in the house, then I picked up a huge lot of dead Lavender bush, another Freecycle job for someone.  I'll probably shred it.

So, a busy day, and much more upbeat than yesterday.

Another good day... Up early enough to help the kids get out of the house peacefully and then persuaded Gill to spend some time with me which was really nice.

Later, we were downstairs and we had the conservatory door open and we heard a pretty distinctive noise, so we looked outside and yes, it was a thrush breaking a snail shell on the path, to get a bit of escargot lunch.... that's a first right outside the back door. Over the past few weeks, we've had a family of blackbirds coming into the conservatory through one of the top-light windows, which have been wide open... and they've been eating assorted fruit which I've brought back to the house for drying. The first one to come in was a young one with a big bald patch on it's back and a lump on the side of it's beak, and it has brought the rest of the family with it, so we've had up to 4 in there at once! The nicest thing is, that one of them sits and sings loudly in there! We feel so lucky with our wildlife-friendly garden.

After lunch I decided to go to Country Fresh to get fruit and veg... but as I'd be halfway to Cycle Heaven, and I was rung up about them having a leather saddle with springs in the shop for me, I decided to go and get that, as my plastic saddle has begun to seriously fall to bits. The busy people at Cycle Heaven couldn't find the black Brooks saddle mentioned in the phone call... but found me a brown one which was old stock and therefore cheaper! Yay! Still expensive though, but it ought to last for years. I was told that it might be uncomfortable at first as it moulded to my shape, but it wasn't, it was fine. I'm very pleased with it.

I did some work in the garden, assorted compost-based stuff, until 3 when Gill went to school, and I got ready to go to St Nicks for a meeting with John and Edward to catch up with the progress of rehabilitating me into York Rotters, as the current situation is still causing me anguish. Yesterday I attended a private meeting with a friend and two of his neighbours, but was told beforehand that I wasn't allowed to be a volunteer Rotter, but to go as 'John the Composter', because I am currently banned from doing the core Rotters work of giving home composting information to groups as I upset a couple of people at a stall we had late last year with my over enthusiastic and inappropriate humour. It is important that York Rotters is seen to be a professional group offering mainstream messages, and talk of compost toilets or composting funerals is strictly a no no. So today was an update on where St Nicks had got to in helping me back into the role I'm really good at, and due to some staff changes, they haven't got very far in finding me a 'buddy', but they have set a date for some 'diversity training' which will help people understand about disabilities including Aspergers, which should be interesting. Also, the Rotters newsletter has got a section 'meet the Rotter', a chance for people to introduce themselves, a mini autobiography . I've submitted mine and I sincerely hope they will print it word for word, as I was very careful to put stuff in which will help people understand my, ahem, 'special needs'! There was also a suggestion that I should perhaps concentrate on my (paid) John the Composter work, rather than the voluntary York Rotters role. However, Edward saw how passionate I was about the group and the work we do, and how proud I was about how successful it is, and he made it clear that he could tell how much I really love York Rotters, which I hope helps the other managers and volunteers welcome me back soon.

I added a small sack of goodies to the public composting area, which hasn't had any deliveries of sawdust from the pet shop for a while, which is a pity, and cycled home. I then spent a good two hours dealing with an old heap which has had 'visitors' and I bagged up all the mature compost and will rebuild the structure in a way to make said visitations much more difficult, ie on a pallet with a solid base, and up on top of another pallet to make lodging underneath less attractive.

I came in after 7pm for tomato soup. Then went and spent an hour doing Ben and Jill's compost bin, scooping stuff out from the base and putting it through the rotasieve, removing uncompostable 'contraries' and putting uncomposted sticks and bits of Yellow Pages back in the top. I'll get paid in Yorkys for that, which is nice.

I spent most of the rest of the evening with Glastonbury Festival on BBC2, and it brought back really good (albeit hazy) memories of 10 Glastos I attended or worked at when I was younger. Those were the daze!

Quite a busy day, did a load of pruning and planting potatoes, working with Gilly.

Had a phone conversation with Tony about a message to the organisers of the York World Naked Bike Ride, and then dealt with replying to that...

After lunch I cycled down to town to get my dynamo/front light connection sorted out... the wire had come out again, but Ash was his usual wonderful self and made it work again. I had time to pop in to Nationwide to get a cheque out for the CarFree Conference fee, and I was annoyed to see that one of my accounts has had the terms changed, so that I won't be able to take a cheque out unless I pay a £10 fee, which is very annoying. It means that I will have to go in and move my savings from the Cashbuilder account to another... a complete bally nuisance.

Then I delivered the cheque to Ivana at St Nicks, as she's looking after that side of the conference. Found a couple of logs, picked up a sack of compostables from Freshways, and home just in time to go and pick up our youngest from school. It was 'lolly Friday' so he had a lolly and we walked most of the way home together.

When I got back, Gill and our eldest went out to town on the bus to pick up a new pair of specs and were back in just over an hour. I had a quick tea and at 6pm, Tony rang and arranged to meet me at the Racecourse to give out WNBR leaflets to the CTC Rally attendees.

I got there at 6.20 and immediately started giving out our leaflet to people arriving at the site for their weekend's camping or caravaning, and there was a lot of enthusiasm for the ride. Tony arrived from Selby on his racing bike and he also gave out leaflets, and went round the campsite too.

I came back via a freshly felled tree and got in at 9pm. Lots of pretty frantic emailing and facebooking stuff... oh, and washing up, blog and interspersed family stuff! Busy busy busy...

A good day with not too early a start, so had a lie in til after 9, and then a fairly quiet nothingy morning doing I don't know what. But I had a date with Cycle Heaven whom I'd asked to fit an new Weber trailer hitch, as the old one has almost worn through. It is an excellent piece of equipment, and the rubber thingy inside lasts quite a long time, and when that disintegrates with the exceptionally heavy use I give it, the metal links rattle but continue to do the job, but they do gradually get thinner and this is my third hitch in maybe 12 years, not sure exactly.

On the way into town I popped into the Council's Civic Amenity Site (skip site or recycling site) at Hazel Court, with a whole load of electrical stuff that Ben asked me to take in, a couple of electrical things I'd found in skips and wanted not to go to landfill, a sack of scrap iron and two sacks of soya milk cartons. I had absolutely no hassle with the gentlemen there and the sign saying no cyclists has been removed. I think we have won. A victory for common sense and sustainability over petty rules. I'm pleased with this.

So then into Cycle Heaven and the wonderful Ash modified the trailer hitch to make it compatible with my pannier rack. In the hour that it took, I walked into town, tried to visit Pauline but she wasn't in, and found somewhere to sit for a while. At 2pm I went back and handed over my money and cycled away happy, with a now non-rattley trailer.

Back via Country Fresh and Freshways.

Late lunch, and then a bit of time on the computer... and had a phone call from NewScientist who are interested in Novaterium and greener funeral options. I'd actually been thinking last night that I'd like to write an Opinion piece for them, and I suggested this. I hope someone will get back to me with a positive response.

Spent more time in the garden, composting and pruning and shredding and planting some beans.

A good day.

First thing I loaded up the trailer with two sacks of mature unriddled compost, and a sample carrier bag of riddled. My friend Dave B asked me to take some round to the Chemistry Department of the University of York, as there's someone there who wants to rejuvenate some old tired growing media in half barrels, and to grow some veggies.

Then I cycled down to Cycle Heaven as my bike needs the back wheel kissing better and the back brake stroking back into working order. When down there I also asked them to replace the saddle, as my synthetic saddle has fallen apart and I have been considering a leather saddle, which should last many times as long.

I was given a nice little Brompton to get back home on, and I called in to the Building Society to put Jenny's cheque in for the compost I took round ages ago.

Then I popped in on my friend who is doing a detox to try to conquer alcoholism, and said I'd visit after lunch.

At about 3, I got a load of compost bagged up for Nick to pick up, as requested. Then at 4, back down to Cycle Heaven to pick up my machine, which has a repaired back wheel and responsive brakes. However, they didn't have the saddle that they wanted to sell to me, so that'll wait for next time.

Then I paid the water bill and came home via Country Fresh, to pick up 3 sacks of compostables.

I got home at about 5 which is when Nick said he'd visit. He gave me £20 for 3 sacks of unriddled and 1 sack of riddled.

Soon after this I had a pastie and salads for tea, and went to the Hull Road Planning Panel, at Tang Hall Community Centre. There were quite a few 'student' related applications, including several registrations of houses being re-designated 'Houses in Multiple Occupation' after legislative changes in April, and a huge 330 bed student accommodation on the Dairy site.

I'd taken the final bag of compost to the Planning Panel to deliver to Julie the Freecycler on the way back. This was a single sack of riddled, and she'd previously had 4 sacks of unriddled. I also let her have a bit of dried fruit... and she gave me £20 as well. So, today I've been paid £40 for compost, paid in a £15 cheque and delivered two sacks for which Dave said he'd give me something! A totally composty day!

During the evening I did a load of washing up and made the decision to go to Durham on the train tomorrow, and cycle the 7 miles to Houghton Le Spring to go to the Houghton Kepier Sports College, where Dan from Ridan is delivering one of his lovely machines.

He intends to be there at 10am, so I think I'll get the 8.30 to Durham, arriving at 9.13, and I should get to the College at the same time... with luck!

A good day, got a lot done. I had a slow start, with emails and stuff, but at 11 went to buy bread from Thomas' 'Yesterbake' (actually Saturday's bake) and got (fresh) veggie pasties too, to make tea easier.

I did quite a bit of work in the garden... pruned back all the fruited loganberries and chopped them down to thin bits for composting and the thicker straight lengths all went into a wooden fruit-box to dry off and become kindling for the stove next winter.

Then I tied-in the loganberry shoots which grew last year and will fruit this year. It looks really tidy now, a good job done.

The large sack of smaller twiggy bits made a good thick layer on the new compost heap which I started yesterday. I added another huge load of greengrocer stuff on top of it, surrounded by flattened cardboard boxes to keep the material from falling out of the pallet-sided cube.

At about half five Gill came down and reminded me that I had taken her bike to Cycle Heaven yesterday to have the back wheel repaired. I'd said to them that if the wheel was not repairable, they could replace it, so we rang to find out what they had done and the cost. They had replaced the wheel and the tyre and done some other work... costing £56... sharp intake of breath!

We hadn't actually got that amount of cash between us, so one of our sons offered to go and look in his piggy bank equivalent, and found £40 to lend us, mainly in coins. I took this and hopped on my bike and scooted off down to Bishopthorpe Road. Very soon I was cycling back towards town with Gill's bike wheeling along next to me, and I decided to pick up a film ticket for the weekend, and then onto Millers Yard to pick up orange halves. Dylan gave me two nice pine chairs which he said were surplus to requirement, so I loaded these onto the trailer too. If we don't need them, I'll put them on Freecycle.

Home with the two bikes, two chairs and about 60kg of compostable oranges. Slowly.

Gill was glad to see me, and her bike, and I came in to help.

She had made some leek and potato and cheese sauce thing to go with the pasties, which was good. I had to head off to the other side of the Racecourse then for a York in Transition Directors meeting. Four of us attended, and we have just about finished the structure we need before we can ask for a volunteer Treasurer. We need quite a few policies in place, but when these are sorted, we'll be in a much better place to get funding for projects. It was a good meeting, and our host had worked really hard getting the different policies written. Some changes were suggested, these will be incorporated and then the documents sent round for comments and then adopting.

When I got in, Gill was once again very glad to see me. I assisted in getting the children off to bed.

Later, had my first googletalk conversation with my Canadian colleague about the website we are doing. And after that, whilst on facebook, Gill's nephew Jonny who is in Australia was on the chat function, and Gill had a nice conversation with him. I wonder if Gill will consider joining facebook?

I got up late and didn't do much until going down to Cycle Heaven with Gill's bike (cycling mine and holding hers with one hand... Gill thinks it's dangerous) as somehow several spokes have been broken in her back wheel and need replacing.

I picked up a load of compostables from Country Fresh and came home, had lunch.

The boys had a couple of friends around and they went into the garden.

I had earlier replied to a freecycle offer of a metal dustbin with a lid, from just 2 minutes cycle down the road, and I got a phone call offering it to me. I had explained in my email reply that I wanted it to put wood ash into so that I could offer wood ash to freecyclers from time to time, or use it myself at the correct time of year. So I brought this home on my trailer and I'm really pleased with it. It is a good solid bin with a well-fitting lid, from a couple who are moving house soon. It will get it's first dollop of woodash tomorrow.

A bit later I went into the garden to deal with the compostables and found a lot of damage had been done... a table had been broken, plants destroyed, some lovely fungi on a log had all been bashed off, and other things wrecked and strewn around. This left me depressed.

I don't care who did it but I suppose I just have to live with the difficulties of what children do to things.

I stayed outside, clearing up, until I was asked to come back into the house to help with the situation inside. This was also depressing.

A really difficult evening.

So, a fairly comfortable night but I have to say I'm very fond of my own bed! Very comfy mattress, and a nice cold wall to snuggle up against. I get so hot in most beds. This bed had no wall to go up against, thus I got too warm.

We got going fairly early and L took me to the bus station and I went on to the train station, where there was supposed to be a train to Scarborough at 10.44 or thereabouts, so as I had a 30+ minute wait, I sat in the waiting room and read NewScientist and who should walk in but Carolyn, from yesterday. She told me her daughter had rung up saying they'd had a difficult night and could she come back over to Leeds to help out! How lucky is her daughter to have a parent who can help with child-rearing! So we chatted and the journey went very quickly because of that, despite the train crawling along for quite a bit of the way, and arriving in York 40 minutes late.

I stopped off at Cycle Heaven as my back wheel and trailer attachment was misbehaving, and the magic touch was applied and it's back to normal again. I got in soon after 2pm.

After I had lunch I went to school to pick up our youngest... he got a lift back with a friend and I got back home well in advance of them. Bikes are faster than cars in York.

I visited Freshways and Country Fresh to stock up on recyclables (!) and got yet more bananas, and a load of garlic which I think I'll be able to pickle.

I spent a long time in the evening dealing with a large untidy pile of emails, including some interesting developments at The Earth Centre. Some developers have plans for it and are holding a couple of open days, the first on 9th Feb. I've emailed the group holding the open days, RTTG, and asked if I can attend. Their plans are to redevelop the site with 'intelligent sustainability' at it's heart, and crucially, for the locals especially, aim to have the site with open access and no entry charge.

A relaxed evening...

A good day.... I got up in time to make my muesli and have breakfast and take my damaged trailer to Cycle Heaven (I managed to break a couple of spokes with a badly aimed attempt at a narrow bridge... the wheel slipped off and I kept going, buckling the wheel). I delivered that and then went to see Pauline, to give her a few more logs and to get my regular bottle of Port, my annual present from her. Mind you, I haven't actually finished last year's bottle yet! That's how little I drink...

But lovely to see Pauline. She had some very good news for me, potentially very good news but I promised to keep it completely confidential, so oh, blog readers, you will just have to wait. But I am very happy.

I then went to the bank, was surprised how little money we have, went to the building society and took a wad of notes round to pump up our account. Then back to the bike shop... and the chap assigned to my wheel was still wrestling with it, so I said I'd collect by the end of the day.

Cycled home and sorted out a large pile of envelopes for composting and put some cheques in the post, assorted memberships (Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, Equity, Garden Organic).

I finished making the tomato soup in the afternoon, and washed up and did bits and bobs of housework, plus computery stuff.

Then at 4pm, back into town to pick up my trailer and popped into see Dylan at Millers Yard to pick up his unwanted orange halves and chat about York Green Festival. We had a lovely chat and I got a second piece of very good news... but again, this is embargoed until it is ready to be made public. I cycled away happy but with a very heavy load of compostables.

I had soup and an avocado sandwich for tea, and then looked at my emails to try to find out where this evening's York in Transition meeting was. No mention of the venue whatsoever! It could be St Nicks or it could be The Stables, or even someone's house... i cannot remember and it isn't in my diary nor is it in any of the email communications... So I stayed at home and watched an excellent programme on BBC1, called The Human Power Station, a Bang Goes The Theory Special. This is available on iPlayer for a week... it's a must watch! The experiment was to install an average family into a house wired up with cameras and all the normal mod cons... and to ask them to live normally for a day. However, they didn't know that the house was switched to being powered by a bank of 80 cyclists, each on a stationary bike with a dynamo, capable of producing 100 watts if going normally, or up to 200w if pedalling really hard. The cyclists could see a dial with how much was being used versus how much was being produced... and it is a very exciting and interesting result. I loved it anyway, and decided to start a facebook 'fan' page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Human-Power-Station-Bang-Goes-The-Theory-Special/216787805126?ref=ts

So, a happy and productive day, despite my foolishness in breaking a wheel and having a reasonable bill to have it repaired.

Woken by anti-school noise but children did go to school.

However, this got me up and I did some moving of broken bricks from our shared driveway down to where the wall/fence is going to be built.

Pauline rang following an email conversation over the past few days and I agreed to go round today and pick up the Freecycle-request credit card holder she has found for me, and to help her with her wooding. So I got 3 sacks of logs together as this is my 'traditional' seasonal gift to her, loaded up my trailer and cycled round for 12.30.

I helped her stack the logs in her outhouse and then used her bow saw to chop a few bits of wood for her Clearview Stove, and brute force to smash up an old chair she found in a skip.

This didn't take long and at just after 1pm I had my sandwiches and Pauline made me a coffee, and we caught up on assorted news. I didn't stay too long as I had to go to the Building Society to put in a cheque from the weekend and take out a big cheque to pay off the last of our Council Tax, which I then went to pay. I cycled back via Country Fresh where I met some fairly old people trying to ineffectively break up a pallet outside the shop. They were happy to accept some help... and I showed them how to do it, by slamming the pallet down on one corner and then on another corner til it falls apart... which i was very glad it did, because it made me look like a veteran pallet smasher (which of course I am!!). Picked up two sacks worth of compostable items and some dryable ones too... includung four 'dragon fruit' which are very expensive and weird, not brilliant to eat but do make an interesting addition to a bag of dried fruit. I'm now thinking ahead to the LETS event in December where I'm going to do a very large number of bags of fruit, and try to do a bit of a clearout.

Got home in reasonable time to load up two of my tumblers with a load of stuff.

For tea I had a veg stew that Gill had done on the woodstove plus half the last slice of quiche and three slices of roast squash. Very filling!

At 8pm there was a meeting at the Yorkshire Terrier on Stonegate to do some planning for the Towards Carfree Cities Conference. This is going to be the 9th international conference run by the World Carfree Network, and it is to be at the end of June 2010 in York. My friend and Green Festival colleague Randall is heading this up (he's been involved in this organisation since their first conference) and Ivana and Richard met in Prague whilst working in the Carbusters office, as far as I gather. I also met Graham Titchener from Cycling City York and Andy from my favourite cycle shop, Cycle Heaven. I think I'll be doing some volunteering with this event, although I don't know exactly what yet.

Home at nearly 11pm, went straight onto the computer to sort out emails and record a good day.

Up reasonably early although I was really tired. We got a phone call saying the builders are coming tomorrow so I checked with them that it was OK to leave the logs which are along the side wall of the house (it was).

i had booked my bike into Cycle Heaven as I had found that I was unable to tighten the disc brake on my front wheel, and i thought it needed replacing. But one of the guys had a quick poke with a 'torque driver' and showed me how to tighten it without trying to grip the little plastic wheel, which is falling to bits. I was pleased with this and went to Paxtons to buy a torque driver... but they only had sets of umpteen of them, so had to get a set, plus a handle, setting me back £10.90.

Home via Country Fresh and Freshways... loads more compostables!

After lunch Gill and I moved the bricks which we reclaimed from the coal-hole demolition which I did soon after we moved here in 2001. Our neighbour is going to use the bricks to build a wall under the new fence he's going to put up where I've taken the hedge out.

I had some 'use it up' tea and went to a LETS meeting at 7.15 which was good although I was still tired.

I took the minutes and when I got home, typed them up ad sent them out.

I went into town in the morning with our eldest son's bike, to get it serviced before out longish cycle ride next week. Also visited the library to get a map, so we can find our way from Weston Super Mare to Cheddar and to the Big Green Gathering. Finally to my building society to get a cheque out to pay a bill.

Had a good day at home, in the garden dealing with compost and logs, chainsawing , splitting, stacking. Very satisfying and enjoyable.

Later, went into town with my eldest to collect his bike... he was needed to get the height right and the brakes in the right position, and he realised that the stand was missing, so they found that and put it back on. So his bike is in tip-top condition for the journey next week.

So, a quiet evening... a nice baked veg tea, aubergines from the compostables, slices of potato, tomato, onion and all smothered with the very delicious sauce I made a day or two ago.

Some interesting chats on the computer during the evening. Had a shave and bath as working tomorrow and Sunday.

I woke up later than I would have liked to, but got into town in good time.

I gave my bike in to Cycle Heaven to have new disc brake pads fitted. These are expensive, about £15 each, plus fitting, but the chap sorted my dynamo out too, which had been malfunctioning occasionally, needing a wriggle of the wires underneath the generator to make it work. I walked round town to spend an hour waiting for the bike to be done, as I didn't want to have to come down later in the day.

I got out some Euros to pay for my questionnaire to continue to be hosted til next January, need to send this off asap!

Home at midday and went round to Lynn's to deliver some beetroot to her, as she wants to make some borscht. I also disposed of a sackful of compostables in her compost bin. Glad to have another outlet for them, and she's grateful which is good!

Home for lunch, and all too soon it was 3pm and time for me to go to the Fishergate Ward meeting with my York Rotters hat on (teeshirt actually) as there was a Rotters stall and fabric compost bin giveaway. We spoke to 20 people, most of whom were already composting but wanted to compost more. Anna was there and she took two composters for the two rented houses she looks after. But as she was not able to carry them, I delivered these to Anna's house and came home.

I had borscht with some pasta and green beans in it. Gill had made a Swiss Roll and a jelly so I had some of that too... but soon after 7 I had to go to the York Green Festival meeting at St Johns. I chaired and it was a reasonably good meeting, despite several of the key people not turning up.

I popped in on Anita on the way home and met her dog Max for the first time. Anita and Bruno looked very happy together, and they'd had a good time at Glastonbury. Infact, Anita came across as an excited teenager! I'll deliver the Suma catalogue tomorrow as we've an order coming up.

I got home before 10 and collected two wheelbarrow's worth of logs from Woodlands where another two trees have been cut down. I estimate there are another 15 wheelbarrow's worth of logs there. Maybe a tonne. But, the trees which have died and been cut down are not good splitters... the rounds are very difficult to split, so I don't feel 100% enthusiastic about them as to get these into usable logs I'll have to do a lot of work.

Came in at 10.15 and settled down to do emails, blog, facebook, more emails and finally, washing up!