Human Lifestyle

Had quite a busy morning, up just after 9 and dealt with a slight hangover by having a large coffee and 2 paracetamol, and a shower.

I needed to be in tip top condition for work... Professor Fiddlesticks had been booked by Anna, the organiser of today's 'Multi Sports Day' near the Fulford end of the Millennium Bridge, which was due to run from 2 til 4pm. So I had an early lunch and got going with my bike trailer full of the usual gear at just after 1pm. I also took a couple of bags of dried apple rings for the LETS stall, and the York World Naked Bike Ride leaflets.

Stuff was already happening when I got there, and I secured a place on the path with my bike propped up against a lamp-post and immediately there were youngsters wanting to have goes on the unicycles. So I was busy for over 2 hours, unicycling and helping people with the 4 wheel unicycle, 2 wheel unicycle and occasionally the one wheeler. Oh, and rewarding people with balloons and doing some unicycle and devilsticking demos.

But it wasn't a perfect day... we had gusts of wind, strong enough to lift up some of the gazebos, rain showers and even a hailstorm, but several nice patches of sunshine. There were at least 100 people there, possibly up to double that, and it seemed that everybody had a good time. I was pleased to see quite a few of my friends, including Tony my WNBR friend who had collected the Yorkshire WNBR leaflet, half of them for Sheffield, half for York, and he'd also got some flags. These will be available on the York Ride, at a slightly discounted rate.

I packed up soon after 4pm as I'd had a phone call just before I'd set out from Randall, who wanted me to help fill in a Risk Assessment for the forthcoming CarFree Network Street Party, and he was due to come round at 5pm. I got in at 4.50, and then got a phone call from Rand saying he'd been moving paving slabs around with his bike trailer and would prefer not to have to cycle from Acomb to Hull Road... so could we do the meeting by Skype?

So we had a 1 hour 45 minute Skype call, filling in the documentation and raising several important questions. At the end of it Gill gave me a bowl of home-made celery soup which was delicious, and then home-made 'stuffed crust' pizza with salads, also delicious. Gill is an awesome cook, and knows it, and loves it. She's always saying how much she likes being a mother and looking after us. We are all damn lucky.

I visited Ben as he had offered a CFL bulb on freecycle which would fit our ceiling light socket in the front room (downlighters) and he also might have a solution to my shaver conundrum. He'd found a large heavy transformer, a box with knobs on which changes mains power to whatever voltage you set the dial at, and analyses whether things are shorting, etc. In return, I'm taking a box of waste metal to the recycling site for him.

Later I did the washing up and sorted through the bananas and set about 30 of them to dry, and left my shaver charging on Ben's machine.

Up reasonably early and got kit together as I've a gig in Sheffield, at Ali's daughter's school, so that Ali can get some film of 'Professor Fiddlesticks' for her University project.

I cycled down to the station for about 9.15 and Ali met me at Sheffield station at 10.30, and took me back to her house in the car... a quick stop for a coffee and to pack her filming stuff, and off to the primary school where her little girl is a pupil. I did a 30 minute show with juggling, devilsticks (show only, no workshop), lots of feather balancing as the children watching were quite young, so I chose the easiest skill which got the maximum number of children out to have a go (and that Ali's daughter can do, as one of her arms doesn't function properly/at all, due to Cerebral Palsy)... followed by 'Derek the Naughty Diabolo' and a unicycle/devilstick finale... fast, fun and a well received show, hopefully with some good images for Ali's project!

Had a nice lunch with Ali back at her house and a shore interview using a digital dictaphone to do some voice-over material for masking some of the noisy stuff filmed at the front of our house (next to a busy road)... and then back to school to pick up her little one, and down to the station so I could get the 15.46 back to York... a pretty non stop day, but enjoyable, and glad to help out Ali with this final part of filming, I think...

Gill went out in the evening to a school quiz, with our eldest. I stayed in with our youngest and we watched the BBC2 'Oceans' programme together. I had a nice Skype chat with Lorna and the 'quiz two' came back at 10pm, having won some sort of computer equipment.

Was lucky to have to have a bit of a lie-in, before lighting the stove so I could have a bath as I'm working today. But as the water was getting up to bath temperature, I went to put a couple of sack's worth of compostables into the Compostumbler. One sack was just watermelons, about 7 of them.... so cut them into chunks and added them with several cardboard boxes. Emptied some collected juices (from a ex-loft water-header tank under the Compostumbler) onto the leafmold pile, to help that rot down, although it seems not to need much help as it's very hot in the middle.

Then had a shave, bath and hairwash to get spruced up for my Knaresborough gig. Gill made sandwiches and ironed my costume, I loaded up my bike trailer and got to the station by 12.45 to get tickets and onto the 13.11 train. I was met in Knaresborough and driven the mile or so to the Community Centre where I was entertaining at a 9 year old's party: a one hour circus show and workshop, followed by a freeplay workshop where they could try out any of the skills I'd brought with me. The 18 boys and one girl all had a great time, as did the Dad, he said on the way back to the station. Very pleasing.

Home soon after 6pm. Gill said that Dexter had just rang, inviting me to a preview of an art show at the Chapel at the York Cemetery which is on all of tomorrow I think. He had been invited to provide some atmospheric lighting, and wanted me to come and see the collection. So I had some tea and went out again! Dexter's lighting was in fact a couple of tables of coloured glass, and clear glass containers (bottles and jars rescued from old landfill sites mainly!) containing coloured water, and lots of candles and night-lights making them look very pretty. This was just outside the doors of the Chapel, making it quite inviting. Inside it was well lit with a selection of display boards with various artworks attached. The organiser, Graeme Martin, was displaying some curious mutated toys and plastic objects mounted in frames, plus a huge (well, maybe 70cm high!) Trojan Horse made out of waste wood, surrounded by tiny plastic toy soldiers, with a weird message which I cannot remember. There were a few paintings in a 'naive' style which had some resonance with me as they were connected to carbon emissions and capitalism, and some work from my old friend Fiona who's been into Dragons ever since I've known her, over 20 years now... She does drawings of mythical monsters, mainly Oriental dragons, and also embroidered fire-screens with landscapes and dragons. I had a good chat with Catherine Scriven who makes paper and original art, especially digital photos, very creative. I also met a 'punter' called Pete, who I probably met many moons ago at the John Bull pub, knocked down a long time ago, replaced by a car showroom. Pete was telling me about his being involved in the starting of SUMA and how the current management had 'rewritten history' and conveniently forgotten how the company actually started, and his work making kites and other fabric items.

I had a lovely time but came back home by 9pm and helped put the children to bed.

Had a nice Skype chat with Ali.

I took our youngest into school and was told that there was to be a Green Thumbs assembly to show the children the produce as it looked really good and the growers were so proud of it.

However it was going to be at 10.15 so I deliberated whether to go or not. Had a chat with Mrs P the headteacher about a composting message but she said this would complicate the assembly, so no composting message. I decided to do something practical at home instead.

I have recently built a new logpile to the left of the door (looking out) and I was filling the logbasket with logs from the top of the other side's stack, and disturbed a beautiful ichneumon wasp which was just laying an egg deep into the wood, presumably in a woodboring beetle or some other grub. The ovipositor was about the same length of its body and antennae, and it had beautiful reddish yellow legs, could have been Lampronata setosas which parasitises Goat Moths. It withdrew it's ovipositor and proceeded to walk around the log, gently touching the surface with its antennae and putting them into cracks and insect holes, smelling for prey to lay an egg on/in. Gill and I watched it for 10 minutes or so, it was absolutely exquisite! I couldn't now burn this log, as it had an ichneumon egg growing in a grub within... so I decided to put this one with several others under a hedge, as a 'wildlife refuge'. I found a good image on the internet and tried to download it but the resolution was poor... so I emailed the owner of the website, Kim, and he said I could use a better quality image. His site has some fantastic images, well worth a look! see:http://www.warrenphotographic.co.uk/ Thanks to them for this image! This is the first image I've been able to add to my blog, hope readers like it!!!

I had a busy afternoon, several visits including a Rotters visit to a Dutchman wanting advice about his 'dalek', an easy visit. Came home and got together 10 paper bags of dried fruit prizes for the York in Transition Quiz which Anna Semlyen and I have been preparing for. I cycled down to the Friends Meeting House at about 6.30 and when I got there, Anna had just got the room sorted out with five tables, each with 3 chairs, 3 sheets of paper and 3 pens. By 7pm, the advertised start time, we had got 15 bums on 15 seats... how lucky was that? Anna and I read out alternate questions, we had done quite different styles of question and on different 'green' issues. It was really good to hear the discussions on the tables (each table being one team) and the questions obviously caused much thought. I think a green quiz is an excellent way to present 'Transition' information... Anna had got some prizes from The Co-op and I had brought my dried fruit, so everybody got something. Most enjoyable! I can send enquirers a list of my questions (and answers!) if there are other green groups wanting to have a quiz as part of an awareness-raising event.

A less then easy evening followed, as had agreed to have a skype conversation with a friend and we don't see 'eye to eye' with everything. But it is an interesting friendship and I am always 'up for' learning and new experiences...

A peaceful morning as our eldest was up early and Gill said yes to him playing on the computer, which meant that our youngest got a lie-in til 9 instead of being interfered with and awoken. So Gill and I had a relaxed hour or so before the youngest woke up and demanded breakfast.

I spent an hour after my breakfast cutting a hedge which was getting unruly, and putting it through the shredder. Then watched Countryfile which was an anniversary edition and very enjoyable, especially Jon Culshaw's impersonation of John Craven.

A busy afternoon and evening. Spent quite a lot of time in the garden dealing with unruly hedge and shredding most of the clippings... and collected a large trailer-full of stuff from Country not-so-fresh and mixed it in with the woody clippings and completely filled a tumbler....

At 2 I had a visit from Jennie whom I met on a train a few weeks ago when she was carrying an armful of mint, and invited her to come and visit. She came with her husband Juan and had a tour and a good chat, what lovely people! Then at 5, whilst I was making tea, my friend Grange came, and we had a really good evening, all enjoyed the nutloaf, spinach, flower/herb salad and potato salad that I made.

A good relaxed chat on Skype carefully avoiding contentious subject areas!

I took the boys into school as I was expecting a phone call from my greengrocer friend Jamie to ask me to meet him at St Nicks to do a recycling job for him... but when I got home he hadn't called, so I got on with some work at home... and then got a phone call from John at St Nicks... Jamie was there waiting for me, he'd forgotten to ring me. Anyway, I bombed down there and did two hours of the most revolting stinky work, but very worthwhile, and it will earn a little donation for St Nicks too...

Home at midday, showered, had lunch... felt negative for a few minutes about composting, but I'm sure it will pass...

Did some paperwork connected to a late booking which is tomorrow at a nearby school, and before collecting the kids, delivered the confirmation letter to them so they know I'll be with them before the 1pm start time...

And went to school, fielded the children and asked them to play for a bit as I was doing some Green Thumbs volunteering and as it was a nice day, good weather 'n' all, they were happy enough to play on the field whilst I got on with the young gardeners.

After the hour, took my boys home and thanked them for being so good and well behaved whilst I did the gardening club.

After tea, which was a toastie with assorted other bits, went to the core group meeting of York Green Festival which was at Rich's house fairly close to here. Last time I cycled up Heslington Road, I noticed several aluminium cans in the grounds of the Retreat, plus others on the roadside verge, so I stopped to pick them up and as I got off my bike, my foot slipped off the kerb and I fell, bashing my elbow on the pavement and pulling the bike on top of me... What a fool! But I was wearing new shoes which have soles which do seen to slip if wet, not like my wellies which have good grip. Anyway, I got myself together, threw the cans in the trailer, and prepared to cycle off... and my foot slipped off the pedal and I fell on top of the bike, into the road, and when I got up, I found that I had buckled my front wheel, bloodied my knee and bruised my knuckle... oh what a double fool! But the front wheel still went round so I slowly went down the hill to the meeting feeling very foolish and sorry for myself...

The Green Fest meeting was really good, Rich chaired well and we got all the stuff talked about... publicity, workshops, stalls, stewards, kids area, waste/recycling, healing area, DJ area, insurance, marquees, the neighbours' letter and the website.

The meeting lasted til after 10, after which I cycled carefully home, beginning to ache and feel sore.

I came in and did the neccessary YGF emails, had a chat on Skype and relaxed.

Slept in til 10ish, which was lovely.

However, got up immediately and got ready to have a day out with the family. We'd seen a piece in the Press about there being an 'Insect Week' event at Wyevale Garden Centre in Poppleton, so as it's on the Number 10 bus route which goes past our house, we decided to get the bus out there to see the display.

We got the after midday bus all the way to Poppleton and wandered round the garden centre.. which when it was Challis's, Gill worked at, and I also worked at the nearby Challis Plant Factory, where lots of little plants came in, and ceramic bowls, and mainly went out with three plants in a bowl... a tall one at the back, a stubby one at one side and a trailing one towards the front. I spent nearly two years there. Anyway, Challis was sold and it became Wyevale. It is a lot more than a garden centre, it sells all sorts of stuff including fish and pond stuff, all sorts of outdoor things.

We asked about the Insect Week display but nobody knew anything about it, however it didn't matter too much as we had an interesting time.

Then walked into Poppleton, and as it was beginning to rain, went to the Lord Collingwood pub for a bite of lunch and a drink. They had run out of the vegetarian option for lunch so we just had a portion of chips each and I had a perry (seemingly now called 'pear cider'), Gill had a black coffee and the boys had a fruit juice. We ate in the garden, under an umbrella on a picnic bench in the rain, and had a sandwich too, which we'd brought with us. It was a good little trip out, and we all enjoyed it.

I popped down to Country Fresh immediately we got back, before the shop closed, and bought some veg and picked up a box and a sack of compostables. Richard reminded me about the Falling Spikes gig tonight in the Edinburgh Arms.

When I got back, Gill asked me to go to the Co-op to buy some bread and dairy stuff, and when I got back there was a phone call from K, which was inconvenient. The children were playing havoc during this and when I came off the phone, I went into the room they were in and asked them to please be a bit more respectful towards their mother, whom they were disobeying and ignoring. One of my boys was very angry with me and when I went towards him to tell him to calm down and behave, BLOG CENSORED Parenting is not fun at the moment and our children don't often think about how they affect us. The initial fuss was apparently about homework which we want them to do and they do not want to do.

I went outside to let things calm down, and spent an hour weeding the front garden whilst thinking about how I could respond better to my son, and how to be a better parent generally. When I came back in, all was reasonably calm and I was able to tell my boys that I wasn't happy with my response to CENSORED, and I didn't respect myself for my reaction, nor their behaviour towards their mother or me. I apologised to Gill too, as I should really let her sort out the boys by herself if they are playing up... I shouldn't wade in and try to protect her. But it breaks my heart to hear/see her being treated so shabbily and I find it just about impossible to not come in and try to help her. Very difficult. What I'm supposed to do is to come in and ask her if she wants any help.

I had something to eat and did some computery stuff and at 9.30 went to the Edinburgh Arms to arrive just in time to catch The Falling Spikes do a brilliant set, an hour of loud multilayered guitars, 60s-style synth, drums and vocal... reminiscent of my favourite band, Spacemen 3. My friends Rich, Ivana, Dave and Andrew were there, and I chatted with a friendly woman called Tonya. Had one pint of cider.

Home just after 11, spent some time with Gill and at midnight, had a chat on Skype with K which helped us with our differences and difficulties.

Leisurely morning, several phone calls including a Fiddlesticks booking, and some time playing Scrabulous on Facebook!

Gill went to Art and came back for lunch, and we had a reasonably relaxing afternoon, although didn't get a lot done apart from washing up.

I went to pick up the boys at 3 and we were ok until one of them rode through some discarded yoghurt that had been left on the field. It flicked up onto his bike which made him very angry, and he had a huge paddy and ran off into the church grounds for about 10 minutes, after which I called to him to come home. He grudgingly came and got on his bike, but as he set off one of his classmates overtook him on her bike, and this set his anger off again, and he shouted at her. I wanted to apologise to the girl and her mum, but my son was now dawdling so I couldn't go on ahead and speak to the aggrieved person.

We did eventually get home, and I had offered to go to the shop after coming back so I cycled off down Heslington Road to Country Fresh, to buy veg, fruit and pick up compostables. When I got back my son immediately came to me and apologised; I told him I loved him regardless. He then went upstairs and Gill took me into the back room and said that she hadn't told me as soon as I'd come in the door that our little boy whom we love so much had just attacked her and thrown my laptop onto the floor in his anger. Gill was very upset and hurt. She told me to see if my computer was working or if the impact had damaged it. When I switched on there was a thick vertical white line or bar on the right of the screen. This persisted through all the windows opening and obscures part of the screen. I am able to use the computer, but I have to move the windows over to the left of the screen to be able to do what I do.

I ate tea quietly, feeling shaken by his behaviour, and the damage to my property, and didn't know whether to say anything to him. After tea I went to the GreenSpeak meeting at Priory St, which was about 'Peak Oil' presented by Andy Chase, who's our candidate in the next General Election. Peak Oil is a very interesting subject, pretty complicated, but I took notes and participated in the discussion afterwards.

Home before 10, did a little bit of gardening before it got dark. Came in to chat with Gill, and she told me about a couple of phone calls... one from my folks about my sister-in-law's dad who's died, and one from my friend Ali in Sheffield who's fallen out of her wheelchair and been to A+E, and is feeling very bruised. Then watched a bit of telly, and then went on the computer to do my blog and chat with K on Skype.

I took the boys to school and when the children were all in school I turned all 3 compost bins, putting the oldest material in sacks for maturing, the next oldest in the third bin and the recently interred material in the second bin, leaving the first nearly empty for refilling.

Came home for just after 10 and did some stuff around the house before lunch, including getting a message from Green Thumbs Julia saying she is unwell and is not at school, and could I head-up this afternoon's gardening club, and she gave me a list of things to do, well, suggestions! After lunch I sorted out some planting media as one of the things suggested was to plant some more seeds. However when, after school, I facilitated gardening club, we did things like weeding the large pots of veg we planted 3 weeks ago, and digging over some borders, adding rich garden compost and planting some of the veg in which we potted up 2 weeks ago... Someone found a 1906 penny, someone else found a tiny air-gun pellet, and another person found a sheep's molar tooth... We also found worms, a ladybird larva and a beetle. We all had a good time.

I tidied up and got home by 4.45, in time to have some pasta and get my bike ready and my eldest son's bike ready to cycle to the other side of town to attend the briefing meeting of the 'Gifted and Talented Summer School' to which he's been invited. We set off at 5.10 and got to Manor school at 5.40, just half an hour, not bad. Better than the bus, much better. It was a good meeting and my lad is keen to explore Mathematics further as his main topic, so let's hope it isn't too oversubscribed and he loses out in a lottery, which was suggested as a fair way to choose people if there's more applicants than spaces. A good cycle home, took less than half an hour as there's more downhill on the way back! Seems like it, anyway.

I had half an hour in the garden putting a load of stuff in one of my tumblers, before coming in and watching the first part of Big Brother 9 on Channel 4... which Gill and I both enjoyed, and I did washing up followed by a lot of peeling, coring and slicing apples for drying.

Some good late-night chat with K on Skype, getting easier after some differences of opinion and fallings out, but we both want to remain on good terms so both working at it.

Gill took the boys to school and then went on a school visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park with our eldest.

I had a quiet day inside, although the weather was lovely out, I had to get my paid blog done (didn't do it at the weekend) and had a chat with Ali and Lorna and then just before I came off the computer at lunchtime, with K... so a busy and communicative morning. Also had several Fiddlesticks enquiries After lunch I did housework, washing up, made tomato soup, and finally getting out to the front garden to build a logpile just as the troops came home. I took just one boy (not my own!) to Martial Arts and went to collect stuff from Country Fresh, taking it to the lottie.

Home to have soup and pasta at 6, spent most of the evening dealing with a vast number of apples which were too good to compost and are perfect for drying. Loaded 4 racks with dozens and dozens of slices, plus one with melon slices. A warm evening with the stove, watching Ideal on BBC3 and Newsnight. Gill was exhausted from all the walking, plus the warmth of the stove made her sleep all evening.

I took the children to school, and Gill went to town to look for footwear for several family members. I dealt with loads of emails, including from The Phone Co-op, my broadband provider. They tell me that I have overshot my gigabyte allowance last month and nearly this month already. Apparently, after some discussion, this is due to my regular skype sessions... which are very heavy on the cost of my broadband.

A quiet lunch, Gill came back bearing new sandals for me, which are lovely and comfortable.

I got up at 8 to take the children to school, it is SATs for my eldest and he's quite stressed, although the grumpy behaviour this morning was mainly from the other one! But they both got to school on time and I got back to a relieved Gill.

Got a phone call from CVS who are putting on a conference about building (http://www.priorystreetcentre.org.uk/foundations.html) and I've been asked to present a 20 minute chunk on energy performance certificates, carbon audits and environmental standards. This will require quite a bit of research, but it will be good for me as it's not my specialism but of course, it is very interesting.

Gill went out to town and I spent quite a bit of time at the computer... but also lit the stove, much to Gill's annoyance when she got back... but I had a load of grapes to get dried and if they sit there moist, they'll go mouldy. I also had a load of washing up to do so I needed the hot water. Enjoyed lunch and then prepared to go to Brunswick Organic Nursery in Bishopthorpe to spend my £10 reward which I got for doing such a lot of voluntary work for one of the organisations I help out. I rang them up to find out if they had vegetable plants, and their opening times. So I cycled through to them, passing the place where Ruby was knocked off her bike and killed... there were lots of flowers and a 'graffiti board' with messages. Very sad. I got to BON and found several greenhouses with various plants, rows of perennials, and quite a few veg plants.. so I got some assorted squash, courgette, cucumber, tomato and broccoli plants, worth £16.50, but I only had to pay cash for some of it, thanks to my voucher.

(Hey, did you see what I did in this paragraph, for I think the first time in this blog? I highlighted Brunswick and made it into a link.... something I've learned about through my paid blog. On their website, the icon looks a little bit like a paperclip, and I'm guessing that on Blogger too, the icon is to look like a paperclip... it doesn't much!)

I met a pleasant woman at Brunswick, called Anna, who was waiting for her husband to come back from a job interview with Dr. Sentamu, as her hubby is a minister and is hoping to work for Dr. John. We had a chat about soil firstly, then composting, then credit unions, then autism... she was very chatty and nice.

Careful cycle ride back, not as fast as I usually go, as had the trailer full of delicate plants, so got to school just on time to pick up the kiddies.

When I came home I did a load more riddling, this time some pretty dry compost, very mature from a dalek which I'd topped with turf, and used the flat chicken-wire riddle where I rub the lumps through by hand... resulting in a large pile of ready to use potting compost, a mix of compost and loam, lovely!

A late tea. Watched a programme on a dinosaur being excavated and examined, as it had been preserved with skin and some tissue still in place, kind of mummified prior to fossilisation.

Enjoyed a very frank exchange with K on Skype, well over an hour of chat, very deep and satisfying conversation.

Awoken at 7am by loud banging downstairs and after three episodes, went down to see what had happened. One of my sons had got a splinter in his finger and was having a paddy about this. It is absolutely incredible how much fuss such a tiny irritant causes.... amazing!

I tried to talk to him calmly but was shouted down. I told him that if it were my splinter, I'd cut the top layers of skin off with my penknife scissors and extract the splinter, and he could do this himself if he wanted, or I could do it for him as any Dad would. He wouldn't let me, loudly. I then offered to take him to casualty. He could see the ridiculousness of this and soon allowed me to carefully remove the splinter in the way I'd described. It was about two millimetres long and not deeply embedded, and afterwards I got lots of thanks from him and Gill, and cuddles from the other child who hates the huge outbursts just as much as we do.

The day got better! Both boys were engrossed with friends and I went down to town with some York Rotters stall stuff in my panniers... as part of the York Fiesta weekend is a performance of Anneliese Emmans-Dean's 'Compost, the mini Musical' and we have a stall to catch any passing or associated interest. I was embarrassed by Anneliese introducing me as 'The Greenest Man In Britain' or something similar, but happy with 'He can answer any of your composting questions'!
(see http://thebigbuzz.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/compost-the-mini-musical-world-premiere/ for the info about the mini-musical!)

The musucal was good, although could have been better if the children had been wearing microphones as the city centre was noisy and their voices small. Our stall got only a few visitors, perhaps a dozen or so.

Before 2 we closed it down and Jo and I took the stuff to Rowntrees Park, as she's now got a cycle trailer, and we left it in the pavillion ready for tomorrow's Worm Charming do. We had a coffee and a good chat before I went to Anna's to pick up another large load of greenery to take to James St for the green waste skip. There's far too much for me to take back home to compost, perhaps 4 cubic metres? Quite a few bike-loads anyway, even though I get a lot on each journey.

No hassles at James St, they seem to have dropped their objection to cyclists with trailers visiting the site and doing their recycling, maybe the letters to the Press struck a chord and they realised the folly of their ways...

Home by 4pm. Did some work in the garden with one of our boys' 9 yr old friends, who was very keen to work with me and riddle compost with the rotasieve. I didn't realise til Gill mentioned it, that he either doesn't have a Daddy or doesn't see him much, and that made him wanting to work with me kinda nice and a bit more understandable. His comment about boys enjoying getting dirty made a bit more sense too, as he's in a female household and they may not appreciate his mud-pie making. I took him back home at 8pm, as he'd had tea with us and then come back outside to help me with the composting! Very satisfying.....

A good evening, nowt much on the box so typed away at my keyboard, mainly chatting on Skype message thingy with Ali whom I met at a recent gig.

A good day, Gill went out and I got a lot done on the computer ... did a lot of deleting from my inbox of over 1000 messages whilst offline and then, when online, dealt with some more composting enquiries through Facebook and looked at the first results for my questionnaire... so far just 12 answers, but some good quality answers with some really interesting info. I feel very pleased with the way the results are presented.

I got a phone call from my friend Pippa whom I've known for well over a decade but only get to see every two years on average... and she's coming up to visit us, which will be really good. She'll stay in a B+B for a night towards the end of the month.

I had lunch and then Gill came in and she had hers, we chatted and it was 2pm very soon... I had planned to go and plant some onion sets but there wasn't time as I also had to do some more digging at the Green Thumbs plot at school. As I arrived, the head-teacher came out and asked me into her room as she had something to tell me. The news is that the plot we have prepared may not be where the garden ends up, as the two mobile classrooms nearby are due to be demolished, and the new classroom may be built where the garden now is! So there's to be no more work on the plot until the surveyors tell the school where the classrooms are to be. Therefore she asked me to dig over an area next to the playground, where we might plant some stuff. I cut away some dead twiggy bits and removed lots of litter which had accumulated, mainly the dreaded assorted plastic. That didn't take long so I did some compost management of the school compost bins.

Then the children came out and Gill came down from home to pick up our boys and a friend's son... and I gathered the children who are part of the Gardening Club and took them to see the plot, along with Nigel who has offered to survey the area and make a computer-aided-plan of it. At about 4pm Kate from CVS who I'd invited to give us advice on making a Child Protection Policy arrived and three of us met with her and she talked us through what we should do, our obligations, the training we can get etc etc. But I had to rush off as soon as she was done, as I had my second meeting to get to.

I had a brief tea and went into the garden to collect samples of various types of compost, leafmould etc for my third meeting later, plus the rotaseive which I'll need.

I cycled down to Fulford Road where a Rotters enquiry has come from. A couple who moved in over a year ago and have a single dalek bin in their garden, which had been well used by the prevoius occupants and was full and pretty solid at the base. They'd watered it and added more stuff at the top, but hadn't managed to get it to go down at all. This I found was because it was almost full of mature compost... so I used my Compost Mate corkscrew thing to extract a huge amount of really good compost, the whole of the base of the heap, whilst they watched and picked out contraries (bits of plastic!) from the mature and fibrous mass. I think I must have pulled out about 100 litres of compost... they were well pleased, and will top-dress their borders with it. They were even more pleased when the bin contents settled down and I broke up the rest of it so there was plenty of space to add more stuff. That all took about 40 minutes and I then shot off to my third meeting, at the Scout Hut on Lorne St in Southbank.

My friend Jo was there, getting the two big old compost bins ready for the 'Panthers' (A type of cub/scout person) to have an 'activity' with. She'd brought her wormery and I'd brought a selection of composts and leafmould, also some very well rotted humanure/sawdust compost. I took half of the group and did a short talk on composting, then got them to have a go with the riddles (Jo had got her rotaseive too) but the job was difficult as firstly the heaps were mainly grass mowings and some layers were not rotted down at all, they were anaerobic and smelly and looked like sileage, and the rotted stuff was a little too moist to riddle well. The groups swapped over and I did it all again. That all came to a stop just before 8, I got packed up and shot off into town for my fourth meeting.

Which was at the Black Swan where I met my friend Chinky, propping up the bar and being jovial, as usual. The meeting was a group of five other earnest chaps, members of York Eco Action, three were from the student group 'People and Planet'. We had an agenda writing session and then spent a couple of hours going through, discussing various things including climate camp, the Fairtrade movement, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Kingsnorth Power Station, Heathrow, the Northern Green Gathering and quite a few more things. A good meeting, always lovely to be with Graham and Richard, and I think I've made another friend from P+P.

But glad when it finished as I was whacked! Knackeronied! Virtually shagged even... and when I got back I wanted to relax and watch Johnny Vegas in 'Ideal', my favourite current TV series, but also had got a Skype chat booked with K, who likes to be regular, every other day, to keep up with what's happening. I only just lasted the hour we have negotiated we have... and fell into bed so willingly afterwards!

I took the children into school, after inflating their tyres and oiling chains.
When I got back we both went to bed... so good to have some child-free time after a relatively tough Easter Holiday. But then I had to get on with my work... a post on the Community Care Blog which should have been in on Sunday or Monday. But there is flexibility, fortunately!

So did that and all too soon it was lunch time and after that I had to go to town to get some cheques out and attend a meeting I'd been invited to. This was the York Environment Forum, a 'replacement' to Local Agenda 21 and part of the wider Local Development Framework process, which in York is labelled 'Without Walls'. It was quite a lively discussion, and I was invited to join the group. It felt like old times, being up in Committee Room 3 in the Guildhall...

That ran from 4 til 6... and I sprinted home, trailer rattling and bouncing all over the place in order to get to the next meeting on time, the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel, at 6.30 in Archbishop Holgate School. I'm the acting Clerk so I have to be there, and I'm being sent all the paperwork so if I don't turn up, it doesn't happen. However, Colin was the only other person to turn up... maybe next time I'll send round an email reminder!

That only took 30 minutes so that enabled me to have a bite to eat before my third meeting, a York CRAG core-group, just four of us with some very intense discussions about how we run the group, membership issues and several other subjects. That ran from 8.15 til pub closing time... if one of the people there hadn't been quite so argumentative we'd have been away at 10pm. Never mind, I do like the argumentative-one's approach, it's not unlike mine except I've mellowed with age and have realised that things run more smoothly if nits are left unpicked sometimes....

So got in after 11 and had a few minutes chat with Gill before going on the computer to hook up with K on Skype as pre-arranged and we had a good chat and the cameras worked this time!

A good morning as the family went out and I got on the computer to continue collating my York Rotters activities over the past year, by reading the blog entries. I tried to add to a document which I had started and it got saved in a trial version of some software which I downloaded in order to see Powerpoint. But I was unable to edit this document as the trial version wouldn't let me do anything to it unless I purchased the full version... what sort of trial is that?

So I uninstalled this Microsoft nonsense and went back to good ol' Wordpad which is reliable. I was able to look through my blog and pick out all my composting activities other than creating heaps and turning or riddling my own heaps, just stuff outside my own garden or lottie. I got as far as August.

I did this til midday and then lit the stove in the other room to make some hot water for washing up, and had a bit of lunch and did a pile of washing up.

Then got ready to go to town, had a couple of cheques to pay in, a cheque to get out and a tiny bill to pay... a winter gas bill for £12!

Came back via Country Fresh, and when I got back I filled the current dalek bin up to the top, it's currently working at 45 degrees celcius and is sitting down every day, making space for more layers. I dug out another bin, one with pallets as sides and the base, turning it into the neighbouring one. Thousands of worms! This will make space for turning the other neighbouring pile into the now empty space, releasing the space for a new sit n wait pile.

I came in at about 6pm, and cooked some rice on the woodstove. I fried an onion and a leek and at the last minute popped some tiny cherry tomatoes into this, then the rice on top. I made a garnish using some 'stove-dried' tomatoes which I then put in olive oil... a 'John equivalent' of sun-dried tomatoes. This was a delicious meal, and as I was finishing, Gill and the boys came in from their day in Leeds. They'd had a brilliant day in Roundhay Park, and visiting Tropical World.

I went out to get some money out of the hole in the wall, to pay the chimney sweep tomorrow, and met Sarah who was buying cider and invited me in for a glass... which was really nice as we always get deep into interesting chat.

Enjoyed 'Ideal' on BBC 2 again, even though this was quite a gruesome one. Also had a good chat on Skype with K in America, although she needs to sort out her camera as it freezes and all I get is a 'still'! But a refreshing talk though.

A good day as much less was happening than yesterday...

I finished my blog for Community Care, I wrote about today being 'Fossil Fools Day' in some peoples' diaries, and more ways to cut your carbon footprint by using public transport other than flying. I mentioned about the latest recruit to the carbon reduction cause, British Airways, who have cancelled yet more flights from Terminal 5 at Heathrow, due to their incompetence in handling baggage. (only 19000 cases need to be reunited with their owners!)

Then a York Rotters management meeting at the EcoDepot at 11am, with the Rotters team and the Council team agreeing on the wording of our partnership agreement, our first written agreement! We did discuss a few other items, but the meeting only took an hour.

Popped into Morrissons for a loaf and came home, there was a house full of boys as our friends Katarina and Ulrich had come up from their new home in Leamington Spa and left their two boys with ours, whilst they went to work. Ulrich inspects organic farms and Katarina researches invasive plants.

I got my motorised riddle out and riddled a whole compost heap, something like about 500 litres worth (half a cubic metre) making 3 sacks of coarse material and 6 smaller sacks of fine compost. When Ulrich camme back from his farm inspection, he asked if he could have some of the riddled compost, and I was delighted to let him have some!

Had a lovely bowl of leek and potato soup/stew with crusty bread for tea, and later, at the appointed time, had a much more relaxed Skype conversation with K.

Woke at the usual time but it was later than I thought as the clocks had gone forward so most of the morning had gone already... but did have some good family times then watched Countryfile between doing bits of washing up.

The weather was fine and we all spent some time outside, I chopped some hedge sticks to again try to reduce the still large pile of stuff removed to put the fence in. Even an hour of working with secateurs hasn't made the pile any smaller, it seems. But it was good to be outside and the children played on the trampoline and in the little house that Gill built.

Gill made a simple tea using a couple of oven-bottom 'stottie cakes' given to us by Debbie, who's a Geordie and had brought them back from Newcastle the other day when visiting. Gilly made a kind of pizza-analogue and something she called a Russian Salad with some leftover cooked carot, potato, cauliflower and some chives, spring onions and other fresh bits.

I had to do a column by the end of today so I spent some of the day researching 'healthy hobbies' and typed it in before midnight. However, this meant that I didn't do much of my paid blog, and whilst in the middle of it, I had a very intense conversation with K in America via Skype, which put paid to any more straight thinking...