Human Lifestyle

I got up early as I wanted to attend the York in Transition Christmas Presents Swap at St Nicks, which started at 10am.  On the way I found a bunch of bright yellow 'Winter Mushroom' or Enokitake, Flammulina velupites.  I picked about a dozen, all quite small.

I was pleased to go as I met some good people and did two 'mini-tours' for people new to St Nicks, and I explained about the old landfill site, the beginnings of the nature reserve, the John Lally Wood, passive solar design, the two types of solar panel, green roof, rainwater harvesting, compost toilets and more.  I really love showing people round! 

I took a bottle of red wine with mulling spices, a Christmas present which we won't use as we don't drink red wine, and my usual bag of dried pea beans which I'm always happy to give out.  I met my friend Linda, who really likes red wine, and gave her the bottle.  She didn't want mulling spices, so those went on the swap table and were snapped up!  I came away with a jigsaw, a wok stand for the stove and a pair of gloves.  I gave two people some pea beans.

I came home at 12.30, Gill had gone to Scarborough on the train with our eldest and a friend, leaving the youngest at home in York.  I had lunch and spent a bit of time on the computer but then suggested to our lad that he come off his Roblox thingy and do something active.  Amazingly, he agreed and came outside and helped me move a lot of recently split logs from the front to a safe store at the rear of the house.  He kept going whilst I did some chainsawing and splitting.

Later, he asked if he could have the stove lit in the front room... and I talked him through how to do it, provided the raw materials and he did an excellent job, got it laid and lit really well.

I cooked tea... a 100% freegan tea, apart from a tablespoon full of EV olive oil.  I fried 2 onions (ones which had manky outside bits but the majority of the bulb was firm and lovely) and chopped up a small butternut squash which had a bit of damage at the stalk end, easy to chop out, a courgette which had one end going soft, a red pepper and most of 5 tomatoes.  All this got fried up on the front room stove.  I marinaded some out of date tofu (but hermetically sealed and absolutely fine) with garlic, balsamic vinegar and soy sauce, and then slow fried them in some free pumpkin oil which dates back to Out Of This World years ago, I think!  I put the mushrooms in with the tofu right at the end, and they just about disappeared.  Enokitake is a very small mushroom!  Then Gill came in and there was a request for pasta, so I boiled that on the stove.  Actually, this pasta was bought too, so not a 100% freegan meal... shame!   But a nice tea, much enjoyed.

I also really enjoyed... to the point of tears, the lovely BBC2 tribute to my favourite and now deceased actor, Pete Postlethwaite. Click here to see this on iPlayer, for the next few days only!

More fruit wrangling this evening, putting pineapple and apple into jars. And washing up, as per bally usual!

Spent the morning sorting out stuff for tomorrow's work in Huddersfield, looking at maps ant train times, contacting the market people... who were uncontactable and didn't get back to me... so I think I know what I'm doing, but it would have been good to have it confirmed.

I did a bit of assorted garden work, despite it being cold, and a visit to Country Fresh, and I sorted out a load of dried fruit for sale at tomorrow's LETS fair. I did 10 bags of 12 apple rings, 2 half pears, two half plums, two bananas, two kiwi slices, two pineapple slices, two persimmon slices... and labelled these for sale for £2 or £1 + Y1.  I also did  quite a few jars of fruit, again for a sterling and Yorky price, or just a sterling price.  I hope they all sell!

After tea I cycled down to Heslington to take the fruit to Melody.  I brought home a small bottle of truffle oil which had been prepared by their 12 year old entrepreneurial son.  He'd bought a 35 Euro truffle whilst on holiday in Italy and had worked out a way of recouping his money.  I now owe him £3.50's worth of dried fruit, which he loves, as a swap.

We all watched a good programme on the science of plants, and after that I had an interesting conversation with both boys based on an incident I'd read about because of a link in facebook, about a man who'd lost £80,000 from the roof of his car whilst driving to work, and a completely dissimilar event when our youngest found a pound on the sofa.  So we discussed the various ethical issues involved with finding lost money.  If you find a pound in the street, nearly everybody would just put it in their pocket.  Would you do it with a £2 coin?  A £20 note?  A roll of notes adding up to £100?  £1000?  Where is the cut off point?  What amount would you put in your pocket and think 'lucky me' and have no conscience, and at what value would you think 'I ought to report this find to the police'?  Obviously there's no 'right answer', it's one of those ethical dilemmas that occasionally people have to deal with.  This conversation led to a discussion about laws, speed limits, drugs, the age you can get married and more.  It meant they went to bed a bit late, but it was an interesting chat.

I did some more fruit later, and had a shave and a bath.

A very full day.  I started by cycling down to Country Fresh with Gill's big pink rucksack to pick up 16 pumpkins, 15 for the St Nicks Pumpkin Carving Evening, and one for me to make a pumpkin loaf from, to take along for people to try.  However, the pumpkins this year are a bit smaller than last year, and I got 10 in my trailer and 3 in each pannier.  So I didn't need the rucksack.  I also picked up a box of compostables, and cycled along to St Nicks, put the pumpkins on the landing, and went to the Komp compost bin with the perspex front to put some of the compostables in.  There were a large number of pumpkin seeds and pulp in there, so I retrieved a few of the seeds as for me, these are a valuable resource, although time consuming to prepare. 

When I got back I did a bit of wooding, and then had lunch.  After lunch I went back down Heslington Road as I'd met Zaf earlier, and he'd massacred a Laurel bush which had a honeysuckle growing through it, and he'd asked if I wanted it.  I decided that although this material was only worth composting, having almost no woody bits, I'd tidy it up for him, and I took a big builders dumpy bag to put the stuff in.  I spent half an hour sorting that out and brought most of it back, although a sackful remains.  Then I spent a happy half-hour shredding, and now have a good few tens of kilos of slightly woody, fibrous stuff for layering on the current compost heap between the more putrescible fruit and veg 'resources'.  When I'd finished this, I cycled round to Keith in Burnholme and he gave me the wood which was not picked up yesterday.  This was another huge load.  Before it got dark I popped round to Janet's to pick up some more pears, and I gave her some dried pears and apples as a thank you for the last load of pears.  As it got dark, I went round to Mick and Judy's old house, where builders said I could pick up some logs from their devastated garden, and whilst I was there, Dylan T. arrived as he's living there at the moment, and we had a nice chat. I came back with another trailer load of stove-fodder.

I jarred up more dried apples during the evening and sliced a load more... it's a good production line!

I got up in time to say bye to the kids.

Then it was paperwork time... I finally managed to get some admin done which I've been avoiding for a while, and posted it off. Went to the bread shop for a large bag of 'Yesterbake' rescued bread... this was baked on Saturday, not sold on that day, and available at quarter price today.

I did a lot more dried fruit, some washing up, a bit of outdoor gardening (OK, composting, I confess!), and some pallet smashing.

Then I tried an experimental tomato planting experiment, inspired by Tracey Smith.

How to do Upside Down Tomato Plants with Tracey Smith from Tracey Smith on Vimeo.
I had rescued 3 large plastic milk bottles last night from someone's recycling on Thief Lane (!), the biggest sort, and washed them out with hot water off the stove. Then today I cut off the bottoms with scissors and carefully filled the first few centimetres around the pouring hole with home made seed compost (not too rich) and then above that, richer soil. I laid this on it's side, and carefully made a small hole in the seed compost. Then I took a side shoot off a tumbler tomato and inserted it into the compost. I'm hoping that these will root and then be able to be hung up. I did this with two bottles and two side shoots, each less than 2 cm long. Then I took the mother plant, squashed the root ball and cut the milk exit-hole a bit to allow the insertion of the root ball... and then I put a load of compost mix in the bottle around the roots. I'd made some holes in the base of the bottle (the top, if upside-down) and used re-used string from potato sacks to make a hanging device... and then hung this in the conservatory. I expect the big one to do fine, but don't know about the cuttings.

I enjoyed Gill's mushroom omlette and asparagus, and then went to Ben's for a LETS meeting... actually a seminar to learn about the new YorkLETS website, which is really good. Ben talked us through what the non-logged-in visitor would see, what a logged-in member would see, and how to use the site. Then he explained about the different levels of access... member, committee member, administrator, and we had a go at uploading the newsletter, doing things to peoples' accounts and doing some trading. Magic... this makes LETS come right into the 21st Century and is a lot more user-friendly. And I enjoyed Jill's home-made ickle cakes... yummy!

Home at about 10pm, to do assorted computery-based activities until my usual bed-time of well past 1am.

A very good start to the day. I put a high score for 'joy' on my waking emotions questionnaire.

The rest of the day was good too... although I did lots of washing up and jarred up dried fruit, washed the drying racks and refilled them with apples and pears. I also did some assorted paperwork... fulfilled a Good Energy request to send them my gas meter reading, and had several Fiddlesticks enquiries and phone calls.

Towards the end of the afternoon I got out into the garden and dug out a builders sack of very mature compost and put it into a long line of plastic sacks, ready for riddling over the next few days or weeks. The builders bag will be refilled with the material which is currently in the metal-sided compost bin... the sides of which are both corrugated iron in a J shape, from an air raid shelter. I love digging out old compost heaps! I never know what I'll find... although this lot was quite 'clean' with relatively little plastic and glue strips.

I came in at 7pm for tea... Gill had added some macaroni into the chunky veg soup I made a day or two ago, and it was a delicious meal.

Later, after dark, I got a message from a Freecycler who wanted some compost, manure or topsoil. They asked how much a tonne might cost! Well i sell carrier bags of riddled compost for a pound or two or three, and sacks of unriddled for £2 to £5, these sacks might be 20kg or so. Which means that a tonne of unriddled compost, at £2 per 20kg, would be £100. I hope that price didn't put her off! I did say I could do a bulk discount, but I wouldn't want to let it go for much less than that, after all it is lovingly and carefully made!

Several good moves on Scrabble, but my top opponent Gael is on good form and I'm falling behind again.

Another low-key day with not a whole lot happening. I got up before 10 in order to ring one of my Fiddlesticks clients from last year and there's an outstanding payment, and a few other things to discuss. I had a bit of other paperwork to do too.

Last night I remembered that I had forgotten to give Gill a present I'd bought her in early December... I'd found a shop, on Bishopthorpe Road, which sold second hand things and antiques, and I spotted some flat irons... the type which sits on a hot surface and is used in the same way as an electric iron is these days. Earlier last year, Gill took the bus all the way to Easingwold to pick up some flat irons advertised in the back of the Press but they were in poor condition and rusty, and the sandpaper and glasspaper and 'wet and dry' I got to smooth down the base hasn't been used. So the ones I got in the Bishy Road shop were great... nice flat bottoms and in good condition. The gentleman did say that they would have been blacked up and would need a good clean before use.

Anyway, I'd left them in the garage and forgotten them. So this morning I got them down from their hidey hole and gave them to her. She was SO pleased! Gill does do quite a bit of ironing, and if she could do it using less or no electricity, that would be good. We have our woodstoves going for quite a few months of the year, it makes sense to use that heat for as much as possible.

So that was a good thing. Gill went into town with both boys to go and use some vouchers or tokens or something. That was a good thing too as when they came back they had pooled their money and vouchers and got a large lego car... remote control I think. They were both happy with this. But not happy that today is the last day of the holidays.

I went to a LETS meeting in the evening; just 3 of us but it was a good meeting and I had a good chat to Lynn about all sorts of things afterwards, especially what her vicar Father Tim Jones has been getting up to recently. The Press has reported it reasonably well, and to their credit, have reproduced the whole sermon, but of course there has been a lot of misunderstanding amongst some of the other media. I'm glad what he has said has got the whole issue of UK poverty back onto the agenda, and how society treats its poorest.

I came home and peeled and prepared 51 bananas for drying! I've still got perhaps 100 left... will they last until I can dry them all? I wonder!

I enjoyed lots of time outside in the garden today, turned a compost heap, tried to mend my large Compostumbler which has rusted through in a couple of places, tidied up a raised bed and assorted other bits in the back.

I did a load of chainsawing too, in the front. And built a bit of logpile on the right of the front door. And let a neighbour have a wheelbarrow full of logs for their chimenea or whatever.

A difficult evening. Went to bed early. I read NewScientist and got up again at 11 when all was peaceful again. I filled two 700g peanut butter jars with dried apple rings and one with pear slices, plus a smaller jar with pear slices. I jarred up all the quartered and dried kiwi fruit, one 700r peanut butter jar managed to get 29 kiwi fruit in, that is 116 quarter portions! Then I re-arranged the bananas I'd done in the last day or two onto the bottom rack (36 of them) and peeled and prepared and placed very carefully another 48 bananas on racks for drying over the next 24/36 hours. By then, the older ones will be ready for their jars, and I'll move the current fresh ones down onto the lower rack. It's a slow production line, keeping fruit out of landfill and out of my compost heaps... and into my muesli and into the tummies of quite a few of my friends and relatives!

The whole family were together on the stroke of midnight but I wasn't in a celebratory mood. It was civil and sober. In fact, this must be one of the first New Years for some while when I haven't had anything to drink.

Happy New Year all! Let's hope it's one where the majority take on board the importance of conserving resources, polluting less, living more simply and being nice to each other. In particular, I'd like ordinary people to get the 10:10 message. I see this as a crucial year. Certainly a crucial decade.

A lovely day, back to my usual bouncy self. A late start... due to my going to bed after 3am.

Boys and Gill also up late and we all had a lazy morning.

Gill popped into town and I got a message from my friend Caroline inviting me to let her have some of my compost... I was only too happy to oblige! I loaded my trailer up and went to the allotments where she was planting an apple tree. I'm giving up my allotment as I just haven't had a chance to keep it properly, and it needs to go to someone who has more time and more of a need for it. But our garden should be a bit more usable next year as the raised bed area has now got the big nearby hedge removed and this will mean more stuff can be grown in the raised beds... hopefully!

I then visited Country Fresh and chatted with Richard and came home with 2 sacks of compostables, including a whole load of sad Primula plants in pots which might be rescuable.

Had a use it all up evening meal and a reasonably peaceful evening. I watched the Channel 4 programme with stories and videos from the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, which was both fascinating and disturbing.

Later, I jarred up a load of dried pears and put yet more bananas to dry.

Another late morning but a peaceful one.

I spent time on LinkedIn, replying to a topic posted on 'The-Green-Group.com' by a guy who's developed a technology which converts 'waste' (his terminology) to 'SynGas', a type of pyrolysis or gasification, a way of heating materials and getting a fuel off them. I am a proponent of materials recycling, keeping plastic as plastic, agricultural wastes as solid carbon (and sequestering it in soil as compost), rather than converting it to something which will power cars or electricity generation... and releasing that carbon into the air. I also feel that having a constant market for these materials, to feed incinerators, will skew the economics for recyclable materials. For instance, (purely hypothetically) if it costs £100 per tonne to take plastic bottles to a recycling plant and render them into a new product, and a 'waste to energy' plant pays £10 a tonne for the same material, which is the local authority more likely to do? I don't have a problem with renewable materials (like agricultural wastes) being used for power generation, and I'm particularly interested in anaerobic digestion, which gives methane or natural gas, plus a digestate which can be composted and added to soils. BUT this can only replace our fossil fuel addiction if we rapidly cut the amount of energy and resources we are consuming. The 'Energy from Waste' proponents just want to replace coal power stations with rubbish powered ones. They are not in the game of radical reduction in energy use, per se. However, many of the people involved are in fact keen greens and support concepts such as permaculture and low carbon technologies.

Interesting discussions and hopefully some mutual awareness raising.

During the afternoon I finally got outside to bring logs from the back up to the front to rebuild the logpile on the left of the door... and we've nearly used all the pile on the right, so hardly any really dry logs left. We've plenty of old dry wood, but it's been outside on pallets and has had a wet winter's worth of rain and snow on it. It will burn, but best if it has a few weeks in the dry first. I'm stacking some round the stoves to flash-dry them... although this process reduces the warmth coming into the room somewhat, as the heat on the damp logs is used to evaporate moisture, not left as 'free' heat.

I had rescued a tray of slightly shriveled kiwi fruit from one of the shops before Christmas and today I managed to peel and slice quite a few of them to dry. I did 5 for a fruit salad and about 20 on racks on the stove. I helped Gill prepare the meal... rice and assorted veg, roast Turk's turban squash, and some felafel.

I watched a very interesting programme about how people who were affected by the tsunami felt about their faith. Despite my being an agnostic, I'm really interested in what people believe and why. This programme was good as some had come through the event without questioning God, some had questioned their faith, one person who had lost their entire family said she hated God for doing it. There were some who blamed 'Karma' for the loss of innocent lives... it was fascinating.

I got a phone call from my sister which was most welcome. I am so lucky to have the support of my siblings. They both have very different qualities and attributes, and I'm grateful for them both being in my life, and supportive and loving.

I had a long facebook instant messaging chat with a friend in Germany who is going through some difficult times. It feels good to be able to offer some support there.

A quiet day in the house, I was feeling subdued and I think the rest of the family were too. But we were expecting a visit from Gill's sister Jane, and husband Mike, at 2pm, so we were reasonably busy tidying and making our front room presentable. I also worked out train times and booked taxis for tomorrow, as I'm going to Northallerton and then on to Masham for the Black Sheep Brewery's usual Christmas 'do' where I'm a regular entertainer.

It was good to see Jane and Mike and chat, see some recent photos of new family members, and I showed them their son's facebook page with a funny photo of him messing around at work, which amused them. At about the same time that they went, I cycled down to Country Fresh as I won't be able to do so tomorrow as I'm working all day.

During the early evening I put together Ben and Jill's Christmas request; that I should find 5 big jars and 7 small ones and fill each one with a mixture of dried fruit... and they will then give them as Christmas presents to assorted family members. I walked them round, and Jill was really pleased. I'll be paid Yorkys later.

Enjoyed a lengthy session of Scrabble on facebook, whilst listening to Jango which gives me assorted music, most of which I like, and that which I don't, I can instruct it not to play me again.

Quite a late start and when I bumbled down stairs, Gill was talking to one of our neighbours on the sofa. This neighbour has a house near Robin Hood's Bay... and we are wanting to visit for a few days (to get our 'fix' of the place!) so we might be hiring their place.

I got dressed and did some tidying in the conservatory... there's still Cinnamon vine (Dioscorea batata or Chinese Yam) to be removed, and the hundreds of little aerial tubers needed collecting up so I can either replant, distribute or eat!

Had a bit of a lie-in and then spent over an hour finishing off my blog from the FERA conference.

Then lunch!

Did some chainsawing and a bit more tidying up the bricks from the chimney... I now have a stack of 60 or so cleaned-up 'clamp bricks' which I'll re-use to plug a gap between the back of the house and a wall which is now part of the conservatory. Currently it is filled with some wooden battens with horizontal fence-type wooden planks (just one brick long) and this needs to be replaced. These bricks will do the job. But I won't. I need to find a brickie, and maybe one who has a brick-saw to cut the bricks down, as they fill the gap quite tightly, leaving no space for mortar.

Gill went out and the boys played in the garden, then read quietly. A very peaceful and low-key day. Gill and I had a game of Scrabble after tea, and I played lots of Scrabble on Facebook. Interspersed with peeling and slicing fruit for the drying racks...

The day started well and got better, despite Gill being not very well. Once I was washed and dressed, I went to the bread shop and got some 'Yesterbake' bread plus a couple of pasties which will make tea easy to do.

Mid afternoon I went to Country Fresh to pick up tickets for tomorrow's gig... I'm the Compere so I don't need a ticket, but I've been asked to get two tickets for a couple of friends. Richard, who works there and is the drummer of The Falling Spikes, who are playing at Sound Mind at The Duchess to raise money for York Mind. He told me that the venue, who are going to make loads of money on the bar, and had originally said that the venue would be free, have just announced that they'll be charging £250 for the venue. So that's £250 less for York Mind. I am unhappy about this as all the performers are appearing for free, and the idea is to raise money for a worthwhile charity, not to make extra profits for a venue. Maybe they'll change their mind... I'll certainly be asking the management tomorrow.

I collected a sack and a half of recyclables from Richard, plus some veg and fruit, and a bag of apples and pears for Debbie who I'd popped into on the way down there.

Gill was feeling very poorly... her leg was aching and had swelled up so she rang NHS Direct, but they were too busy and cut her off. She rang the emergency doctor and a GP rang back. His advice was to go to Accident and Emergency, so when I got back from the greengrocers she rang a taxi and went to the Hospital. But she rang me from there saying the place was absolutely full of coughing and sneezing and spluttering people, some of whom had been there since 1pm (over 3 hours) so she got a bus back home.

Whilst Gill was out, we finished the game of Scrabble which was started with the boys last night. I won, but both of them got some awesome words and good scores.

I cooked some potatoes and Gill did the cauliflower, and we had a simple tea.

More fruit drying during the evening... yet another three thown-away pineapple sliced and placed carefully on the racks on the woodstove. They only take about 24 hours to dry, and are greatly improved by the more concentrated flavour. I'll be taking a jar of mixed dried fruit to the Sound Mind gig tomorrow as a raffle prize.

Enjoyed a programme on More 4 about Antony Gormley. I like sculpture... he's not my favourite sculptor, but he's pretty good!

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 early as builders coming to remove the unused chimney and put on new boards at the edge of the roof.

But it was raining hard and when they came they realised that my logpiles had to be moved. The workers rang the boss and he rang me back to say they'd be around on Thursday. And yes, I do have to move the logpiles. They offered to do it, but building a new logpile is an art, so I'm doing it. I've never seen somebody else build a better logpile than me, apart from Alastair Heseltine, who is an artist and sculptor whom I think is inspirational. Do have a flick through his website, click on the photos on the left of the screen to move around...

I moved one of the two logpiles at the side of the house to the side of the passage between our garden and our next door neighbour. I'll move the other one tomorrow, and tidy up. I didn't move the second one today as there was a thunderstorm with hail and driving rain.

I spent some of today peeling and slicing and drying a huge load of Persimmon, sometimes known as Sharon Fruit. They naturally have a couple of dark marks on them, and can get very soft and squishy but are still delicious and edible. However, one of the greengrocers has chucked out about 20 to 30 boxes, each with six fruits in. Each fruit makes 4 slices so that's a huge amount of dried persimmon, but it is really worth it as it's lovely, a great texture and flavour!

I got ready for work at about 4pm, as was booked to go and entertain at the 20th anniversary of the University of York Nursery. I was able to take my bike and trailer through to the back where there is a covered outdoor area with a soft surface, and I did about half an hour of walkabout and making faces to the kids inside the building, their laughing faces pressed up against the window, and me either sticking my tongue out or crossing my eyes, or thumbing my nose... all silly but good fun interaction. Then I did my show... a big audience of at least 40 children and same numbers of adults, a very quick show but a good un! Finally, I made a lot of balloon animals, just giving them out to whomsoever wanted them, til about 6 when there was a firework display at the front of the building. I had a baked potato with beans and cheese, packed up and cycled towards home. Lovely!

I popped in to Simon and Melody as both their children went to that nursery, and I had mentioned this during the booking discussions and as I left today, one of the staff said to give their regards to the family. So I did so.

Home for a bit of fruit, cake and ice cream, and out again to the Seahorse for the first 'Climate Argument Club', an offshoot of York in Transition. Some of us are engaged in debates, discussions or even arguments with people about things connected with climate change, so we met to discuss how to handle them, and whether to do some kind of training to help us deal with the sorts of arguments and opinions we face. We felt that if people understood the science, then we wouldn't need to do too much else, but we also recognised that people are affected by emotions, traditions, religion, 'gut' feelings, where their heart leads them and of course, misinformation and propaganda. We didn't come up with any firm conclusions, but I'm sending a couple of files and links to Bryony, Dan and Sue, as these would help or come in useful.

I had promised Gill that I'd be in by 10pm... I just managed it!

But I then had a lot of email and facebook stuff to do, plus the obligatory blog post, and there's space on the drying racks as stuff shrinks.

Quite an early start as although my work in Leeds starts at midday, the train times mean I had to leave on the 10.11 train. And before this, I had to deliver the pumpkin soup to St Nicks.

So, I was up before 8 and had a shower and hair wash, Gill made my sandwiches and ironed my costume, I breakfasted and packed, loaded the bike. Gill was worried about my taking the preserving pan of soup on my bike, but it was quite easy and I got it to St Nicks un-spilled and with the loose-fitting lid still on. Catherine, our head Rotter, was pleased to see this.

Then onto the station and got my day return to Cross Gates. Once there, it was a 15 minute walk up a hill to the Church hall where Swiis Foster Care were having a half-term fun day, with about 20 children and the same number of adults invited. I arrived an hour early, as the next train of the day would have meant me getting there only minutes before being due to start, so I got the earlier train and had an hour to wait. However, there was an aerobics class going on so I sat quietly at the back and half-read, half watched this... I've never seen anything like it!

They finished at 11.30 and I got set up, got changed and the guests and organisers started to arrive. One of the staff, Gael, is a friend of mine from the Northern Green Gathering, and it was lovely to see her again. I was glad to be in costume to welcome the children, and I played throw/catch with my juggling balls, although one got lost. At 12.15 I started my show, and they were obviously completely un-used to live interactive entertainment. But quite soon I had nearly all of the children and a couple of the adults up and doing things, and the show lasted just over an hour.

As usual, whilst they were eating, I inflated a unicycle-wheel full of modelling balloons and then got everybody, including all the adults, having an attempt at making balloon animals. Lots of fun, finishing just before 3pm.

Got changed, got paid, got back to Cross Gates where I finished my NewScientist and was back in York for 4.20. Home via Country Fresh, where Martin had got me God knows how much unsold stock... I was only able to take two boxes of it on my pannier rack as my trailer was full of unicycles and juggling equipment.

I had a quick tea as soon as I got back, the boys were finishing theirs prior to going out to the St Nicks Pumpkin evening. I took my big pumpkin down, to enter it into the giant pumpkin competition, despite it being not much bigger than a human head. I decided to go via Country Fresh and picked up two sacks full of compostables and a big tray of grapes in punnets, each punnet having some mouldy grapes in, but, crucially, some good ones too! I left them in the punnets... and went to St Nicks and arrived at the same time as Gill and the boys who had walked down.

The pumpkin evening was very well attended, with quite a few folks I knew, including Jeremy Piercy, Jim and family, and Robin, to name but a few. My boys both carved a pumpkin, I had mine weighed and it was 24 lbs, and the biggest of three entrants! It looked like my medium pumpkin was the winner of the Giant Pumpkin Competition! Unfortunately, when the judge of the pumpkin carving arrived, Anneliese, and she chose her first, second and third from three age categories, neither of my boys won anything... but I won a new model of wormery called a Worm Cafe, see this (silent) video about how to use it! I was amazed.. I really hadn't thought I'd win. And it's worth close on £100! I balanced it precariously on top of the sacks of compostables and walked home with my family.

A quiet evening, slicing apples and sorting and blanching grapes. More raisins in a few days!

Quite a busy day as we have to get the house tidied and cleaned as we are having visitors this afternoon and overnight.

So, Gill and I did some sorting out and vacuuming... I took down most of the tomato plants and dead yams in the conservatory so I could put the trays of apples and pears there, from where they were in the front room, which is where the futon is. Which is what Jennifer and Mark will be sleeping on.

So, did a variety of jobs to try to make the place a bit more respectable.

They arrived at about 4pm and left their two boys with us as they had come over for a meeting, and came back about an hour later to settle down for a cosy evening.

The children had pasta, veg and tomato/leek sauce, and we had rice and nan bread and felafels, wine and chat, followed by a game of Scrabble which Gill won.

We watched Derren Brown on telly after which they went to bed. I peeled a load of plums for drying. I ate one and now I know why they were thrown away. I hope drying improves them!