Human Lifestyle

A good day, up fairly early and cycled out towards Stamford Bridge to see Julie, who is interested in going greener and I think I may have persuaded her to get a compost bin.  Spent an hour or so with her and on the way back I found some honey fungus growing on a tree stump.  I collected a few of these and a bit closer into York, picked up some branches which will make good kindling.

When I got in I had a good session of stacking outside the front door, and then a late lunch.  A low key afternoon, mainly within the house, washing up and dealing with pumpkin seeds and fruit.  I had the honey fungus for tea along with an assortment of other bits and pieces.

I popped along to Dylan T's house to sort out his recycling problem (their green bin, supposed to be used for green waste, is full of bottles and cans and mixed waste) and met Tiger, a keen cyclist whom I get good vibes from, and then I visited a friend who is battling alcoholism.  They also use their green bin for cider cans... it was completely full, and we calculated that there was about £100 worth of cider there... or the empty cans which used to contain the cider.  I had some deep conversations with this person, they voluntarily let me confiscate 5 cans left in the house, which I'll pay for not with cash (which would get converted into alcohol) but by getting some fresh fruit and veg tomorrow.  I'm trying to be a good friend. I really don't want to lose this person, but I think it is quite likely that their addiction will kill them.

In the evening I waited in to see my Fiddlesticks photo projected onto a Warsaw building, part of an advertising campaign by Aviva, called Be The Big Picture... I participated as the company said that they would give £2 per photo to Save the Children.  So at 9.23 BST my family watched for the approx 3 seconds it was up... after which I went out to the York University People and Planet Bonfire on the Allotment.  I had some lovely conversations, met some good people, some of whom I'm friends with already, some I interact with mainly through facebook, and some new people too.  I rolled in at 1.45am....

A busy morning, cycled into town... first to put two cheques in from recent gigs, then to the bank to try to work out why there's so little in there. (answer, school shoe shopping!) Then to the station to get tickets for Saturday, when I'm off to Preston for the weekend. Then to the Credit Union to withdraw some money from there, and took that cheque to the bank to help our balance there. Finally, back to the building society to get cash out so we can get by over the weekend.

Came back via Country Fresh and Freshways, another 3 bags of assorted compostables and reusables.. and home for a squishy avocado sandwich. Yum.

Had a good afternoon at home, did some chainsawing and have much less of a pile to do now. But, I have loads of stacking, something I enjoy doing.

Before tea, I walked down to Blockbusters with both boys, as they wanted to rent a computer game for a week... and so they got a Wii game with lots of rabbits, known as Rabbids on this disc.

Gill had made pizza for tea, but the dough hadn't risen much so it was a kind of unleavened bread pizza. The toppings were good though, home grown tomatoes and some wild mushrooms I picked off a verge between here and the University.

Yet more pear peeling and slicing, and a hot evening loading up the drying racks...

Had a quick peek at one of my favourite blogs, 'The Compost Bin' and found this:


Many thanks to Compostwoman, who is based in Herefordshire and is probably equally as keen on compost as I am... but she has chickens too!

A smooth morning... apparently the child who had to finish his homework got up at 5am to do it and was ready to go to school early! I left soon after with the other, and got to school on time as usual. On the way home I found some clumps of Flammulina, winter mushroom or velvet shank, so brought those back to add to the evening meal.

Gill and I had a tidying morning and sorted out the SUMA order. I quickly cycled down to the bank to pay in a cheque from one of the SUMA food co-op members and transfer some money into our SUMA account so we can pay for the order when it's delivered. After lunch I went to see David the photographer to look at the pics he's sorted out from the gig a few weeks ago. Some lovely shots of the audience enjoying themselves, but not that many good ones of me, mainly because of a non-uniform background confusing the images.

I picked up some stuff from Country Fresh and brought it home, going straight off to school to do the composting there and pick up our little one. He'd had a good day and was whistling loudly on the way home.

We got home at almost the same time as our eldest, who came back with a new friend who's not been here before. So a pretty happy bunch of children, very nice! Whilst the older two were on the computer, I played on the Wii at my son's request... he's much better than me so I let the team down somewhat and he then asked me to get off the team as he'd do better by himself!

But, it was a very nice Friday evening... we all ate together although the boys had baked potatoes and omelette and Gill and I had stir-fried veg (including the enokitake mushrooms I picked earlier and some reject sprouts which I had to peel/prepare quite carefully to get to the edible bits) with noodles... and I had some of the pickled walnuts from last summer. Very vinegary.

In the evening, checked out the trailers for a forthcoming film The Age Of Stupid, which looks really interesting. It's based on a surviving human (Pete Postlethwaite) in 2055 looking back and wondering why we didn't DO SOMETHING about the impending climate crisis which was obvious to anyone who understood basic science and could foresee the consequences of continued consumption of carbon fuel. The film comes out in March and promises to have more of an impact than An Inconvenient Truth. I look forward to it.

I also did a load more fruit drying, washing up and general household stuff whilst Gill snoozed... she's a 'lark' and I'm an 'owl' but we still find time to be awake together and enjoy each other's company...

Quite a good day... up earlier than I'd have liked, as I didn't sleep well. Got to bed as usual at 2ish and just lay there with thoughts racing round my head, so at 3.30 got up and came downstairs and played on the computer for half an hour, did some washing up, went to bed at 4.30 and fell asleep immediately! But up at 8 to take our youngest to school.....

And straight into town from school, cycling through the University, where I popped into the info place to find out whom I might talk to about getting the University involved in the Compost Doctors scheme, and along the Foss Islands Road and past the Minster to my dentist. Or more accurately, my hygienist, Cheryl, whom I see every other time, between the dentist who's called Pru (or perhaps Prue). Anyway, my teeth are reasonably OK but there are three areas which I need to work on a bit harder. I have to pay for the hygienist, and so this time paid for that plus some tiny inter-dental brushes and daily mouthwash... two of the reasons my teeth and gums are better than what they were.

Came straight home, via Gill waiting at the bus stop to go into town, so cycled over to her side of the road and gave her a big kiss, and home. Split a few logs and waited for the phone call from Elvina, who came to see York in Transition last week and today was having a 'John tour' round St. Nicks. She rang at 11 having got into York Station and was just getting on the bus. I cycled down to the bus stop we'd agreed, and waited for her, but not for long.

Elvina enjoyed her little wander round St Nicks, and I pointed out all the features which make it 'green'. We visited the stone circle and she took photos of the recycling collection vehicle, woodstove, Rotters info, energy meters, wind turbine and the building itself. Around the back, on and around the kids play area, there were perhaps 50 aluminium beer cans which had been thrown around by partygoers the previous night (presumably) so we collected them up, stamped them flat, and I filled a found polybag with them, to take home and add to my sackfuls to eventually take to the metal merchant.

On the way out of the nature reserve, I spotted a tree trunk with several big bunches of Oyster Mushroom. I removed some of the most edible-looking ones and carefully put them on a cloth bag in my trailer. Felt very pleased I'd found where Simon had found his clusters a few weeks ago... but I'll share these with him as he generously shared his finds with me.

So walked home with Elvina, took a quick tour of the garden and came in to warm up and have lunch. She then interviewed me on tape to get some quotes and commentary for her project. She'll use my info and ideas, and paraphrase it. Might end up on YouTube! Gill arrived home and had lunch; Elvina and I finished and she went to get the bus back to the station and train to Leeds.

I had half an hour before picking up our little one. So I split another few rounds...

When I cam back home Gill asked me to tidy the front garden as it was looking untidy, so I did, and took a load of stuff down the garden for composting, including a potato sack of garlic cloves in perhaps 100 little plastic net bags. I had to curteach of these bags with my big composting knife in order to put these past-it garlics on the new heap. So spent at least an hour outside doing that and other tidying jobs. Place still looks messy, though.

Tea was lovely, mushrooms and veg in white sauce with a mashed potato topping. Nice one Gilly.

A relatively quiet evening. Lots of email traffic.

Woken up fairly early and decided that as the weather was reasonable I'd try to finish the job I started the other day, helping Joan in Tang Hall deal with her fallen apple tree. I cycled my quiet electric shredder round in my trailer and spent about an hour feeding all the huge pile of twiggy bits through plus some of the smaller apples. This resulted in four sacks of shreddings, perfect for my composting. Also a pile of sticks for kindling (in a year or two!) and some bigger logs.

Gill took the boys into town on the bus, to take back a computer game that our youngest bought (create a monster) which the person in the shop said didn't need internet access to use... but it does so it's getting taken back. Their computer doesn't have internet and Gill's laptop (second hand) doesn't have Windows XP, the programme needed for the game. I suppose they could run it on my laptop but I'd prefer them not to! They walked back from town, getting in as I was having lunch.

Gill wanted to go to town to have a hair cut so I persuaded the boys to cycle to the park with a football and a frisbee and we spent over an hour there, playing together on the seesaw and swings, and I found some of my favourite mushrooms, the 'fairy ring champignon' (Marasmius oreades) which is very tasty and quite meaty although small. I picked a hatful.

Came home with these plus three long branches sticking out of my trailer, and when we got back the boys played on the trampoline, making a hell of a noise whilst I picked a load of blackberries and cut a hedge. I had rescued some pears from the veg shop a day or two ago and cut out the bad bits (mostly less than 20% of the available fruit) and stewed these pear slices on top of the woodstove with the blackberries... totally yummy.

During the evening, our youngest child felt unwell, with a tummy ache and loose bowels, and at bedtime whilst doing his teeth, 'passed wind' and also some bloody mucus so I rang the out of hours doctor and asked what we should do. The doc rang back, and after the usual set of questions advised me to bring him to the hospital to the out of hours doctor service, next to the A+E department. We got him dressed and I got a cushion for my bike back-rack, and he sat on this, holding onto me and we cycled down the cycle track all the way to the hospital's A+E department. This seems to have been refurbished... not to quite palatial standard but it is very nice, as was the doctor who saw us. She took his temperature and palpated his tum... and suggested that as he was quite cheerful, he didn't have a bacterial infection but probably a viral inflammation. The advice was to take him home, encourage him to have plenty of liquids and he'd get better soon. If he got worse, contact them again...

We got home just in time for me to see the last installment of 'The Man Who Cycled The World' which was really inspiring. Late night watching programme on how humans abuse the seas especially sharks, whilst typing away...

I took the boys into school and then at 11, we both went in to have a meeting with the head and several others, which went well and we left reasonably reassured. We came home and had lunch, cannot remember what we did with the rest of the afternoon, but 3pm came all too quickly and I cycled down and brought them back.

A good evening, though, as I had an early tea... including the second lot of 'chicken of the woods' mushroom, cooked in tomato and leek this time, to help it be a little more moist. Had this with a home-made burgery thing using yesterday's unused rice. Delicious!

Then I bombed down to the Minster to attend the celebratory Critical Mass, about 10 of us happy that York has been made a cycling demonstration city, with Cycling England giving York £3.7 million to help promote cycling. So we had a 10 mile tootle round, very good natured apart from one aggressive taxi driver.

A very late night, including a game of Scrabble with Gill, which I won.

Gill took our youngest to school and our year 6 10 year-old was due in his secondary school at 10ish for a fun day, so he walked up there with a friend.

Gilly and I had a relaxed morning which was refreshing, and then continued doing the mound of housework. I did some cropping in the garden, our walnut tree has fruited very well this year so I took off all but one nut per bunch, and will pickle the pruned-out immature walnuts. I've never had pickled walnuts but Gill likes them and Gill's mum loved them, they were a great treat. I'll have to make needle-pricks in them and put them in brine before letting them dry and putting them in vinegar.

Whilst picking these, I noticed one of my large logs (actually an innocculated cherry trunk) had fruited with my favourite mushroom, 'chicken of the woods' which is a really meaty and solid fungus which is almost indistinguishable from firm chicken flesh... except more ethical, lower carbon and less cruel! I cut the huge and heavy fruiting body off and washed it and pared off the woodlouse poo which was semi-incorporated in the top surface. Once prepared, I cut it into cubes and fried it in olive oil, and had this as a garnish on the rice and veg which Gill cooked for us for tea.

I went to Country Fresh and picked up another large load, including at least 20 cucumbers in plastic sheaths which I had to spend some time cutting off before composting the unwanted fruit. It seems weird that I am carefully nurturing my cucumber plants and watching the cucs grow bigger day-by-day, whilst the commercial system just throws away dozens of unsold ones...

Also did some weeding of regrowing nettle roots, invasive ground elder and brambles, and made another layer on the bay-window-radiator compost heap. There's no chance of them growing as it gets so hot! I had a magazine delivered this morning which I subscribe to, Kitchen Garden. Last month, there was an article about coping with mares tail, and the author, Sandra, whom I know as she's from York, had put 'on no account compost them', which I disagree with as I have composted lots, from two neighbours' gardens. So I had written in to the magazine to explain how to successfully compost mares tail, nettle and ground elder, and even Japanese Knotweed. My letter was published, but without my name as I said that I knew Sandra and I guess the editor didn't want me to embarrass her or something...

Anyway, the trick is to do it hot, dry or wet. Hot heaps are best... shred the offending material with lots of other stuff and turn it so it all heats up as it breaks down. Nothing survives the 60 to 70 degrees celcius temperatures generated. The dry method involves drying the roots etc off on a patio or path, and when completely crunchy, put them on the heap. This however, does not kill seeds, which can grow in the finished compost. The wet method is good, if a bit smelly. The materials are placed in a bucket of rainwater and left immersed to go gooey for several weeks. This slop can then be poured on your heap, or the liquid used for watering plants, as it's full of nutrients, and the stringy plant materials composted.

I went to town in the afternoon to give in the planning panel paperwork and talk to a couple of Council officers about various issues, pay in my Sheffield Green Fair cheque and buy a replacement blender/liquidiser, which I'd seen in Barnitts. Got one for half price, a good one which ought to last longer than the two £20 jobbies we've gone through in the past few years. We do a lot of food preparation so a good liquidiser is important. The one I got has a juicer thing which fits in the goblet, so during the evening I peeled about 15 oranges (also thrown out, probably because of skin blemishes) and put them in the juicer, made just over a litre of juice. Lovely!

Happy New Year everybody!

Saw in the New Year with my wife, children (yes, both of them stayed up!) and our friend Alison. We spent most of the evening with Simon and Melody and their son, and we had a really lovely evening. Alison arrived later, she's also a close friend of Melody and Simon, so it was very cosy. We had some good food and a variety of drinks, games of Jenga and picture consequences, and played some tapes (Orb, Eatstatic, Deep Purple) and all in all it was a very enjoyable night. We have an excellent view over York from our loft window, so once we'd heard it was midnight we shot up to the loft to watch the fireworks.

Alison left at 1am and we did a little bit of clearing up before collapsing at 2.

Woke needing orange juice and paracetamol at 7am!

Woke again at 9, the boys had woken Gill at 7.30.. we'd hoped that their late to bed time might cause them to sleep in later... but no joy.

At midday, our first visitor of the day arrived, a bit of a suprise because I wasn't expecting Lorna to visit, but she'd been dancing the year out with her sister in Dunnington, and popped in to say hi on her way home to the Midlands. It was lovely to see her and for my family to meet her. I showed her the garden, despite the standing water and mud, and she stayed about an hour.

We had a bit o lunch and then another suprise, the always busy Jim Semlyen, with his 8 yr old daughter and his partner's two children. He was giving his partner some space, and it was really good to catch up. Our boys played really nicely with the visitors, even though they'd only met Jim's daughter before. We fed them, even though they hadn't come for food! Spent a couple of hours chatting, it was a really good New Year visit.

I did an hour of clearing up in the cold and wet before it got dark, then came in and did an enormous wash up and food prep... had earlier picked some 'Winter Mushrooms' off a productive log (also known as Velvet Shank due to their black stem, 'enokitake' in Japan and in Latin, 'Flamulina velupites') and had these with some onion and sweetcorn with a breadroll and potato salad.