Human Lifestyle

Spent the morning reading and writing.... wrote a letter to the Press about a carfree York, in reply to a letter published yesterday.

But in the afternoon I did quite a bit of garden work, including transferring the contents of one dalek into the one next to it for maturation, and harvesting a load of worms to restock a wormery. I shredded the large pile of woody shrubbery which I cut down before my ankle broke to give the redcurrants more light. I despatched another two rodents to rodent heaven (a hot compost pile!)

In the house I did some washing up and hoovering. I had several Fiddlesticks phone calls. Gill has just about finished the accounts and this past year (09/10) is about £2000 down on last year on the gross income. In a recession, people cut out non essentials, and bought-in entertainment is in many cases a non essential. I really do have to find some other way of generating income.

After the children came home I cycled down to Country Fresh and got some veggies plus 4 boxes of 'resources', some of which I was able to load up into a dalek which has space.

After tea I cut some hedge with shears and the sky got dark and thunder rumbled in the distance, then got nearer and there were a few flashes and a bit of rain. I came in and dried off.

I got an email from a neighbour up the road saying there was a branch waiting for me outside their house so I went out again to pick it up in my bike trailer, and found a couple of broken chairs too which had wooden legs and backs which looked suspiciously like kindling to me...

I popped into see my friend who is fighting alcoholism, and they had news of their friend who has had a liver transplant, needed because of the same illness. Later on I chatted with two friends both of whom are fighting difficult internal mental battles.

Later, my laptop developed a problem with the power supply and kept on shutting down. I wonder if the battery needs replacing, and why was the mains power not keeping the machine going? I wonder if the mains power thing has gone wrong. I feel a visit to Ben might be in order!

But, I was able to use Gill's laptop to type this up, but it's not the same as my machine which has all my bits and bobs on it... like a button which sends me straight to a dictionary website.... and a 'favourites' list, etc etc.

Up at a reasonably civilised time of 8am in order to get ready to leave the house for about 9.30 with the boys, to get the 9.40 bus and the 10.44 train to Sheffield.

Long ago my younger brother Thomas had arranged to host a family get together so that our boys, who don't see their grandparents very often, could have a meeting... also with their cousins whom they get on with extremely well.

Over the past couple of days we agreed too that Gill could have a day off, away from the male dominated environment, and have a peaceful few hours. Although Gill loves seeing the extended family, she felt that she needed to have a rare bit of 'me time', and everyone concerned was happy with that. I suggested that instead of doing housework or tidying or stuff like that, she could do some art... making the cards with her water-wash and ink technique which she enjoys so much. Her eyes lit up at the thought!

So, we arrived at about 10 and I got tickets with the family railcard making the one adult and two children well under £20 for a day return. We spotted that the next train to Sheffers was 10.25, so we got that... and it was a fast train, via Doncaster, so just 50 minutes. Tom had asked us to arrive between 11.30 and midday so we walked slowly to his house (which is only 10 minutes brisk walk from the station) and when we arrived, my parents were already there, and it was good to see them as I haven't had much contact for a year or so.

Immediately all the 5 children resumed play... they just play together so nicely, as if they've been apart for just a few minutes! Soon my sister and her husband arrived, so all three siblings were together for the first time in ages. Various people had contributed to lunch, and there was a good spread with something for everyone (the youngest cousin just wanted a slice of bread, but Tom and Kate have a breadmaker so there's always a fresh loaf available) and I liked the caramelised onion tart best.

Tom has made friends with a local tree surgeon who had delivered a load of logs plus a large pile of shredded tree... and Tom wanted the shreddings to be put in his woodland where I think my Dad had been busy with a lawn-mower, making paths through the ivy, and the wood-chips were destined to cover these paths. We did perhaps 30 wheelbarrow trips between the three of us, and my mother and Tom's youngest filled sacks with woodchip so that Anna can use it for her work compost bins, which are currently under performing with too much fruit and tea bags and no carbon-rich material.

After the woodchip removal, we had a coffee and Madeira biscuit and then Tom and I did some log-wrangling... he has a petrol chainsaw with a not very good chain (at least one tooth missing, and pretty blunt) so he did the chainsawing and I split and stacked. Home from home!

We worked til after 6pm whilst the children played.

However, all good things have to come to an end, so at 6.35 we set off back to the station and caught the 6.50 train back to York. I think the boys would have liked to stay!

Tom had made us peanut butter sandwiches for tea on the train. We got the No. 10 bus back as far as Merchantgate but the First service stops at 8pm now, so we walked from town to home, getting in at 8.15.

Gill had been busy with her art and had created a brilliant canvas based on a picture of a Peter Randall-Page photo of one of his boulder sculptures under a tree (it's on the front of 'Granite Song' with photography by Chris Chapman). She had really enjoyed her peaceful day.

A peaceful evening too, boys exhausted and happy.

An earlyish start as the builders came at 8.30am and started putting up the noisy scaffold tower. I got up and made them tea and coffee, and asked about the TV aerial which is attached to the chimney which is coming down. I was prepared to go and buy a new bracket/fixing, but realised that I'd need a new pole or pole extension... and might also need a cable extension, so I decided to ring round various areal people and see if a professional can do it.

After several phone calls, I found someone who can sort it tomorrow.

Then I had to get rid of a pile of compostables from the kitchen, and whilst I was doing this, collected a load of composting worms which conveniently put themselves in the bin lids... perfect fro harvesting and relocating into my new 'worm cafe' which is already filling up.

Then I cleaned myself up, had a wash and found a clean York Rotters tee shirt. I was due in town for midday for 5 hours of volunteering at the Parliament St and St Sampson's Square 'Big Green Market', where York Rotters and the Council's Waste Minimisation Team have a stall.

As I walked through the market stalls, I wondered why it was called a Big Green Market as the majority of the stalls were not what I'd call green.. Venison burgers and dead duck pate, trinkets from the other side of the world, lots of stuff to buy which had a huge embodied carbon footprint.

But then again, I'm a purist. I found the Rotters stall and locked up my bike nearby and got myself launched into the unsuspecting public, using the usual ruse 'Would you like to tell me about your compost heap?' when someone looks at our cut-out dalek with the perspex sheet in, behind which are examples of assorted compostables. These include a rubber glove and a cardboard box with coloured printing, plus some plastic fruit and veg, flowers, scrunched and shredded paper, some fabric, wool and other bits and bobs. This format is immensely successful... because punters expect you to try to offer them something ('do you want one of these?') but my question is the other way round. But it's a hook. They bite, mainly saying 'yes, my heap is '... and occasionally 'I haven't got one'. This then has a response 'What do you do with your banana skins and apple cores?' Those with compost bins are about half 'working well' and a quarter 'too dry' and a quarter 'too wet', each answer can elicit a question about what do they put in the bin. Anyway, I'm in my element during these kind of events, I really love them, my enthusiasm knowing no bounds.

After each meeting I logged the information about whether they were a 'non composter' or 'existing composter' and whether they were from York or out of York. It's important to record how many people we are engaging.

I went for a wander around for my lunch break at half past one, and got a pastie and a sandwich, and bought a 'turks turban' squash for a pound which will be delicious roasted in the next few days.

During the afternoon I met a young lady I met before on the train coming back from Sheffield Green Fair (she recognised me) and I chatted with her and her partner, who have moved to York... and I think I'll be meeting them again. Also floating around were Kate Lock, on the Oxfam stall, my old friend Mary Brandon, older friends Sue Lister and John Whitworth, Rakesh and quite a few others. Jo turned up, to be the next most enthusiastic Rotter, Candy came too. It was a good session.

I finished just before 5pm and went to the Oxfam shop on Goodramgate for coffee, and popped into Kyi-Po for a vegan mayonnaise but they didn't have the one I wanted. Then onto Sainsburys for a general groceries shop, including goats milk as the nearest Co-op is having problems with keeping enough stock, and have been running out of it. Somerfield never used to! I treated myself to a treat(!)... a few months ago my cafetiere glass got broken, and as I do now and again like 'real' ground coffee, I bought myself another one, for £9. But Gill had also asked me to try to get some sparklers for the boys. Sainsburys had run out. So I popped into the Co-op on the way home but they didn't have any. Quite by chance, Lynn was in there and overheard my request, and she said that she had some spare!

When I got home, Gill reported that some lads had come asking for some logs and she said to come back later when I was at home after the Rotters stall. So I bombed round to Lynns with a bag of dried fruit in swap for 20 sparklers, and cycled back just in time to catch the lads again (students?) who wanted a small bonfire in their back garden. I let them have two half sacks of kindling and about 15 or 20 split logs. They offered me £3.90 in loose change. Seemed reasonable!

Then as I was finishing that transaction, a lady cycled up and introduced herself as the person who had left a couple of messages on the answerphone as she has some apple logs she wants to get rid of and an apple trunk still standing which she wants cutting down. I agreed to go and do this for her next week.

By this time I needed to go in and warm up. I made my own tea... some finely chopped chicken of the woods which Simon found growing on a pile of woodchips near where he works, which he'd shared with me, with 'trombone' courgette/squash, green pepper and the last of our own tomatoes, with rems of nutloaf, with a baked bean and cheese sauce. Terrific! Delicious! The best meal since... well I don't know, but it was very very tasty. Cheers Simon. And I only had half of the mushroom he gave me!

Some nice chats with family before the boys went to bed and I settled down to some email deletion as my inbox is again full. Whoops.

An enjoyable day. Tiring, but I was still up til 2am doing assorted things round the kitchen and on the laptop...

A bit of an unusual day as our youngest is heading off to Todmorden to have three days of fieldtrip. So Gill and our little one headed off at 7.50am, on foot, to get to school by 8.15. I spent time with our eldest, and chatted carefully about things which I hoped wouldn't piss him off, and he got out of the house at the normal time.

So at 8.45 I was out in the garden finishing off the shredding of the twiggy bits of hedge... and completed this job! Hooray!

I also unloaded a couple of sacks of compostables from either Country Fresh or Freshways and found a large stash of tomatoes, of which about 25% were compostable and the rest washable and I therefore brought them in and washed them, fried an onion on the stove (in a pan, lol) and added about 40 small to medium tomatoes and a stick of celery, and cooked that up on the stove top to make a delicious soup.

Then I made sandwiches and had them before cycling off to the station to get on the 13.11 to Harrogate for my last acupuncture session with Karen. I fell asleep on the train and again on the acupuncture table. I asked her quite a few questions today, about what she was doing. Few of her answers made any sense to me, but I do come from 'Western medicine' background. I decided not to take her up on a further two sessions as although I've enjoyed this experiment, I haven't really got anything positive out of it. I agreed to fill in her questionnaire at the end of this week.

I cycled quickly back to Harrogate station and got the train to Knaresborough, and then mooched around the tile and stove shop whilst waiting for the York train. I had a fiddle with a Dovre stove and chatted to the shop assistant about flat irons and stoves. Then the York train came and took me and my bike home.

Gill had taken a phone call from a Dave on Windmill Lane, who's taken down a cherry tree and has offered me the branches. He wanted me to go round after 6pm, so I did and picked up a trailer and panniers full of freshly chopped cherry logs. He hadn't managed to take down the trunk and asked me if I had a chainsaw and could do it? So I'll go round in the next few days to help him out. Then I popped down to see Raj as he had asked me to help him with something, and after I'd spent half an hour with him, he gave me two veggie samosas.

Then I came home for tea, at about 7pm. Once again, a good tea... tomato soup followed by cauliflower, macaroni, potatoes, quiche, salad, olives... yummy!

Enjoyed some telly and tried to catch up with emails which are again building up...

Up early to get some riddled compost ready for Glenda, who asked me yesterday if I could come and sort out her Bokashi bins, and take the bokashi-ed stuff away, as she does not compost...

I cycled 3 carrier bags of recently riddled compost over, plus a sack of riddled last year. She was delighted, and also that I took away her 3 bokashi bins-worth. I'll help her set up a compost bin next time I visit.

Then went on to another friend who wasn't in but had left a Freecycle gift (a sewing machine!) and had asked me to break up an old bed. This didn't take long but then I got involved in a discussion with a neighbour, who seemed good at giving responsibility for sorting out the world's mess to everybody else but herself... corporations, governments, and she said twice that it was better to make little changes rather than not make any at all... which I agreed with, but then said that little changes were not enough. She got a bit pissed off with me. But then another neighbour came out, and saw my load of wood on the trailer and offered me some more, and was very very positive about what I'm doing as we loaded up even more stuff into my panniers etc.

So I came home with a huge load of bokashi-ed gunk, wood and sewing machine.

I processed some of the wood, enjoyed lunch did more stuff outside, washed up as Gill was preparing tea, and at about 4 Lorna turned up. She had really wanted to come on the World Naked Bike Ride, after participating in the Spencer Tunick photos over at Blarney Castle.

So we got ourselves ready, Lorna borrowed Gill's bike and we cycled into town, popping into Waterstones for a voucher for a birthday present and then the pastie shop before having a sit down in Museum Gardens awaiting the other naked riders. People started trickling in, painted up, or were painted by friends there and then. Lorna put my slogan 'No Fossil Fumes' and an arrow pointing downwards on my back, and she asked me to put 'I (heart) bikes' on hers.

Dave Taylor, Green Councillor sent us on our way, and the police escort was good. There were 100 people on the ride, 30 more than last year, and we cycled very slowly for about 90 minutes, about 6.5 miles, according to several people with mileometers on their bikes.

Lorna and I went via St Nicks on the way back, and then onto home where we warmed up and chatted with Gill, Lorna leaving at 8.30.

What a lovely day. Very enjoyable.

Another nice 'n' late morning, I'm loving these holidays, not having to get the little darlings up and ready for school.

So, up after 9 and phoned Pauline as there was an outstanding invite from her to go and cut up some old Xmas trees for her little stove. I said I'd be along later in the morning.

So got up and out of the house after 11, and zoomed over to Pauline with loppers and bowsaw to do a few minutes woodchopping, collecting a pallet from a skip for her, and a builders bag so she can turn out her fabric compost bin and refill it. Then I had a real coffee with her, and a very good in-depth chat. She is such a caring person, concerned about a mutual friend and discussing how best to help a complicated situation.

I arrived back home bearing a magazine called Living Woods which she has subscribed to, as she has dreams of owning a little woodland. It looks excellent! I look forward to having time to read it...

I sorted out the sacks of goodies I brought back from Country Fresh, including 3 big red peppers and about 17 big tomatoes. So I washed and trimmed the tomatoes, nothing seriously wrong with them, just some physical damage, so had to reject the equivalent of about 4 of them. The rest I added to a big saucepan with a finely chopped onion, 3 garlics (also thrown away!) and a stick of celery, and stewed this all on our faithful logburner. When simmered for half an hour, I added some basil and bouillon, and Gill whizzed it to make a pizza topping. Gill made pizza dough and then two pizzas.

Immediately after tea, I zoomed off to the Merchant Taylor's Hall in town to give blood. As I hadn't booked in, I had an hour's wait... perfect, just perfect for reading Living Woods, which I really enjoyed. And when the time came to donate, I managed to do my pint (?) in 4 minutes 56 seconds! Fast! And a fast cuppa and biscuit, I cycled home, finding a large willow log at St Nicks and naughtily lifting it onto my trailer. My puncture wound did not explode! I also picked up a couple of sacks from Freshways and was home before 9, feeling great.

Gill gave me some cake and a coffee and I settled down to try to write my last column for Community Care. I am very good at getting distracted, though!

Ahhh, a lie-in! how nice! I got up at 10 and Gill was already at Art, so I finished off my column on cosmetics and sent it in. This took til lunchtime, mainly because I got distracted by Scrabble on Facebook and chat, and interesting links... but by late lunch, was finished.

Gill came in and got a picnic together and went on the bus down to town to meet her 'Ladies who Lunch' friends, Melody and Alison, and had a picnic with them in Museum Gardens.

I just mooched around, dealt with a couple of phone calls, did some housework and planted some broccoli, calabrese and curly kale seeds.

My friend Robin had made contact with someone who lives near him who has just taken down a holly tree and passed my her details to me, so I rang her and she said it would be OK to go within the next hour. So I refilled my chainsaw with lube oil and got the loppers, and cycled over to near the Hospital along the Route 66 cycle track.

She'd taken down one holly, and I cut up the two trunks which she'd denuded of side branches. But a sizable one metre stump remained and I eventually removed that, leaving a 30cm stump. There was one other job she wanted doing, removing an overhanging branch of a sycamore. This was more difficult as my chainsaw, or perhaps the electric supply to it was malfunctioning. But I did manage to get some of it down.. but after an hour and a half working there, I'd had enough so I loaded up my trailer with some of the holy logs and went. I'll go back in the next week or so and finish the job.

Home to a happy house, nice tea and pleasant evening. I was disappointed that Newsnight focussed on the budget and didn't have Ethical Man on.

Got up in time to take our youngest to school, and came back and tried to find some info on my computer about a balloon modelling workshop I'm wanting to go to on Wednesday. One of the UK's top balloonologists is doing a performance and workshop, and I want to go and learn some more... or at least get inspiration! But I found it difficult to find the info as other things kept on happening which were more immediate.

One of those was a dear friend Diane from Norwich ringing me and asking if I could do a favour. Our mutual friend G., who has some quite severe disabilities, has found himself in a tight spot financially and has no food in the house. He is expecting to receive a fuel payment on Thursday, which will mean he can go shopping, but until then, he's no food. Diane asked me if I could go to Alligator, and she'd put £20 on an account, and could I buy him some provisions and cycle them up to him? I said I could do something like that, but would ring him and ask what he wanted, and get back to her about the arrangements.

G. was surprised and very grateful and eventually got me a shopping list organised, some of which I can get at Thomas the Baker with the Yesterbake deal, some at the Co-op, some at Country Fresh, and a few bits at Alligator. I rang Diane and said that she didn't need to send Alligator any money, I'd cover the cost.

I also got a phone call from a family member who feels strongly I shouldn't ever mention about when things get difficult with family life, with bringing up children. I have already agreed to not put too many details, but I feel like I'm being blackmailed. Although this blog is ostensibly about low carbon living, I happen to be a parent, and that sometimes means I mention good times and bad times as a parent. Not everything in this diary relates to carbon emissions... there's all sorts of ethical dilemmas, and other things going on in my life which I personally feel happy to share with any reader. So I now have another dilemma... do I kow tow to someone who wishes to control what I do, someone I'd like to please and make happy... but therefore not feeling free to do as I want, or do I continue writing this blog as I want to, with occasional references to some of the difficulties which families sometimes have to face, and risk losing some of the small benefits that remaining in contact with this person might give? Do I get stressed and unhappy trying to ensure that my writing is acceptable to them, or do I keep the freedom to be myself and do what I want to do and have the knowledge that they are critical of me and don't accept me as I am, and are threatening no contact with anyone in my family because of this?

I wish they could have contact with the rest of the family and just leave me alone to do what I want to do, and accept my aspergery ways and accept me as I am. But from experience, that is unlikely. I will try to keep the blog appropriate and not put lots of details of what the children get up to but I cannot promise to 'never mention the children in a negative way' as this would give a totally unrealistic view of family life!

I did eventually find the balloon workshop info, and got train times to Featherstone which is where it's being held. I then went and did some shopping, for us as well as G.

Gill and I had lunch together and at 3.30 went to a meeting at school, which was good. Our youngest went home with a friend and eldest let himself in, and when we got in at 4.30, I collected the shopping I'd done for G. and shot off to get some fresh veg he's requested from Country Fresh and something else from Alligator. I then cycled all the way to the other side of York to deliver this to G.... but when I got there, I discovered I'd left the bread and hummus behind, doh! So I promised G that I'd come back and deliver these later.

When I got back home, there had been some interesting times. Our youngest had been out cycling around the University with the friend, but the friend cycled faster than he did and left him behind. Our little boy was then slightly lost and came over all miserable, as he didn't know how to get back to the friend's house. A lady stopped and asked him if everything was alright, and suggested to him that he find his way to a friend's house he DID know how to get to. Which is exactly what he did... and ended up at another friend's house just up the road from us. He knew that we had planned to be out, and the second friend's Mum wasn't in, so they just played. When that Mum came back, she rang and said that our boy had turned up at her place. In the meantime, friend number one was very unhappy he's lost his buddy, and his Mum was going spare trying to find our son, and was on the verge of ringing the police. So a bit of a fright, but everything turned out fine in the end.

I heard all this when I got back... and all seemed very peaceful and calm!

I did a second round-trip at about half ten, taking my trailer off to speed things up. I collected our youngest's school bag from where it had been left at the friend's house, and then cycled over the Millennium Bridge and over to G's house, delivering bread and hummus, and back over Hob Moor and home, an hours cycling exactly. Came back drenched with sweat and feeling very healthy. Whilst I'm cycling I mull over the things which have happened recently, it's good therapy, thinking time. I realised that I cannot have my life revolving around trying to please everybody, some of whom are very difficult to please! I do plenty of good things, live an ethical life - although not to everyone's liking, and I am happy with 99% of what I do. I cannot help if a few folks out there are unhappy with me. I see it as their loss and I'll live with the consequences; I will have to as I am unable to be anybody else!

Bed after 2am, as usual.

I woke as Gill was doing something in the bedroom, and she said she was going to the garage to get our eldest child's bike out, but I knew it was kinda tangled up with other bikes, or at least mine would have to come out first, so I said I'd do it. He'd been invited to go to the Yorkshire Museum by Simon and his son, as there was a 'Portable Antiquities Open Day' event there, and Simon's son has been doing some field walking near where the new sewer has been put in between the new University Campus ('Heslington East') and Elvington... and has found lots of pottery and one enormous iron nail.

So our lad set off with just one item.... a clear glass bottle with a marble stopper and the original rubber seal ring which I found near where the University had trashed a stretch of woodland.

I got a delivery of a HUGE poster from The Age Of Stupid. I'd like to find somewhere sensible to put it up...

So, a peaceful day ensued... I did some paperwork... an invoice (on reused paper, as usual) and a couple of other bits and bobs, including watching a 50 minute film about the making of The Age of Stupid. This was fascinating... the concept was born in 2002, as 'Crude' and used a novel approach to funding, called 'crowd funding' with 'shares' being sold (the first batch were £500 each), and then the subsequent evolution of the film, with Pete Postlethwaite being invited to be the crux of the film right at the last minute. Really worth watching... I am so looking forward to seeing the film on the 15th... next weekend.

I got a phone call from a chap round the corner who had got some waste wood outside his house I was interested in, and I'd left a note saying if they didn't want it, I would be happy to recycle it for them. He rang as he was clearing out a house in Tang Hall/Heworth area where a relative had died last year, and there was some wood in the garden he was wanting rid of. So I said I would come round within half an hour and see what there was. He admitted he'd already disposed of some stuff on a bonfire. Anyway, I easily found the house as the whole of Heworth was full of the smoke from his bonfire... There was quite a bit of wood left, and I sorted out the stuff I wanted from the non-burnable wood, and advised him to get the rest of it recycled at Hazel Court. There was also a couple of rolls of chicken wire which they wanted rid of, and I was glad to have this! As I was leaving, he offered me a pair of unused wellington boots with steel toe caps... my size too!

So I cycled into town with a trailer full of wood and wire netting and the wellies too, and went in search of a beard trimmer. My research had not found a wind-up model although there are a couple of wind-up shavers available, just not beard trimmers. So I went to Boots and got a model by Remington with rechargeable batteries, costing £25.

Came home via Country Fresh, and once I got home and unloaded, I popped back down to Freshways to pick up their 'resources'. After a coffee I did an hour's worth of filling the Compostubler with a mix of fruit and veg, shredded Christmas tree, sawdust stuff which was too big to go through the riddle and unwanted bokashi bran which St Nicks didn't want, as it had got damp and partly gone mouldy.

Spent quite a bit of time preparing pears... I have absolutely loads from the collections over the past few days. I wash each one and let it drip dry on the plate drying rack, then cut it in half from the stalk to the flower remnant, take out the core, flower, strings up to the stalk and the stalk, then peel it, taking out any bruises or damage. Then I cut each half into three, lengthways, resulting in 6 slices per pair, put on the cake racks for drying. Dried pears are one of my favourites!

Our eldest son came in having had a good time cycling and playing. We had tea... home made tomato soup and a Thomas' Vegetable Pastie. Not too bad an evening, although there was noisy resistance from the children to being asked to go to bed at 10.20.

I stayed up late whilst Gill slept on the sofa next to me as usual, until the early hours when I go to bed and she comes up too.

A bit of a lie-in but not a long one... and popped in to Deb's to see if she wanted any veggies at Country Fresh... got those for her and went to the allotment for an hour to do some digging up weeds and filling the compost heap! Then home via Debbie, quick lunch, and then to the bakers and the Co-op for provisions.

Our youngest went to a birthday party and eldest had a friend around. I got a phone call from Johan asking if I'd like 3 'Brazilian Pine' doors, which have been sitting on his driveway for a couple of years, their plastic wrappers trapping the rain and causing them to rot. Very nice looking pale wood, completely untreated, but unusable as lots of discolouration and at the base, rot. What a waste! However, I said yes to it and fairly quickly turned it into firewood. He came round with a second load of assorted offcuts from his woodworking. He brought Maria and their son, and so we had a cuppa with the adults whilst their son joined the other two lads for an hour.

I then carried on sorting the overflowing logging area, and did some stacking before coming in for tea... Gill had made pastry and a pie with it, containing a mushroom and pepper mix in a sauce. Very nice!

Our youngest's party was due to finish at 8pm so Gill and our other boyo walked up to collect him.. and I got a call to say that Gill had been given a glass of wine and all the boys were playing happily. They eventually came in at about 10pm!

A long lie-in as went to bed at 3am. Got up at midday and there was a knock at the door, a neighbour offering me some wood. She described it as an old fence... I asked if it had been treated and she said, yes, tannalised, but I went to have a look anyway. It wasn't treated, it was oak, which doesn't need treating as it lasts for ages without. The fence was in pieces, ready to be put back together and used. They just want rid of it and were wondering whether to skip it. It will be reused not burned! I had a nice chat with the couple about quite a few things, including their enormous fir tree which has looked unwell for the past year. It may have to come down... which will be a pity as it is a good habitat for birds. and it sways beautifully in the breeze and I can see it from lying in bed!

Lunch and a quiet afternoon... Gill had a snooze and the boys played on the computer... I let them have a long time and then invited them to do some homework.... which after a while, and a bit of noisy protest, they did do! Wonderful. Why the fuss?

I popped down to Country Fresh before it closed and also Freshways, then stayed in the garden til dark, piling stuff on the current hot heap.

Gill made tea, cauliflower based, very nice.

Watched an excellent Natural World programme on BBC2, called The Future of Farming.
Well worth a watch (BBC iPlayer available til 17th March 09)

Later in the evening, Gill and I watched the film of Sex and the City, a DVD she bought for £3 from the local Blockbusters, an ex-rental copy. Good re-use!

Both boys OK to go to school which was good... I took our youngest but also my 'compost mate' tool as I knew that the school compost bin would be full and in need of management.

So once the children had gone in, I turned the third bin, taking out sticks and putting them aside. Then I took the material out of the second bin with the compost mate and put it into the third, again removing uncomposted stuff like some paper and card, plus sticks, and the inevitable few plastic bags, twist ties and chocolate wrappers. Then transferred most of the material from bin one to bin two, adding layers of sticks and paper removed from the older compost. This took about an hour but left the first compost bin empty for the next batch of fruit skins and partly eaten apples.... the whole object of the exercise...

Home and straight out again at Gill's request to get bread, and picked up a huge bag of sad bananas from Freshways.

Lunch was civilised and enjoyable and all too soon it was 3pm and time for me to go and pick up the little one.

When I got back, Gill had received a phone call from Catherine at York Rotters asking if I'd visit a lady just a little further up Hull Road who has a compost bin which was allegedly too full for anything else to put in. I rang the lady, Betty, and she was happy for me to visit immediately. So I got back on the bike and took the Compost Mate and visited her... and her 220 litre 'dalek' bin. This was not completely full, but her son in Law had put a load of soil into it, which I took out so she could use it to put on her raised beds. I turned the rest very thoroughly with the Compost Mate and there was then enough space for her to put her specially saved-up bags of peelings into it... a result! She was a very grateful 83 year old... invited me for a cup of tea but I said I'd better get back, but gave her my number so she could call me sometime in January when I said I'd check her compost again, possibly do some more sorting, AND have a cuppa...

Back home via a newly found logpile (it's that time of year again... tree-pruning time!) and back into our cosy but untidy house. Ate tea alone though as I wanted to watch the news but the rest of the family didn't... and at 7.30 set out for the York Green Festival 08 Review and 09 Planning Meeting at Pivo Bar, which I chaired in a fairly disorganised way (ie no formal agenda, Bob started chairing at one stage, etc!)

This was an excellent meeting, and we came to the decision that we'd have a greener York Green Festival next year, with less noise pollution! And we'd stay with Rowntree Park.

Had a really good chat with Bob afterwards, which was most welcome as I don't have that many male friends and I think Bob could be quite a good buddy... we have quite a lot in common.

A late start to the morning... but I did feel a bit better than yesterday. Gill went out and I made a nutloaf for tonight's tea.

At midday I cycled round to Steve with the logs... he'd got the tree out and I chopped off the top trunks and trimmed off the roots and loaded it all up into my trailer and brought it home.

Gill got in just after me and we had lunch together. I finished the nutloaf and started cooking it before following Gill to school... she was going to collect our youngest and I was doing the Green Thumbs Gang. The Green Thumbs were finishing off their creative stuff for the Christmas fair and I went to find a branch to hang the tree-decorations onto, to allow them to be seen 'at their best' at the stall. Came back with two willow branches which will do very well. Towards the end, a musical mum who does an activity called 'Songbox' came in, as her daughter had written a song to perform at the assembly in January, to advertise the Mission Nutrition Bring and Buy Sale. Kerry explained that her daughter, who is only 6 years old, had written the melody and together they'd worked up a song about Mission Nutrition, about the numbers of hungry children and how the sale would raise money to help. Kerry sang the song to a backing tape she'd prepared... it was so pertinent that it brought tears to my eyes. I promised to try to write the basics of the assembly... Julia said that my letter to Blue Peter was really good and I should include some bits from that.

Home to a quiet house and Gill getting tea ready. I ate with everyone else and at 7ish got myself ready to go to yet another York in Transition core group works out what it's doing meeting... at the Stables project, ably chaired for a fourth time in a row by Jennie. We looked at our core values and what we should do with the list, and our structure... based on our application to become a Company Limited by Guarantee and a Charity, and on the next steps... a quite difficult meeting. I was feeling a bit unwell and left as soon as I could to go home, where I crashed out til midnight.. Then came down for a hot drink and finish this off....

A really nice low-key day, relatively peaceful all day. There was a dusting of snow outside and there was a brief expedition to build a snowman... turned out to be 'dolly' size, nothing more impressive. Gill started making a Christmas pudding and I got some black treacle when I went down Heslington Road to visit Country Fresh.

I also popped round to a chap called Steve in Heworth who had invited me to go and chainsaw some logs, he also had a tree which he wanted to take up so I advised that he didn't take off the trunk, but used that as a lever and dug it out, cutting off the roots one by one. I chopped up what I could and loaded up my trailer with over half of it and returned home, spent a bit of time loading the Compostumbler, then stacking dry logs outside the front door.

I picked up our youngest and we all had a reasonable evening.

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.

I took out littlest to school and had a brief chat with the headteacher who popped into the playground when all the children had gone in. I told her I was pleased, very pleased, to see the Japanese Garden had been re-done, with the illegal treated sleepers taken out and replaced with untreated ones. She said that she was the most pleased it had been sorted out... I said I was even happier than her since I'd pointed out the error in the first place and therefore had 'caused' the kerfuffle. I also asked about the site of the new classrooms and it looks very much like they'll be partly on the site of the plot we dug over last year, so Green Thumbs will have to find another place to have a garden. I didn't have time to have another go at getting recycling on the agenda.

Did some more log stacking in the morning before heading off down to town to meet an author called Donna who's got a book about to be published, an autobiography, and we had a hot chocolate at El Piano together for an hour's chat.

After lunch I took my quiet shredder round to Phil's just up the road and helped him feed a pile of pruned out sticks and small branches through it... in return I'll get a small pile of the thicker sticks and a suprise gift, which will be a suprise!

I got our littlest from school and as Gill was out, didn't help with Green Thumbs... but it was OK as they were inside and doing pumpkin monsters, but when I got back Gill was in. I helped scrub potatoes for tea, Gill made a hotpot with a veggiesuet pie crust... lovely!

A good evening, did a lot of washing up to make space for washing and blanching grapes, as I've brought back about 30 punnets of red seedless grapes, which are unsaleable as some of each punnet is going mouldy, although over half of them are fine. Once blanched, to prevent mould, they dry quite quickly in trays on the woodstove and make excellent raisins.

Quite a busy morning at home, and went to pick up Ali at 10.30, and on the way to St Nicks I (and then Ali too!) stopped to chat to a Corpus Christi Carmelite Nun called Sister Ann, who was working in the Convent garden, and was delighted that I offered to remove a couple of cut branches and invited me to help remove several 'weed' trees (Sycamore) which I hope to make time to do. She said I was a gift from God! I didn't reply to that comment! Then Ali and I rolled along to St Nicks as they were having a 'taster art day', preceding a project called 'Seeing Green' and Ali filmed me explaining about the design of the building and some of the projects that are based there. She interviewed my buddy Martin who just happened to be there, and both John and Ivana who cope really well with my enthusiasm and make the most of it, including today asking me to help move some heavy metalwork which is needed to take the turbine down, as it's having new blades fitted next week.

So then we wheeled up to our house, where Ali was able to just get in, our hallway being just wide enough for her chair, and we had lunch. She filmed me lighting the stove and explaining about the renewable fuels, how efficient the stove is compared to open fires, and the dried fruit and bathwater systems...

After lunch, the boys took her camera down the garden to show how long it is (the garden is very inaccessible... narrow paths, encroaching vegetation, mud etc) and after that I took it down to show my view of it. Then she came outside the front to watch me chainsawing, splitting, stacking and crushing cans ready for taking them to the metal merchant, and Ali filmed lots of this.

Then we all had tea together ; Gill had done vegetable rice and I did some home grown squash on top of this. Gill and Ali had a long chat which was good, I'm glad that they get on so well, as I met Ali at a gig in Sheffield, she's become my friend and now she's become a friend of the family, which is lovely. She is extremely easy to be with and very understanding and friendly. We are all very lucky, I think. During the evening I had a short telephone chat to Ali's daughter who's a massive (5 yr old) fan of Professor Fiddlesticks, which is lovely too.

I put the boys to bed (ie made supper for them, found their PJs, told them to go upstairs before 9pm, switched their lights out) because Ali was interviewing Gill for her film, and they were chatting intensely. I went to get the washing off the line and then we had a game of Scrabble...... I won and Ali came a close second, but Gill was falling asleep by this time and had bad luck with the letters she picked. A good end to a lovely day.

So at 11.30 I walked down towards town with Ali to help her get ready for bed.... and on the way noticed a body lying on the pavement at the bottom of a hedge. I went to investigate and he was snoring (proving he was alive!) and I thought it best to see if he was allright, and tried to wake him up and ask him. He was very groggy but came to and I found out his name and where he lived, and that he did want to go back home. As I was talking to him a chap approached from the other side of the road saying he'd already called an ambulance. He'd seen the chap fall over after staggering around, but hadn't come to his aid. A couple of minutes later the abmbulance came, I briefly gave the driver the details and we continued on our journey.

I helped Ali get her stuff together, which in her own home is easy for her to do, but in an allegedly accessible hotel room is not as easy, and got home for half-past midnight, had a bath and was in bed for before 2am.

I took our youngest to school and came back in good time to get myself ready to go to work in Harrogate, for their CarFreeDay activities.

I got the 10.11 train and was met in Harrogate by a camera operator from BBC Look North who wanted to get some footage of me advertising the event. So we walked to the St Peter's Church and I got changed into Professor Fiddlesticks and went outside to unicycle around and invite people into St Peter's to see the exhibition materials from Sustrans, the Christian Ecology Network , FoE and others.

As I finished doing the unicycling around, the group toddle arrived... actually a group of about 10 mums with pre-school kids in push chairs and buggies. I don't know where they'd walked from, but they were the sort of 'customer' who might usually go places by car. I was expecting a school group to entertain but it turned out that the youngsters were these pre-schoolers! So I did a half-hour show aimed at the mums, Vicar and his helpers, and the CarFreeDay volunteers... which seemed to go well.

Then Yvonne invited me to come to lunch... which I wasn't expecting. We went to a mock-French place and the service was slow and several people didn't get what they asked for. I had a tomato soup and baguette 'pizza'. Thanks to Malcolm Margolis for this. At least the long wait allowed us to chat!

Back to St Peters where the displays were starting to be taken down, and I chatted to a nice couple called Rachel and Dan, with a cute baby, and an enthusiastic chap called Lee and his friend Adrian...

I went to get the 3.05 train but missed it by 3 minutes so read my NewScientist and got home before 5. On the Leeds 'Look North' there was a brief mention of Professor Fiddlesticks, see
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/ondemand/england/realmedia/looknorthyorkslincs/looknorth?bgc=C0C0C0&nbram=1&lang=en&nbwm=1&bbram=1&ms3=6&ms_javascript=true&bbcws=1&size=16x9&bbwm=1#
It's about 3 minutes 20 seconds in...

Later in the evening I got a call from a friend/neighbour who had a bust-up with her 17 yr old daughter and she'd locked her out of the house, partly as the daughter had some large chaps with her and Mum was not feeling safe. I negotiated that the daughter came in, got her overnight stuff and rang one of her brothers who said he'd let her sleep over for a night. I stayed in the house whilst the daughter got her stuff together and left. Happy families eh?

Nearly finished my column on Electrics and Gadgets, but it's too long so will edit it down tomorrow.

Slept well and Gill asked me to take our youngest to school as his bike was out of order, Gill had tried to sort out a new inner tube but the shop, Cycle Works, had sold her a tube that was way too thin/narrow for his chunky wheel/tyre.

Soon after I got back from school I set out for a house a bit further up Hull Road where our friend Beth is a gardener. She'd asked me to come and help dig out the compost heap so she could spread it as a mulch under the raspberries and roses. I dug out 11 barrows full and then started to turn a large heap into the vacated space. Whilst I was doing this, I was pulling on my fork to try to pull some material towards me, to make it easier to fork up and move, and I pulled the handle into my mouth by accident, splitting my top lip. I was initially worried that I'd knocked a tooth out but it was only my lip which was bleeding. After a glass of water and a two minute breather, I continued shifting the heap and justabout finished the job. Very satisfying work, pity about the accident.

Home via the bread shop and had a fairly restful afternoon before going down to school to collect our little one, who again got a lift on my bike to do the journey. When I got back I zoomed down to Cycle Heaven to sort out the inner-tube problem, and visited the Building Society to put in the cheque from the organisation which was being very slow in paying. I am so glad they've paid up as I really didn't want the hassle of taking them to court.