Human Lifestyle

The day started a bit rapidly because Gill had a GP appointment at 9.40 and woke me up at 9.20 as I'd offered to walk round with her, as it was slippery and I really didn't want her to fall over. So my usual routine of having breakfast first thing was replaced by a slow walk round to Tang Hall Lane, using the only ice-free part of Lilac Avenue, the car tyre tracks.  So Gill was happy to have me with her, and I pocketed her presrciption for painkillers and went to get those later.

We got home and I sat down to enjoy breakfast... and the Suma lorry came, so I put muesli on hold and helped unload our order... peanut butter, muesli base, soya milk, bouillon, rice, goats cheese, some other bits and bobs, plus things for Sue and Melody.

So then it was time to do some log stacking, as we're going through loads at the moment and I really need to get a load stacked by the front door to prepare for the forthcoming cold snap.  I also tidied up the Wisteria leaves which had been knocked off by the snow, and some other mess.  I started splitting the softwood rounds I picked up over the weekend. 

Sue showed up sometime between 2 and 3 to pick up her rye bread and tinned lentil soup, and I took the 2 boxes of rye bread over to her van.  I'd noticed a woman rooting through a skip of household goods in a neighbour's driveway, and as I walked back to the house, I spoke to her and we chatted.  She'd seen the skip last night and put a note through the door asking if she could rummage through.  She'd got a phone call with a yes, so had come down to find clothes and other bits.  She had a huge suitcase plus at least 2 rucksacks, a large plastic carrier bag and a child's scooter. 

About 10 minutes later, as I was splitting rounds with my axe, she struggled past and I wished her well.  Five minutes later, I was setting out on my bike to go and get Gill's prescription, and she was outside our neighbour's, still trying to manage her heavy load.  So I offered to help her move her stuff, it wasn't far, just up Osbaldwick Lane, and we had a good natter whilst going there.  Turns out she was at the Pumpkin evening and Apple Day and I'd taught her daughter to juggle...

I got the prescription and came back and didn't do any more outside as it was now dark. 

Gill had made leek and potato soup, and I had mine with two slices of bread.

Then at 6.15 I set out on the bike again to go to Tang Hall Library for the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel, and we had a very interesting and quite long meeting, lasting over an hour.  So it was nearly 8pm when I got back.  I watched a programme about equations with our eldest at 9pm, and had a fairly quiet evening.

The day started reasonably well but both boys were unwell and off school, and due to this there was an incident which left me feeling crap.  I do my best to be a good parent but sometimes feel like a failure.

I spent quite a bit of the morning talking to various people on NHS Direct, which is a wonderful service and i felt really well looked after.  The results of the conversations may well be positive.

Later, there was another incident, to do with a misunderstanding by another family member and caused by the thoughtlessness of another, which resulted in bad vibes all round.  I was hoping for an apology from the person who caused the problem by accidentally betraying confidence, but just got rudeness and a snub.  It is true that you don't choose your family, and it's odd that I still love them all, despite everything.

I do not set out to upset, provoke and cause distress.  I am sorry that both people are feeling the way they are.  I hope communication can resume soon.

The garden was my solace... for a while, and I also popped round to help a neighbour round the corner who'd emailed me to ask me to take some wooden pallets away.  She showed me her newly built 'insect hotel' (I'd call it a hibernaculum) and then one of her neighbours offered me some pears.

I spent a considerable time inside, doing washing up, dealing with fruit, playing Scrabble on facebook and trying to manage the second situation. 

Later, I lit the front room stove for the first time this Autumn.  The first time the stove is lit after a few months cold, the dust burns off and there's a bit of an aroma.  So I lit it quite late on, after the boys went to bed, so that if we need to light it with the forecast cold snap in the next few days, no-one complains about the smell.

I got up earlier than I'm used to as my friend Tara had asked me to come over and help install her compost bins. But that wasn't all... she also requested that I have a go at using the borrowed pick axe to break up the large lump of concrete which we managed to get out last time, and there were also 3 water butts needing to be installed. This seemed a lot to fit into a 10 til 1 slot.

However, the compost bins were easy to do... I used the outline of the base of the bin to make a little trench which the foot of the bin sat in, and the soil that was removed was then put back in the edge of the trench and on the lip of the bin to secure it. We put both of them next to each other in a sunny spot. Whilst I was putting the second one in, Tara chopped up some beech twigs to make an aerated base for the first one.

Then we undid one of her pots of potatoes, there were some but I think they could have been bigger, so I suggested the rest should stay. Then we had a look at her tomato plants which she's been growing on a window sill. They needed a bit of pruning but several of them had tomatoes on, and some will still produce a few more.

We were able to do some of the first water butt installation, by removing a section of down pipe, but then we got a bit stuck with drilling a hole in the side of the butt, so Tara made lunch and I had a bit of a bash at the concrete but I only got a few bits off, and some of these struck me on the face; one cut me and I decided that I didn't want to continue with this.

I enjoyed a cheese and onion sandwich and a hummus and tomato, plus dry roasted peanuts, one of my favourite treats, and then i had to go as I told Gill I'd be back around 2pm. I loaded up my wrecking bar on the trailer (I'd brought this in case we needed to lever the concrete somewhere) and set off, but I didn't get far before my trailer parted company from it's front part; the weight of the wrecking bar had caused one of the weak points of the trailer's metal bars to fatigue and break. It has broken there before, and been welded back together. I managed to fix it with bungees, and fix the wrecking bar alongside of my top bar on my bike frame also with bungees (I should have carried it here before, thinking about it) and gingerly cycle home, hoping that the bungees held the trailer secure.

As soon as I got in, Gill went to town to try to find some clothes for the boys for school.

I had a bit of time on the computer and did some housework.

At about 7pm, we all set off for Simon and Melody's party. I cycled down and Gill and the boys got a lift with Ros and her son in their car.

I had a great time, enjoyed chatting to Phil, and then Lynn, and briefly with Kate and Alison, and I prized myself free after 11.30. A really good social time!

Up early, as had to be getting going soon after 9am for an appointment, and had an achy neck...the sign of a good gig last night!

Gathered a couple of sacks of compost, to swap for logs, and loaded up the trailer with this, the wrecking bar and fork. I headed over to the other side of town, I thought I'd memorised the route but I missed the turning and had to ask a local who had a map. I soon found Tara's house and she showed me her back garden and told me her vision for it. She trusts my knowledge when it comes to gardens (don't know why!) and I told her that in my view, her vision was do-able. We've known each other for a while but haven't seen each other socially for a couple of years.

Part of her vision is a vegetable patch, currently part of a lawn of couch grass surrounding a large block of concrete which once held a washing line. I'd offered to help break up or remove this concrete. Hence the wrecking bar. So I got busy excavating around the offending lump and dug down until I reached the base, about a foot down, and then I started to lever it up, Tara pushing down on the bar and me inserting bits of broken concrete slab which she conveniently had available. After a bit of time we had the thing out of the hole, and the hole full of bits of broken slabs and half bricks. The lump of concrete was about 2 feet by 2 feet by a foot deep, and I was unable to break it up other than to chip some bits off the edge. I gave up as my hands started to blister. We had lunch, a veg stew, baguette and nutloaf, very nice! We spent a bit of time sorting through some beech hedge offcuts, which provided me with a trailer load of fuel and a green bin of compostables for the Council compost system.

I had to get back as I had other things to do; 4 cheques to put into the building society, a York in Transition cheque to give to the Council re the Mansion House Alternative Energy event in October, and then to Alligator to pick up a lot of not very nice sacks of materials which had sat far too long, and were 'fragrant'.

Home to get them into two tumblers with lots of shredded twigs, and then a bath, as I was going out tonight and working tomorrow. Lovely to have a bath with the gas not kicking in at all, a 100% solar heated bath. Gill wasn't happy with the stuff I'm bringing home, and if I'm to do it, it needs to be regular as it gets horrible quite quickly. I guess my ankle being broken might have affected my collections a bit, but that's no excuse really.

A quick bit to eat and then cycled over to Lord Mayors Walk to St John's, where I'd booked two tickets to see Satish Kumar's lecture called 'Soil, Soul and Society'. Gill didn't feel like going, so I offered my spare ticket to Ivana.

As one would expect in a small city like York and such an inspirational speaker as Satish Kumar, I knew lots of the attendees and it was good to see some old friends, and newer ones!

Satish Kumar was born in India and in 1962 he heard about Bertrand Russel's 8 day protest walk from Aldermaston to London, his response to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the lunacy of the nuclear arms race. He decided he couldn't just let this situation happen, and thought he ought to walk to Moscow, Paris, London and then to Washington to protest about the madness which was/is the nuclear weapon situation.

On the way out of India, crossing the border to Pakistan, a friend wanted to give him money and food, but Kumar refused, as he was determined to do the whole journey without money, and just accepting whatever nourishment was offered. On the way to Moscow, he met a couple of women who worked in a tea factory, who offered him and his friend a cup of tea. Because of their support of his mission, one of them had a bright idea.... and gave him 4 boxes of tea, saying they weren't for him, but for each of the leaders who had their finger on the nuclear button. She asked him to pass on this message: 'If you are about to push the button, please just stop and have a cup of tea and think about what you are about to do.'

So, Kumar walked to Moscow, Paris and London, delivering the tea and message, and in London met Russel, who bought the travellers a ticket to New York on the Queen Mary.

Another unfinished blog post... I WILL write out my notes as this meeting was excellent, but not now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A very smooth morning... excellent. Wonder why some mornings are filled with tears and difficulty, whereas others are really easy? Weird!

Anyway, a good day followed. Gill and I continued to sort out the upstairs rooms... I rehung a door which had been bashed off it's hinges, and Gill had refilled the screw holes with plastic wood and this seemed to hold the screws pretty well, and the door is back on.

Once I'd done this I spent some time in the garden getting some compost ready for delivering to a friend tomorrow... and when I came up to the house, the Suma delivery had just been and Gill was signing the cheque.

At 1pm I went to the Black Swan and met a new friend, Maxine, and had a coffee and a chat. I think she'll come to the next Green Drinks. I'm happy to promote sustainable lifestyle choices with individuals, groups, or to people I've never met, like through this blog or using journalists. And I love meeting new people.

From here I cycled on to Bishophill, to see Pauline and help her with her renewables. A few days ago, she was down to her last log to feed her smokefree Clearview Pioneer, but she did manage to get a few off another friend... enough to last til today, when I arrived with my bowsaw and chopped up assorted lengths of timber she's acquired over the past few weeks. And in return, I had a very nice cafetiere of coffee and a relatively short chat. But at 3 I had to go... via Country Fresh, picked up 3 boxes of recyclables and a bag of groceries.

When I got in, Gill had gone to school to pick up our youngest and I stayed in to wait for our eldest... but he didn't appear and came in quite late after going to drama club, which we were happy to hear about. A bit later, Sarah, whom I know through St Nicks came to pick up her share of the Suma stuff... and she was happy to have a tour of the composting demonstrations, which she found inspiring, I was glad to hear!

Rice-based tea, assorted phone conversations, lots of emailing, and rounded off the evening with an excellent film called The Flying Scotsman, about a rather quirky cyclist, Graeme Obree. A good day.

I got up early as I'd arranged to take some compost round to a friend for 9.30, so before breakfast I took the wheelbarrow down the garden and picked up 5 sacks of very old mature and lovely compost and put them in my trailer. Then I had breakfast.

The compost was appreciated, and I should get paid Yorkys for it, but I don't know how many yet... we didn't discuss that. What I did do was to check my friend's CV, as there is a job recently advertised that looks very desirable. I was able to pick up one mistake and make a few suggestions about other things to add or ways to improve the document.

I got back at about 11am, bearing cereals and bread from the Co-op and Thomas the Baker.

At midday, a chap I've met just once through York in Transition, Nick Haines came round, to discuss the Seed Swap which he is officially in charge of. He was pleased that I'd bought the 69 packets of seeds and he reimbursed me the £14. He'll claim that back off YiT once the event has happened. We talked about other aspects of the day, including whether I can do a presentation about how to make seed compost, and whether I can bring some ready-made seed compost to sell, or to give to people and ask for a donation, which is usually what I prefer to do. He agreed to canvas opinions of the other YiT people, and get back to me. He had printed off some colour posters, and we talked about publicity.

I gave him a little tour of the garden and by 1.15 he had gone. After lunch I cycled a poster down to Country Fresh, and picked up two sacks of biodegradables, then on to Alligator, who took two posters and gave me a bag of 3 dead cabbages and some red peppers which had started going off, I then came back home via Freshways who had a polystyrene box of mainly over-ripe bananas to be recycled. They also took a poster.

I then made a load of seed compost. I do a mix of 7 parts old riddled leafmould, 2 parts loam and one part rich garden compost. I prepared this with the big riddle and then the rotasieve, and bagged it up... 10 carrier-bags about half full. If this isn't going to be used at the Seed Swap, I'll either sell it via Country Fresh or just use it myself.

I came in at 7pm and Gill had made a rice-based tea which was lovely. At 8 my good friend Will arrived, as I'd asked him to come and help me interpret my questionnaire for my book, which I really must get on with. I showed him the questionnaire and the data so far, and the bits of the book I've already written. I think with him involved I'll get on a bit better. He is well organised and asked me to give him deadlines to do the various bits. He wants to be paid in Yorkys.

So, a busy day, productive and social. But I'm looking forward to tomorrow even more!

Up at a rather early 7.15 am in order to be out of the house by 8, to get the 8.27 to Sheffield.

I had a very interesting talk with the guy who came and sat next to me before we left York Station... he was heading to Sheffield too, as he was doing an MA in housing policy. His name was James and he recognised me and seemed to know quite a bit about me, but I didn't know him (but hope to get to know him better. I got on well with him). We talked about housing mainly... and how to do a consultation about a hypothetical new-build EcoTown.

We were soon in Sheffield, and I met my friend who had got a hospital appointment and I'd offered some support.

It was a long day, and I was tired, but my support was welcomed. I was glad that I was able to be there.

I got the 6.54 train back and was in York quite soon, home by 8pm.

I took my youngest nearly all the way to school... he walked the last bit alone and I cycled slowly back, stopping to pick up quite a few aluminium cans for the metal merchant, steel cans for the kerbside recycling, and several bits of wood for processing into stove fodder. I also found a large clump of edible mushrooms which I picked. I went straight on to the chemist on Tang Hall Lane to get assorted over the counter medications. I'm getting more headaches than normal, I think it's stress.

I spent an hour on the computer, and was happy to be of use to a friend up in Scotland who is in the middle of launching a bicycle-powered delivery service, and wanted help with a letter to go out to potential customers. I was able to partly re-write the letter to make it read a bit better. This help was appreciated.

Gill went into town on the bus, and I did quite a bit of sorting out in the front garden, chopping up treestumps and some sticks, stacking, cleaning out the stove ash pans, and washing up, the endless washing up.

But it was nice to be working outside in the sunshine, but the remainder of the day went all too quickly.

After 4pm I loaded my trailer up with 3 paper potato sacks of drinks cartons, all squashed and mostly packed inside each other, and an old toaster I found in a skip, and went to the Hazel Court Civic Amenity Site, where I never know if I'm going to be waved in with a smile, ignored, or confronted and told that cyclists aren't allowed in, and I have to explain that I'm choosing to ignore that stupid rule and I will kick up a HUGE fuss if I'm prevented from using the recycling services. This time, I was ignored on the way in and when a chap walked towards me whilst I was pushing cartons into the carton bank, he was just loading a dead neon tube into the neon tube recycling area, and he was friendly and didn't comment on my mode of transport. I put the toaster in the WEEE area and unloaded some batteries, and left, with no hassle whatsoever. Great!

I then went on to Country Fresh and got assorted fruit and veg for a very reasonable price, and loaded two bags of compostables into the trailer for recycling.

The rest of the day was reasonably quiet... Tea was pizza, with a large pile of Velvet Shank mushrooms I picked this morning on a tree stump between school and home. After this, I was tired and went for a lie down after taking a large can of water up for our youngest to have a bath. I went to check the temperature of the solar heated water in the loft, as I ran the hot tap as well as the stove-heated water, and the tank thermometer was reading 59 Celcius, which is warm enough to bypass the boiler. Excellent! I must find the commissioning certificate and set up the system with Good Energy for our HOT ROCS credits. Life is hectic and I'm disorganised, and I don't know where the certificate has gone.

I dozed from 7.30 til 8.30 but was woken by shouting. Homework. I came down and hovered around, and things calmed down. I half-watched Horizon but didn't concentrate much on it as I was feeling depressed. Life is tough at the moment. We will work through this and hopefully things will be easier in the future. Parenting is very hard work.

Gill woke me up at 8.30 as requested, and I was breakfasted and dressed by 9 which was good as Carolyn was on time, to come and 'triage' the wood that I've got to decide which is good for building bee hives and which is fit just for burning. The wood which came yesterday from Hull also had some pieces which seemed OK for beehive construction... very opportune that they came yesterday and the wood was needed today!

So Carolyn cycled away with some, and I'll take a trailer full down to St Nicks at lunchtime, after my next visitor.

On the dot of 10am, Lizzie arrived. I met her through a email discussion list we're both on, and she asked if anyone who fitted her criteria would be willing to help her with her dissertation. This is an undergraduate linguistics degree, and Lizzie is wanting to study how people tell stories about their life, or 'narratives'. She's less interested in the content, the story, but more into analyzing the language used. So I messaged her and she sent me the consent forms, and today she was visiting a friend in York, so this morning she walked up from Walmgate and arrived, as intended, at 10.

The study took about 2 hours, and she recorded nearly all of it... only switching off when I went to make a coffee or load the stove. Her questions were fairly general, things like 'Can you tell me about one thing that stands out as a memory from your childhood?' and 'tell me about four important people from your life', and a string of similar questions. I enjoyed telling her about these bits of my life, I am naturally a 'sharer' and I'm not shy or at all private. So it was good for both of us. I'm looking forward to learning what she does with the transcript, and what interesting linguistic stuff she pulls from it.

Lizzie then left to walk into town, and I loaded up my bike trailer with all the planks which Carolyn had sorted out as 'good for building a beehive with', and cycled down to St Nicks, where Carolyn and I popped them in the lock-up. She's making a first one as a test, and then on 20th Feb, there's a public beehive making meeting/workshop. This fits nicely with a series of workshops about bee keeping I've seen advertised, the first one is this Tuesday, and I think Peter's going on it.

Home for lunch... and after lunch felt very tired but I kept going and did various bits and bobs around the house.

I popped into to Country Fresh on the way into town, and picked up one sack of mainly cabbage leaves. Then onto my building society where I took out cash and then went to top up our 'Suma' bank account with a cheque from a friend on our food co-op, my cash, and I did an electronic transfer too... so that there is enough money in that account to pay for next week's Suma order. I also paid out water bill. Then I came home, but decided to deliver the cabbage leaves to the St Nicks compost area, where I occasionally put excess materials. They have ample sawdust, dumped there by a pet shop, so I always cover up the fruit and veg with the sawdust. It is quite convenient.

On the way, I met my friend Sue, who is a priest, and we often have some interesting conversations. We talked for about 20 minutes, covering a range of subjects.

Then I went to put the compostables on the sawdusty heap and and as I was doing that, David from St Nicks told me I should have asked first... I thought I just had to inform the staff I d added to the heap, not ask permission. So I had a chat with John, and agreed that I would turn this compost over the weekend. A kind of penance? Well, a voluntary act of trying to make things better...

And back home. A very quiet evening. A fair bit of chatting with friends on facebook and email.
Lots of angst about the changes that facebook have made to celebrate their sixth birthday, but I'm sure we'll get used to it.

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.

I got up in time to get to Pauline's for 10am. But whilst I was eating my breakfast I was watching the news, about the 'freak' rain and devastating floods in Keswick and Cockermouth in the North West of the UK, I heard someone say that this was a 'one in a thousand year event'. The floods which affected the same region in 2005 were apparently a 'one in a hundred year event'. So I changed my facebook status to:
2005 'one in a hundred year event'
2009 'one in a thousand year event'
c'mon folks, when are we going to understand that something is going on?

I just hope some good comes from this horrible time, with houses and property trashed, four bridges swept away, at least one life lost. If it takes a tragedy to get people to realise that we have to change our ways, or suffer much much more of this kind of thing, then it is worth it. But we have a long way to go before we can reduce our CO2 levels back down to 350 parts per million, which scientists suggest is a 'safe' level which will only increase our average global temperature by about two degrees Celcius. However, the level of CO2 today is 385 ppm, up a third since pre-industrial revolution levels of about 280 ppm. The current level of CO2 will give us an increase in temperature of possibly 4 degrees, and as the levels of CO2 are still rising, we might expect an increase of 6 degrees, which would probably give us runaway climate change due to amplifying feedback loops. This CO2 count isn't the only greenhouse gas which is increasing. Methane is probably the best known 'other greenhouse gas' but there are quite a few others, see green living tips for a good simple overview, and Micheal Bloch's other website carbonify has lots of information too.

Anyway, I cycled round to Paulines to help her remove her exuberant potato vine tree, as requested. Her delightful 4 year old great grandchild was there, and she helped in a cute way. As per usual with Pauline, I was rewarded for the work by a good 'real' coffee and soya milk plus chat. I regard Pauline as one of the 'wise women' in my life as she often gives me sound and sensible advice.

I came home via Country Fresh and Freshways and had lunch. As it then started to pour with rain here I did a wash up, and went outside once it had cleared up a bit. I split the logs I collected yesterday and then, as I wanted to stack these, I needed to move the bricks that the chimney removers had left where my logpiles normally are. There were about 60 whole bricks, most of them with mortar still attached. If we're going to reuse these bricks, they have to be mortar free, so I found a hammer and did about 45 bricks in an hour and a quarter. Four of them broke but these might still be useful as hardcore in the wall/fence build foundations. But, as my concentration perhaps wandered towards the end, I hit my thumb nailbed with the hammer, and although it broke the skin, it wasn't painful at first. But a couple of hours later, the pressure under my thumbnail was very painful. I think the nail might come off.

But a happy family evening with good food (yummy fruit salad!) and telly watching together.

Started a game of Scrabble with both my lads... both of whom look like they're going to be good players. I was pleased with how well they did. We didn't finish the game though, but left it on the table to finish tomorrow.

Later, had a lovely long phone chat with a friend whom I've met through facebook, not in 'real life', and it was good to do this. We may never meet but that doesn't mean the friendship is any less enjoyable.

My 1000th blog post on Low Carbon Lifestyle. I wonder how much lower carbon my lifestyle would be if I hadn't have done all this blogging?

But hey, no-one's perfect... especially me, as today's events have reminded me.

Today I was due to attend a York Rotters management meeting, but yesterday one of the other managers rang me to tell me that there had been some complaints about me following the Big Green Market last week when I spent over four hours engaging with the public about home composting. So today, instead of the management meeting, I went in to St Nicks to listen to the accusations, and to try to work out how to deal with the issues.

So, what did I do? Well, it was acknowledged that I am an excellent communicator of composting information and there is no-one more enthusiastic and keen. But, on one occasion I was listening to another (novice) Rotter give some (incomplete or incorrect) information and when they had finished, I spoke to the member of the public and said "actually, you CAN compost that", and told them how. The other Rotter felt they had been contradicted and they didn't like it, and complained. So, first complaint, unjustified I think.

The second was more serious... I was talking to another volunteer and we were talking about ethical burials... I'm not sure who initiated the conversation, but that doesn't really matter. The problem, for the complainant, was that I talked about my plans (Gill and I have a burial plot booked in York Cemetery)and was explaining about Promession, which would be my preferred disposal route, and I told the joke which Gill made when we got the plot, that if I died before her, she'd request to be buried face down. Most people find this amusing, but some over sensitive volunteer complained. They thought it was inappropriate as another volunteer Rotter had died the previous week. I am quite matter of fact about death.. I see it as a consequence of life, but I do know that some people are not as comfortable with the thought of this inevitability. So, this complaint was perhaps half justified.

The next one is inexcusable. How I get members of the public engaged is to wait until someone looks at the cut-away compost bin and I then say "Would you like to tell me about your compost bin?" Many people stop and tell me. A few say "No thanks" and on one occasion someone said "I don't bother to compost" and on this occasion I said "So you don't like recycling then" and this I agree was unprofessional of me. Black mark against my name.

The final thing is the thing I'm most sorry about. One volunteer said they wouldn't want to be on the stall with me again, and another said that they felt like not being part of York Rotters after their experience. I am mortified about this as I started York Rotters in 2004 and love the fact we have been so successful, have lots of active volunteers and are a vital part of St Nicks.

So we sat and talked about my behaviour, the fact that I have been diagnosed as on the autistic spectrum, but don't tick quite enough boxes to be given the Aspergers Syndrome label, despite Gill, my mother, my friend Ann and probably others thinking I have all the classic symptoms. And if I do have AS, then it could be classed as a disability, and this puts an interesting spin on the whole situation. However, I am willing to try to improve and learn to be more empathic, more appropriate, and I will again look to try to secure some Cognitive Behavioural Therapy through the NHS, which might help me.

So, the result of this meeting was that I have been suspended from York Rotters for a month to see if we can resolve the situation. I cannot think of any 'quick fix' here. But in the meantime, I won't be wearing the York Rotters teeshirt, won't do any Rotters volunteering, and won't attend any social events. This is sad but if it helps, and enables York Rotters to continue more smoothly, I can accept the situation.

This was a really difficult meeting for my friend and colleague at St Nicks and I don't want to put that person through this again. Nor do I want to upset the other volunteers (whether or not I think they are oversensitive) or members of the public.

Anyway, I cycled home, had an early lunch and cycled off to see Robin who had asked me to help him install his new solar tubes on his roof. We spent an hour getting ready, with the help of his neighbour, and then when I was in his loft poking a sensor wire through the tiles, he realised he had made an assumption about the new set of tube-holders he had bought. His existing set was configured one way round, with water in at one side and hot water out the other, but unfortunately the new set was made the other way around. This means that he will have to replumb his pipework in his loft. What a nuisance. Poor Robin!

I then went into town to pay in a cheque and to get out another to pay for some advertising.

Then back home, via Country Fresh and Freshways.

I had a quiet and fairly subdued evening. I prepared some pears for drying.

A better, smoother start to the morning, and I was able to get to my 10am appointment with Ann up the road, who asked me last week if I was able to help her with a pile of partly cut down apple tree logs. So I took my electric chainsaw there and she took me to see her 91 year old Mother's garden, next door but one, where some wide-boys had partly taken down the tree, been paid, had problems with their chainsaw, and disappeared. Without finishing the job.

So, John to the rescue. I chopped up the big logs from this once splendid 100 year old + Bramley, which they had cut down as they couldn't use the apples and the fallen apples and autumn leaves were 'untidy'. I think that this is almost criminal, but it was done, there was little point bemoaning it's loss. The whole garden had been covered in gravel and it was so ugly.

The job was bigger than I thought and I spent two hours helping them, for no payment, just the logs, which should be about 10 cycle trailer loads full. Glad it's nearby.

Back for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon wooding, chopping existing logs in the front garden, splitting them, and stacking some by the side of the house where I removed the stacks when the work was done last week. I didn't bring any more from up the road as I haven't space.

Later I popped down to Country Fresh to get potatoes, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms and onions. Came back with what I went for plus two sacks of 'resources'.

Gill was feeling poorly so I made tea... pasta and veg with tomato and onion sauce, really simple but both boys asked for more, so it was well received.

I spent some of the evening doing yet more of the huge pile of persimmons... I've only about 20 or 30 left now, but they dry quickly and are really nice when dried.

Late on I had a good conversation on facebook chat with Sabine in Germany. So a good day in many ways, despite my feelings of anger about such a big old productive tree being chopped down for no good reason that I could understand...

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.

I had a nice morning with the family and dealt with various phone calls and things around the house. Late morning our eldest made a cake with Mum and youngest helped me with some hedge processing in the garden.

In the afternoon, Gill took the boys into town and I went to the University to attend a lecture by Professor Uta Frith about how autism helps us understand how our brians work. I had got the room number BO20 in my memory, and hadn't sussed that it was in the Psychology block. I asked someone if they knew where BO20 was and they told me it was in Biology, where all the room numbers start with BO, apparently. I went looking round Biology but didn't find the room. I eventually found someone in a 'help' office and after another 10 minutes looking through the University website, they found the lecture... in BO20 in Psychology. But by this time I would have been at least 15 minutes late so I cycled home.

But I made good use of the time, I popped into the old chap on Windmill Lane who wanted help removing a cherry tree trunk and asked him if he'd like me to do it in ten minutes... he was delighted so I cycled home, picked up my chainsaw and went back to him. The job was actually much easier than I thought it would be. The difficult job was getting the log to the front of the house, but I walked it end over end. He offered to drive the thing round to mine, I accepted as I don't think my trailer would have coped with such a heavy and long load. I don't do that very often.

I cycled home and cooked some pasta and had the remains of the tomato and trombone squash thing, and Gill and the boys arrived home, having eaten something in town.

At 7pm I set off for a long-arranged meeting with Di, a new Transitioneer, who wants to start a Huntington and New Earswick Transition group. I popped in on my friend Keith on the way, to pass on a message from two of my friends from long ago who want to be in touch with my old partner, and Keith said he'd pass on the message. The meeting at Di's was good, her neighbour Angelica came too and we had a good talk through what would be a good way of starting a local Transition group.

I left soon after 9.30 and got home at 10ish. A bit of a fraught evening as I have a dilemma about what I'm doing this next weekend. I have arranged to do one thing and now there's a chance to do something else... decisions decisions...

A good day, with a bit of a late start but when I did get going I did another bout of hedge in the garden... I'm over halfway now. It's looking good, nice and open, more light. I think having a fence will be an improvement.

After lunch I did a little bit more (another 30 roots in a sack, destination unknown) but soon got ready to go and get two cheques out to pay the deposit for the solar panels, one from my Fiddlesticks money and the other from the Credit Union savings. Then I cycled round to a friend who wanted some help with a bike... simple things but this person is new to bikes and asked me to come and check it out. We walked into town and bought a pump and lights, walked back and I fixed the bike, and was rewarded with coffee and good conversation.

Home via Freshways and a quiet evening at home. Fruit drying tonight, washing up too... the usual!

A slow start to the day... I was able to have an hour of reading the NewScientist which was great... although I'm still 3 weeks behind!

But got up at 10ish and did some more sorting in the conservatory... taking down more dead Yam vines and collecting it all in a huge saucepan, and then taking off the little balls from the leaf axils and collecting them together so I can give them to people and plant more next Spring... I have hundreds!

Had a delivery of new bolts and wing nuts to hold the Composphere together, as the ones it was supplied with were no good, and I contacted the company, who said yes, this was true, and they'd send some different ones. I spent 20 minutes making the sphere spherical again.

Then I put all the Yam vines and tomato haulms together with a large load of other compostables and went down the garden to load up the Composphere. I also picked two pumpkins and a squash, loads of beans and some nasturtium seeds.

I also did a small amount of log splitting whilst waiting for our eldest son to come home, and I visited Country Fresh which has a new groovy green paint-job. Lovely!

Later in the evening I heard the excellent news that the power company E.ON have decided to not build the dirty coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth, supposedly because of the economic downturn meaning that electricity consumption is down. I'm sure that the widespread opposition and criticism also had something to do with it. See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/07/eon-cancels-kingsnorth-power-station?commentpage=1 for the announcement and the reaction; loads of comments.

I got a call from a friend who wanted some help understanding some forms which had arrived so I popped round and looked through them, and talked her through what I thought she should do, and explained her options. A little bit of advocacy work... I may need to help her fill them in.

Late on I sorted through a load of thrown-out pears to salvage what I could to dry. A wet and messy job, interspersed with trips back to the laptop to have goes on Scrabble.