Human Lifestyle

A very odd night. I'd had a headache most of the previous day and so before bed time I went looking for a paracetamol. There was one left and I usually take two. Gill suggested having that plus an aspirin so I took both. Then I just couldn't get to sleep, just lay there from about 2am til 4am with my mind quite active but body tired and reasonably still, just listening to the sounds of Gill sleeping next to me and other noises. At 4am I gave up and came downstairs to say hello to the silverfish and spend some time on the computer. I heard Gill get up at 6am as she usually does, to go to the loo so I went upstairs to go to bed.

Later, when I'd had about 5 hours sleep, generally all I need, I came downstairs at 11am and Gill told me she knew why I'd not slept earlier... the aspirin she gave me had caffeine with it. I'm very sensitive to this, and ephedrine (in some decongestants) as I've had this happen before and realised the following day. But as long as I get a few hours sleep I'm all right.

So I had breakfast at lunchtime and then went outside as it was a lovely day, and the boys were playing with their friend who lives just up the road with a radio-controlled car, driving it over some ramps. To ensure fair play, I did some work in the front of the house... I had actually wanted to continue doing the compost heap I'm digging out but it was more sensible to stay near the children to intervene if anything needed adult intervention. But it didn't, and I was even allowed a single go with the car. But the play lasted less than an hour as the batteries started giving out, and I took the shredded pine stuff from yesterday down the garden and continued to dig out the big 1 cubic metre pallet heap which will be refilled very soon with all the materials I collected over the snowy time... quite a lot, and much of it will be composting away in it's boxes and sacks already. It won't be as pleasant a job as my normal composting activities.

When it was too dark to see what I was doing I came in and helped one of my sons with some homework and had a 'use it up' tea which included a bread-and-butter pudding which used up some spare bread thrown out by Freshways. I'll post a recipe to that soon, when I'm not typing away at 2am.

Lots of email traffic today for some reason. Spent a lot of time writing a couple of posts for this website: http://forum.homemadelife.com/ which I like as it covers lots of subjects I hold dear. My e-friend 'Compostwoman' invited me to join. Some of the emails were all the replies on the forum, each of which generated it's own email. Grrrr, should switch them off!

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

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

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

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

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

I got up just in time to have breakfast and get dressed and then receive my guest this morning.

Karen C is an acupuncturist and a colleague or friend of my friend June, and is doing some research into acupuncture and ADHD. June contacted me, knowing that I self diagnosed with ADHD yonks ago. I explained that the experts had told me that although I had probably had ADHD as a child, I did not have enough of, or severe enough symptoms of the condition to be diagnosed with it. However, as Karen was having difficulty finding enough diagnosed adults, she altered her research parameters to include people like me, who are on that spectrum but not 'bad enough'(!) to merit the full label...

So, soon after 10, Karen arrived to do my history, which is standard practice before doing any complimentary therapy. I have done this several times for different people and it does take some time, in this case, over two hours. But it is, for me, the most important part of the work of the complimentary therapists that I've experienced so far (and I confess to have only tried maybe 4 or 5) as 'normal' GPs don't ever have this time for their patients.

I've never had acupuncture, but Gill has and it helped her painful back. I tried homeopathy with a good friend who is a very experienced and well respected homeopath, but I had no response to it whatsoever. I told her in the history-taking that I was skeptical and didn't believe that there was any active ingredient in homeopathic medicines. She said that didn't matter. But my expectations were realised.

I've also tried a couple of types of massage therapies, of which Indian Head Massage was by far the most wonderful and deep tissue Swedish massage was the most horrible.

Anyway, Karen was happy with the info I gave her, and I agreed to go and see her four times in the next month (in Harrogate) to see if having acupuncture helps me either become tidier (!) or more organised, more relaxed or any other improvements.

She had a quick tour down the garden and took a bag of dried fruit, and I had lunch.

Then we all had a good time in the garden... the boys played on the trampoline and Gill and I pruned a large lilac tree... Gill directed, I went up the ladder and sawed the branches off, pollarding the tree for a second time since we moved here. I then spent quite a bit of time shredding the large pile of stuff which resulted from this massacre, and then loading a pallet bin with layers of this woody stuff with layers of vegetable and fruit, surrounded with flattened cardboard boxes up against the pallet sides.

I picked another load of stuff including a courgette, a tromboncino squash, some Jack Edwards climbing pea beans, runner beans invading our garden from next door, bramley apples, James Grieve apples and assorted pears. Tea time!

And tea time was lovely with lots of good fresh veg... much of the above but also tomatoes from the conservatory, all mixed with noodles.

I prepared quite a bit of food tonight, including potatoes and sweet potatoes, which will get eaten tomorrow.

A nice sunny morning so I got up reasonably early, and at 9.30 got ready to go to John Bibby's again, as yesterday I'd promised to help his wife, Shirley, move her compost bins, as the new development (they've sold a chunk of their garden and a house is due to be built) will be on top of where their compost bins are. I took my 'compost mate' tool as it is the best way to extract the top layers from a dalek bin, so they can be put back in the new empty bin. Once I had a wheelbarrow full of the most recently added stuff, I installed an empty bin in a new place, and put a load of prunings and cardboard in the bottom before putting the semi-rotted stuff on top of this.

The base of the compost bin was full of well-rotted material, so I just lifted it up off the pile, and installed it in the new place, leaving the pile of rich compost for Shirley to use in a new border, which will go in front of a new fence. I shovelled one wheelbarrow's worth into the barrow and left the rest for Shirley to do. I reckoned an hour and a quarter was enough. I filled the trailer, panniers and rack with another batch of logs and cycled home, slowly.

Gill was just getting ready to go out with the boys and one of their friends to Pocklington by bus... there's a lovely garden there, Burnby Hall and Gardens, where there are fish to feed and water lilies to look at. And a Sainsburys.

So they went out and I had lunch and got on with various things in the garden, including log chopping and splitting, sorting out an old compost heap... a pallet version which has finished rotting down and some of it's contents have fallen through the base, so I took it all to pieces, tidied up and put everything in a builders bag. Also did more weeding... green alkanet, ground elder, nettles, all growing much better than any crops!

I did a load of stacking too, round the back under my covered woodpile, and then Gill came back; they'd had a nice time and the bus journeys were easy, and the fish were hungry.

We all had egg, beans and chips for tea, and whilst they watched Robin Hood I did some more wood wrangling, getting in at about 10. I love these light nights.

Late on, I played Scrabble and watched a version of The Midwich Cuckoos, a film called Village of the Damned. John Wyndham was one of my favourite authors when I was a teenager... I gobbled up Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov, lots of science fiction. Now I don't have time (or inclination?) to read fiction... and I prefer science fact anyway now! Some of the stuff I read in NewScientist is stranger than fiction anyway!

Gill went to a little party gathering next door, Diane and her sister, female friends only. She enjoyed the company. It's not often she goes to a party!

It is Compost Awareness Week and so I am posting this special photo-blog to show how I do my composting. Regular readers will know that I have an arrangement with a greengrocers to purchase their compostable resources for a penny per sack. This financial transaction keeps us both within the law. They have a duty to do some sorting/recycling, so putting all the biodegradables separately fulfils this, and then as I'm not a registered waste carrier, I buy the resources so they never become waste. So this is how they come home. This load is probably about 60Kg.

So, the load is taken off the bike and trailer, and this is a fairly typical selection, 6 boxes and a sack.


Another batch of finished compost in a builders bag supported by pallets.

This is a typical rubbish bag from when I turn the compost. There's assorted plastic, some 'glue-strips' which used to fix cardboard boxes together (and the cardboard has rotted away), and small bits of metal, glass and other non-compostables.

Another special edition will be uploaded sometime showing riddling and use of my compost.

A very lazy start to the day. Gill went to Easingwold by bus to pick up the two flat irons which were advertised in the Press a little while ago. I did various things around the house and generally pottered, answered the phone and took Fiddlesticks bookings, or passed enquirers on to my agent if I was unable to do the work because of already being booked...

Gill came in after lunch bearing two quite rusty flat irons. We wondered what we could do to make them usable again? I think there is a chemical product which when applied to rusty metal, reacts with the oxidised iron and makes it wholesome again... but I have no idea whether this might work and where to get it from. I probably need to speak to a car restorer or something like that. And then, to make the bottoms really flat and smooth. How to do this? Sandpaper??? At the moment, the irons are useless for Gill's needs. Any flat-iron restorers out there? Advice gladly received!

Gill once again went to school and got our youngest, she's doing this regularly from now on as part of her exercise regime! I sorted out some growing media in the garden, and then cycled down to Country Fresh with 5 carrier bags of riddled rich compost for sale. I came back with 3 boxes and a sack of juicy rottables...

But no time for processing those as was off to the LETS bring and share meal at Lynn's, which was very enjoyable and social, as I met several new people. I too dried fruit and flapjack to share... as usual the fruit was very popular! One of the new LETS members was Michael (his wife Suzi was there too) and he was cycling (she was in a car) so when I left at 7ish, he came too and we cycled together as far as Bishopthope Road, where he went on to Acomb and I peeled off to The Stables for a York in Transition meeting.

Barry chaired, there were 13 of us there, a good turn out. And a swift meeting, covering a lot of ground... we'd finished by 9. I decided not to go on to a pub as I wanted to get home. I stopped by Country Fresh as I'd seen a lost and lonely pallet which I bungeed onto my trailer, then to a skip where I found another two! So, an excellent haul of pallets, which goes some of the way to replacing a pallet compost heap which I've had to take up and break apart, as it was becoming too rickety and falling to pieces. Infact the one I've taken up is the original pallet heap that was in the garden when we moved here in 2001, so it has had a lot of use and lasted well. It's replacement will be slightly bigger and raised up off the ground to deter rodents. I'll need two or more horizontal pallets on the ground, and then four sides on top of that, wired together. It results in a tall heap, but less access for rats, who like burrowing into compost heaps at soil level, and as mine are now mostly above soil level, there is nowhere for them to go.

Gill was pleased to see me and we had a relaxed evening.

A really good day in any ways, starting with a not too early start, breakfast and back to bed for an hour or less. Because of an outbreak of 'What do I do now'-ness, we rang round various friends but no-one was in or available, so there was a bit of frustration and disruptive behaviour, but we got through it like any parent has to.

I had a very productive day, including visiting the Co-op and stocking up on cereals, visiting Country Fresh and buying spuds and a cauliflower, and bringing back about 5 boxes of compostables, coming back via Freshways and collecting another 2 sacks of compostable stuff plus about 20 loaves which I'll dry next to the stove until crisp and fuel-like, re-built a large pallet bin and lined it with chicken wire salvaged from the skip in Tang Hall last week, cut down yet more brambles, shredded them and put layers of this with layers of the fruit/veg 'resources' in the new pallet bin, and did some weeding in the raspberry area, prior to top dressing with compost. I also did a bit more riddling of the contents of a dalek bin, which so far has resulted in 4 sacks of compost/loam mix, which will form the basis of this year's tomato/cucumber crop. At one stage during the day I persuaded one of the children to actually help in the garden; he pruned a load of ivy which was taking over the fernery. Good work!

This evening I did a load of washing up and more fruit for drying, another load of apples and pears. At about 11pm, Gill told me she'd got a DVD out when she had taken back an old one to Blockbusters... she'd got 'WALL.E' out, as she and the kids had seen it at City Screen in town and she thought I must see it, as I'd like the theme of recycling... Well I have kinda half watched it and yes, I do like it, to some extent. I'm not particularly into animation of the kiddie kind but I'm glad that I at least know what it's about!

Spent some time exploring the new improved vyouz network, which include vskips, the virtual skip site where things can be offered and requested, to stop them going to landfill, and bornrecycling, which enables people to 'give away, swap, sell or request all manner of baby items from cots and cribs to bottles and bibs'... what an excellent idea! I posted a couple of offers on vskips: compost, and paper sacks. The vyouz network is worth exploring as it has more than just these websites.

So, a busy day! My hands hurt with blackberry prickles and fruit juices...

Up quite early so could do my review of Age of Stupid for my Column in Community Care. It wasn't easy to write, as my first draft was over 500 words... I have to try to keep it under 350!

But I got it done by lunchtime but had a fairly quiet afternoon too. But this was most welcome as I was tired. I did go and get my bike trailer from the menders, cost me £23 but I got a receipt this time which I'll save for my accounts. I popped in to Country Fresh and got some plums which my boys like, and cucumber, tomatoes and eggs, plus two boxes of compostables.

I pulled apart a compost heap after this, one made of pallets. I put the contents in the bay next to it, this being it's first 'turning'. I also dug up the contents of a nearby dalek which has rotted down really well and put this on the big riddle, to start making my potting compost. I had topped the dalek's contents with some turf, so there was a good mix of soil and compost already.

At 5.30 came in and cleaned up, using the composty hand-washing water to water and feed the houseplants. I first wash my hands in cold clean water, with the plug in the sink, and scrubbing the compost off with a scrubbing brush. Then I scoop up the water and dribble it into various houseplants. Then I finish off with a bit of soap. I don't give the plants this, despite it being biodegradable.

I cycled down to David's to pick up the LETS bank paperwork, and had a good chat about some of the issues which Age of Stupid had thrown up, and a conversation on Facebook about flying.

But he was going out so I didn't spend long, and cycled up to Bootham to see Liz, who used to be our Treasurer and I needed her signature to take her off the account, and we had a short but good chat.

Came back via the cycle track, and brought home a large and long tree trunk, not on the trailer (far too long and heavy for that!) but held to the frame of my bike with several tightly stretched bungees. The heavy end of the trunk stuck out over my front wheel, the narrower end out over the trailer, the whole thing being a bit longer than my bike and trailer combined. Felt a bit odd to cycle, initially, but I got used to it quickly.

So, home, I reheated the long-lasting mushroom soup and used it as a sauce for the pasta left over from yesterday. So, a use it all up meal. There were homework shenanigans this evening, and I did my best to keep out of it. Any involvement from me generally exacerbates the difficulties being experienced, which is a pity as I'd love to help.

I did a huge pile of washing up and prepared 3 pineapples for drying on the stove.