Human Lifestyle

A busy day... two Green Festival meetings and a funeral.

I got up just after 9 and had a quick breakfast and then got a load of potato sacks out of the garage where I put them to dry out, as a Freecycle person has requested 20 for his spuds.

Then raced down to town on the bike, trailer rattling and bouncing behind me, with me dressed in my best black long trousers and Jimi Hendrix black teeshirt, in the pouring rain to the York Green Festival meets City of York Council Environmental Health meeting.

This went reasonably well... despite us not having all the answers. Fortunately Jem from JSS Audio was there and he did have some answers... after all he is a professional! I agreed to be the person who will cycle round all the sensitive areas nearby and assess the sound levels. I will have to keep records, so that if we do have complaints, we can demonstrate that we did everything possible to reduce the likelihood of noise nuisance. We have some technical fixes too, but fortunately that's nothing to do with me.

I had to go at 11am as I had decided to go to the funeral of John Morris, a friend of my good friend Jonathan. I met John Morris about 5 times, and found him an interesting, humorous and friendly guy, more unique than the average person and with a fascinating home full of books.

The funeral was at the Crematorium, and I got there with about 5 minutes to spare and Jonathan beckoned me over. There were a few familiar faces, Debbie from over the road, John and Shirley Bibby, some other York folks. The service was really good. I was fascinated to hear more about John, his times spent at Ampleforth School, his love of botany, antiquarian books, and his unusual lifestyle. His wife, daughter and three friends spoke, and the celebrant was good too. I haven't been to many funerals but this was a good one. Sad, but good. A good send off.

Cycled home in thoughtful mood... funerals always make me realise how short life is, and remind me to continue packing as much into it as I can, as I could be dead tomorrow, next month, next year... or might last 10, 30 or even 50 years more! The moral is we rarely know when the end is nigh, so live every day as if it is your last...

I cannot remember what I did in the couple of hours between the funeral and my next meeting.. probably some compost management (I know I changed my clothes!) and I had lunch, but at 4ish I headed off to Rowntree Park to meet John the park keeper, who will be on duty on Sunday 6th. I wanted to brief him about the Festival, and find out about various power and resources issues. The news was good, and I came home via Country Fresh happy, and bought some avocados and eggs, carrots and a head of broccoli.

When I got back, I had a visitor from around the corner, a lady called Gillian which she pronounces with a hard G, not a J. She told me that they were taking down a large fir tree, and they had stacked under it a pile of logs... and did I want them? I have never knowingly said no to logs, so I happily took the wheelbarrow round to pick them up. When I got the second load, I sat and chatted with them, and had a very jolly conversation. And the logs were great too... really dry hardwood.

Spent a long time chopping apples up for drying... and used one of the new logs to get them started. And heat washing up water...

A good day as the boys were lovely and we all got on really well. I started the day by typing in my paid blog post which I'd written several days ago but not been able to type in... it is on my experiences in London last Wednesday. Then Gill and I spent some time preparing for the new door being put in tomorrow... Gill moved stuff from inside and I removed the logpile from outside... and then I cycled down to the Credit Union to get a cheque out to pay the door installers tomorrow.

After that I popped in to see Pauline who had requested several paper potato sacks for use transporting wood offcuts from a nearby renovation job where they have said that she can have any offcuts for her stove. And the very good news is that her new neighbour, Alan ( a friend I know through the Green Party) has offered to saw her wood as a sort og 'useful workout' instead of going to the Gym... nice one Alan! More good news is that a relative of Pauline's has recently become quite a lot more empathic and warm towards her, after Pauline helped out with a family event... over and above what she had to do. This has made Pauline very happy. She also showed me an article in a glossy magazine about a chap who's decorated and fitted out his basement flat using mainly found and reused materials. I speed-read the article and said 'it's a perfect example of Permaculture' and Pauline agreed and said she was pleased that nowhere in the article did it say 'eco'... even though it was more 'eco' than many of the so-called green makeovers with loads of gadgets and expensive power generation stuff.

Came back via Martin's country Fresh to buy potatoes and cauliflower, and collect 3 sacks of compostables which I despatched into a tumbler with some shredded twigs as soon as I got home.

During the evening I did a huge pile of washing up and had a game of Scrabble with Gill who beat me... just! I also made time to squeeze 7 lemons (no idea what was wrong with them!) and then soaked some dried pear slices in the lemon juice, and also squeezed 15 limes and soaked the other half of the jar of pear slices in that juice. I particularly like citrus pears... the sweetness of the pear goes so well with the tangy flavour of the lemon or lime. I'll redry them tomorrow after an overnight soak.