Managed to procure the use of a ribbon saw to cut the MDF down to the 8′ x 3′ required.  Then came the slow process of getting the wood into the dinning room without breaking the windows.  But eventually we laid the panel down onto the dining room table and began administering the base coat.  Then after a cider or two while we waited for the paint to dry, we set to transferring the design over onto the panel.

Kewan had the idea to utilise the age-old primary school trick of “grid to grid” so we scaled up to 2cm : 3 inch.  Then to a sound track of Empire of the Sun and Annie Lennox we sketched out the design.

Next steps: paint the banner, carry in a procession of folk music to opposite Tesco on Manchester Road and strap to railings.

Watch this space…

Oops,

I haven’t been reporting back as much as I should have been, my excuse is a good one though.  I’ve been focussing on training for the marathon recently which is taking up quite a lot of time and mind power, but have gotten into the swing of things with this now, evening managing to get up early on weekends hungover and run through the rain.  Running 3 miles in 25-23mins.  Did my first 5 miles on Monday?!  Took 43 mins which I’m sure is just about OK for a beginner right?

Well the house is now running completely on ethical electric and gas.  So I thought I should log my meter readings to be sure I can;t cheet.
Meter Readings taken on 31st March are as follows:
Good Energy: 78663.1
Equigas:  1981

Still haven’t found out how many kWh are acceptable but shall endeavour to keep them both as low as possible. As far as water supply is concerned, there’s not much I can do about my supplier but there is something I can do to conserve water and reduce household usage.  I’ve been looking into getting water butts to collect the rain water so that this can be used to water the pots and hanging baskets in which I’m growing all of the food; but there’s a major problem.  For some reason the downpipes from the guttering to the ground are on both my neighbours’ property, so I don’t have access to the water run-off from the roofs.   So far I’ve been using the water which collected in large pots and tubs in the back yard over winter, but with spring hotting up and average summer rainfall set to decrease by over 50% by 2020.  I fear that this reserve isn’t going to go very far.

As far as the food growing is concerned – I’ve sown 9 tomatoes, 6 chillies, 6 bell peppers,6 pati pan, 6 turk’s turbans, 6 butternut and 6 yellow courgettes all in the full sun in the living room window. Outside on the street, I’ve got 2 gooseberry bushes and have prepared the bed at the bottom of the two trees which stand outside my house on the pavement where I’m going to grow loads of different types of beans.

Haven’t weighted my trash yet, can’t find any second hand scales to use for this purpose.  Any ideas?

When you take on loads of voluntary activities it becomes very easy to fall victim to burn-out.  It’s happened to me before, twice, but having finished last year on an illness bender and having been restored to full health just before Winter Solstice,  I started 2009 with all the naivety of a nine year old.  “2009 will be my year” I thought to myself as I stepped out into the new year.  “Last year was pretty great – one of the best; but this year…this year will be great”.

I started this blog with the intention that writing would help me understand and fix my projects and workloads into my head, so I guess I should just take some time to take stock, if I am only 1 month in:

Current projects, finish decorating the house, design logo for transition city Manchester, finish designing banner for the Barbakan, then buy the canvas and paint it, finish delivering flyers for keep Chorlton interesting, start the food growing project, continue writing for the Call to Real Action, help Manchester Creative Collectives re-draft their manifesto.  Finish time for all projects, 31st March.  Shit!

I was in London for a few days with work, attending a sustainability conference with prominent guest speakers and the like.  It was all well and good but, I didn’t learn anything new!  Same old rhetoric, same old faces.  I seem to have an endless supply of naivety.  Once again I genuinely believed that I’d come away with answers but I’m afraid that I didn’t.  However, what I do have is 7 hours of minute taking to type up and report back to work on.  This is all secondary to the tale though…while in Lewersham, I might have agreed to write a series of books on home brewing and definitely agreed to design my mate’s garden for her.  How much more am I going to volunteer to do?

As burn-out approaches, there seems to be much more that I’m not doing, rather than doing…can it be possible that the more one takes on the less one does?  I shall proceed with caution.

Once our new housemate moves into to the spare room, I can begin weighing the household rubbish.  (Next to me on my desk is a request from the council asking me to choose my desired recycling service.  We’re to have our plastic bottles collected now!  Soon, very soon the mountain of Charlie’s empty Iron Bru bottles stashed in the shed will be gone – a long and painful bone of contention soon to be healed by the magic of National Indicator 192 – Household waste recycled or composted.

We are now officially recieving 100% renewable elctricity…and our ethical gas supplier turn on the tap on April 1st.  Yummy!  My geeky side is shining through, kWh will become my only language soon enough.

It’s a good job I love old.  Having trialled several different footprint calculators for work (Bio-Regional’s is the best I’ve found so far) it’s now confirmed in my mind that I should be reducing not only my waste and energy consumption but reducing the amount of goods that I buy new full stop.  Having vowed to never use supermarkets 15 months ago, should I now vow to go a whole year without buying anything that isn’t at least second-hand?  I think so…

According to Bio-Regional’s footprint calculator my ecological footprint is 3.1 global hectares.  A global hectare is one hectare of biologically productive space with world-average productivity. In 2002 the biosphere had 11.4 billion hectares of biologically productive space corresponding to roughly one quarter of the planet’s surface. This includes 2.0 billion hectares of ocean and 9.4 billion hectares of land. 1 global hectare is a hectare representing the average capacity of one of these 11.4 billion hectares.

Global hectares allow the meaningful comparison of the ecological footprints of different countries, which use different qualities and mixes of cropland, grazing land, and forest. For comparative purposes an ecological footprint is usually expressed in gha per person. Once all global hectares of bioprucdtive land and sea are divided by the total global population, we end up with our fair earth share – 1.8 gha; thank you Ecological Budget. I’m currently using enough resources to require 1.7 planets -  (not single handed – if everyone on the planet used the same as I currently do) – and produce 7.1 tonnes of CO2.  The breakdown: home & energy – 15%; transport – 21%; food – 18%; goods – 8%; government – 19%; capital assets – 7%; and services 12%.

Obviously my target is 1 planet (1.8 gha) but what is my carbon emissions target.  I’d heard 2.5 tonnes was the global fare share amount.  I put the question to WWF who replied about a day later that it was about 3.92 tonnes.

Second thoughts…from the breakdown above its clear that I need to make cuts in transport, food and government emissions.  Low carbon might be a little harder than first though.  I walk everywhere, get the bus to work, use my car about 4 times a year and catch a train about three times a year;  I don’t fly;  Government emissions, well I vote, campaign and protest but could I guess do more; and I make ethical choices with my food.  Will endeavour to find ways of improving.

Well, well, well,

It seems there is such a thing as an ethical gas supplier.  Equigas part of Ebico supplies gas in a great way.  It has no shareholders and thus profit is transformed into cheaper gas/kWh and the funding of Fuel Poverty related projects.  Plus I’m saving £85.53 a quarter – no brainer – started the change of supplier process straight away.  I really thought that green and ethical energy would cost more than normal but I’ve saved just under £150 a quarter – perhaps Scottish Power were just being a bit cheeky with their prices?

What else?  Charlie’s leaving the house allowed for major overhaul of the housing situation, however he will be missed.  His room is now the sitting room decorated mostly in second hand paint and free G-plan furniture so total cost £10ish for one pot of War Cabinet brown paint from Chorlton Trade Paints!  Eco paint is something to investigate.  It is south facing with a large bay-window and deep sills; ideal for growing tomatoes and okra perhaps?  Sitting room cum greenhouse?!

I have begun to design the banner on behalf of Keep Chorlton Interesting for outside Barbakan Deli in protest over the new Tesco which opened this week despite local opposition from residents, councillors and planners.  I’m not allowed to be political or slag Tesco off which is saddening.  I saw a “nice” looking young woman striding into Tesco express on my way home and I wanted to scream awful things at her – how can anyone think it’s acceptable to use centralised supermarkets who ruin the farming industry, rear unhealthy animals and transport food from all over the world in refrigerated tankers?  Especially when you can buy tasty, cheap, local, organic food right on your door step – whist supporting your local economy and local traders.  Who wants a clone town and how can they be educated?  She looked excited and relieved at once “finally the convenience I need” read the thought bubble above her head.

I’m finding not having a bank card frustrating (I cannot believe the incompetence of Barclays.  I notified them that my card was swallowed on 31st January and despite requesting a new card twice before it wasn’t ordered until I requested it a third time.  Also, nobody told me that for some reason all correspondence had been halted to my address because they took it upon themselves to tag me as “Left the Country”.  I almost broke into tears from the anger)  as I’ve not been able to buy new paint or materials for the banner, and I’m way behind schedule.  Not here this weekend or next so will have to pull my thumb out during the week.

On the ethical banking front, Co-op won’t let me transfer my account until I’ve clear my debt – which I guess will be good for us both – but it doesn’t stop me hating the fact that currently my money/debt is funding bad things in Burma.  So ethical banking out of the window for about 12 months.  Eek.

Made a start on the yard this afternoon and will endeavour to get to Hulme Community Garden centre next weekend to furnish the freshly weeded flower-bed.  The metal dustbin “compost bin” is now full.  I fear it’s only going to get fuller over the next few weeks as I clear the shed roof.

Gardener’s world magazine arrived yesterday, complete with free seeds.  The Californian poppies will get sown onto the shed in March, the cherry tomatoes and cayenne will end up in the hanging baskets I’ve got planned for the front of the house, which is south facing.

Now I also received sunflower seeds, but I’m hesitant to sow them in the front as last summer’s sunflowers were pulled up or snapped.  Does Mahatmaland need a security upgrade before the spring?

Received consensus on switching to green energy from housemates today.  We’ve gone with Good Energy and we’ve made a saving of £61.83 per quarter which seems loads and will definitely be monitoring energy use more closely and investigate how much electricity is acceptable under One Planet Living standards.  Still to investigate which gas suppliers are the greenest/most ethical and make the switch to them.

Wheelie bin has been put out for the first time this year – that’s 9 weeks.  Might consider weighing the bags before they go out so that I can feed the information to Manchester City Council.  The kerb-side collection tub was put out for the second time this year last week.  An indication that Charlie hasn’t been around.

So all in all great gains in reduction of waste to landfill, carbon emissions and back yard eyesore scores.

What next…?