Update - my degree, my hair, my house and my kitchen

I always seem to start my blog posts with such things as “so much for keeping on top of blogging” and “so much has happened.”  Well a lot has happened and no – I haven’t kept on top of my blogging.  I have however sorted out my degree with the Open University and will be finishing my degree in June 2015.  It will be a open degree in Maths, Computing, Business and Design.  I am taking a break from the studies whilst I help my Dad market his new book – go here to have a look. My next course starts in Feb and is about sustainable design, followed by one in investigating entrepreneurial opportunities and finishing with 2 courses in teaching statistics and analysing data.  

I passed my PTTLS teaching course and I am hoping that I can start working as a Maths tutor as soon as my house is sorted.  We have had a family living with us since July whilst they are trying to find somewhere to live in York so space is at a premium in our house as the moment with 8 people living in a 4 bedroom house!!  This should all be resolved by Christmas when I am hoping that our kitchen extension will also have been completed.  It reminds me of the book A Squash and a Squeeze and I am looking forward to having the space and ability so that I can properly re-arrange and re-zone the house as part of my Permaculture Diploma.  A lot of this re-zoning hinges on the kitchen being re-designed so fingers crossed that gets done as soon as possible.

Talking about my Applied Diploma in Permaculture Design the not-washing-my-hair thing did not work as planned.  My hair never “righted” itself like others did so I resorted to using bicarbonate of soda but it still wasn’t enough for my hair.  So I tried using egg and vinegar and still not great so I have compromised and started using Faith in Nature shampoo again but only once a week or so with bicarbonate of soda in between.  I am going to keep trying experimenting with different alternatives as not happy using shampoo even if it is ecologically sound stuff.

The zopa loans lending scheme is still working out well for us and am I really pleased with it.  I would highly recommend this service or others like it to anyone wanting to cut the bank out of the financial equation.  You can borrow money or lend it via these types of schemes and the extra interest goes to the lender and the borrower pays less than they would to a bank.

Wood, potential mushrooms plus Zopa update

We went for a walk along York river and here are some of the bits of wood we found along the way.  Very happy with that and also think we found a good place to go mushroom hunting in Autumn as well.  

Sad news that Flapjack the last of our three original chickens died during the night.  That means we are down to 3 but we seem to be getting enough eggs from them not to consider getting any more at the moment.

More good news though - the money we put on Zopa that I mentioned back in October has all been loaned out to people!!  Really chuffed about that as when I checked before Christmas we had only lent out about 20% of the money we had put in.

Permaculture AGM, Diploma update and Zopa loan

Went to the Permaculture Association (PA) AGM in Manchester yesterday and met up with some of my PDC fellow students.  It was a great day mostly because it was fab to see so many like-minded people in one place discussing interesting projects and sharing ideas.  Also great to hear that the PA is moving forwards and some exciting things happening - go and check is out here. Going to try and get over to the Leeds gatherings sometime (if I can fit it in) - see Leeds Permaculture Network website.  Whatever happens I am going to get more involved somehow just because I think it is a great organisation.

Doing well with some of the parts of my diploma.  Haven't stepped foot in Tesco since the 1st October!!  Extending our lembas bulk orders.  Lembas are like Suma but based in Sheffield so we are now going to get some of our frozen stuff from them.  Still getting a veg box from Able and Cole and that seems to be going well.  Dave came home with a huge box of onions from the allotment the other day which is always great and we are still eating our way through the fruit from our trees.  Planted some of our other fruit trees the other day to start off the forest garden transformation.

Done some clothes swapping with people recently which was great and planning on going to a swishing gathering on Saturday.  Haven't really missed clothes shopping to be honest as I always found it disheartening that I never quite fitted things well.  I dusted the sewing machine off the other day and did some linings for a few of my crochet bags but really need to venture into adjusting clothes.  Not a great sewer though so that could be fun!!!

I have just set up my first Zopa loan which is very exciting.  "At Zopa, people who have spare money lend it directly to people who want to borrow.  There are no banks in the middle, no huge overheads and no sneaky fees, meaning everyone gets better rates."  Cutting out the banks has to be a really, really good idea (see my previous post!!) so although this is a bit of a scary prospect it is also very exciting!!!  I reckon everyone should go and check this sort of thing out though.  It seems a great idea.  UPDATE - only an hour later and already £60 has been lent out to people - very exciting!!