Happy Friday! I’m still too hot and praying for rain, hopefully you’ve all had cooler weeks…
How to transform the way we work: scrap Fridays. Today that would be lovely…
It’s never their fault: why the Brexiteers love to cry betrayal. I’ve not said a lot about Brexit because I tend to start shouting about how stupid the whole thing is and that shouting generally starts with “it was a sodding ADVISORY referendum, am I the only person who read it?” (and yes I am tremendous fun at parties!). However, this feels true, it’s never them, it’s the EU or Theresa May or business, they couldn’t possibly have been wrong.
The big heatwave: from Algeria to the Arctic. But what’s the cause?
Will Theresa May finally stand up to the DUP and help restore Stormont? No, probably not. I keep saying it, May is a tactician not a strategist. She made a tactical move to stay in power after the election but didn’t think through any of the consequences. This is one. May doesn’t lead, she reacts, the Tory party took stubbornness for strength. She’s not strong.
How to be an excellent landlord (Christmas sherry not mandatory)
Netanyahu will be known as the first prime minister of Israeli apartheid
‘I felt colossally naive’: the backlash against the birth control app You felt colossally naïve because you were colossally naïve. This is called the rhythm method. A shiny app doesn’t make it any less like the rhythm method and there’s the joke which tells you everything you need to know. “what do you call people who use the rhythm method for contraception? Mummy and Daddy”
Sorry, you can’t be working class and socialist in the new authentocracy. Yep, my brother the taxi driver is considered to be more working class than me.
This racist new law makes me ashamed to be Israeli.
Beware the coming of Jacob Rees-Mogg and his Brexit apocalypse
I’m counting down the days until I have a whole week off, but I have a ton of things to do at work before that.
They were at Junipalooza but I didn’t get around to visiting them, so I don’t really know much about this, except that you can buy it in Sainsburys.
Other than harvest, water and feed which takes forever, we did other things. We pulled up the sweet peas, they had aphids on them, and the California poppies that were taking over the rhubarb and also beginning to look a bit messy and thus were offending Ma’s sensibilities…
I also planted out some more mint in the bath and trimmed the tomatoes some more, tomatoes are a labour intensive crop but they do reward the effort.
I’m impatient for the cucumbers and tomatoes to really start coming in but the work list for next week is pretty light (for a change)
However, life, with work, the flat, the allotment, having friends and a life generally, I don’t get to spend all that much time doing what I love. Also that life has been pretty busy, it’s summer and I seem to spend all of my time watering and socialising and not much time at home. All of this is good, I wouldn’t want anyone to thing that my life is no fun but last week, I hit a wall. I felt like my house and my life needed a tidy. So I took Friday and Monday off to sort it out (and spend some time lounging about with a book!)
And you get to see the wobbly bridge full of people, like a traffic jam…
Also notable this week, Christelle’s amazing orchid, it’s so perfect it looks fake.
And Gabi the wonder dog. She is a boxer, but given that she’s only little (nine months) and a boxer, she’s actually very chilled, once she gets over her initial bouncing. Also Mike and Christelle have the most realistic fake grass, I’ve ever seen…
It’s been a very social week for me, I was at Mike and Christelle’s on Saturday night and at Kathy and Adam’s on Sunday (where I also got to see some other friends), so I’m a tiny bit peopled out and looking forward to a day of sorting out and straightening out the flat.
Nic Dempsey 