Happy Friday! It’s been a week. England are through to the quarter finals, but even bigger than that is that I have 4 teams through in the family draw, one of them is England.
‘It’s nothing like a broken leg’: why I’m done with the mental health conversation.This is a brilliant piece.
Let’s talk about my abortion (and yours). This so much this…
Grenfell firefighter tells of attempt to rescue girl from 20th floor. This is horrific. Not that it matters but David Badillo is someone I know of, he isn’t a friend of mine but he’s the friend of a couple of people I know and I believe the girl he was looking for was the niece of one of his mates. How he is even standing, let alone back at work, I really don’t know. I was trying to explain to someone recently, that how I feel about Grenfell is more than sad, it was horrific but I feel more than horror. It feels close to me not because I lived in social housing until I was four or because my parents both grew up in council flats and my grandad did until he died. Or because Ma lives in social housing now. What happened at Grenfell, doesn’t feel just like a tragedy, it feels like contempt. Social housing is the only way that people like me get secure, affordable housing. I remember when Ma got her flat, she was so relived to be safe, to know that she had somewhere to live for the rest of her life. It’s how working class people get to stay in the area they grew up in, where their communities and friends are. But it seems that Kensington and Chelsea, and the government, didn’t think that the people who lived in that tower were worth keeping safe or entitled to feel secure or live in safety. It’s not just about how many died, how they died, it’s about how gentrification and politics that have made working class people less than human. That’s why I’m so emotional about Grenfell.
Speak for England, Danny Dyer. You’ve blown the lid on Brexit He was only saying what everyone was thinking!
Landlords react with fury to three-year tenancy plans. Let’s just see if anything comes of this consultation, my money is on nothing happening. As for people not wanting long term contracts, I haven’t found that this is the case.
Trouble at the Today programme: is it losing its grip? I don’t like it as much since Sarah Sands took over, it’s beginning to feel like a middle class jolly. Nowadays, I only get the first hour or so because I need to be out of the house, but I feel I learn more from other R4 news programmes or the World Service…
Save the Elephant: the fight to protect south London’s ‘anti-Westfield’ You would think at the very least the developers would try and meet the minimum standards the council has set. It seems that developers really think that they can just ride roughshod over communities.
South Carolina police object to high-school reading list. Seriously? The Hate U Give is brilliant and talks about gang culture as well as police brutality, I haven’t read All American Boys, but I’m going to consider it now…
A man raped me, another tried to. They were not animals. They were men This is difficult to read but it needs to be read for this:
A man raped me. Another man attempted to. And it had nothing to do with how I walked, or when I walked, or what I wore as I walked, and everything to do with the actions they took.
It has nothing to do with living in a fantasy land, where the word “no” acts as a shield, and everything to do with how we teach those little boys who become men about those little girls who become women.
Esther McVey has to go. Her downright lies are dangerous. What I was saying earlier on about Grenfell, it’s this kind of contempt I’m talking about.
An aversion to dolls and dresses is no proof you’re a man. I was saying the other day, that I think there is something else going on and hardening of gender stereotypes was some of it. It’s really interesting to me that the majority (70%) of referrals to the Gender Identity Clinic are from girls but the recent debate about trans rights seems to centre on men transitioning to women as if even in this we can’t give women space.
3 reasons the American Revolution was a mistake Not sure that I agree with the last point….
A vaccine we don’t even use anymore is a reason polio keeps spreading — yes, really
The US has a 1.39 billion-pound surplus of cheese. Let’s try to visualize that. Two things occur to me, first it must be time for a big block of cheese day, second I would be all over that but American cheese….
How a pseudopenis-packing hyena smashes the patriarchy’s assumptions I had no idea but wow…
The week was all about watering and picking peas before the pigeons killed them. The weekend was mostly about the Open Day, it was a good day, but busy and so very, very hot. I took one photo but I sold lots of plants and bought a few!
Before we opened to the general public Ma and I did some work. I watered and fed and picked salad and beetroot. Ma picked raspberries and peas and cleared the pea bed. Then we tackled the overgrown chard bed.
We covered it in more compost and netted it to stop the foxes digging and next week I’ll plant leeks there. Ma and I harvested the anya potatoes, I’d had some in the week t0o. We didn’t get loads about 1.25kg but they were good and I’m happy enough with them.
Baby cucumbers
Baby tomatoes
Baby courgettes (one on each plant)
Baby crookneck squash
I’ve had two blueberries
And the winter squash is starting to expand
The cucamelons that I resowed are growing
The three sisters bed (which I know is too small!) is flourishing
But let’s talk about the plants I bought yesterday.
9 lavender plants, two summer savory, a mint plant, a carnation, a verbena bonariensis, and a dianthus. My plan for the flowers is the top of the plot, the lavender is going to go along the sides of the plot, bees love lavender and bonariensis and I want to encourage them as much as I can. I didn’t buy another rhubarb crown, please admire my restraint!
Mostly because of the plot, June to September are busy times of year, I need to be at the plot at least three times a week and one of those times need to be at least 4-5 hours. Which cuts into my down time quite a bit and then there is dealing with the produce and trying to keep on top of housework and work and life generally.
The raspberries are amazing at the moment, and take ages to pick
Everything is doing well and the next couple of weeks of predicted warm weather will be great for giving everything a boost, if not for the amount of watering I’m going to need to do. We have full size beetroot now…
Coming out was the most amazing sky I have ever seen….
That’s my fist, can you see all four knuckles? Exactly, it’s not normal…
This week is going to be hot. So my life is going to be work, water, home, sleep. That’s it, I don’t expect to have a life other than that, therefore, I’ve actually got my act together and done some food prep which is good. This week, I want to try going to work on the district line because it has air-conditioned trains but I have no major goals for this week, other than to keep on top of the watering and get through a big week at work!
