Happy Friday! It’s been a fairly standard week, there were pancakes, I got ashed, went to see Black Panther and had a much more successful work week. Today, I’m going to spend an exciting Friday night buying compost because I know how to live!
In case you missed it, this week I posted the usual miscellany, talked about my visit to East London and Dark Horse, updated you on the allotment and the story of Ma and I in the mud and rain and, did a quick and dirty post about pancake lasagne…
Here are this weeks links…also this week I have more opinions than usual, you have been warned….
Last week I didn’t add anything about Trump’s ill informed tweet about the NHS because sometimes you just can’t. But this about sums up my thoughts…
While I’m on the subject of the Idiot in Chief of the USA.
Trump Appears to Defend Accused Domestic Abusers: “Is There No Such Thing Any Longer as Due Process? Way to go Donald…
But this from Colbie Holderness, Rob Porter is my ex-husband. Here’s what you should know about abuse and this from Jennie Willoughby, President Trump Will Not Diminish My Truth are worth reading. It’s pretty clear that Rob Porter is an abuser and he got away with it, even when his victims spoke out because no one cared.
You don’t have to hate cows to want to solve the housing crisis.
Resist a US trade deal. Your life may depend on it
The DUP is a party that loves power but hates responsibility. There won’t be a deal on a devolved government while Theresa May needs the DUP’s votes to stay Prime Minister. I was saying after the last general election because it was obvious, why would Foster take on the tricky business of government when she can stomp and shout and get want she wants without having to do that. If May thought any differently she’s an idiot, personally, I think fine if they can’t compromise, let’s give them direct rule, they can have the same rule of law that England lives under, introduce gay marriage, allow women to have abortions in NI, make them pay their own sodding water rates and watch how quickly they come around to forming a government. But I also think it’s time for Sinn Fein to take up their seats in the House of Commons (maybe they could cross their fingers while taking the oaths about the Queen?)
How many school shootings have there been in the US this year. Eight. I just feel I should say it again. Eight. I can’t get my head around a country that won’t sort this out, and don’t talk to me about Second Amendment Rights, the clue is in the word amendment. You can change the law, you can change the Constitution but you can’t give those parents their children back.
My incurable lung cancer by PHE director. This came to me via work and I agree that not all medical care can be curative and it’s something that as a society we are bad at dealing with and it is difficult for doctors too.
Secular Lent is missing the point of Lent…
“Lent is not about having your best life now,” McConnell told Lifeway’s blog. “Those who observe it believe they are giving up things they want in order to focus on what God wants. There’s little popular appeal in that.”
Religion without God: Alain de Botton on “atheism 2.0.” So I’m clearly not an atheist but this was interesting…
Walking out my grief. This is lovely.
This is a ridiculous ‘problem’. Seriously, the child needs a lesson in gratitude and the parent needs to grow a spine.
If you want to stick two fingers up to Valentine’s Day, try Galentine’s instead. While I applaud the sentiment, no. Not least because the day before Valentine’s Day was Pancake Day! But this is so true…
Currently, around 17 million adults in the UK are single. That’s a third of the adult population. Yet, as Matthew Parris pointed out in a recent column, there is a pervasive and barely mentioned culture of “monophobia”– a widespread “assumption that we can only find contentment in a couple” which, he argued, “has become a tyranny that needs to be challenged”.
Finally, Christina, who is our allotment committee chair and has quite enough to do with that, a plot, a job and a husband has set herself a halloween challenge, all I could think was that we haven’t got the Summer Open Day over with yet!!
Then in the rain, we put the raised beds together, which was just as much fun as you’d imagine. When somebody tells you about the joy of growing your own food, remember that 95% of the work you’ll do will be digging or building. I’m getting to the time when I’ll be properly no dig but in the meantime a lot of of what I do on the plot seems to involve a hammer!
However, they are done and covered and awaiting compost. That done we sorted out the shed and I picked up pots and seed trays for the seed sowing that’s coming soon! We didn’t get to the other bed, or the raspberries because we were wet and cold and muddy.
Next week we have hired a car, so a trip to the dump and buying all the compost are on the agenda. I also really want to get the sides of the kale bed sorted and make my little round flower sections on the top. Also on the list, the raspberries and clearing that space out. This is the time of year before it gets really busy, March, April and May are going to be about sowing and planting out and trying to keep up, so it’ll be good to have more of this list crossed off before then…
Before I get to why I was there, I should explain, back when Ma was working, we used to go to the OXO Tower fairly often and became friendly with the bar manager, Ian even gave Ma a jar of brandied cherries to celebrate her retirement.
I really liked the restaurant, the manhattan was great. We ordered a couple of the small plates. Grilled lamb with Merguez, farro & treviso salad, padron peppers, bread, it was good and I was so busy eating that I didn’t take a photo of it!
I decided to have pudding and I’m still thinking about the lime posset!
I’m glad it’s doing well, it’s nice when people you like take a risk that works, my only problem with it is that it’s in East London!
Other than that and the usual Piccadilly Line failure issues, last week was fine. I bought raised beds (and blueberry plants) but I’ll tell you all about that on Wednesday. I did culture on Wednesday and went all the way to East London on Friday night (which I’ll tell you about tomorrow!). The weekend was full until Sunday, when I did very little because honestly, I needed the rest.
I don’t have major plans for this week it should be easier to get to work because it’s half term and Lent starts this week so there will be pancakes on Tuesday and ashes on Wednesday followed by cinema on Thursday and compost buying on Friday. Really living life on the edge.
This week the usual 
I am worried that there is too much to do and not much time to do it, but I’m panicking about nothing, we have a plan and we know what we want to do and we have time to get it done. It’ll all come together in the next couple of months and then I’ll be worrying about blight and watering.
This is a picture of my grandad (in the middle), my great aunts and my great grandfather.
Nic Dempsey 