Happy Friday! I’m ending this work week with a half day off work to sort my life out. I was preparing for a weekend with the boys but Ben isn’t working this weekend so Ma and I aren’t being put to work. Instead I’m going to enjoy spending some much needed time on the plot, reading a new book and possibly eating cake.
Here are this week’s links….
Sleep: How much do you really get? This time of year, not enough!
What the pope should tell Jacob Rees-Mogg: ‘You ain’t no Catholic, bruv’
Natural disasters and opioid addiction. I don’t know how we’d do it here, I’m assuming that the NHS makes it easier to access, but it had honestly never occurred to me before that natural disasters could make recovery harder in that way.
A Nobel Peace Prize winner is standing idly by as her country moves closer to genocide. I’m always wary of the general living saint portrayals of anyone, Princess Diane, the Pope, Mother Theresa and Aung San Suu Kyi. I think that humans are frail and often fail to live up to this kind of adoration. This is a case in point. Aung San Suu Kyi suffered for what she believed in but she has never spoken out in support of the Rohingya or any other oppressed minority. I don’t know if she’s not saying much because she’s frightened that if she criticises the military, then Myanmar will go back to a military dictatorship and what’s happening to the Rohingya is a small price to pay. Or if she believes that the Rohingya are outsiders who don’t belong in Myanmar. Either way it’s bad and if she doesn’t speak up, what does it say about the nation she’s trying to create?
Stop talking right now about the threat of climate change. It’s here; it’s happening
The inspiring story of a 48-year-old, mother-of-three intern Up to a point, Lord Copper. It’s great that she got this but Katherine Forster, hasn’t worked (outside of children and home) since she got her degree and raised her children. Now presumably with them out of the house or a bit more self sufficient she can think about what she wants to do. It’s great that the Spectator picked her but the amount of class privilege in that life. A partner with enough or earning enough money she could stay at home with her children for 25 odd years. Enough money that at 48 she can intern. I’m always a bit chippy about stories like this. A victory for feminism, maybe but a clear case of privilege. Money doesn’t make you happy but it does give you the opportunity and time to find out what makes you happy. As it has for Katherine Forster.
How often should you wash your pjyamas? I wash mine every other day. The only time that changed was when I was recovering from my osteotomy and I had a clean pair every day but then I wore them for 24 hours straight. I change the bed once a week. That seems about right to me. Not to clean, not to dirty…
Megan Whalen Turner talking about the Queen’s Thief series. This is important to me because I have just got my hands on the latest and I think I’m going to have to re-read all of them this month!
That made five small jars.
I’m very pleased with myself, I’m never going to grow or buy enough tomatoes to get me through a whole winter and I’m mostly happy with tinned tomatoes in winter but it’s nice to know that I can and in the winter, I think I’ll be feeling pretty smug!
Someone asked me what I grew this year and when I listed it, I suddenly remembered all the good things we did do this summer, we got something out of all of it, not a lot of all of it, (strawberries, rhubarb, cosmos) but something. In fact the only thing that we didn’t get anything from this year was the gooseberries, which is why they got such a haircut. Here’s the list and some pictures
I’m going to start in the bathroom because that’s the place I don’t see properly most. What I mean by that is most of the time I spend in the bathroom is done while I’m not wearing glasses or contact lenses. When I’m in the shower, I can’t actually see my feet clearly so I don’t really notice the state of the bath and when it’s mostly dark during the hours I’m at home, the sunlight doesn’t highlight my cleaning flaws! I do wipe the shower down every time I use it and I wipe down the sink every couple of days. The bathroom bin gets emptied every time I change the kitchen one and the toilet gets cleaned weekly. Everything else, the floor, the dust behind the toilet and sink get done when I notice it’s terrible. So I’m aiming to change that by having a routine for cleaning, it shouldn’t actually take much more time but having it on a list somewhere, should help.
The changes to this routine are just about being more aware, changing some of the daily task things and scheduling in a bathroom deep clean once a month. I’ve also moved all the cleaning equipment and sprays etc into the bathroom, I don’t have to worry about small children getting their hands on chemicals but having it all in the place I need it makes it easier to do!
Daily
Preserving by bottling is an art that is very lost in the UK (assuming we ever had it) and preserving is more difficult to do here because it’s harder and more expensive to get the right equipment. I love Kilner jars, especially 
(Please excuse the terrible picture, the only time I had to do this was early in the morning and it’s September the light is not great and I didn’t use a proper camera!) 
Courgettes, crookneck squash, a patty pan, salad, chard (the self seeded one next to the flowers at the top of the plot), over a kilo of tomatoes, peppers and loads of basil. That was Saturday, in the week, I’d collected another load of tomatoes and on Sunday we collected broccoli, more basil and a few more tomatoes.
The greenhouse is full of ripening tomatoes now.
But the buckets with tomato plants in them at the top of the plot and the last bed are still hanging on and hopefully their will be enough sunny weather to ripen them on the vine.
I planted out some baby kale next to the chard and am kind of relieved that the rain yesterday afternoon and today which should help them settle in, although it’s not good for my remaining tomatoes.
I also sowed some black winter radish in the bed with my one cabbage and the pak choi, I learnt from last year and netted the bed to prevent the marauding pigeons, I might even get some this year!
I got some broccoli spears from the side shoots but it’s still flowering away and is food for the bees at least! There are two big kale plants in there and when the broccoli comes up, I’ll sow mustard greens.
Managing to move the butternut squash from the pallet where it had wedged itself to the top of the pallet where it can get some sun.
The romano pepper suddenly growing, let’s hope it has enough time to ripen!
and the cosmos developing flower buds. Word has come down from on high (my mum) that we are not growing cosmos next year because they are disobedient!
It’s been a good summer and autumn shows signs of being very productive too.
