Happy Friday! This Friday is especially wonderfull as it marks the beginning of a Bank Holiday weekend and tonight is Gin Club!
Here are this week’s links…
I’m not keen on people emoting about parenting but this is worth reading because it’s important.
The actual termination, I was unconscious. I just remember everyone was so nice. There’s no way this isn’t political: I had a late-term abortion, and I felt so lucky. It was the actual worst thing that could have happened in my life, and I had it as easy as could be. My doctor was supportive, I was in a major city with a nice hospital, I didn’t have to cross picket lines. Nobody argued with me. I’m so angry I have to be thankful for that. It should be that easy for everybody.
A moment that changed me: Living on my own for the first time. It may be that I’ve read a couple of articles recently, by women droning on and on about how freeing living alone is. . I live on my own and yes it can be, it can also be bloody awful – falling down the stairs and spraining my ankle being my most recent terribleness. I guess that what I’m really struggling with in this article and the others I’ve read, is their naval gazing self indulgence, like they are the first person ever to experience this so it must be entirely new. It’s like how teenagers believe they are the first people ever to have sex and do drugs.
However, if you live in London, then living on your own is much harder to do because it’s so expensive. Whenever, I feel that paying over half my net income on rent is too much, I’m going to re-read this article. The great London property squeeze.
I’ve actually been talking to a couple of people this week about how this plays out in their lives.
Don’t let psychopathic murderers suppress our common humanity. I know I’m a leftie snowflake but this pretty much sums up my opinion every time there is a terrorist attack because they win if we change who we are…
The terrorists want to drive us apart, to sow suspicion and fear, to oblige us to replace liberty with security and answer them with bombs and bullets of our own. For a terrorist organisation any of this, if implemented, would mean mission accomplished. So we should do the opposite. We defy them by proving that this is not what we are
What I’m really thinking, the insomniac I had a bout of it after Stef died, I think that I’m mostly cured of it. I’ve learned to do with less and nowadays going to sleep is fine, staying asleep is more tricky!
Roger Moore died this week. Rather than talking about Bond or whatever, here is his recipe for a perfect martini. Much better than Bond’s….
10 of the UK’s best castles for a family day out. I’ve been to 3 of the ten and I prefer my castles more ruined. Although I see from the comments that you can get a steam train to Bodium Castle, which is Ma’s 70th birthday present sorted!
If we’re not reading, why do we expect our children will? Confession, I didn’t pass my English Lit GCSE first time around. I took it again and passed. I didn’t read any of the set texts the two I remember were Fahrenheit 451 and A View from the Bridge (we covered that play the year before GCSE and then I did it twice with exams and retakes and my views on Eddie, who I did not see as a tragic figure but as a creeper with a completely inappropriate fondness for his niece, didn’t go down well any of the three years that I expressed it! We also did poems Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and WB Yeats and I didn’t really enjoy it. I choose not to do English at A level because I was afraid that it would ruin reading for me. I read quite a bit now but I read much more as a teenager and more serious books too (I had the head space!). However, I was encouraged, Ma read, my English teacher gave me books to read, our school librarian encouraged us to hang out and read (which was a sacrifice as Ruth doesn’t really like teenagers!), the library staff who let me have first pick of the new books. Reading was encouraged, there were always books. This isn’t the case for everyone.
I went to water and close the greenhouse and there was woodchip and a couple of things to do. Two hours later, hot and sweaty, I walked home.
I regret nothing….
On Sunday, we started early. Ma tackled the grass on the edge of plot and weeded the rhubarb. I didn’t take a photo but I should have, she did an amazing job. I got the easier task of sowing things in big middle bed.More rocket, another row of lettuce, lambs lettuce, spinach, beetroot, nasturtiums, cosmos and stock. I have no idea if sowing flowers in the middle of a salad bed is a good idea but I’ve done it.
More rocket, another row of lettuce, lambs lettuce, spinach, beetroot, nasturtiums, cosmos and stock. I have no idea if sowing flowers in the middle of a salad bed is a good idea but I’ve done it.
I also planted some leeks out. I think I did it wrong but I’ve done it. If they die, the die, we did cover them with net to stop the bastard foxes digging in the bed, they’ve already killed a couple of my cucumber plants.
By this point Ma was done, so she made tea and I sowed some more cucumbers and some beetroot and spinach as a back up against slugs.
However, the stratch proof coating has decided to degrade and it’s annoying, because my prescription hasn’t changed, last week I wore a different pair of glasses to work every day. Now I know that my glasses are similiar but no-one noticed. Not one person, not even my mother.
Most of us put a huge amount of effort into our appearance, with make-up and glasses and hairstyles. It makes a huge difference in how we feel about ourselves, but the truth is that hardly anyone notices.
Well maybe not a midlife crisis but certainly, I’m firmly middle-aged and although I’m mostly quite happy about it and not that concerned about getting old, it’s strange to not quite recognise your face.
This was the view from my bedroom window on Tuesday night. It did not lead to a lovely sunny Wednesday but it was beautiful!
Below are the courgettes, and yes I’m aware that’s probably too many but I did 4 last year in a bed that size and it worked, so we’ll see!
Because we have a greenhouse this year, we going to grow some tomatoes and peppers in pots in there. 
I also sowed french beans, parsley, coriander, carrots, and spring onions because we need to be getting on with that. The carrots and spring onions were planted in the bath after we’d filled it with compost (I seem to spent all my money on compost right now and I’m not making nearly enough!). However, we did get luck because Dionne has a car and bought me three big bags so that was one thing I didn’t have to do this weekend.
The red onion were done for and we pulled them up, planting the patty pan and one of the crooknecks in that bed. The radishes I sowed there gave me my first crop and I must sow some more.
