Happy Friday! At the time of writing this post, the outcome of the two by-elections in Stoke and Copeland are unknown. If Nuttall got in I will mostly spend tonight drinking gin… Here are this week’s links….
Chris Riddell on Trump and Russia.
The return of the MMR charlatan fits with our times. I don’t often find myself agreeing with Nick Cohen at all but when he’s right, he’s right…
Finland is trialling basic, universal income. I was talking to someone about this the other day and the problem is the unknown unknowns, you just have no idea what it’s going to do over the long term to taxes, work and money, you can guess but you don’t know. I guess some people would opt to go part time, giving others the chance to work, some people would chose not to work at all, it would also change whether people thought they could afford to have kids, or work for themselves or maybe on universal income more people would feel able to go into lower paid jobs they’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t afford to do. In a generation it would radically alter our view of money, work and society, but we don’t know how.
The supermarket food gamble may be up. This year I’ve eaten more seasonally in part because of all the food that we grew in the summer and in part because of the cost. I’m not immune to the joys of blueberries in February but I can’t afford it. I did notice though, last summer when I was drowning in courgettes that the price didn’t go down, probably to offset the expense of importing them in the winter. Although I’m looking forward to the summer produce when we start growing it but in November, it was a relief to stop eating courgettes. I will be making a better effort this year to extend my growing season and to have winter veg on the plot too but it’s interesting to me that growing food changed how I ate.
The value we place on romantic love can feel tyrannical – especially if you’re a single woman. Preach…
Key-lime pie nightmare. I have one of those, although the other way around, base fine, filling a disaster. So bad was it, that ‘friends’ send me recipes when they came across them to see if this one would work. (one of them on the back of a postcard advertising ‘the young poisoner’s handbook – Jo thinks she’s funny, she is not…)
Butter might be better for you than you think.
Another vile Plantagenet attack on my Glory! I love these
While I’m thinking about twitter, this is a tweet I can 100% get behind.
https://twitter.com/kathrynlillian_/status/834565335516901380
Ma also did some solid work weeding the rest of that patch and got stabbed by the gooseberry bushes for her effort. This also caused me quite a bit of pain because she did not stop going on about it. She also did a bit in the raspberries, the mulch has kept the weeds down but not erradicated them entirely. I’ve said before that we will may need to pull them up at some point but thats a lot of space and I think we’ll need to manage that over a couple of years. 
While Ma was being attacked by the gooseberries, I was weeding the other beds and tiding my herb bed. The sage, thyme, oregano and rosemary have thrived in that spot and the transplanted lavender survived the winter. The sages are little thugs and got a haircut too. Last year when we pulled up the 
Behind the herbs are the two tanks that are being repurposed to grow things in. Last year, lots of the weed rubbish went into them and in one tank composted down to almost half the volume but that rubbish contained lots of couch grass weeds so I need to cover it to prevent them starting to grow again and for this year at least I’ll plant some squash. I have plans to do the same for the other task but it’s more watertight so needs to have some holes drilled as it’s currently full of water. The bucket of mint that I planted up last year is also looking a bit waterlogged too but new shoots are popping up, I’m not drilling holes in the bucket because it’s mint…..
We’ve also decided to make the U shaped bed a rectangle and having reviewed the space versus what we have to grow decided that the carrots and potatoes will be grown in containers.
Tasks for next month are composting the beds and covering them to warm them up a bit. Buying a shed and then building it (well assembling the people that are going to build it and assisting them!), painting the shed, getting the bags for the potatoes and carrots and planting/sowing the carrots and potatoes and the rest that can be sown towards the end of the month..
Christelle and I had been talking about using the times we see each other to do things rather than just dinner and drinking and so for her birthday, I thought that a trip around Beefeater might be interesting. We finally found the time this month.
After that, we were led up to where the action happens. The tour guide took us through the botanicals that go into the various gins and up to the stills (no photos of that for health and safety reasons!) and then a gin and tonic
There is a shop where you can buy gin and beefeater related products. All in it took about an hour and a half and is a fun thing to do…
The plot was looking a bit sorry for itself. However, the rhubarb and broad beans were coming up and the onions and garlic and chard were doing all right. 
So we walked to the main gate and saw a huge pile of woodchip. I knew that the woodchip had been delivered on Wednesday but that stuff never stays around long, so I didn’t think that it would still be there on Saturday but the dark nights and cold weather had put people off and there it was. I borrowed a wheelbarrow from the community plot and Ma filled up the buckets.
I other news the seedlings have started to emerge. This is the cavolo nero
It’s all very exciting, I’m so pleased with everything we’ve done so far but really want the weather to improve so we can get going with some actual work on the plot!
Nic Dempsey 