Happy Friday! We’ll start with the ‘oh my goodness, what have Trump/May/ politicians done today to muck up the world we live in’ links and then go to other interesting things….
There is no such thing as alternative facts, facts don’t have alternatives….
If there were 3 to 5 million fraudulent votes in the last US election, wouldn’t you need to re-do the vote. This is a lie, there is no evidence of any vote tampering and it speaks to Trumps character (and not very flatteringly) that he would make up a story to make himself feel better about not getting the popular vote.
The first days inside Trump’s White House: Fury, tumult and a reboot. Who would have thought that Bush 
would feel like a safe pair of hands in comparision to Trump?
Fallon accused of keeping MP’s in the dark over Trident failure. Apparently, the US, who make the missiles asked the UK government to keep it quiet. If we are going to have nuclear weapons (and I’m not convinced there’s a good case for that), then they shouldn’t be controlled by another nation. That American officials can go on TV and talk about it and ours can’t. That doesn’t make sense and to hide that there were issues before the vote? That’s dishonest.
The supreme court Brexit judgment isn’t a victory for me, but for our constitution. I do wish that this hadn’t come down to a well off individual taking the government to court. But the principle that Parliament is sovereign is at the heart of our Constitution. If we are to leave the EU and British law take precedence then that means Parliament and the press and the government should uphold that.
Why shouldn’t Prince Charles speak out about climate change? Climate Change is happening and if Prince Charles would like to put his money where his mouth is and off set and reduce his own carbon emmisions and that of his family, businesses (Duchy Originals) and charities. Fine, I have no problem with that. What I object to is his lecturing everyone else whilst not walking the walk. Aside from that, he is the next head of State and he needs to be very bloody careful about the lines he crosses or he’ll could end up like Charles I (we probably wouldn’t chop his head off though), actually carry on Charles, get yourself deposed!
On her flight May should read Trump’s book; the other guy is always shafted. I don’t often find myself agreeing with Polly Toynbee but I’m with her on this except for the Corbyn bashing, I’m tired of new Labour types moaning on about Corbyn…
Mother courage: swapping pregnancy in exchange for help. I think Pause is a great idea and while I can see that there is a issue in making women take contraceptives in exchange for support, I don’t necessarily think that it’s a bad idea because it’s about responsibility. I remember a social worker telling me that that difference between a someone who’d had several children taken into care and other parents was that ‘social services parents’ did exactly the same thing and expected that their desire for it to be difference next time would make it so. The first step to getting a different result is accepting that this is not the case. Accepting the help and it’s conditions are part of that.
Should we throw in the towel and stop showering? I should confess, I’m a shower dodger. It’s just such a lot of effort, I wash every day and shower every other, I always wash my hands and use deodrant so I don’t smell – in my family, someone would tell me. I got out of the habit after the osteotomy, I couldn’t for two weeks (washed every day) and after that it was tricky because of my foot. I don’t smell and my skin has improved amazingly, it’s not as dry, less spotty and feels better.
The many-moons theory. I’m not really a great science person but I am fascinated by people that are and can just think about things like this.
The secrets of people who never get sick. Clearly not me.
I made a batch of bolognaise and cooked more pasta than I needed. That was dinner on Sunday night and 4 portions of pasta and sauce for lunches this week, I also sorted out breakfasts by straining some yoghurt and turning the last of the rhubarb into compote. So breakfast will be yoghurt, compote and granola.
Lunches will be pasta and sauce (except on Wednesday when we have a team lunch), dinners will be easy, my favourite 
I’m out on Friday but by that point I will have an empty fridge because I made an effort, not much of one, but an effort anyway. Menu planning doesn’t have to be a big deal or major effort, some weeks it’s good to put that work in but other weeks, just do as much as you can, make sure that you have breakfast planned or lunch, it really makes a difference to your day.
Last year, I got the plot in May and basically just made it up as I went along. I got herbs and my gifted courgette plants in and then just created space and bunged stuff in the ground as I went along. I was lucky because it mostly went well and there wasn’t too much clearing to do.
This year is more of a challenge for me because I’m trying to plan but I still I have no idea what I’m doing, reading is all very well but I learnt more from doing last year, I’ve drafted and redrafted a plan, mostly I want to grow all the things and that’s a recipe for too many plants and trying to use up 36 courgettes in a week! But Ma and I went to Wilko and made a start (and some impulse buys!).
There are more seeds to buy that I can’t get at Wilko but it’s a brilliant place to start.
tomatoes (Orange banana and Amish paste and some cherry tomatoes as yet undecided). What we got from the tomatoes, we loved, but I have learned from last year, I’m only going to grow cordon varieties for blight prevention!
peas (hurst green shaft, oregon sugar pod, early onwards) – I want to grow a lot more peas this year and do some sucessional planting too
sweetcorn (incredible f1) – I wasn’t going to grow sweetcorn but got carried away and bought the seeds, maybe I’ll find the space for some three sisters planting!
pak choi – this was a fail last year, now I know to net it to stop the pigeons eating it, I’ll try again
