Friday Links: I Just Can’t with the News Right Now

Posted on September 12, 2025 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday!

This is the worst personal news of my week. (it’s not but I’m British and I’m going to make a mountain out of this to avoid what’s actually happening!) Melvyn Bragg steps down from Radio 4’s In Our Time. I love In Our Time and it will not be the same without.

I saw a poor, lonely man wandering the A4 – then realised the sheer joy of where he was heading. I know that stretch of motorway and it’s grim, so is losing to Sunderland away!

‘Our hallway’s big enough to play football in!’ The council housing that feels like a holiday resort

The Baby Died. Whose fault is it? This is horrific.

It’s not about Rayner or Farage: the real tax story is how the super-rich avoid paying their share. I have a lot of thoughts about Angela Rayner and Peter Mandelson, as it goes. It’s about hubris. You are in public life, you have to be squeaky clean, you have to be seen to be squeaky clean, if it looks even slightly dodgy, if you have to explain yourself in a very complicated fashion, don’t do it. Don’t be arrogant. But yes also the issue is the super rich and their assumption they can do what they like, largely because they can buy politicians, and we’re back to needing people in public life to be squeaky clean

I’m exhausted but am surviving. How can I heal from burnout without expensive time off?. Oh this hit me where I live. I came across a phrase the other day that just sums up being single and childless. “Lots of people care about me but no-one cares for me”. For me, the non-negiotable is sleep, I go to bed at 10pm and I get up by 7am, I’ve been tired since Stef died but I work on having at least one night a week where the tracker logs 8 hours of sleep. Other things are doing the things that bring you joy, for me thats the plot. And I have planned little things that make me feel good, so from now until Christmas I am going to a couple of comedy gigs by myself because they start at 7pm and end by 9pm and I’m home in bed by about 10pm! And Christelle and I are going to Paris for the day. They are not massive holidays but they are holidays from everyday life!

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Allotment Adventures: Three and a Half Hours

Posted on September 10, 2025 by nicdempsey

I got four hours on the plot this weekend. About half an hour of that was spent chatting.

Time on the plot is going to be limited in the next while so I knew I wanted to tidy up the front and boy did I. I filled up an entire green waste bin with weeds and dead plants.

I’ve decided to just work up in strips. And see what I can get done.

I also picked tomatoes, lots of tomatoes

There are a couple of things left to do at the front.

The grass around the tree needs a deeper weed, and I’m going to move the cola plant back a bit so it’s on the edge of the path and then if it gets big it’s less of an issue. I also have some plants to put in there too!

I need to mulch the rhubarb with compost and I’m going to move the rhubarb that’s in the bucket into the ground.

I also need to cut back the jasmine and the cola plant and blackcurrant sage in the bed by the shed.

Then it’s the next strip back weed around the tomato beds and the paths there, sort out the tomatoes, sort out the fruit cage plants, set up the greenstalk and cut back the lavender there and weed the gooseberries.

That’s the plan for the next four hours! This weekend.

Im just going to work my way up the plot until it’s beautiful again!

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Monday Miscellany: Autumnal

Posted on September 8, 2025 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday!

  • Today is Nephew 2’s birthday, how quickly did that chubby, happy baby get to 10? The answer is very quickly!!
    • This week has felt very busy, I’ve been busy at work and adjusting to the new routine with Mum. I just need to get into harness and just used to the new routine but so far so good.
    • Last week was the first week of Autumn and boy did the weather suddenly become British again. It has rained quite a bit and it’s getting darker in the morning. I am not happy but I have set up the light lamp…
    • There seems to have been an uptick in the amount of scam texts and WhatsApps I’ve received this week. It’s annoying and I’m guessing it’s something to do with back to work/school after summer.  I just block them, but I have the sense that everyone is feeling quite fragile and vulnerable right now and this does not help!
    • Because it’s gotten all autumnal, I’ve made a batch of elderberry syrup and fire cider. This winter more than ever, I cannot be sick and I’m going to be very busy so on the basis that ‘every little helps’ time for some witchy remedies. Although actually elderberry syrup has some actual science behind it in helping get over lurgies, I take apple cider vinegar every day anyway so adding some other stuff to it for if I get lurgyfied is probably a good idea.
    • I’m going to Paris. Not immediately, but Christelle and I have been talking about it and there was a deal and so we’re going for a day in November. Yay!

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    Sunday Music: Buffalo Springfield – For What It’s Worth

    Posted on September 7, 2025 by nicdempsey

    I am the child of one wannabe hippy…(it was never my mother!) and at some point the old becomes relevant for the new and this just seems like a very apt song for the times…

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    Food Prep: Caring for Mum Edition

    Posted on September 4, 2025 by nicdempsey

    My mum has stopped being able to cook, it’s a combination of osteoarthritis in her hands and the increasing frailty, she currently has carers come in twice a day but they will only microwave meals. Ma’s preferred food solutions to her non cooking issues has been things that she can heat in her air fryer which we bought when we were worried about oven use. (It’s this one and it’s great.)

    Hot stew and brown rice

    My real difficult is that Ma has lost all appetite and hasn’t been eating, which can’t help, I spent last week making sure she ate and we came up with a menu plan of things she would eat that could be microwaved and I cooked and froze a bunch of them. We did have a bit of a fight about amounts of food and so we compromised, she eats 4 times a day but small portions.

    Dinners were: Lentil Bolognese and Pasta, Hot Stew and Rice, Pesto Pasta, Mint and Courgette Soup, Tomato and Feta Pasta, Cheesy Lentil Muffins.

    Lentil muffins

    Everything else can be eaten cold but is organised so the carers can help her find it.

    Breakfasts are easy because Ma has the same thing everyday anyway. Toast and jam at the weekends and yoghurt and fruit during the week. So I’ve portioned that up.

    Lunches are a cooked chicken thigh with tomatoes and cucumbers and there is an afternoon snack of a muffin and a banana.

    My current working plan is that I do the meal prep on Saturdays and cook one thing for the freezer so that we can rotate them in.

    Any suggestions of food that can be cooked ahead and frozen that aren’t pasta based can be microwaved and taste good would be appreciated!

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    Allotment Adventures: In which I take time off to sort out the plot and don’t

    Posted on September 3, 2025 by nicdempsey

    I really don’t want this space to be all about what is going on with my mum, although obviously, it is a huge thing in my life right now and potentially for a while to come. I have been saying that I have to have some kind of life outside of caring for Ma and work and usually the plot is part of that, but I’m struggling with it right now.

    My plan last week had been to take Friday to do my things, Saturday for Ma and then have three whole days to work on the plot and go back to work on Wednesday.

    None of that happened and by the weekend I was just too tired to do anything at the plot. Fortunately for me, so far this week it has rained…lots.

    For the rest of the month, I’m in adjust mode so it’ll be a Sunday thing and I’ll just do what I can. First up for this week is a tidy at the front and to plant up the green stalk I got for my birthday!

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    Monday Miscellany: Carers Edition

    Posted on September 1, 2025 by nicdempsey

    Happy Monday!

    1. I took an unexpected extra three days off work last week. Or at least the work that pays me. Ma had a series of falls over the weekend that she couldn’t get up from. I’ve spent every day at hers, or on a bus (except for Tuesday night when I had to come over in a cab and I stayed over Thursday and Friday night because of a bus strike). We have carers coming in twice a day at the minute and I went home on Saturday and was home on Sunday. I’m back to work today and I’m working on being less anxious, that will take some time but work.

    2. I don’t qualify for carers allowance because I earn too much but travel last week cost me over £100. This week there are bus and train strikes further complicating my life. I’ve said before that the problem with social care isn’t just the cost of it to the State, it’s the burden they put on people who do the right thing. I’m now one of those people.

    3. We have an OT and maybe physio visit on Wednesday and an appointment at the NHS Neurology appointment the week after so maybe things are moving. However, we have a possible diagnosis of small vessel disease and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP). Which to be frank, sucks all round.

    Meal prep for Mum

    4. When I worry, I can get completely overbearing. Right now, I’m really trying not to boss every inch of Mum’s existence because autonomy is important (that’s what she keeps telling me!) However, even though, I am worried and tired and really fucking scared for Mum, she is still one of my favourite people and stress aside, it’s been quite lovely to hang out with her this week.

    Watching The Thursday Murder Club on Friday night

    5. One of the things that happens when I’m very stressed or unhappy is that I don’t feel hungry. My work clothes are definitely feeling looser this week.

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    Friday Links: We Live in a Broken World

    Posted on August 29, 2025 by nicdempsey

    I’ve spent most of the week at Mum’s, it’s been a tricky week and the news in the world hasn’t got much better, so this is just going to be ‘nice’ links, because I need all the joy I can get at the moment.

    A ‘Third Way’ Between Buying or Renting? Swiss Co-ops Say They’ve Found It. (NYT gift link) This sounds so sensible and so Swiss….

    ‘The whole town was out after’: Grimsby fans still in disbelief after beating Manchester United. Who doesn’t like to see Man U suffer?

    My favourite childhood outfit: ‘The coat I inherited from Grandpa became my teenage refuge’. I still have the brown jumper that my Grandad gave me. I had another jumper knitted along the same lines. They are my favourite clothes and in winter I wear them all the time, they are the oldest clothes I own.

    You be the judge: should my girlfriend stop buying kitchen appliances? Ma says that this is me, the woman with two instant pots but I do use all my gadgets and crucially, I’ve not bought a new gadget this year. Also Paul is wrong about the air fryer. Ma has this one and I covet it, it’s so handy.

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    Monday Miscellany: The Last Bank Holiday of the Summer

    Posted on August 25, 2025 by nicdempsey

    Happy Monday (and happy day off to those of you in the UK who can celebrate, sorry Scotland, you’ve had your day!)

    So we’re here, end of August, no more Bank Holidays until Christmas (unless the King dies!) and I plan to spend today and tomorrow on the plot. Here’s last week’s miscellany:

    1. Dahlias unfurling. I can not express now happy I am that gamble worked, the next gamble will be seeing if I can mulch them thorough winter so they flower again next year!

     2. I don’t have a massive social circle but I’m so glad to have the friends I do. This week I’m very grateful for them. Sarah who while in the middle of so much other stuff she has going on, has talked me off a very irritable ledge twice this week and Jo who I met for dinner this week. We swapped very belated presents and apparently my loves are well known and have made their way to my Christmas Tree! And Christelle and Sue who have both checked up on me this week. We are all dealing with a lot of other stuff but I’m lucky to have these people in my life.

    Christmas decorations

    3. I’ve lived in West London for most of my 50-ish years on the planet so why is it always a surprise to me when TfL send out it’s emails about Carnival? If you asked when it was, I would tell you it’s the August Bank Holiday but every year that email comes and I’m like ‘oh it’s Carnival’ and make a note not to use the Tube this weekend. I know why, because it’s not really my thing, but I have fond memories of several older ladies at church who needed to take the week to recover after….they always blamed the dancing and never the punch!

    4. It’s been a really bad week for allergies, I’ve been taking my anti-histamines but up until this week I had it under control but this week I’m reacting to something and for the life of me I can’t work out what it is, but I’ve been a snotty, eye watering mess this week! I’ve had to deploy the eye drops in the hope that it’ll help.

    View from a bus

    5. I spend a lot of time on buses and when I am queen of the world there will be a law banning people who take calls longer than 2 minutes or who use their phones to play games or watch videos without headphones. I don’t want to hear your music. If you have lost of forgotten your headphones, you just don’t use your phone. I’m considering buying g ear defenders because it’s driving me to fucking distraction.

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    Friday Links: At Least We Have Football….

    Posted on August 23, 2025 by nicdempsey

    Happy Friday!

    The world is in no better shape but the football season has begun so that’s some consolation, although Chelsea drew to Crystal Palace at home in their first game of the season….so it may not bring me actual joy this season!

    Here are some links…

    A Brief Note on the Difference Between Negotiation and Extortion

    Why have we let side-hustle private landlords seize control of our housing – and our politics?

    Paris Braces for a Future of Possibly Paralyzing Heat. One area that London does do better with is green space, but I’d love to see parks with more paddling pools. The summers that I looked after Ryan, we spent so much time at the paddling pool at Bishops Park. But they seem to figure less in parks nowadays.

    I thought we’d entered the age of body positivity. Then came ‘shrinking girl summer’ – is everyone getting smaller except me? It does seem like everyone is on them, I know a couple of people of them, and they are very happy with them and the results and if it works for them, great. I don’t think it’s the lazy way out but if I had a spare £360 a month for weight loss drugs, I think I’d spend it on personal training, because I know that works in terms of making me healthier. I can always think of something I would rather do than go to the gym which is why I loved personal training way back when I did it because all I had to do was turn up and do what I was told. It didn’t make me skinny, I lost some weight and because I was more toned, I dropped a couple of dress sizes, and I did feel healthier. It did not fix my feet or my knees as they are issues, I would have if I was lighter. Right now, I’m overweight but all my health markers (the ones that doctors tell you come with obesity) are in the normal range, I’m not pre-diabetic, my blood pressure is good etc, which I think has more to do with my diet than anything else. I eat a much less processed diet than most people and I love vegetables, I have no problems with 5 a day and I tracked thirty plants a week and usually hit that target in four days!  I’m working right now on trying to be more active generally because I know that I feel better when I am but I’m also very, very tired all the time because I’m a menopausal, middle aged woman with a full time job and a parent to care for so I do what I can and don’t stress about it too much however, I do notice that there is a shift in how we talk about weight and it does worry me.

    And then I came across this…..How Weight-Loss Drugs Can Upend a Marriage…which is interesting and sad at the same time

    A moment that changed me: I resolved to reduce my screen time – and it was a big mistake

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