On Wednesday mornings, Sean Bean is presenting a programme called Legacy of War, which explores the impact that war experiences had on entire families and down the generations. It’s been interesting last week’s was about John Beckett, who was a facist. To listen to his children talk about it and about him and about how they see their father’s attitudes writ large into today’s politics is alarming and relevant right now. Really worth a listen.
There has been a lot of news this week, and I can’t read about any of it. Marcus Rashford is brilliant and the UK govt is full of idiots, who couldn’t run a piss up in a brewery. So here are some links that are not about the trash fire that is my country this week!
I have a weekly catch up with my manager on Friday, it’s never a really long meeting, we talk through his diary for the next couple of weeks, talk about what I’m doing, catch up on how we’re feeling, things we’ve observed around the business that should go into the bucket for audits or risk planning. Writing it down it sounds much more high level than it actually is, often I remind him to go for a walk or campaign for him to have more of a work/life balance! We’ve been doing it since October and we continue with it now. All of this explanation to talk about his comment this week, that I’m always cheerful and take things in my stride.
I find this fascinating because as most of the people that love me know, I’m very often grumpy. Clearly, I try to be professional and not bring that grumpiness to my work because I have taken to heart the advice someone gave me, “You’re feelings are yours, you’re not allowed to inflict them on a bunch of other people who are trying to deal with their own feelings”
This has stood me in good stead generally, but the real reason, I am coping with lockdown and perpetual working from home (aside from continuing to have paid employment – which is such a relief!) can be summed up in the first photo, look at that sky at 10pm. It’s light, the sun is mostly shining and comes up about 4.30am.
One of the things, I’m acutely aware of is that this won’t last forever and I’ll be working from home in the autumn as it gets dark. That has some good points, yay for not having to commute but boo for feeling trapped in the house.
I need to make some changes to my space. I need a desk that isn’t my kitchen table, so I can have another screen and maybe a docking station and keyboard. To do that, there needs to be some re-arrangement of my living room, which has a knock on impact on the bedroom and the cupboard of doom. I know what needs to happen and I’m working on it.
This weekend, my support bubble arrived with a car and we went to do some shopping, for the plot and for me. We couldn’t get everything, we did get some thyme, I finally got a new airer and Ma got a stepladder. This was secondary to seeing Ma and getting to hug her. The second best thing was sitting at the table across from her, talking and eating. I’m adjusting to the new normal but I’ll never adjust to losing this normal so soon (Ma tells me that she’s going to be way over 90 before she shuffles off this mortal coil, so I have at least 20 years more!)
The rest of the weekend was sent catching up on the allotment and the house, oh and it was World Gin Day on Saturday so there was this.
Plans for this week are as ever, work. I’ve got a bunch of interesting stuff to do this week, some of it genuinely interesting and some of it interesting because I have to learn how to do it before I get it done!
In the flat, this is the week of the cleaning the floors. Last week, I cleaned my bedroom floor (even under the bed) and it made a huge difference, so I need to do the same to all the others. Of all housework tasks, I loathe everything that involves cleaning floors, hoovering, sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, I hate all of it. If I could ever afford a cleaner, that’s pretty much all I’d really want them to do. Well that and the occasional oven clean!
On the plot, it’s do all the things on last week’s list that I didn’t get to on Sunday!
Fortunately for me, it’s June, it’s light and my energy levels are high, I need to re-establish my grip on the dirt levels in the house before my energy levels plummet and then it just takes much more energy to get anything done!
So yesterday I read this, and honestly some of the recommendations made me cross. Some of this might be cultural but really…
So quotes from the original article in italics…
I am feeling very low on energy these days. I want to read about some real love with a happy ending that gives me hope of a happier world and future.
Try An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole! It’s lovely and smart and tender, and like all true romance, it has a happy ending.
An Extraordinary Union is a good pick, I also note that it’s the only rec in the article written by a black person and about black people. So romances by black people or people of colour.
So far in lockdown I have read most of the novels of James Herriot and would be grateful for a recommendation of something similar. I’m looking for a book(s) set in a rural or natural setting, with nice people, fairly low stakes, lots of laughs, and evocative writing.
Oh man, James Herriot novels are such a good idea for what to read right now. Nothing but a vet roaming the English countryside and having some animal-centric hijinks. What could be better? Well, a couple of things come close, which is why we’re all here.
The best books I know of for that kind of pastoral low-stakes playfulness would be the Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery. They have a reputation for being very frilly, but they’re mostly just about people running around small towns in Canada getting into small scrapes and then looking at the beautiful natural landscapes all around them and pushing through. I would also recommend Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, which is a little more satirical in its humor than Herriot is, but is also extremely funny and ends up being very kind to most of its characters.
I’ve read Anne of Green Gables and it’s lovely but no even if you’re trying to introduce people to new things, this is not a good pick. Try Gerald Durrell. Other recommendations? Lark Rise to Candleford, try Jack Sheffield’s Teacher, Teacher, Miss Read might even be your thing but not Anne of Green Gables.
Can you recommend books as madcap, inventive, and hilarious as Eoin Colfer’s Plugged and Screwed? I’ve tried Google and Goodreads to no avail. Help!!
Ooh, this is a tricky one. My normal go-to author for this sort of request would be Jasper Fforde (The Eyre Affair is a start-to-finish delight), but when I suggested Fforde, you wrote back that you already read and liked him. In that case, I have to assumeyou have probably already read both Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, the two best other sources for this particular kind of quirky British genre humor, and at this point I start to come up dry.
You’ve suggested Jasper Fforde but he’s read them, how about Nick Harkaway – The Gone-Away World, Tiger Man and so on. Why no love for him?
Finally for the things that I’ve been reading during lockdown, not everything but all of these were bought and read while I was in lockdown.
I’ve also re-read a good chunk of my Georgette Heyer collection, The Thief of Eddis books by Meghan Whalen Turner, lots of Chalet School books and the What Katy Did books because sometimes you just need to be told!!
So last weekend, I didn’t do any work on the allotment. There is always work to be done but I’m still missing my work partner and so I need to do double the work to keep up and I’m not keeping up. I know that it’s my first full year of having the whole plot and I know it took me ages to get the first half more or less how I wanted it.
The new half at the back is in the much worse state, the soil is banjaxed and very dry, it feels like the only thing that grows is bind weed and because it’s so very dry, the paths are cracking and I can’t really get to the roots of the weeds. I’ve still not sorted out the other big bed and I really need to get plants in there.
So it’s all difficult right now. Even so, my brain is working on next year’s set of infrastructure improvements. All the new beds are getting another layer of planking because, there is bindweed coming up in them already, I don’t have this problem at the front end because my beds are deeper! We need to really mulch all the paths with a deep layer of woodchip because the soil at the front with a couple of years worth of woodchip is in much better shape. (I love my beds and paths but if I can condition soil under the paths that’s good for if I want to move anything and when it’s not my plot anymore)
At the back, I’m going to move the compost area right to the back of the plot, because the bird boxes are occupied and it’s really shady so I’m going to set up the compost area there and add some beds to the area that the compost bins are in now. I’m also going to make sure I have enough space for a greenhouse or a polytunnel because I’m going to have one by the time I’m 50. So as difficult as I’m finding it, it’s still giving me ideas!
I’m making it sound terrible but we’re done with the first crop of the year, the broad beans are done. I’ve pulled all the beans and taken the plants up. I’m going pot up all the self seeded verbena bonariensis, halve the size of the bed and it will be the second kale bed this winter.
I’ve got a ton of jobs, so here’s the list:
weed the paths
cut the grass
weed the top of the plot
weed the beds
pot up the verbena
half the old broad bean bed
plant out and net the kale
change the netting on the cauliflower bed
sort out the second squash bed and plant out the squash
thin out the beetroot
stake the third tomato bed
plant up the new blueberry plants
Here’s the list of the jobs I want to do but will probably not get to:
I’ve been very quiet over the last week, in part because of the trash fire that is the world, and also because June 6 was also Stef and Kier’s birthday, they would have been 50.
June used to be the start of my birthday list, Stef and Keir were the 6 June, Tina was 6 July and I was 6 August and therefore I never forgot those birthdays because it was three months of sixes, 4 birthdays that were easy to remember. In 2020, I’m the only one of the four still breathing. This is not self pity, more people than me mourn those three deaths and differently and deeply but it’s sad.
Over the weekend I did zoom chats with Michael and Luc and Helene and Max and Matt and Ruth and Tess and Phil, together and separately for some of them. It was bittersweet, Stef and Keir are a long time gone. The children don’t really remember them, but death is funny and I don’t know if I can explain it but bear with me.
I’ve talked a lot this year about the irises that finally flowered on the plot, in time for my Grandma’s birthday. In December, it’ll be 58 years ago since she died. I didn’t ever know her, I was born nearly 11 years after she died. I know her from meeting her sisters when I was in my teens (mostly Ellen), through my Grandad, from the things that Mum has told me, from the books that Mum gave me that have her handwriting, from the year or so I lived in my uncle’s house, from the pictures I have of her, from my Grandad’s sister’s form what Mum talks about. There is more than one way to know someone.
All that to say, this weekend would has been tricky difficult to navigate emotionally and on Saturday, my brother ended up in hospital for non COVID-19 related reasons. Right this minute, it’s nothing too serious (just something that makes me grateful for the NHS but makes my sister-in-law’s life logistically difficult and probably worries the nephews) but timing is a bitch and I do worry for my little brother!
I have no plans for this week, other than work and sorting out the drawers in my bedroom and living room because I’m thinking about buying a desk. At some point working at the kitchen table is a pain and I’m ready to change that!
On Saturday, I get to see my Mum for the first time in 12 weeks, she’s going to drive over mostly to pick up some marmalade! It’ll be good to see her!
I started compiling these links on Sunday morning and at that point it seemed that the US was on fire and it doesn’t seem to have got any better over the week. I’m a Londoner and lived through rioting in my city (which is where the picture below comes from) it’s always happened when people feel unheard and hopeless. You can talk to me all you like about looting and agitators, but at the core, it’s about a population of people being treated badly feeling that justice will not be done. That peaceful protest hasn’t worked, that there is no hope and no point in being respectful of property and no point is listening to ‘authority’ that exists not to protect but to diminish and dehumanise them. It’s happened here and it’s happening in the US right now.
Over the week there have been lots of posts on social media and #blackoutTuesday and I have been mostly silent on social media. I’ve talked about it to people in real life but I want to be very careful about what say here and elsewhere because I don’t want to distract from other voices or get it wrong. I also wanted to sit in any discomfort I might feel and actually think about it, not be defensive.
I’ve been thinking this week about Martin Luther King Jr. and his letter from Birmingham Jail because it’s a reminder that change only comes after conflict, that non-violent is not the same peaceful. It’s a long read and if you don’t have the stamina for all nine pages of it, then this is the paragraph for white people who think they aren’t racist (the bold sections are highlighted by me)
I must make an honest confession to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But can this assertion be logically made? Isn’t this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to make him drink the hemlock? Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because His unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to His will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see, as federal courts have consistently affirmed, that it is immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.
There isn’t anything much I can do about what is happening in US except pray, however, I can educate myself, I can sit with my tension and discomfort and use it to work for change. I can call out racism when I see it, and I can listen to my black friends when they tell me what I can do to help.
Well it’s been quite the week. We have a government that is incompetent, heartless, clueless and weak. All of those traits have been on full display since the election and more so during the pandemic. So I have quite a few links on Cummings but Boothby Graffoe has summed it up perfectly!
We endure these things individually because we understand ourselves to be also enduring them collectively. Cummings’ actions – and, even more, Johnson’s valorisation of them – strip away the second part. The big, communal and institutional structure that gives a value to the millions of individual sacrifices has been kicked away – in Johnson’s defence of Cummings, the only value is the individual “instinct” of the members of the ruling caste. To use the Blitz analogy that England apparently cannot escape, it’s fine to leave your lights on during the blackout if you’re an important person with documents to read.
There’s sometimes a fine line between a government reacting nimbly to events and one that appears to be totally at sea. But right now Boris Johnson is working flat out to make it abundantly clear that his government has chosen to firmly come down on the side of complete cluelessness
We’re nearly at the end of May, it’s been 10 weeks since the Weeder-in-Chief has been on the plot and I’m struggling to get it all done, there’s always something that doesn’t get finished because I’m sidetracked by weeding.
The weediest bits of the allotment are all on the new half, especially the bindweed which seems to be everywhere and it’s so dry, I’m just pulling up what I can and hoping that eventually it’ll die but right now I’m really frustrated about it because the volunteer potatoes everywhere are bad enough. The old half is also starting to look neglected, I really need to get down and sort out the front, which is full of californian poppies (lovely) and grass (not so lovely).
Weeding woes aside, what did I actually get done last week? Well, the compost arrived and I filled and planted up one of the big squash beds with winter squash. 15 plants mostly uchiki kuri and waltham butternut. I was also given some sweetcorn at the weekend, so that will get planted into that bed this weekend.
I also got around to planting up the last of the tomato beds. I think I did pretty well, I have 30 plants in the raised beds and only 5 left over. They will go into the overflow boxes as they did last year! But that’s still pretty good, last year I had to give away over 30 plants, this year I gave away eight and I only lost one, the benefit of being at home and able to do daily watering before work!
So what’s left to plant?
I have four beds at the front of the plot that are reserved for courgettes, crookneck summer squash, cucumbers and french beans and I need to plant the sweet potatoes in the hot boxes next to the herb patch. As mentioned earlier, I need to get the 10 sweetcorn plants in for the three sisters bed.
The biggest job is going to be the second squash bed, I didn’t have enough cardboard and compost to cover this and so for the last 10 weeks, it has languished and the heavy clay has hardened and grown bindweed. I’ve watered it this morning and covered it with plastic, in the next two weeks, I’m going to have to uncover it, water it some more dig it over (not my favourite thing at all but there’s just no way I can cover it with compost and hope for the best, it’s way too dry. Once that’s done, the last 9 bags of compost can go in and I’ll plant the remaining winter squash in there, I have about 7 good plants and a bunch of pumpkins and a patty pan that can all hang out there!
Then, after watering, I have to start the weeding and cut the grass on the paths and moving some stuff and working out what to do about the pond area! Life on the allotment is all go but there is some time to admire the flowers!
We had a cold snap last week, while everything survived, the in ground potatoes got some damage, but they’ll come back. And I know there are potatoes because the fox has dug some of them up!
After the frosty conditions last week the weather started to warm up, and actually got some things done. So I planted out two of the planned tomato beds. One of cherry tomatoes (red pear and yellow delight) and one of mixed large ones (the last amish paste, marmande and cour di bue). So far, I’ve lost one to wildlife (fox, I’m looking at you!) and none to the weather, thanks to my daily watering regime for the newly planted!
I also got the leeks in, I ordered 30, there were supposed to be 10 of each but the delivery was late and they sent me 42, (22 Carlton F1 and 20 Sultan F1), they were planted up across two beds and I promise that next year I’ll get my act together and sow some myself. I have lost a leek to marauding wildlife, I’m not sure if’s worse this year because so many food shops are closed and the foxes can’t access that but they are stealing anything that looks remotely food like, apparently other people are reporting seeing more mice and rats for similar reasons!
There was some space in the over flow leek bed and that space got sown up with some salad, the crispy salad leaves mix from Thompson and Morgan that we used last year and got another packet of from a magazine and a row of lettuce (Marvel of Four Seasons), also a freebie.
I also cleared the bed that I’m going to sow french beans in and put some canes in place. I’ve haven’t sown them yet, it may be a task for the weekend but I’m also waiting for some jute pea and bean netting, for the frame. We do use plastic on the allotment but my stance is that we have to be able to re-use it, which is why we’ve switched this year to sturdier rigid pots for the potatoes instead of the bags and why we’re trying this because I hate dealing with bean netting and it becomes a single use item.
I finally sowed some carrots! I did plan on two beds of carrots and if we find a empty bed later on in the season, we may well do a slightly later sowing. However, right now I have an insufficient number of beds for everything I want to grow issue! So one bed of carrrots, inside the cloche, are the bigger carrots (Harlequin F1 and Early Nantes 2) and surrounding the cloche are mixed seed from last year with spring onions and litte carrots (Chantenay Red Cored 3 and Royal Chantenay 3). I’m hoping to repeat last year’s success with them, fingers crossed.
I harvested my first radish too, this is Albena and with the exception of the summer squash and some sweet potato slips, all the plants are in the cloche at the plot and not in my living room.
So what’s left to do? Well the additional compost I ordered arrives today, so the squash beds need sorting and the squash planting out and sweetcorn sowing. I think I have room for 30 plants so watering is going to be hell! I need to sow the cucumbers and french beans and in a week or two, the sweet potato slips, courgettes, crookneck and maybe a patty pan need to go out. I also need to spray the broad beans and gooseberries with some SB plant invigorator for the aphid and mildew problems they have right now. I’m also waiting on some kale plugs and a new rhubarb plant, so I need to move the daffodils, tulips, anemones and narcissi to new positions and sort out the pond area a bit more!
Then it’s all about weeding, watering and tidying up until harvesting begins, then it’ll be all about weeding, watering, tidying up, harvesting and processing the harvest! Right now, I feel as in control as I ever do in May!
Last week, I decided that I needed to impose a bit more discipline upon myself. At this stage of lockdown and working from home, I am both the six year old with displaced behaviour AND that six year old’s parent trying to deal with said behaviour. So I reimposed schoolnight drinking rules (so no drinking Monday to Thursday) and a bath before bed, which should be between 10 and 11pm.
This weekend, I decided to be active, I was up early on Saturday and shopped for me but also got some bits for a friend, I read a book (the first I’ve managed in May), I watered the plot and got a bunch of plants out of the living room. On Sunday, I was at the allotment from 10am to 3.30pm-ish. I hit 10,000 steps both days, which is going to stand me in good stead for the team walking challenge this week, we are walking the length of Peru…
It hasn’t been all that difficult, which has been a huge surprise as I’m deep in PMT and had a migraine this week too, but I needed the discipline and the lighter days do help. This week, I want to keep up the momentum and because it’s going to be a lot warmer , the newly planted tomatoes will have to be watered every day.
Goals for this week are to be at the plot every morning to water, to go for a walk in the evening to get 10,000 steps every day, to be in bed at 10am each evening and no school night drinking, but I’m having a martini on Friday nights…
How are all of you managing to hold on to your sanity at the moment?
