Friday Links: The Government of All the Spanners

Posted on February 28, 2020 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday! This is going up very late today because I forgot to post it. It’s been a very busy week…

Priti Patel is out of her depth – and that is Boris Johnson’s fault

The fall in life expectancy is proof that austerity kills

Long-Bailey’s shift to attack mode shows what awaits Starmer if he wins

Israeli forces shot a Palestinian journalist in the leg. He got no compensation.

The war on Israeli democracy

The Gig Economy Has Never Been Tested by a Pandemic

It’s children who will shoulder the caring burden under Johnson’s migration policies

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Allotment Adventures: Buying wood

Posted on February 26, 2020 by nicdempsey

Anyone else sick of the weather?

The weather wasn’t great last weekend and Ma had a trick knee, so we already knew not much was going to happen. We hit the plot and checked for damage, the bird feeders were casualties but other than that we’d survived storm Dennis and the crocuses are appearing.

After we re-filled the bird feeders, we went to Wickes to buy some wood. Sometimes, when we do stuff like this, Ma hires a car, this week we did it on the bus.

One of the great things about London is that no-one really blinks when you carry wood onto the bus! We did two round trips, bought 12 planks of wood and 3 posts for the corners and the screws. We need another pack of 5 planks but it was about to rain, it was windy and Ma was starting to hurt. So we called it a day.

I did want to show you the rogue potato plant that’s growing up in between one of the pallets that we use for storage!

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Pancake Day:

Posted on February 25, 2020 by nicdempsey

Today and then on Tuesdays during Lent, I’m going to talk about my faith and spiritual practice (or lack thereof). So this is the time to look away if you’re not interested in this topic. No worries, there will be an allotment post tomorrow and I’ll see you then!

Lent starts tomorrow, which means tonight I will be eating pancakes! Before we get to pancakes, I’ve been giving some thought to what I’m going to do/take up/give up this Lent.

Lenten practice is supposed to be about making ourselves better for Easter, I’m not sure that I want to ‘offer up my suffering to Jesus’ but if I deny myself something and use the money saved to do some good, that works for me. I don’t want to use Lent just to clean up my diet, but I am going to use it as a time to consider what I eat. So I want to do 2 eating related things:

  • give up sweets and chocolate;
  • be much more mindful about ultra processed foods. I’m pretty good at this but I want to stop buying food instead of cooking it and buying lunch at work because I can’t be bothered to prep properly. So I’m going to do my best to cut it out by using the Nova food classification and cutting out Nova 4’s

Lent shouldn’t just be about denial, so I need to take some stuff up too….

  • I’m going to stop buying flowers and put that money towards my other food related thing;
  • Three items or £3 donated to the food bank every week. (I do donate to the food bank outside of Lent but not as regularly as I should);
  • Attend the volunteer days at the allotment on 7th March and 4th April; and
  • Gratitude journal, I think in a time that we think about being better people I should work to remind myself of the privileges of the life I have right this minute.

That done let’s talk about pancakes. The best pancake recipe is Delia Smith’s, I have two courses of pancakes tonight, savoury and sweet because we used to have this at home. I make up a bunch of pancakes and stuff them with mince or chicken in white sauce, then pour white sauce over them, add cheese and bake in the oven. One year I made lasagna but with pancakes instead of pasta (I regret nothing!). For pudding, I eat them with bananas and maple syrup (which is bizarre because I am not keen on bananas!) instead of lemon juice and sugar.

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Monday Miscellany: Theatre, Wine, Cinema

Posted on February 24, 2020 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday!

Last week was half term which meant that getting into work in the morning was somewhat easier and work was a lot quieter, which provided balance because going home was full of whiny children and I couldn’t book meeting because no one was in the office to confirm times.

So that’s work, home was pretty much the same, I had Thursday afternoon off, to go to the theatre and see A Number and then in the evening to see Parasite at the cinema. So culture and shenanigans with Ma!

On Friday I worked from home and on Saturday took many trips to Wickes for wood buying purposes.

I’m middle aged that was quite enough excitement for the week, so on Sunday I stayed indoors!

This week, I want to eat pancakes tomorrow, get ashed on Wednesday and it will be a busier week at work, we (as in my team) are running a bar for the work charity on Thursday night, which seems both like a good Lenten activity and a bad one! No weekend plans excepting the allotment and then it’s March. I’m fairly certain that time speeds up as you get older!

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Sunday Music: Earworm

Posted on February 23, 2020 by nicdempsey

Sometimes my brain is not a place that’s comfortable to live in. Last week during the PMT insomnia, I managed to acquire an earworm, that earworm was ‘Champion the Wonder Horse’ I have no idea. It’s something I used to watch with my dad when I was very small and every now and again, it comes back to haunt me. So I’m passing it on to you!

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Recommendations: Dr Murad AHA/BHA Exfoliating Cleanser

Posted on February 22, 2020 by nicdempsey

A couple of weeks ago, I recommended Angus Castus to deal with PMT, because my PMT has been getting worse with peri-menopause. Well this week I’m back with the other side the annoying peri-menopausal coin. Spots.

I’ve been very lucky in that my skin has never been very blemish prone but when I get them, I get them on my chin, usually before a period. Recently that’s been spots on my chin all the time and also around my nose. It’s not a good look and while I’m not at the cystic acne stage, they are sore and look horrible.  I’ve been experimenting with skincare to help resolve the issue and it was helping but this was the final piece.  I found it via this year’s M&S Advent Calendar and my skin was clearer after the 1st day I used it.

I’m never going to solve the problem completely (not until the hormones stop) but spots I do get don’t last as long and aren’t as sore. Overall, my skin is clearer, less dry and seems to take face cream and SPF better.

I’m all about taking care of my skin without breaking the bank and this cleanser is the most expensive part of my skin care regime, coming in at £40 for 200ml. Yep I was pretty horrified too but it should last about 6 months and it makes a huge difference to my face. There may be other, cheaper stuff that works on my chin spots but I haven’t found it yet so right now it’s worth it.

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Friday Links:

Posted on February 21, 2020 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday! I had a lot to read and say about it this week!

The wealth gap: How changing fortunes tear close friends apart Interesting

How ultra-processed food took over your shopping basket

Fighting the tyranny of ‘niceness’: why we need difficult women

Building ‘resilience’ won’t stop traumatised social workers quitting. Social services suffers from a severe lack of joined up thinking generally, but as the funding gets less, it’s going to get worse. Some parents are just horrible and social services can help. They can talk to you about parenting and if you really care, you’ll listen. The problem is what if you’re not a horrible parent? What is you’re just if you’re just highly stressed because you’re in rubbish housing and having to use foodbanks because work doesn’t pay enough and you’re struggling for childcare anyway. Or your husband is a drinker and hits you and you’d like to move back to your mum’s but she’s given up her 3 bedroom council flat because of the bedroom tax and there is nowhere to go except temporary housing so a converted office block or a rubbish B&B which is over an hour away from your kids schools. Or you’ve lost respite care for your severely disabled child and the other kids are clambouring for attention that you can’t give so are acting out and you don’t have any money and your marriage is failing because you never get time together because you’re working opposite shifts because there aren’t enough carers.  Some of what I’m describing is my childhood, some is what I know is happening to people right now, one of the people I see on the bus in Ealing during term time is taking her kids to school in Fulham (my old primary school to be exact!) because they placed her in a B&B in Perivale when she fled domestic abuse and if the kids don’t go to school in Fulham, she doesn’t have any connection to the borough and loses her place on Hammersmith and Fulham’s housing list and she won’t get on Ealing’s because she’s not been in the borough long enough. Navigating this stuff is a bureaucratic minefield and what can a social worker do to help you with any of this? Almost nothing. Welcome to the Britain that was just re-elected because we’re taking back control…..

Flooding in the UK isn’t an act of God, it’s an act of government. I will confess that it did occur to me that all the flooding was happening in areas that voted leave, but co-incidence is not causation, however, how Johnson has your vote, you’re about to find out how much contempt he holds you in. No COBRA, no visits, and very little money. We all told you, you didn’t listen and now, well lets see how long it takes for you to get help with repairing your homes.

The people who matchmake their own parents: ‘Looking back, it was a rash thing to do’. I’m fairly sure that Ma doesn’t want a new life partner but even if she did, I would be staying well out of the way…

Ghost ship washes ashore in Ireland after more than a year at sea

The war between boomers and millennials benefits neither side

A cheery and helpful guide: How to be happy

This about vegetables for a bit – the are AMAZING! How can vegetables help you today?-How can you help vegetables? The road to happiness runs through a veggie patch. 

Why do we only care about incels when they are men? Because men make their problems, everyone’s problem and women aren’t encouraged to do that. Here’s an interesting thing. When Ma read through mine and my brother’s school reports about 20 years after we’d finished school, she was struck by how similar they were. The difference, when I wasn’t interested in something, I just quietly didn’t do it, when Ben wasn’t interested in something, he was disruptive. That right there is most of the difference between woman and men. I also think it’s why the rates of female to male transition is so high but the focus on trans issues seems always to be about male to female transition. Why are trans men not kicking off about being allowed in men’s only spaces. Partly men aren’t as threatened as women but no one seems to want to have a serious conversation about why women might be concerned about it the other way around. Trans women are women but they don’t have the same experience of being ignored and not listened to as CIS women, they can’t seem to get their heads around the idea that their freedom might or should be limited by other women’s rights or freedoms or fears. At the base of male incels rage is anger that they are ‘denied’ something they want. And the solution is to blame women rather than look at their behaviour or just lump it because that solution is only ever taught to women.

Whitehall’s take on Johnson’s reshuffle: this prime minister is insecure. I could have told you that!

The Long History of the Hand-Washing Gender Gap Interesting

Bloomberg Is the Crisis, Not the Cure. Because the answer to a millionaire riding roughshod over the US constitution is a billionaire riding roughshod over the Constitution in a more demure manner…

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Rainy Day Baking

Posted on February 20, 2020 by nicdempsey

Last weekend, with the rain pouring and the storm storming, I stayed inside and baked.

I made some bread rolls. I make these all the time, (usually halving the recipe because 24 is more rolls than one woman needs, using oil instead of butter and after I’ve mixed the ingredients together to form the dough, I don’t knead them, I try to avoid kneading at all costs!), this time I made them with honey instead of sugar and as a batch instead of separately. I like them this way, they are soft and seem to stay soft longer.

I also made up the batter for gingerbread but added 5 peeled on the edge of being over ripe pears and made 18 muffins instead of one loaf. They are really good, very moist but lovely and not as fiery and my usual gingerbread.

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Allotment Adventures: Storm Dennis

Posted on February 19, 2020 by nicdempsey

I need to start this week’s update on the plot with a tiny rant. On the 23 Jan, I ordered lots of raised beds from Primrose, three for me and seven for Dionne, they had a 2 to 4 days delivery window. On the 11 Feb, after 3 phone calls, on email and two promises of delivery in the next week, I cancelled the order because Primrose could not tell me when they would be delivered, just that they were having problems with the warehouse, caused by a move. They are still accepting orders for goods they know they can’t deliver. The refund will take up to 5 working days. So it may be in my bank account by the time you read this.Ma and I have decided that we will take that money and build the beds ourselves. But it’s really frustrating because I could have done that four weeks ago and then I’d be done with the beds and all I’d have to do was the pond and the compost.However, with this news and a visit on Wednesday, when Ma almost finished the last bit of weeding and I cut some kale, filled up the bird feeders and pulled up some grass (I was only there for an hour before I had to go back to work, Ma spent the afternoon) and the impending arrival of Storm Dennis, Ma and decided that a weekend off was the way forward.We are no further on with the list but it does need some adjustment. I’m still hopeful that I’ll be done with most of this list (we are not going to get around to the compost buying this month) but the end of the month. We have two more working weekends until March!

  • Build two new fruit beds and four new beds.
  • Transplant the roses
  • Move the boysenberry
  • Split the autumn raspberry bed into two.
  • Sow some more broad beans and cover the bed with netting
  • Pull up the chard and cover that bed
  • Set up the cloche
  • Sow sweet peas
  • Sow leeks
  • Buy seed potatoes (we couldn’t get nicola’s so went for charlottes)
  • Paint the shed
  • Split and trim the verbena bonariensis and move the stuff next to the rhubarb
  • Trim the rosemary and sage
  • Sow the first batch of peas
  • Weed everything!
  • Buy compost and start filling some beds
  • Turn the compost bins
  • Have another bonfire
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Soil, God and Lent

Posted on February 18, 2020 by nicdempsey

Last week the email about Grace Lent activities came around. My Grace attendance has been terrible for the last couple of years for lots of reasons I’m not going into but the Lent activities are all based on the themes of Soul, Soil and Society. I was looking at the list of planned activities and one of them is sowing potatoes and other seeds on an allotment that a couple of Grace members share. I thought looking at the list that I probably have the soil element of the theme covered but it did make me reflect on the way that soil and cultivation of it prepares you for a relationship with God. I have written before about how the plot helped me re-find my sense of relationship with God that went missing for a bit. I think that caring for land or a plot is, in its very nature an act of optimism and that is never more evident than in Lent. There’s a reason that the Church shifted the celebration of Lent and Easter to spring.

Before the plot, I always understood Lent as the preparation for Easter. “Prepare ye the way for the Lord” is a massive part of what we are trying to do during Lent, to make ourselves better Christians, to shape ourselves into the people that God means us to be. Lent’s focus on fasting or as my Grandad would have it ‘self denial’ fits really well into the idea of changing our sinful nature and living in a fallen world, which is still a massive part of much Christian theology. I’m not a huge believer in original sin or a fallen world (I know that I fall short but because I’m as human as God made me not because I’m inherently bad and I can’t believe in a loving God, who would punish us for being who He made us).  But it also made a virtue out of there not being much growing that you can eat, of being towards the end of your winter stores so our idea of Lent is really shaped by Northern European agrarian life, fasting when the body has no other choice.

I knew that but what I also understand now is Lent as a season of hope, as a time of preparation for joy. Because this time of year on the plot is rough. Not much is growing and I’ve spent a lot of time on preparation, more so this year with the new half, but this time of year is all about getting the plot ready for growing. It all looks bleak but I’m trying to create the right conditions for growth without any guarantee that anything will work. You can’t harvest in summer, if you don’t plant in spring but the act of planting, guarantees nothing. It could be too dry, or too wet or a cold snap might kill all the newly emerged shoots, or the seeds might be duds, or the birds and might might eat them, or there could be an aphid attack, or the fox could use your plants as cushions, the list of things that could go wrong is long and scary.There is no choice if I want food except to try, to prepare the soil, to sow the seeds, to hope that it works. So during Lent, I can use the plot as mediation for my spiritual life. To see Jesus’ journey to the Cross in the same light. He’s sowing seeds, preparing the way, doing all this work and sacrifice, with no guarantee it’ll work and He’ll change us, that we’ll see more, do better, be God’s hands and help others.

Lent makes more sense to me, because I can understand how God feels about me because it’s what I’m trying to do to the plot.

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