Nic Dempsey

Happy Friday!

Britain’s Roller-Coaster Ride to a Trade Deal With Trump I always like to see how things are reported in the US.

‘Hollowing out’: New Zealand grapples with an uncertain future as record numbers leave. Anecdotes are not data but I’ve only see people move back.

Fixing England’s water isn’t just the right thing to do – it can be the start of Labour’s fightback. As a Thames Water ‘customer’ – it’s a monopoly I have no choice of who I use, I’m so angry about the latest price rise, my bill over 10 months has gone from £35 to £53 – for no discernible change in service, if my bills are going to be high and they are, then I’d rather it was owned by the state and didn’t paid out dividends. One of the reasons that the last Tory govt was such a failure is that there was nothing left to sell of and public infrastructure shouldn’t be in private hands…

We told young people that degrees were their ticket to a better life. It’s become a great betrayal. Most of the under 30’s in my team are earning a lot of money (more than double what I am) but buying property without family money or a hefty deposit is almost impossible. Think about it, the one bedroom, no garden flat I rent is valued at about £550,000 in zone three (yes really!) and a salary of £80,000, you could maybe borrow five times your salary which gives a mortgage of £400,000, which would need a deposit of £150,000. Average salary in London is roughly £44,000 (the House of Commons Library puts it at £835 a week in April 2024). You want to know why the younger generations are experiencing a mental health crisis, what future do they have to look forward to? I’m aware that buying a property is not the be all and end all, but security of tenure is and there is a distinct lack of social housing about (and if you were earning £80k a year, you wouldn’t be entitled to it) and private rent by and large isn’t secure. What’s happening is hopelessness, something must change because this is untenable, it’s been untenable for years for most working class kids (I’ve been banging on about it for at least 25 years) but it’s now becoming difficult for middle class kids. Marx is increasingly looking prophetic…

An English gentleman, a crooked lawyer: the secrets of Stephen David Jones. My first thought reading this was that if some of those guys had just paid their tax, they’d still have their money!

Bicester Village at 30: how a wet field in Oxfordshire defied the death of the shopping mall. I find this fascinating because a whole day for shopping sounds like a nightmare (although I do love an hour wandering around the homewares dept in John Lewis!)

‘I lost so much weight, my husband thought I was terminally ill’: why do people lie about taking Ozempic? This is really interesting, a friend of ours is doing this and feels so much better about herself for doing it. I do think it’s going to change how we think about fatness and maybe not for the better.

Aphids plaguing UK gardens in warm spring weather, says RHS. I’m watching my roses but so far so good, I don’t have broad beans this year so I’m currently blackfly free.

‘One father threatened to stab the referee’: why does kids’ football bring out the worst in parents? I was brought up with the saying ‘the referee is always right’. Even when they manifestly aren’t right, they are. To the point that when my brother was sent off for being lippy to the ref (he was still in primary school, I think), my mum took him home and he missed the end of season celebration (my mother did not play!). More parents could do with that attitude.

‘Stealing joy’: the sadness and symbolism of the crime at Sycamore Gap I just don’t get it, why would you do it? I don’t have any attachment to the tree and if it had blown down, I would have just thought it was a shame. And it is just a tree. Cutting down a tree isn’t as bad as any of the really bad things that are happening in the world at the moment but it’s the act, cutting down a tree that brings joy to go viral. It’s the mindlessness of it, ruining something because you can that feels well, evil.

I still haven’t sown anything on the plot, as the amount of weeding and prep is still just insane!

It’s all about weeding and tidying and it takes so much longer than I think it will. First let’s talk about good things. There are baby strawberries, the potatoes are making an appearance.

The peony is flowering despite the absolute state of the bed they live in and the murder attempts by the loganberry and grass..

This weekend, I went back to the bed next to the gooseberries and dug out some more bindweed, then I added a layer of cardboard, topped up with compost and covered for the time being. I know that I have bindweed issue there and the cardboard won”t stop it but it’ll slow it down. In a week or two I’m going to set up some bamboo and grow black beans there, with lettuce underneath.

Then I started again on weeding the gooseberries, I’m not done but I finally cleared a path through, I’ll go back to it and do some more but I find gooseberries disheartening and prickly so I’m just doing it a bit at a time.

Then I had a go at the rosemary, it has got a bit big for it’s boots and it’s time for a massive hair cut. As I was doing this I had an idea for the spare bed as it fits the space. I’ll fix it, fill it up with compost and use it for some of my new herbs. So I moved the bed to where I want it.

I also cleared, cardboarded, topped up and covered the boxes next to the rosemary. The arch up it is in need of repair or replacement, so I’ll have a think about what to grow in them, I was thinking about squash but that will be determined by whether there is an arch.

I did a small bit of bed tidying near the polytunnel and admired my roses.

There is so much to do! Priorities for May are netting the fruit bushes, getting beds topped up, weeding and sowing some seeds indoors.

I’m going to be busy!