A View From The Greenhouse (End Of The World, innit?)

It hardly seems like two minutes since I was writing my last meandering offering and here we are again. It came to my attention, a couple of weeks ago, that I’d never fully installed the loft insulation when I built the house, given how much the electric companies want for a kwh these days Mrs. C thought it might be apposite to get the job finished. One look into the roof space convinced me that something I could have just about managed, as a reasonably fit 59 year old, was now well outside my current physical capabilities. Who’s tried to find an odd job man lately? Maybe it’s me, but I have the idea there used to be a couple in every town, now they’re all “builders” and “property renovation engineers” who either want a weeks pay for a days work or don’t want a days work at all if it may involve actually “working” for a few hours. I’d almost given up and kind of resigned myself to either attempting to do the work myself (madness as it turned out), paying well over the odds, or just forgetting about it for another eleven years, hoping fervently that Mrs. C would do the same. I was taking a walk around Keswick when I came across a van emblazoned with the legend “Bob The Handyman” (real name withheld), along with a mobile number. I called the guy and he agreed to at least take a look at the job, which he did yesterday. I kid you not, it must have been 100 deg up there, but Bob got stuck in, stopping only for water & the odd bathroom break and in 6 hours had the job finished, 15 rolls of fibreglass insulation cut and rolled out, including the second layer over the main house and two layers over the two smaller bedrooms. The access is limited, the trusses are tight across the angle of the “L” shape and the heat was stifling but he got it finished and I was happy to part with the £150 he charged me. Faith in human nature revived.

Fathers Day was a couple of weeks ago and, although the usual box of Licourice Allsorts wasn’t forthcoming, a gift voucher for the one Michelin starred restaurant at Forest Side Hotel, Grasmere was https://www.theforestside.com/. I’m not a complete stranger to “fine dining” and I’m always up for trying something new, especially when I’m not directly footing the bill, so Saturday saw us donning our best outfits for a dining experience we won’t forget in a hurry. The portions are small, right enough, but the food is of the highest quality in my opinion and the service, although not quite up to Le Tallbooth standard, is very sharp and friendly. The lunch was £45 a head with the voucher and we shared a cheese plate, which I felt was a little on the “mean” side amount wise. Drinks aren’t cheap and the extensive wine list would have challenged a connoisseur, but all in all, if you’re ever up this way and fancy something a bit special, you could do worse than give this place a try. The terrace and gardens are worth a visit for a drink on a nice summers day, if you don’t mind paying around £7 for a beer.

I’m not going to ramble on about the meal, but this duck course was the highlight for me; I could have handled a little more meat and a slack handful of game chips wouldn’t have gone amiss, but the concentration and combination of flavours will live in the memory for a long time.

Posh for a day, then back to the ordinary life of a rough gardener, trying to produce my own hedge against rising prices and, by spending at least two or three hours a day away from the news media and, to be fair, the rest of the world, maintain a grip on my sanity. I can’t be the only one who’s noticed it, and it isn’t really even a new phenomenon, but nothing that happens anymore is taken at face value. Johnson made his own bed and he needs must lie in it, he isn’t the first politician to get caught out in a lie, or to be shafted by his colleagues, or be led around by his manhood, or to think himself somehow better that any one else and I’m pretty sure he won’t be the last, but is his resignation the end of the world, really? Shit, as they say, happens. Omicron Variant Whatever leads to rising cases; The majority, tired, awake and cynical, shrug their shoulders and say “so what”, before getting on with their lives, comfortable in the knowledge that, at worst, they may get a bit of a summer cold. But our “friends” in the media (not just in the UK either) aren’t having that, the hypocrites and liars that they are, they want us all in masks, locked in our homes and clapping to save the NHS, because that’s what “good and kind” people do. They ignore the evidence of their own eyes and instead work to the provided script, not a single one of them willing to break ranks and point at the naked Emperor, they all have private health insurance and at least four “jabs” anyway. The most risible amongst them taking to social media to let us know how grateful they are to Big Pharma for saving their lives, ignoring the fact that the “vaccine” hasn’t made a single jot of difference to any outcome they may endure.

It’s summer, we get the occasional warm day even up here in Cumbria, but summer isn’t a season any more, now it’s just another catastrophe waiting to happen. We’re all too thick to be able to take care of ourselves when the sun comes out, we need to be warned, constantly, that all our friends, elderly relatives and neighbours are going to die if we don’t check up on them, because that’s what “good and kind” people do. The Met Office issues an amber weather warning, the news media, especially the BBC, which takes great delight in reinforcing the “Man Made Global Climate Warming Change” myth, puts the Covid script back in the Covid file, next to the forgotten political cake and beer script and gets out the weather script which it then uses to terrify and bully the gullible and the virtuous into believing there’s never been a summer this warm in the past, summers will only get warmer in the future (so what) and we’re all going to melt, if Covid doesn’t get us first.

“You can fool some of the people some of the time with lies about a nasty infectious flu bug, you can fool some of the people all of the time with your propaganda surrounding the efficacy of the “cure” for it, you can fool a couple of people for a short time, with media outrage about cake while remaining virtually silent about beer, curry and bent coppers, you probably even think you can fool the world about how corrupt certain politicians in both the east and the west are, but you can’t fool the majority of the people, all of the time, about the substance of it all”.

Why do I say this? Because we’re all human and, sooner or later, the scales fall from the most clouded and septic of eyes. We continue to be played, both at home and abroad, but I think more and more people are aware of it. The Tory leadership election will, I have no doubt, offer up another Globalist shill who’ll talk big and do nowt and the usual suspects will either cheer or boo, depending on which way the media directs them, but I think people are beginning, slowly, to wake up. Relentless doom mongering from what I recently saw called “The Clamourocracy” should ALWAYS be self defeating, because we know they aren’t to be trusted. I’ve said it before; I think whatever’s happening is destined to fail, there are indications across the globe it’s stumbling, and hubris will bring down those who would see us bound by their “New World Order” rules.

Anyway, what will be will be, I may be wrong and there isn’t a conspiracy afoot. We may all simply be the victims of incompetence, circumstance and coincidence and, if that’s the case, it’ll all come out in the wash. But if I’m right, then, come the day of reckoning, there’s a large group of people who may be lucky just to get away with doing a bit of reflective soul searching. The Tigrella tomatoes, from seed kindly donated by 1642 seem to be doing the best of any, although the purple cherries are making something of a challenge to be ready for the village show. No traditional runner beans so far, although lots of flowers, but the purple ones are starting to weigh the vine down. Broad beans and peas are about finished, I expect it once the weather gets warmer and the chili farm is (hopefully) going to be, along with the grapevine, the star of the show.

Both the yellow and green courgettes are in the ground, so they’ve been exposed to the herbicide with consequent impact on cropping, but, as with anything else, what produce there is seems fine, if the herbicide can pass through a cow and leave it unscathed, I’m sure, it there are any traces, they’ll pass through me just as easily. Maybe I should look it up?

I planted some aubergines out, in the ground, back in April, not the big purple ones, which I’m not a fan of, but some (I think) purple and white “finger” type. I’ve grown similar before and they go well in a mixed roast vegetable side dish. Any road up, they failed on me (dramatically) and I wasn’t going to bother trying again but I relented and I’ve just potted four of them on into their final growing containers. Hopefully we’ll get a crop, although I’m not sure how to go about preserving them, should there be an abundance of fruit. That’s it for now, back to the serious stuff of gardening next time and a look at what may (and may not) make the show. I’ve got a week of the single life starting Saturday, who knows what japes await?

Next Time; Show preview, red tomatoes, an host of chillies, some interesting peppers, a rant, some hooptedoodle… 
 

© Colin Cross 2022