A View (Some Miles Away) From The Greenhouse; The Art Of Diplomacy….Innit?

I’m sure that by now we’ve all seen at least the ten minute clip of the White House “spat” and I know I’m far from alone, at least in the august company of Going Postal readers and contributors, in viewing this Zelenskyy fellow in quite a dim light. I covered much of the history of this particular conflict in my last ‘article’, so I won’t go over old ground, but the more I think about it and the more my cynical and conspiratorial mind pores over the scene, the more I get the feeling that there was something about the whole business that appeared to be staged. Let’s not forget that both Donald Trump and Zelenskyy are somewhat seasoned performers, so it wouldn’t be hard for either of them (or both) to make a fairly minor disagreement into something completely different, should they have chosen to. But, if it is the case (and this is only me musing), then it begs the questions why and who was in on it? Let’s postulate for a minute. Trump has long championed European countries taking a greater role in the defence of the continent. Zelenskyy (I believe) will do or say anything if there’s a buck in it for him, or at least a way for him to extricate himself from a very difficult situation with his life and his billions still intact. Nearer home, Starmer, along with the whole of the Uni-Party establishment, have never made any secret of their hatred of “Brexit” and their desire to maintain and even strengthen the UK’s ties with the Brussels cabal, with a view to us becoming members again. Let’s be honest, we never really left, anyway. As I type this, it’s my view that some or all of these things are coming into play. Although I believe DJT is ostensibly a friend to Britain, he’s primarily an American and I don’t believe he cares, overly much, whether we’re in the EU or not, because he has the measure of that particular dogs breakfast of an organisation. I suppose it’s even a possibility that the whole thing was cooked up without DJT’s knowledge, given the speed with which Starmer and the European cabal were ready to react. I wouldn’t be surprised if some or all of these things converge in the coming weeks and months. Wouldn’t it be ironic if a war on the borders of eastern Europe and western Asia saw the UK depart Oceania and become members of a redrawn, soon to be federated Eurasia?

Apologies for the quality of the picture, but you at least get the gist. A week last Friday saw a return of stormy weather and high winds, as always, when the wind gets up, there’s a level of trepidation, mixed liberally with a little (often misplaced) optimism. The optimism was, indeed misplaced and we lost two full ‘wall’ panes on the east facing side of the house (the wind being from a more south easterly direction) and suffered some movement damage to the west facing side. The southern end of the house moved (again) off its base, but this is now rectified, hopefully for good. One positive was that the whole of the roof section stood up to the buffeting and remained intact.

Buildings and maintenance swung into action over the weekend. Thankfully, one of the pane from the east facing side had remained intact, but there were timbers to cut to length and groove that needed installing on both sides of the house, along with several new base timbers and cleats. It’s clear that the replacement block work that was undertaken last year was money well spent, but the consensus is that more of the same’s needed, along with new bast timbers and cleats, at the end of this season, to continue the maintaining of the structural integrity. We just hope that, for now at least, is the last of the high winds for this year.

It hardly seemed a year since we’d taken the back lanes to Caldbeck to make the (now) annual visit to “Potato Day”. We’d learned a lesson form 2024 and left home at 9.15 to get a good spot in the queue, for the 10am opening, in an effort to beat the rush and get a park which didn’t necessitate us making a half mile hike, uphill, just to buy a couple of bags of seed potatoes. Time works somewhat differently out in the real sticks, we did manage to get parked handily, but by the time we got to the hall, at 9.40, the doors were open and business was brisk. I can only assume that we hadn’t been the only ones to have a similar idea. Any road up, we got shopped by 10.15, buying 5 kilos of seed potatoes, two bags of onion sets and a couple of packets of seed, including a replenishment supply of the “Hurst Greenshaft” peas, which had been so fruitful last season. I got a bit lost driving home, but that’s another story. Caledonian Pearl’s a new “early” this time around. I’m hoping to be able to get the first four rows in before the end of March, but we’ll see.

Raised bed sagas, episode twenty five. Another bag of top soil was ordered, following the rain and wind and duly shared out between the four raised beds, which I then carefully (so as not to lose any of this precious loam) screeded and gently tamped down. I’ll give it a fork over this coming week as I don’t think the soil’s been as well screened as it could have been. We have had a couple of nights of quite hard frost, which does soil no harm and helps to break it up a bit, too. I’m looking forward to making a start, probably leeks, onions and garlic will be the first in. Exciting times, at least in this parochial backwater.

I may have mentioned it at the time, but, Mrs C asked if I’d mind giving some of her outdoor pot plants a home for the winter. I couldn’t think of a good enough reason to refuse the request, so I asked the B&M department to get the quad bike and trailer out and ferry them around the corner. Apart from the two miniature sunflowers, which probably need cutting right back (I don’t know for a fact, flowers not being my department) everything’s done very well and is coming along fine, having been left to their own devices over winter. Once the swamp dries out (we’ve had a lot of rain) we’ll get them back round to the house and I can have my potting table back. It’s always a good idea to bank a favour or two.

One of the recurring themes in my bi-weekly ramblings is just how much pleasure I get from my growing compost heap. I’m a simple man at heart. Another, of course, is my belief that much of what’s driven political manouvering (including the implosion of the Tory Party) since June 2016, is “Brexit”. I know I’ve already touched on the subject in my opening stanza, but I said when Cameron resigned (as many of you will both testify to and inwardly groan at) that he did so, not in a fit of petulance because he’d ended up on the “losing side” (something which I don’t think he’d ever really contemplated and which probably wouldn’t have happened without Osborne and the medias doomsday rhetoric) but because he knew, full well, that he’d never be allowed to deliver on his pledge to honour the result of the referendum, even had his heart been fully committed to it. You’d need several tin foil hats to even consider that an “accidental” lab escape of a mildly virulent cold virus in Wuhan, which virtually stopped the world turning for over two years and the invasion of Ukraine (an intrinsically corrupt country, renowned as a hotbed of Neo-Nazism, and a place strongly rumoured to be home to more than one “gain of function” chemical weapons laboratory) were directly related to what was, essentially, a “working class” rejection of Globalist ambition to create a federalised European “Super State”. Having said that, the one thing all politicians seem to have in common (apart from their tin-eardness and their lack of any scruples) is the ability to sieze any opportunity to further a particular cause, especially, or so it seems, when the desired outcome, if achieved, is likely to enrich them personally, make their lives easier or both. There have been several “false starts” on the road back to the fold, but, if the past almost nine years has proved anything it’s proved that, whatever the costs, the cabal in Brussels and the equally sleazy UK political establishment, along with the client journalists of the bought and paid for legacy media, will stop at nothing to overturn the result of the referendum. I’m off to the shops to buy a extra long roll of extra strong tinfoil, see you all in a fortnight.
 

© Colin Cross 2025