We were all told it was the warmest spring on record. I exhausted my supplies of wood, keeping my family warm by the stove into April. Readers across the UK tell a similar tale. As George Orwell put it in 1984 “ The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” In this case the “party” is the Met Office and the media and political class GroupThink with, natch, the BBC at the forefront. So after that “warmest spring” what was forecast to happen next?

rite another batch of dried fruit is soaking in black tea to make the next two cakes. But after a 24hor soak, yesterday’s batch was added to flour, brown sugar, a bit of mixed spice and an egg, mixed thoroughly and baked in the Aga. Hey presto, the fist two cakes for tea at Sharestock on Saturday are now ready and being stored, as they should be, to mature a little.

Joshua starts at the school that made Matt Hancock the man he is today on Thursday. Jaya starts part time at the village primary today. And thus last night both dressed up in their new uniforms as you can see below.

I make a point of buying a pot of Sabre houmous evert time I visit Tesco as it is the only product I can guarantee is Israeli and I want to show my support. A couple of times I have removed pro Palestinian stickers from the shelf, handed them to staff and complained.  This time it was rather more nasty.

What you do not see is a tray of blackberries flash frozen and packed away in the freezer for making winter summer puddings and another litre of ice cream (blackberry) now on its way to the same place. However…

ast week Donald Trump accompanied by Tulsi Gabbard, an Iraq veteran, and others attended a ceremony at the National Cemetery at Arlington Virginia commemorating 13 US servicemen and women killed in the botched evacuation of Kabul. Kamala Harris accused Trump of using the ceremony as a political weapon and the BBC and the rest of the liberal media piled in behind Harris. If you are not on twitter you might think that this is another Trump own goal. Au contraire.

In the middle section of my shed, the wood is stacked five foot high eight across and three rows deep. On the newly completed left hand side it is just four foot wide but there are now six rows. On the far right there is enough kindling to keep us going all winter.  I am done.  Reader R from Cornwall will be green with envy. I have channelled my inner Charles Ingalls and am done for the year.

I continue my series on the Russia Ukraine war and the US General Election. Things are now looking really bleak for Ukraine and that will be another blow to a Democrat campaign in the USA that now seems to be faltering. 

I wrote up earlier. how we had made 23 litres of apple juice. As of Friday morning 24 bottles have been filled, the first four of which are below. I reckon we have another eight to ten to go and that is me done for this year. Or maybe not. If Joshua sells all of this run at Sharestock. we may have to run off another batch. There are still apples on the trees by the river, easily enough to make another thirty bottles if needs be. 

The raspberries, largly golden, are the gift from the garden that just keeps on giving. It took me just a quarter on an hour to clean the bushes yet again and the bowl that I brought in was enough for Joshua to grab a few, for me to make another litre of ice cream and to have enough left over to flash freee a tray, as you can se below.

As readers of my other website know, I have a few pressing medical matters at hand. Wednesday saw a long conversation and a short examination by my GP and on Friday I should get back some rather important test results. You cannot just sit there and ponder your own mortality. Life is for living though we must all, always, consider what the alternative means for those around us.  So on Wednesday afternoon Joshua and I picked even more apples and that evening my pal C popped around to help me press.

Last Friday Robert Kennedy junior, RFK, said that in ten battleground states he was withdrawing his candidacy for President and urged his supporters to back Donald Trump. In British terms this is like a Kinnock urging folks to vote Tory. The son of Bobby Kennedy, the nephew of JFK is backing not just a Republican but Trump. I discussed HERE how this really can make a difference and makes a Trump win all the more likely. But the Democrats are cheats.

It has been a funny old year for fruit. Damsons almost a no show. The pears are not much better but the plums were not bad at all. As for the apples, we look to have a bumper harvest but the odd thing is that not only are the early fruiting Discovery trees I planted by the river ready as they should be but so too are all the other trees, four weeks ahead of schedule. Apples are already starting to drop to the ground in large numbers. So the harvest is now underway.

Apparently, the first words little Jaya said this morning were “Daddy’s ice cream is so much better than Tesco’s or Bellis’s” I kid you not but she is right. Last night’s production ,pictured below, was blackberry and, having allowed myself a teaspoonfull, I can tell you it was amazing. It now goes in an increasingly ice cream packed freezer ahead of Sharestock when it will be served after supper. Also on the production line yesterday was damson jam. The harvest this year was dire and I had to scrounge fruit off a neighbours trees down by the river. and to chuck in a few of my plums. But, as you can see, we now have ten jars. And then to the orchard.

It is the data behind the headlines that is telling. No doubt folks like Carol Vorderman and the BBC will be creaming themselves with this swing state poll.  They should not be. The data behind it is very good news indeed for Donald Trump as I explain.