Real men have wood stores. The Mrs just does not understand what it means to me as I stack log upon log. Readers: I need some male affirmation here. Anyhow as a result of the tree being knocked down and a barn being knocked down earlier in the year I have vast numbers of logs to put in a wood shed emptied after what the Met Office termed“the warmest spring on record” when my fire had to be kept on virtually every single day.
It is all happening on both fronts with shocks from left field.But what happens next? I discuss in detail and as things stand I reckon the US winner will be….
Most of the remnants of the tree chopped down in my garden are slowly being split into firewood. As my wood shed fills up I am taking photos and will bring them all when the job is completed later this week and I can revel in my manly glory. But those branches thatwere too small, the leaves and the sawdust is now piled high on the bonfire site. They will damp down during the Autumn but i staill have some old pallets and other junk from the barns to clear to make space for chickens and goats. So, as you can see below Iam well prepared for bonfire night. But…
In Operation Mincemeat, in 1943, British Military intelligence dressed up a dead tramp as a Marine officer, floated his body carrying details of a planned invasion of Greece onto the Spanish coast knowing that the bogus plans would find their way to the Germans. The Germans fell for it and diverted tanks, boats and men from Sicily, where the allies really were going to land, to Greece. It was a triumph. There are two books written about the operation and both mention the underpants placed on the body but only in Ben Macintyre’s 2010 account, on which the Colin Firth film is based, is there real detail. Unfortunately, Macintyre engages in dramatic conceit and gets it all wrong. I start, once again, with those 4 young girls photographed in the late 1880s.
The sad demise of Michael Mosley in Greece and of Jay Slater in Tenerife this summer naturally made me think of my great Uncle David Cochrane, not just the manner of his death in 1931 but also of the waiting that all three families endured. With Cochrane there is also a villain of the story, his uncle by marriage, and this is, in a way, a precursor to a very long article I am preparing on Operation Mincemeat, the underpants and my family. It all starts with the four young girls pictured below in, I suspect, the late 1890s.
Some folks think it is easy putting on an event such as Sharestock. Far from it. Every single item has to be ordered, accounted for and laid out ready for use. Barely a day goes by without something now arriving at the Welsh Hovel which Joshua and I unpack and lay out in my office. Cutlery for each of the four meals, coffee machines, coffee and decaf, filters, tea, plates, bowls, the speakers, the mikes, the batteries, a big screen, cabling, boxes for ice cream, freezer boxes for milk, the list goes on and on and on. But all is in hand, Joshua and I are not panicking (yet) and September 7 is still three weeks away which means we must start making the nettle beer tomorrow.
It was last year that I contacted the celebrated campaigner on the matter of historic sexual abuse at Britain’s public schools, Alex Renton, to discuss how to push my old school to be more proactive in addressing its own scandals. My abuse at the hands of sadistic Geoffrey Eve was physical. But other boys suffered sexual abuse. One victim, having suppressed his memories for decades has finally decided to confront them, contacted Renton who put him in touch with me. We spoke last week.
As you may be aware my type 2 diabetes was raging and I was in a bad way at around Christmas. Since then, there has been a complete lifestyle change. I cannot reverse some of the damage done but it is in my power to stop things getting worse. This morning there is a very positive an update on my weight and my blood sugars.
Anyone who has ever visited the Welsh Hovel will remember the tall conifer in the garden which blocks out vast amounts of light to the annexe, the newer part of the house (1700s and 1800s). As you can see below this giant tree is now gone. The fir branches are now piled up behind the goat barn in ahuge pile making my November 5 preparations almost complete.
We know that what we are being told is just not true but if the media and the State tell us often enough maybe we will start to doubt what we see with our own eyes, what we hear with our own ears and what logic dictates. From an empty woodshed I reflect on what the Met Office termed the warmest spring on record. And on news out of Poland regarding the Nordstream explosions of two years ago.
A large courgette, spring onions, potatoes, beetroot, radishes and some garlic and shallotts to dry and store. One trip to the garden and a few minutes harvesting.
My mother was a self sufficiency nut in the spirit of John Seymour with whom she corresponded, a believer in a sort of communitarian way of thinking. I spent a, not entirely happy, summer on a Welsh agricultural commune with her. Even then, aged six or seven I guess there must have been a latent capitalist and libertarian within me because I remember that I sensed unhappiness and impending implosion. There were loud arguments among the adults. Some folks worked hard in the fields while others listened to folk music and dreamed of the revolution. In the end those who worked walked and those who did not had to go and find someone else to sponge off.
This is just the first tray. Another has now arrived in my office/food storage area. The garlic needs about four weeks to dry before I clean it again and string it up in the larder. The shallotts need about half that time before they are stored in an open tray in the kitchen. All in all there are about twenty cloves of garlic which the Mrs uses in her Indian cooking quite a bit and I use in salad dressings and when cooking prawns for the kids. So, I reckon, we have enough to tide us over until the spring garlic is ready. The shallots? Added to pheasant and bacon stew in the Autumn, what could be better?
Some plums went to my neighbour the rest will be turned into ice cream llater this afternoon. While Joshua is sometimes reluctant to garden there is never any objection to making ice cream. The raspberries will be turned into ice cream tomorrow. Its a treat a day for the kids here at the Welsh Hovel.
Not literally but I am stunned how, in a Greek absence of less than three weeks everything has grown so fast. Naturally it is the weeds that have grown most rapidly and I sense some hard days ahead for myself and Joshua on that front.
