The political and media class, the GroupThink led by the BBC and the Guardian, are telling you that raging wildfires across Europe are a sign of global warming. Unfortunately there is some rather awkward data.
In rural Shropshire a quarter of a million buys you a fairly decent new build house. Hence there is some anger from locals, whose kids struggle to get on the housing ladder, that 21 homes on a new estate at Stoke Heath have been bought by Serco to house 83 asylum seekers who will be living there for free while funded on benefits. But to me the real absurdity of the asylum laws is revealed by the 1 family of asylum seekers already on site. That is Muhammad Nadeem, Shamaila and their four kids.
The BBC is creaming itself as we enter the final part of June and temperatures go up. It’s a heatwave again and more proof of man made global warming we are told. And it’s not just Britain, the Frogs are sweltering as well with the BBC today reporting the highest temperature was 43 degrees in Bordeaux. Wow.
This year I hope to celebrate my 13th wedding anniversary. Who would have thought it? Do my skills as a chef offset my numerous failings or is my wife just a saint? This was date night last week: poached salmon in dill and lemon, lightly cooked tomatoes and samphire. And to drink? Home made elderflower champagne – it has been a good year on that front.
Stainsby is a man who is already a convicted paedophile for offences committed before his Warwick days. The week after he was sentenced for 14 years in 2022 one of his victims at Warwick who had given evidence to the Police, killed himself. Stainsby was finally charged by Warwickshire police in December last year.
We could go to Rob McElhenney and “It’s always sunny in Philadelphia” and then to the Declan Swans song “It’s always sunny in Wrexham: praising the new co-owner of our local club. But I refer to the weather map pumped out by the BBC and others which always seems to show Wrexham as being that little bit warmer than other parts of Wales and the neighbouring English counties. Is it really always sunny in Wrexham? Er..no.
The liberal left hates Tulsi Gabbard because she was once a Democrat congresswoman from Hawaii but is now a Republican. Unusually among politicians Tulsi served in the military and like Bobby Kennedy she felt the Dems left her not the other way round: over (lack of) free speech, too many foreign wars, sucking up to big food and big pharma and other matters. For crossing the aisle she has been smeared, notably by crooked Hillary Clinton, as a “Russian asset” and generally demonised.
The Mrs is organising a small gathering to watch Eurovision. I am slaving over a stove in between penning articles preparing a meal of Spanish food as Franco’s ideological heirs are boycotting the event. Natch there is also Sabre hummus on offer. Now can you guess where my ten votes from Wales will be going?
The good news for the Greek taxman and for me is that what is known as the Greek Hovel is now almost fully let out thus summer. I shall be there, in the Mani region made famous by Paddy Leigh Fermor, with my family for two and a half weeks but for the rest of the summer we let it out, generating taxes for the Greek government and income for me to maintain the house and pool. As of now there are just a couple of weeks in June and a few more in September unbooked.
I have lost none of my old friends in Kambos but have two new best friends. There is Manos who runs the ouzeria who has helped me change a car wheel in the pouring rain, tried to fix my strimmer and is always there when help is needed. Whatever I order, and it always centres on a healthy cabbage and carrot salad and a couple of sticks of diced pork, the bill is always 10 Euro. However I juggle coffees or an ouzo for me or someone else, the bill is always the same. With a breakfast of oats and milk I really could live here for twenty quid a day.
I just spotted a large lizard sitting on the steps up to the Greek Hovel. I think that is unwise since olive harvester T’s best pal Doggy is a frequent visitor these days and would have it for breakfast. The spring is bringing everything out and so I am hoarding snake repellent canistors and starting to put them up around the house. But there are less threatening species out there.
All around there are signs of life after a long, cold winter here in Greece. It is 19 degrees here and the snow on the mountain tops is clearly melting before my eyes. Hence the dry river which one must cross to get up the Greek Hovel is now, as you can see below, a babbling brook. Little streams are appearing from nowhere keeping the roads wet although the puddles on the mud track are shrinking with every day. Everything is green with flowers of many colours springing to life. Sadly they are not the only things springing to life.
It is T shirt weather today at the Greek Hovel but my late Uncle Christoper Booker would have been delighted were he to gaze up to the high Taygetos mountains above us. Chris loved the Mani.
During my Greek break, Joshua has careful instructions abiout watering the ooodles of plants we planted as seeds in pots just before I left. Three types of Chillies, some marrows and two types of tomato are, I hope, starting to grow in my relatively warm office building. With a following wind they will move out, first under cloches, in May and then into already prepared beds up near the fruit bushes in early June. Next up, on my return, potatoes which are now chitting, beetroot and radishes.
It is that time of year again. As you can see below the weeds have been cleared from around the fruit bushes and the three raised beds of strawberries have also been weeded out. I have expanded the fruit bush empire with the purchase of four swamp blueberry bushes. Joshua loves making blueberry muffins and thinks I should make blueberry ice cream but historically our blieberry harvest has been dure. Here’s hoping that the new variety delivers.
