Yesterday I lamented how my 250 olive trees needed a drink as it had not rained all month . As it happens it almost never rains here in the Mani in August but I am sure that the lack of rain will be attributed to global warming by the BBC’s Verify unit. On Friday, God provided a brief shower and we said thanks. Today… wow.

Or at least those of our olive trees I mentioned earlier. Yes it has rained. Not heavily but its a start. The top photo is from the balcony decking. The second is of the dark clouds higher up in the mountains behind us. We are promised more rain today and tomorrow. It is still easily hot enough to swim but my poor trees are getting a drink which is the main thing, as I explained this morning.

Our lunatic lefty friend L was clear: everyone says the olive harvest this year will be terrible, almost not worth doing. L likes bad news as it provides him with an opportunity to blame it on the Tories, Brexit, Global Warming, Donald Trump, the Daily Mail or Russia. In this case it is global warming and the hot weather and lack of rain this summer. But before I panicked as Jeremiah continued his monologue I needed to look for myself. For, this December, four readers of this website have volunteered to join me for a harvest: three returnees and a newbie. 

In that category I refer mainly to our friends here, the Guardian reading maskers (still) L&G. A Trump MAGA cap and a a Defund the BBC T-shirt is what the right thinking individual is wearing abroad this year. This is me snoozing on the balcony overlooking the pool.

Normally Joshua and I pick blackberries for ice cream, flavoured vodka and crumbles (with homegrown apples) after we get back from Greece. But this year they started early. One of our favourite haunts is the village churchyard where there is an enormous bush in the middle and a few smaller ones either side of the fence between the graves and our upper field.

At the Greek Hovel there is no culture just glorious views and a pool and a lovely house. So before Joshua and I arrived to make sure it was ready for the girls, we had a brief culture tour. Joshua seems to think the only history that matters is that which occurred more than 152 million years ago, that is to say the dinosaurs. But our visit to Olympia prompted good discussions on the nature of cheating and how sport was better than war.

One of my jobs last week concerned what was almost the last of the asbestos which was almost everywhere when we arrived four years ago. Buried just underground in the fields, just dumped in the long grass, on sheds, and on the roof of three porches, it was everywhere.

Will this be enough to tempt daughter Olaf to visit her old father this Christmas. Home produced apple vodka is mixed with home grown plums and sugar. Actually one smaller jar contains blackberries picked yesterday by Joshua and me. By bonfire night what was clear liquid will be dark purple and slightly syrupy. The jars are turned now and again to ensure all the sugar – the white stuff at the bottom – is dissolved. So this should be around seven litres of fruit vodka, enough for at least a few breakfasts for Olaf.

I am back with these bonus video shows. I am still re-adjusting myself to Zoom so if my face looks a bit funny in part 4 there is a reason. In this show I interview Stuart Ashman of Skinbiotherapeutics (SBTX), dissect that interview myself and then ask if Oacdo (OCDO) really is the Number 1 FTSE 100 short or one for the bears to dodge. I hope you enjoy the show.

Eve abused me, twice throwing my head against a wall, one  made of brick, the other of metal. As I have exposed with numerous articles on this website, in two spells at the school he abused countless little boys and Warwick covered up for him. And now he is dead. The current headmaster dropped me an email to let me know.

The broad bean crop this year was a bit of a disaster and we shall gloss over that. But I have had some success with dwarf French beans which have supplied a few meals and keep on going.  They are, as I have explained to Joshua, magic beans. You see them below as picked, a deep purple almost black. But you then boil them and they turn green. Magic. There are about two more meals of beans and then where the plants were growing will be used for another couple of rows of radishes to be ready, pickled, for ShareStock.

I am back with these bonus video shows. I am still re-adjusting myself to zoom so if my face looks a bit funny in part 2 there is a reason. In this show I interview Steen Anderson of Probiotix (PBX) and resources expert Gary Newman with long and short ideas. I also comment on ITV, Canadian Overseas (COPL) and a few macro matters. I hope you enjoy the show.

This year the raw vodka, made with apples, is home made not bought cheaply from Lidl. It was not meant to be vodka but that is another story. But it tastes like vodka not apples so has been put in jars with sugar and plums picked from the old tree behind where the snake barn used to be. It had a terrible 2022 but this year is dripping with plums which I have handed to my in-laws and neighbours but we are still drowning in them.

Yes size does matter as the photos below show.

I am waiting for the village facebook page to have another two minute hate against me for taking down the 1950s iron shed known as the snake barn. “It was part of my childhood, it’s Welsh cultural history, bloody newcomers, it was so much better with the previous owners, blah, blah, blah.” bleats some in-bred sheep shagger. It is callled the snake barn becuase in it I stored some of the vast amounts of asbestos the previous owners had squirrelled away in the sheds and fields here and I want to keep my kids away from that. But now the barn has gone and that means that you can actually see our gorgeous 1600s listed farmhouse as you walk down the lane to our home.