I do not often say good things about the mother of my eldest son but she and he have covered themselves in glory in recent weeks. They are now boycotting the Co-Op, as am I, for caving in to those who have for years demanded folks stop stocking Israeli goods, folks driven not by recent events in Gaza but by long standing Israelaphobia . But they have gone a step further and both just visited Israel in solidarity.
Having been the subject of the two minute hate before I am somewhat reluctant to post on the Village facebook page these days but this morning I was so enraged I could not hold back. Is my post below really so unreasonable?
I did briefly join the Oxford Union debating society all those years ago as it had a late bar which was kind of handy if you felt thirsty “after hours.” But recognising that the chancers, greasy pole climbers and bores who ran the place were chancers, greasy pole climbers and bores my association was a brief one. Natch they have all gone to great things in life while I aspire to a life of herding goats. This past week the Union has been in the news.
According to a survey commissioned by the Tory Robert Jenrick just 36% of those under 40 were able to say that this was the contest between the Luftwaffe and the RAF when never was so much owed by so many to so few. My great uncle Peter Wood was a decorated Spitfire Pilot, as I detailed in my family history in WW2, and my son Joshua, 9 today, can tell you about what happened in the skies over Southern England in 1940.
It really feels like Autumn is upon us here at the Welsh Hovel. I am wearing a coat indoors as we battle not to switch on the heating or to start using up the wood stored in my shed, in the wood burning stove.With the Met office warning us again about what a hot year 2025 has been, we really could do with a touch of global warming here in Wrexham.
What else would one do on a rainy afternoon in North East Wales? Whilst I harvested the 40 or so younger apple trees I have planted here at the Welsh Hovel some weeks ago, the older apple trees by the river are still heaving with fruit. And thus Joshua and I filled three buckets…
As I mentioned the other day, we are still working our way through dried chillies from 2024 but we have had another decent harvest this year and, in what feels, like the start of Autumn, I threaded the first two chains on cotton this afternoon.
In my first year harvesting the crabapple trees I have planted here at the Welsh Hovel I collected 750g, enough to make about three quarters of a jar of jelly. The Mrs and her family turned their nose up at my jelly, having to add flavour to cooked meat is not central to a curry based Indian cuisine. But then Joshua and my sister-in-law tried it and now it has an army of fans.
We use chillies quite a lot here at the Welsh Hovel. The Mrs adds them into her Indian cooking, I add them into various jams and ice creams and also to my healthy vegetable and fish meals. Notwithstanding that, we are still working our way through the dried chillies from the 2024 harvest. And now I ave harvested the 2025 crop of various varieties as you can see below.
About ten times a day I read something about the state of Britain, my heart fills with despair and I think “I just give up.” Meet Ermal Merdani.
This is a truly crowded contest. The absence of photos of kids actually starving to death in Gaza means we are still flooded with Hamas supplied photos of starving kids from Yemen or Syria, AI images or kids with other diseases. Photos the BBC and Western press happily run even after they are shown to be fake. There was the hospital Jeremy Bowen insisted on the BBC that the wicked Jews had bombed killing 500 people. It was, of course, a misfiring Islamic Jihad missile.
As you are probably aware suicide is something that for familial reasons I take seriously. My mother killed herself as did one great aunt and two cousins of my parents. I don’t joke about the issue. Data today from the ONS on suicides is interesting in that it gives a new line on the “privilege” , the innate advantage that I might have as a middle class, okay upper middle class, white male. Or maybe in some respects I am not so privileged at all.
I comment on the flags, where they were flying and by whom. Then on today’s soul destroying encounter with NHS incompetence. It was so depressing.
You look at the photo below and will think, I am NOT drinking that. But you would be mistaken.
What you see below are radishes from the garden pickled in a sweet and sour South East Asian source. They will be served up at Sharestock but with another, larger, jar to pickle tonight and one other done a few weeks ago, this should also last the family through to Christmas. And that was not the only preserving.
