Each week I’ll try and post quick links to things that I’ve seen, read, inspired me or just sparked my interest in the previous week, with a little background and my thoughts and other things that I’ve been up to in the previous week. Mostly gardening, cooking and environmental stuff but not always.

Life In General. – It’s been a busy week. I have a couple of medical visits with my Mum, one to the dentist and the second to the hospital for her pre-op assessment ahead of her knee replacement. There’s a follow up dentist visit in the coming week. Between that I’ve been fitting in work.

Our broadband problems have been continuing, we’ve had a few very frustrating days, but things do seem to have improved now (fingers-crossed). It seems that we’ve had multiple faults which have all manifested at the same time, this has included line faults outside of the house, and also a faulty router.

I also had a trip to Otter Farm in Devon on Friday;
This was part of a crowd funding reward following my contribution last Spring towards their new kitchen project. Great day listening to Mark Diacono’s philosophy with respect to his small holding, and also some great food at lunchtime! It’s given me a few ideas towards new things I might try on the allotment.

It’s also been hot again, I’m just not used to the humid heat. Unfortunately I had to spend some of Sunday moving furniture to make way for a “new” desk which is arriving hopefully this coming Wednesday.

Work – Proposal development this week, and also found out about one that I was working on a few weeks back, that has been unsuccessful. Work this week has been interspersed with many other things.

Allotment. – Our first courgette harvest this week, as well as rainbow chard. I’ve cleared a row of potatoes, and there’s another row to go. I recorded a couple of videos which I’ve only recently been able to upload, because of our broadband issues:

Currently Reading

Not much time for reading this week, although I took a book with me to the various appointments with my Mum, I was mostly reading “The Dark Tower” by Stephen King [GoodReads]- which I’m reading for an online group. I did also pick up a copy of “Love of Country: A Hebridean Journey” by Madeleine Bunting [GoodReads] which I’m looking forward to reading in due course.

The Week In Wildlife – In Pictures

Parakeet Cull? – There’s one UK bird that I’ve never seen, and that’s the ring-necked parakeets that are resident in London and apparently spreading much more widely. A cull is proposed [LINK], in order to contain the spread and a bit like other invasive species that might well be the best thing. The proposals seem to be to contain the birds in their current urban range in South and West London, rather than being more widespread or aggressive. That approach would though need to be an ongoing plan, as these birds are sure to continue to try to expand their range. My feelings are mixed, and I don’t know enough about the science behind the proposals to be able to judge, however science behind other culls e.g. badgers has in the past proved to be based on poor evidence and bad science, so I have to say I am a little sceptical. For the time being this is something that I want to know and understand more about.

Love A Slug – Going on record here that I don’t like slugs or snails because of what they do to my garden / allotment, but Chris Packham has a valid point here about being a little more tolerant [LINK]. I’m not really impressed with the way the article is written though. It fails to mention that those people who choose to use poisons to deal with slugs, run the risk of that poison being transmitted in the food chain and also harming the hedgehogs and birds who predate on slugs and the mention of the Maltese court case has absolutely no relevance. Pretty shoddy reporting for The Guardian.

Naomi Klein – I wrote about Naomi Klein’s new book “No Is Not Enough” a few weeks ago, there’s an extract from it in The Guardian this week, focused on the Hurricane Katrina “relief” effort. [LINK] Make for shocking reading, and I can almost see the same thing happening in the UK following the Grenfell Tower fire.

Russian Space Shuttles – It’s hard to remember, but the former Soviet Union also a space shuttle programme. In no way do I condone trespassing or what the guys in the video below did, but ut us interesting to see what those old spacecraft look like, now sadly abandoned.