This is what my garden looked like when I moved in a couple of years ago. It had recently been cleared of brambles, and had been the foxes home as no one had used it for years. One of the first things I did was buy a potting shed as I just really, really wanted a shed of my own. My original plan was to have a small patio in front of the shed and some kind of ‘cottage garden’ with native pollinator and bird friendly plants at the other end. I even went so far as to find a load of terracotta paving slabs for free and stacked them up in a corner ready for getting around to laying a patio. Yeah, that never happened. As I have said before, I just couldn’t quite muster the enthusiasm to do much of anything with the space for the first year and
One of the reasons I don’t do much more than look at the headlines of mainstream media, is because when I read the actual articles, I usually get enraged by the logical incoherence of the article in the context of the overall narrative framing of the moment. For instance, we have the tragic story of Awaab Ishak, who, a coroner has determined, died as a result of black mould in his home. Black mould is a serious health hazard, especially to people with respiratory conditions, and plagues a great many (rental) properties in the UK. One of the properties I lived in was so damp that maggots had somehow gotten into the foundations of the flat and literally ate their way out of the walls. Yes, you read that right: maggots came out of my walls. The bedroom was particularly affected, with two of the walls being so damp that they were
I want to say something about the insane price hikes we are seeing, but it’s hard to know what to say, really. My food bills have nearly doubled, not because of my meat intake as posh meat seems to have stayed about the same price, but because of the amount of fruit and veg I consume. Soon I will need to reconsider what I eat. My energy bills have gone from 4% of my income (after rent) to 7% of my income, and will shortly rise to around 13%. I already turn everything off at the plug at night and/or if I am not using it, so there isn’t a way for me to cut back further other than not having a fridge, or not using the cooker, or turning off the lights. I dread winter, because this flat is freezing. My neighbour told me a young girl of about 16/17