The sun shines and all is quiet as neighbours have gone on their holidays. No wait, the folk nicknamed 'the lottery winners' have booked another band of dubious quality of talent and are just tuning up to waft strains of jazz and wartime standards of dubious quality. The clay pigeon shoot hasn't started yet.
My cat hampers typing and is sublimely disinterested in all human activity unless it involves play, a warm lap or food. I cannot help but think she has the right idea. I'll not wait for the shooting party, nor the band to find a tune. I've decided to stroll to the allotment where people do not force growth to reap the rewards of their labours. They grow their own produce devoid of insecticides, polish and packaging; devoid of marketing tricks and gimmicks. The packaging and marketing being the greater part of the purchase since customer service and substance went out of fashion. In the supermarkets today a ready meal that lists it's ingredients is awash with E numbers as a sort of code for 'bulked out for cheap and unpalletable'. The wrappings and trappings one needs a special tool made to breach the 'hygiene defences' to open them. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the nutritional value of the packaging was higher than the contents in many instances. What next, locks and bolts to secure the 'produce' from invasion? "Buy a one-use-only tool for through access for your once-use-only packaging and you too can deplete your natural immune system for eating 'food' so sterilised all nutritional value is gone." Then again some are witty enough to market 'healthy bacteria to confuse and seduce us.
What does not flourish gets recycle at the allotment for nature to do it's job; unlike at the local dump where unwanted immaculately gleaming and new goods are cast away without a thought and where the local council have deemed it cost effective to melt all down rather than hand to charities to or sell to the have-nots of this kingdom. No immaculate conception there either.
Sunday was a day of rest, along with Wednesday afternoons when I was a child. People had time to remember to see people on their birthdays then. Only the occasional petrol station would be open on a Sunday, now everything is sales time for money is our god now, and sales are the clergy. To ensure this is so every spiritual belief system is rubbished along with caring for others just in case you are thinking of being anything other than a money monger. Care for and nurture the natural world and you're distinctly weird, and prime fodder to ridicule.
While out I will leave my new creations out to dry in the sun, freshly made dough for an onion loaf and clay pots ready for firing. Would that my plot were ample enough to dig a smoke pit without a risk of ruining the meagre crops of strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and herbs... not forgetting the fruit trees. It looks to be a good harvest of apples this year from my two espaliers, but first to ripen will be the plums. Swaps = recycling. Some have too many vegetables so as they used to say "fair exchange is no robbery".
A pity my cat did not fend off the birds from the cherries or I would have jam by now, but the searing hot days of June and July saw to it that they would not ripen.
And in this stillness at 10am, which will not last much longer now, I cannot help but wonder why money and computers have become paramount to so many and can only conclude it's down to the ability to function in a lifestyle that suits none for very long. Are such things our gods now? Are we or are they in control?
I'm glad I have chosen not to take the latest concoction offered by my medical team as even pharmaceutical companies need to sell, sell, sell regardless of the efficacy of some of their 'produce'. Medical teams are thankfully getting wise to this now and keep a close eye on adverse reactions. Most prescribed oils, unctions and 'take-that-you-annoying-ailment pills and treatments do work most of the time but it remains a game of Russian roulette until one gets just the right one at the right dose for each metabolism. Beware physician of pharmaceutical marketing one pill will never cure all.
Another thing no pill will cure is disinterest, inefficiency, callousness, greed and indifference... a pity really as they seem to plague so many and mostly those who have no voice and no advocate to defend them either. To say things have always been this way is to give up trying to improve the lot for all. If everyone agrees that it's not pleasant, why then do only a few attempt to do something to change things for the better?
I fear I am becoming the norm and fading away from being an exception for now I rant and moan and criticise like all the rest. Well, what else has one to do with zero income on benefits while too ill to work?
I know... a walk in the sunshine. I so hope I encounter nothing distressing - it would be novel to be able to so in such confusing times for all.
My cat hampers typing and is sublimely disinterested in all human activity unless it involves play, a warm lap or food. I cannot help but think she has the right idea. I'll not wait for the shooting party, nor the band to find a tune. I've decided to stroll to the allotment where people do not force growth to reap the rewards of their labours. They grow their own produce devoid of insecticides, polish and packaging; devoid of marketing tricks and gimmicks. The packaging and marketing being the greater part of the purchase since customer service and substance went out of fashion. In the supermarkets today a ready meal that lists it's ingredients is awash with E numbers as a sort of code for 'bulked out for cheap and unpalletable'. The wrappings and trappings one needs a special tool made to breach the 'hygiene defences' to open them. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the nutritional value of the packaging was higher than the contents in many instances. What next, locks and bolts to secure the 'produce' from invasion? "Buy a one-use-only tool for through access for your once-use-only packaging and you too can deplete your natural immune system for eating 'food' so sterilised all nutritional value is gone." Then again some are witty enough to market 'healthy bacteria to confuse and seduce us.
What does not flourish gets recycle at the allotment for nature to do it's job; unlike at the local dump where unwanted immaculately gleaming and new goods are cast away without a thought and where the local council have deemed it cost effective to melt all down rather than hand to charities to or sell to the have-nots of this kingdom. No immaculate conception there either.
Sunday was a day of rest, along with Wednesday afternoons when I was a child. People had time to remember to see people on their birthdays then. Only the occasional petrol station would be open on a Sunday, now everything is sales time for money is our god now, and sales are the clergy. To ensure this is so every spiritual belief system is rubbished along with caring for others just in case you are thinking of being anything other than a money monger. Care for and nurture the natural world and you're distinctly weird, and prime fodder to ridicule.
While out I will leave my new creations out to dry in the sun, freshly made dough for an onion loaf and clay pots ready for firing. Would that my plot were ample enough to dig a smoke pit without a risk of ruining the meagre crops of strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and herbs... not forgetting the fruit trees. It looks to be a good harvest of apples this year from my two espaliers, but first to ripen will be the plums. Swaps = recycling. Some have too many vegetables so as they used to say "fair exchange is no robbery".
A pity my cat did not fend off the birds from the cherries or I would have jam by now, but the searing hot days of June and July saw to it that they would not ripen.
And in this stillness at 10am, which will not last much longer now, I cannot help but wonder why money and computers have become paramount to so many and can only conclude it's down to the ability to function in a lifestyle that suits none for very long. Are such things our gods now? Are we or are they in control?
I'm glad I have chosen not to take the latest concoction offered by my medical team as even pharmaceutical companies need to sell, sell, sell regardless of the efficacy of some of their 'produce'. Medical teams are thankfully getting wise to this now and keep a close eye on adverse reactions. Most prescribed oils, unctions and 'take-that-you-annoying-ailment pills and treatments do work most of the time but it remains a game of Russian roulette until one gets just the right one at the right dose for each metabolism. Beware physician of pharmaceutical marketing one pill will never cure all.
Another thing no pill will cure is disinterest, inefficiency, callousness, greed and indifference... a pity really as they seem to plague so many and mostly those who have no voice and no advocate to defend them either. To say things have always been this way is to give up trying to improve the lot for all. If everyone agrees that it's not pleasant, why then do only a few attempt to do something to change things for the better?
I fear I am becoming the norm and fading away from being an exception for now I rant and moan and criticise like all the rest. Well, what else has one to do with zero income on benefits while too ill to work?
I know... a walk in the sunshine. I so hope I encounter nothing distressing - it would be novel to be able to so in such confusing times for all.
