The incredible shrinking….

… Me. I don’t use scales like Mrs S, but I have lost a considerable amount of weight in the last three months. The downside of which is that I am physically much fitter and end up doing more hard work. All down to ditching all the junk carbohydrates from my diet and eating just fish meat and eggs.

This is the diet dismissed by certain loud and censorious voices as a ‘fad’. Trust me, it isn’t. It works wonderfully for weight loss and recovering one’s health. There have been anecdotal observations for years about how a high protein, zero carbohydrate, high fat diet may even help keep certain cancers in remission. One of my cousins uses it, to put it in his own words, to ‘walk back’ his Diabetes II. Indeed it was the regimen that used to be prescribed by doctors in the days before Insulin.

Oh, by the way, have you heard that there is a British founded company that uses a form of AI to manipulate news? It’s called the ‘Global Disinformation Project’ or GDI and pushes it’s narrative to all the ‘fact checkers’ that have sprung up over the last few years. And it’s based on the ideology of it’s female academic founder; pro-trans, pro alphabet soup activism and anti capitalist. The GDI is at the root of the game of ‘Chinese whispers’ or as the Americans call it ‘Telegraph which is the source of most modern media narratives. You want to know what manipulates that narrative and is behing the rise of the fact checkers? The GDI. Watch the video from Unherd below.

And it’s mostly government funded. Although organisations like the Soros backed and very mis-named ‘open societies foundation’ have had a significant role to play in the GDI’s founding and rise.

No wonder it seems like the truth may be out there, but rather like my waistline, good sources are being significantly reduced by censorship and disruption of good information. The GDI, and the views of a few academics are at the root of societal division and the toxic rise of DEI.

According to Unherd the chief villains of the piece are Claire Melford and Daniel Rogers who have been key in the collective pushing the perversion of society, and the warping of innocent minds.

Off with their funding say I. People who deliberately set out to warp public discourse have no business telling the rest of us what we should be thinking.

Update: This story has gone global thanks to people like Elon Musk. Looks like the GDI may well lose it’s funding. Mainly because the GDI et al are the chief discriminators of disinformation, misinformation and malinformation, a.k.a. lies.

Qui custodes ipsos custodes? I think we all have to. Keep the bastards feet to the fire.

Playing away

Have had a few days out ‘oop norf in the Orange land to see what things are like and run a couple of errands. Came back home to hear that ‘South’ had missed that mass stabbing in a Sydney shopping mall. Lots of frantic family whatsapp messages established she was okay. So much for ‘care in the community’.

Nevertheless. Belfast and environs,first impressions; there are a lot of red brick faced buildings, most very smart and architecturally interesting. Outside of Belfast not so much, however, there are a lot more brick buildings than south of the border. Yes there’s some tired looking stuff, lots of block and rendering build, but red brick is far more popular. As were Union flags, long despised by the mentally unhinged as ‘racist’.

One major difference did flag up; the state of many roads, especially in Ulsters urban areas, is absolutely shocking. Potholes, badly patched road surfaces, Even Dublin wasn’t this bad.

Here in the wilder west, we too get potholes, but we have Councillors who see it as their primary task to keep the roads fixed. There are even a couple of specialist vehicles locally whose primary task it to fix potholes. One was outside of our humble domicile last year, spraying tar and asphalt into potholes and tamping the repair down before moving on. These repairs are still good, despite our lane being used as a high speed rat run and traversed regularly by about a hundred plus tractor journeys a day. And that promises to get busier.

Let me explain. Ireland has a burgeoning silage shortage. Cattle cannot be grazed in a significant number of usual fields because the increased rainfall (Up to three times normal) of the last two years means those pastures are still too boggy to graze, and arable fields too wet to plant seed crops. There are even rumours of a year ‘without a harvest’. So a scheme has been hatched to move remaining hay and silage to the cattle and sheep in the areas that need it. Ergo, increased tractor traffic on our roads. A lot more. For as long as the silage supply lasts.

As for the rain; there’s still too much, even for Ireland. One advantage is that it’s good for all the trees I intend to plant in the next month. All without a penny in subsidies. There are about two dozen willow saplings ready to go in, about ten Ash saplings have taken nicely and will need another year of nursing in pots until they reach planting size. Four Walnut trees are ready for repotting and will be ready to leave outside of my greenhouse to mature for a year or two before planting. Mrs S wants a fig and an Olive tree in the corner of the big yard. There are fruit bushes and trees to shift. Then there’s twenty metres of dogwood to plant out. As soon as I can nick the cuttings.

All that is without the extra Blackthorn hedging we have, replacement soakaways and new rockeries. Heavy sigh. No rest for the wicked eh?

Although it’s much better than being stabbed to death while shopping by some crazed nutter in an Australian mall though.

Anybody else?

Busy in the workshop while it’s cold enough to cause brass monkeys to go looking for a welder. I’ve sown all my herb seeds and done most of the planting out for this month. Loads of Rosemary, Sage, Chervil, Thyme, bedding plants etcetera.

While my hands have been busy, I was contemplating the fallout from the ‘hate speech’ law rollout in Scotland, which has gone from threat to free expression right over to outright farce. The native Scots are having a field day, reporting everyone, including the vicious Farce Monster currently leading the Scottish Nazi Party.

What I was forced to conclude was that there is a plague upon the land. Not a coughy, spluttery, headachy, type of keel over and die plague, but another, far more insidious infestation of horrible creepy people. As bad as the permanent political class, possibly worse. I write dear friend (Oh come one, I must have one, surely?) about ‘activists’, deluded individuals who go about spouting total bollocks about made up ‘genders’, climate ‘science’, health or whatever their ’cause’ happens to be, regardless of whether they’ve bothered to do any research. Then expecting the rest of us to shut up and do what we’re told, or else!

Anyone else feel that there are too many of these ‘activists’, these serial complainers? They waste other people’s time because they are ‘offended’ by something, or someone, or something they thought someone meant, even though the person thus accused didn’t actually say what the ‘activist’ alleged.

There is only one conclusion to draw. There are too may ‘activists’. Too many virtue signalling, self righteous ‘look at mee!’ types.

We need a cull. A big one.

Landscaping

A bit blowy outside for the next twenty four hours. Someone called Kathleen is to blame so we’re told. Naughty girl. Time for Mrs Spank to take a quick sharp visit to bottyland methinks.

Well, we’ve had a bit of landscaping done. A piece of ground not far from the back door has been reworked into about eight new parking spaces and usable garden space. Mrs S’s amused comment was; “We’ve got a Doctors car park” Nothing too fancy, just compressed gravel, which, we are told, needs a couple of weeks to ‘settle’ before we can park on it. So it’s fenced off for the moment. As is our little domicile. Drawbridge up, portcullis down, minefield and Piranha tank activated.

Today I have elected to get out there in the wind and wet to sow some herb seeds. Nothing fancy, just Rosemary, Sage, Thyme, Chervil, Parsley and Clover. I may shift a few rocks as well for the new rockeries. Then there’s a bit of property maintenance, one of the grey water drains needs re-routing into the grey water septic system. Lots to do.

Weight loss continues with this carnivore diet. Upside; I’m starting to look at a whole new wardrobe. Downside, that might get a teeny bit expensive. I do have some older clothing that I can use that I have manfully resisted having thrown out by Mrs S. Also on the topic of meat eating, there’s increasing evidence of benefits. Not merely winding back diabetes 2 and pre-diabetic symptoms. This lady below claims she has full remission from Multiple Sclerosis.

Now I’ve been aware of the benefits of a low-carbohydrate regimen, as before insulin, the old treatment was a low carbohydrate diet, which worked. This carnivore diet by contrast, is a revelation. As for all the claims that it causes strokes or heart attacks, there’s increasing evidence that seed oils and deep fried food have more influence on those negative outcomes. Dr Paul Mason, an Australian researcher, explains the science below.

As always, do your own research and make your own mind up. Notwithstanding I am going to use my new-found energy and recovered strength to do a bit of landscaping work.

Unforeseen consequence

You know those hate speech laws being passed by the political class? I was chatting with a friend and they mentioned that any curb on freedom of expression is likely to lower the quality of literature. Writers will no longer be able to produce non-state sanctioned content because someone in one of the political ‘protected groups’ might get their nose put in a sling over words they deem ‘offensive’. Indeed, he was of the opinion that this was already happening, and had been going on for some time. Unless you’re a big name, he opined, you have to tiptoe around and not make any really ‘challenging’ content, because the gatekeepers don’t like it or think it will leave them open to an activist lawsuit.

The end result of course is irreparable damage to the literary canon at all levels. Writers have a tenuous enough grasp on fiscal security as it is, mainly because, to use a UK footballing analogy, there’s a few authors in the premier league, a few in the second division, a few more in the third, but most are just at the level of a Saturday morning kick-about. The wokerati currently holding sway among editorial positions are ironically killing the industry.

The thought does strike that maybe all those whining about how ‘offended’ they and reporting people to the cops might feel much better abut themselves if they just grew the feck up.

Fortunately, at least in Ireland, the message may have seeped through to the political class, who are currently having second thoughts.\, having seen the unfolding debacle in Scotland. Although they’ve left it a bit late. Unfortunately, the Western Irish electorate doesn’t seem to be in a forgiving mood, at least if the negative comments I’ve been hearing of late are any guide.

Oh well, time to get some rest. Busy day tomorrow moving rocks. Like the one pictured below, only bigger.

Showers

Still a little too cold for the end of March. We’ve yet to break double digits this year. However, we will no doubt be told repeatedly that 2024 is the “Hottest year-evah!” without a shred of empirical evidence worth spit.

We’re just hitting Easter, and my bees are only only coming out sporadically. I’m quite glad I left them extra stores this Winter to survive. And I’m also told we have another dump of snow due. Of course it will only be a light coating. this being Atlantic weather country. but still, it’s going to be twice more than last year, and three times more than 2022. So forgive me if I scoff at all the doom and disaster the mainstream weather people pump out. As well as continuing to deride the idea of ‘net zero’, which has nothing to do with real science, only politics and greed.

For example, according to the mainstream the Arctic won’t have enough ice to make a decent martini by the 2030’s. Or was that ‘might’ or ‘could become’ . Perhaps it should have read ‘we got drunk and started writing speculative fearmongering bollocks’? Because that data doesn’t agree with the doom-mongers. Their disaster scenario’s just aren’t happening, and haven’t been doing so since the turn of the 19th /20th century. Yes folks, that is how long the tin foil hatters have been pushing the idea of man made climate change. You’d think they’d get the hint wouldn’t you? Especially as the climate has not been co-operating, continuing to warm since the Little Ice Age in a slow, natural sinusoidal manner, indicative that it’s the Milankovich cycles driving the slow warming trend.

Regardless, today is chilly but has been warm enough for me to work outdoors as long as my poor old achin’ back could take it. Mrs S as a result, has a new gravel patio area so she can sit outside with her morning mug of coffee, or rather could do, if it wasn’t so goddamn cold or wet. However, now I’ve smartened that part of the yard up, she can at least blame the showers and cold, not me.

Meating my expectations

Supposed to be a dry day today, (yeah, right.) Up until lunchtime, it was, kind of. Managed some heavy shovel work and unearthed a ton sized chunk of masonry which I was about to attack with my masonry drill / breaker before the rain started to fall properly. So I slunk indoors, a little damper than I would have liked.

Anyway, with regards to the whole carnivore (Meat, fish, eggs) thing, the weight is dropping off like it’s dissolving and I noticed a couple of moles have basically vanished. One week plainly visible in the mirror, the next, hey, where’d it go George? Closer examination showed a slight indentation where one mole had been. Like it had been surgically removed. Scar free.

I’ll say this, our new diet certainly makes for speedy trips around the supermarket. Our local has an old fashioned looking butchers, which is more like a meat shop, where pre dressed cuts are available for slicing to customer requirements. However, their prices are reasonable and I have gotten used to eating rib-eye steaks once a week.

That’s the thing with carnivore, because you buy very little else apart from meat, fish and eggs, you’re not spending three euro’s a time on a half decent loaf of bread or another four or even over five on a large bottle of ketchup. For that price I can buy a pound of boneless pork steak, and for twelve, sometimes much less, a pound of really good steak. It’s a swings and roundabouts thing. So overall I’m not spending more, and sometimes less.

Then there’s the whole appetite thing. You get used to eating only once or twice a day, and given that you’re not cooking meat / fish then spuds and greens (or pasta) simultaneously, the culinary complexity is winnowed down to an absolute minimum. Average time cooking supper has gone from an hour of prep and stirring to twenty minutes, tops.

As for the high sugar stuff like desserts, candy or chocolate. Don’t even feel a single twitch of a need for anything like that. Can eat salt and pepper chicken wings as occasional snacks (Around twice a week) until the metaphorical cows come home, don’t put on an ounce. About the only other things I’m allowing myself as treats are olives, cheese and the occasional small pack of dry roasted peanuts.

Anyway, while rain stopped play, Mrs S has me designing rockeries. We’ve inherited a modest (!) pile of hundred plus pound rocks which will form the basis of two rockeries. One of which will be around five by four metres and a smaller three by three and a half. Then a five metre by five gravel sitting out area at the lowest part of the west garden, a.k.a. ‘Sleepy Hollow’.

In the outside world I’m getting a twitch in the old fiscal antenna about possible bank failures in the USA. Which is, if your memory doesn’t go back that far, where the 2008 debacle kicked off. So Mrs S and I are cashing in a few shares for taxes etc. I’m actually toying with buying silver again. Mainly because I more than doubled my money on the last batch of ten ounce ingots back in 2020, and I have a seeming that there may be a monetary benefit to investing in Silver again. There’s quite a choice. Ingots, or if you prefer coins like Canadian Maple Leafs, British Royal Arms and Britannias, Australian Koalas and Kangaroos, Rands, American Eagles, and so on and so on. Which is handy if your budget doesn’t quite run to gold. At the time of writing, a one ounce silver coin is coming in at anything from just over thirty euro’s to the high forties. Slightly more than thirty to forty quid in UK money. If push comes to shove, it’s all specie. All cash money and legal tender.

Back in Canada, the recent cold winter weather is still biting, yet still the idiot child masquerading as the Prime Minister is planning to hike the already sky high cost of living for all Canadians even further. Yet when challenged is adamant that it will reduce prices. Sister in law and hubby over on Vancouver Island BC are looking to bail out, but I fear they’ve left it too late. They’re talking about going back to the UK, but that probably won’t be a great move.

Ireland for us is proving better by the day. Our neighbours like us, and I spent a good part of yesterday negotiating grazing rights in exchange for land maintenance. We don’t have the kit but they do, so, fair exchange is no robbery and as what we’ve agreed has no monetary ticket, it can’t be taxed by the bureaucrats and politicians. Non nocere non turpi.

All right now

Apropos of nothing, anyone else fondly remember this old seventies classic?

In the spirit of the modern age, I thought I’d have a go at adapting the lyrics….

There she stood in the street
Scowling from her head to her feet
I said hey, what’s your play
Maybe you’ve got something to say
She said, look go get lost
You damn white guys thinking you’re boss
She said hey, you’re white, full of hate
Go run before they raise the sentence rate

Far right now baby, we’re all Far right now
Far right now baby, we’re all Far right now

I said hey, that’s not true
You lefties just don’t have a clue
She said look, you ain’t woke
I’m offended at you makin’ a joke
I said whoa! don’t go so fast
I don’t think your woke can last
Then said right, I’m going home
Now you’re going to end up alone

Far right now baby, we’re all Far right now
Far right now baby, we’re all right now

Far right now baby, iwe’re all Far right now
Far right now baby, we’re all Far right now

Far right now baby, we’re all Far right now
Far right now baby, we’re all Far right now

Far right now baby, we’re all Far right now
Far right now baby, we’re all Far right now

Many, many apologies to Paul Rodgers – lead vocals, Paul Kossoff – guitar Andy Fraser – bass, Simon Kirke – drums. I still have my copy of Fire and Water.

Just a quickie

So the unelected WEF puppet of Ireland has resigned. I wonder whatever or whoever will replace him? Another Trudeau / Sunak muppet? Watch this space.

Or don’t. It’s been a nice day. I’ve been building a rockery.

Update: Turdhead in Canada is getting a vote of no confidence. One can but hope, but I won’t be getting the champagne out just yet.

Oh dear…

I really should get rid of some things on my phone, and perhaps the phone itself. The damn thing is really getting on my nerves. It’s started going ‘ping’ every half an hour with a news notification I never asked for, about a topic that I’m not really bothered about.

Yes, it’s the UK’s soap opera about the Royle family. A turgid saga about someone doing a crude photoshop and getting found out. Excuse me, but how is that a ‘scandal’ because it’s not. Yers, Princess Kate has been poorly, she’s been in hospital, poor lamb. So what? Just because no-one’s said what she was ill with, the tabloids have gone off on one. Cue much waving of hands and ‘look at me!’ from the press.

Do these people have no idea? If someone has had major abdominal surgery, they need time to recover. Three months at least. So the big non-story is ‘nothing to see here’. Why can’t they let her tell people in her own good time?

So why is my phone pinging me when I’m not subscribed to any of these fecking tabloids? This is why I leave the intrusive thing at home so often. I’ve even taken to calling it my ‘electronic leash’ because I feel it’s used to reel me in like a dog when I’m busy or just chilling. Usually for a trivial reason that really does not demand my immediate attention. Sure it can be a useful tool, but so are my kitchen knives and saw, but I don’t need to carry the damn things all the time. Do I have to take calls in the toilet? I don’t think so.

The West Irish way…

…of Death.

Phone call on Saturday morning from one of the neighbours. “Did you know the lady who used to live in your house?” she asked. To which we answered in the negative. Mrs S gave me a ‘what’s all this about‘ look to which I shook my head. “Well it’s a bit of a tradition.” Our neighbour went on. “The hearse will be stopping at all the places she used to live, one of which is your house. The hearse will be stopping by for a couple of minutes and we’d like it if you would stand outside with a lantern to see her off.” We were a bit puzzled, but acquiesced. We like it here and want to be seen to be fitting in. “Great, I’ll loan you a couple of lanterns.” She told us before ringing off.

Let me enlarge, the wilder west of Ireland is all about culture and tradition, and funerals over here tend to be quite the ritual. I’ve even seen horse drawn hearse processions in the streets of one town down in County Clare, although most funeral parlours use motorised transport nowadays.

Sunday morning saw a knock on the front door, and a lady who introduced herself as the daughter of the deceased politely asking if we were going to participate, and filled us in with a few more details. It wouldn’t take long, just a ‘couple of minutes’. To which we agreed.

Seeing as the deceased was their clan matriarch, it promised to be interesting, as out here it is the women who actually rule the household. The menfolk might deal with business and the like, the wheeling and dealing, buying and selling, and the general nuts and bolts of living. However, when it comes to what is expected socially, it’s definitely a matriarchy.

So, there Mrs S and I were, out in the early evening rain, hoods up against the rain, lanterns lit, whiskey on standby in the bar. Apparently this is quite the honour to be asked, and ups our social capital in the community. And social capital is as good as cash money out here. Favours are always returned, and woe betide those who get a reputation for underhandedness. Each community has it’s own social mores, and besides, you never know when you might need a helping hand. As one of the old boys remarked to me. “We look after each other out here.”

So we put out some battery lamps along our front wall with a couple of bouquets of flowers from the garden either side of the gate and waited. The rain rained, and there were people up the road waiting in the rain, so we huddled in our open porch and waited.

After about forty minutes the hearse pulled up, followed by a string of around twenty cars. We stood in our gateway, not sure quite what to do, but I tipped my cap to the hearse as a mark of acknowledgement, the hearse moved on, people waved from their cars, we waved back, in a sober fashion, as the occasion demanded. The cortege went on it’s way to the cemetery in a string of red tail lights. We gathered up the lamps and flowers, back into the comfort of our house That was it. It all felt a little anticlimactic, but that’s life in some respect, isn’t it?

Business as usual

Still taking advantage of the relative dry spell to get out in the garden and do a bit more landscaping. Which is why I’m not posting much, I’m too bloody cream crackered at the end of each day. I’m also losing weight like it’s going out of fashion.

Mrs S though is delighted with the results of my labour, especially as yours truly is achieving required objectives on a shoestring budget. For example, a previous owner had dumped a whole lot of paving bricks in a neglected and overgrown part of the farmyard. A little ingenuity and graft, and bingo! A brand new garden feature some four metres across. The week before I turned a neglected water feature into a two metre plus heather plantation at zero cost but my poor abused musculature. The bees are happy, and forage merrily on said plants every day there’s been sun in the sky. Maybe I’ll even get some honey out of them this spring.

The garden is shaping up nicely, with what was a rather boring lawn and dividing shrubbery into a more dynamic and interesting place for us to enjoy the warmer weather, when or if it arrives. The front lawn is on show for all to see, but then we converted the other lawn into an open space, now called ‘middle earth’ and sporadically punctuated by large evergreen shrubs to act as windbreaks and shield us from any unwelcome gazes over the front wall. Then we have elected to convert a twelve by ten metre area into a shady coffee and relaxation area, accessible via our new path, which Mrs S named ‘sleepy hollow’ (Hopefully without visits by axe wielding headless horsemen). Projected cost; around two hundred and fifty euros for a ton bag of gravel, some leftover slabs, some cheap garden edging and mulch cloth. Oh yes, and my poor old aching back.

There’s also scope for getting a power feed out there, as I just found enough 4mm armoured twin and earth cable to run a spur feed out to a weatherproof electric socket. Which means I will be able to sit and write outdoors instead of lurking in the office. But first the sheds must have power and light. Which should be operational by early Summer. All I have to do is test the cabling and ensure there are no shorts to earth on the feeds.

So yes, we’re cracking along and I may even get a bit of time to myself every so often. Oh, and while I’m on the subject of good news, that belweather of much touted environmental disaster, the Australian Great Barrier Reef is doing pretty nicely too.

Of course you could listen to all the prophets of doom populating the lamestream, but I intend to be more positive this year. I believe ‘Net Zero’ is going to fail, much to the chagrin of those complete muppets who protest for Just stop oil and extinction rebellion, who are ironically funded by ‘big oil’ in the shape of the Rockefeller foundation and other similar interests via the ‘climate emergency fund’ (Look it up). The whole electric car thing is going to die because no one who can do joined up thinking really wants one, no matter if western governments try to fine the manufacturers into oblivion. Then perhaps the US and NATO will have to back off in Ukraine, because the Ukrainian regime is fast running out of people to throw into the meat grinder of their proxy war. Who knows, perhaps the Americans will vote anti-war and kick out the Democrats and their senile puppet. Maybe the UK and other powers will do likewise?

Well, maybe, maybe not. All I know is that I’m beginning to see a payoff for all the hard work I’m putting in. And we will probably get a better summer than last year. Not to mention that family is queueing up to visit. Which will be nice.

Digging in

Doing a bit in the garden at the moment. A new slab path was laid on Saturday and a few other bits and pieces have been completed. The groundwork for a new patch of lawn was completed. Only one more rambling section of purple flowering heather to shift. Things proceed. The spell of dryer weather we’re having helps.

Our daffs have pushed out of the soil, heavily in bud and there’s a twenty metre double line of tulips muscling out of the western lawns to join the crocuses. Buds are breaking and the first annuals to germinate and break soil. My bees seem to have over wintered successfully, and I will be paying them a visit shortly, when the temperature stays above ten Celsius and the foragers are active. It’s looking good for spring this year. There have been no big volcanic burps this year or last, so I remain optimistic.

About fourteen of my planted walnuts are also showing roots and shoots. Indeed, all over the smallholding the process of new life goes on.

The only sour note at the moment (apart from a semi-permanent beef with our Canadian banks) is our farm insurance policy. Which has gone up by two hundred euro’s a year. By a third, over 30%. Which is strange, because we’ve never made a claim, yet the price of our current insurance is skyrocketing. I don’t get it. Maybe they just don’t want the small farm customer, and perchance we’re not profitable enough for them. Oh well, time to hit the phones for a new quote.

Am having a quiet chortle at the recent referendum result, where the vote went almost 80% ‘No’. Which was pretty emphatic, although Sinn Fein have publicly said they want best two out of three. Others in the Irish political class clearly have their noses out of joint over this issue.

The clauses in the Irish constitution the globalists wanted to change are to protect the rights of women who choose to stay home and raise families. The globalists behind the push want to get rid of the ‘women’ clause, get them into the workforce and paying tax for the political class to piss up the wall, inflate the cost of housing even further and make big bucks for the corporates. The native Irish seem to have other ideas, despite being ridiculed for not seeing the referendum for what it was.

There’s also a call to investigate the NGO’s behind the referendum. Questions like “Why are these people getting so much of our tax money?” are being asked publicly. Because said NGO’s, no matter who they claim to be for, are certainly not on the side of the average Irish voter.

Like I say, there’s too damn many of these NGO’s throughout the western world. We need a major cull of NGO’s, not of cattle.

Hmmm

Busy fixing and sorting at the moment, stripping out rotten timber and clearing out ready for the next phase of my many projects. Have also been doing a bit of re-landscaping of one corner of the garden by relocating a bed of Heather measuring four metres by three. Which was hard graft. However, in my downtime I browse through YouTube at various medical and science blogs.

One thing that flags up in my mind, and that’s about these white fibrous blood clots embalmers have been finding. Has anyone put one of these things through the pathology lab yet?

Back when I did hospital training, it was routine for a surgeon to send anything unusual recovered during surgery to the pathology lab for analysis. These novel white and rubbery clots should have been analysed in 2021 when they were first observed. So why aren’t we hearing more outside of the scientific literature?

From my reading of the literature I’ve concluded that the new clots have been associated with low platelet counts and the COVID spike protein, be that either from multiple infections or repeated treatments with the ‘vaccine’. Unfortunately the histology is still obscure, but I’ve been able to establish one thing; the more repeat exposures to the spike protein, the higher the risk.

Now, can’t speak for anyone else, but I reckon that having more than two preventative vaccinations carries a risk, not only of the usual post vaccination suppression of the immune system you get with any jab. Which unless it’s for Yellow fever or one of the more exotic diseases, carries very little risk. However, for those in the under fifty age group, these mRNA treatments appear to carry a much greater risk from not just the novel clots, but a whole range of fatal and near fatal conditions. Any other treatment would have been pulled from the market back in mid 2021, when the problems first became known.

However, that never happened, and a lot of people were frightened into compliance by media manipulation. Now the emphasis looks like the narrative be turned against those of us who just want to be let be, by insisting (Again, against all evidence) that ‘white’ rural folk are the problem.

Some people will believe anything.

Pottering

Well, not so much pottering as potting. Bought a bunch of bedding plants and herb seeds which needed planting out and planted them. There’s a couple of vines and some trellis to go in on the south facing wall of the shed we’ve just had re-roofed. It all makes work etc.

There’s ground to clear, and still a few stumps to get rid of. When I was younger I could clear (By hand with axe, saw and shovel) around ten or twelve forty year old fruit trees from an orchard per day and then have the energy for a number of other heavy tasks before riding thirty miles back home. Nowadays three or four is about my limit and I have to go and sit down to recover.

So yesterday’s rain came as a relief. Although I was pleasantly surprised by a visit from a tree surgeon under contract to ESB, Ireland’s electrickery board, saying that he had come to look at the lines crossing our land, and to chop down any branches or trees that threatened to get in the way of the cables, buckshee, free of charge. I didn’t quite take his arm off, as the saying goes, but played the co-operative landowner and said, well, I’d take his advice, and was more than happy to point out areas of possible encroachment. Which will save me some money, as I’ve been looking at that area with a view to doing some serious tree chopping myself.

Also on the positive side, the meat fish and eggs only diet means I’m feeling the weight drop off like melting wax. The downside of which means by late spring all my old clothes will fit like oversized bin bags. Some I can get re-tailored, some not. All I know is that the money I’ve been saving on not buying junk food will probably have to go on a whole new wardrobe.

In the news, I notice that the farmers protests are still escalating in face of the nut zero nonsense. None of my neighbours have mentioned anything, so if any of them are planning to protest in Dublin, they’re keeping their cards very close to their chest.

Also noted are the Islamist riots in London and threats to UK MP’s. Well I can’t say I’m surprised. Let in those from a hostile ideology incompatible with western liberal values, and this is what you will get. The real barbarians, as I have observed before, already inside the gates, are messing up the living room, hogging the couch and Xbox with their booted feet up on the coffee table demanding more Nachos and playing grab-ass with every comely young female within reach.

As for middle class, unsure of even what sex they are, white kids chanting the racist slogan “from the river to the sea”, Can’t they see that this just makes the situation between Israel and Palestine worse? Israel kicked off with it’s current round of atrocities by reacting to yet another round of atrocities committed by Hamas. It’s a vicious circle that won’t end until there are some grown ups in the room, on both sides. Simply screaming abuse from the sidelines is like a bloodthirsty crowd egging on two semi-exhausted bare knuckle boxers.

These middle class chanters should try taking their sexual politics into Gaza. It might be both an eye opening (and closing) experience for them.

Put simply, you don’t stop a fight by continually attacking your tribal ‘enemy’. This is a simple rule, both in politics and life. You don’t go after someone again and again, then crying “But I’m the victim!” when you get the crap beaten out of you. At some point you’ve got to wind your neck in and get on with the rest of your life, getting ‘revenge’ by making a success of what you have. Hamas and their supporters seem not to understand this simple principle.

The problem is that the Hamas position has no live or let live in it. No tolerance, and in continually pushing at the dead sea pedestrians they elicit major pushback, losing territory every time. Which is why people (on both sides) are so angry at each other all the flaming time.

Maybe I’m being hopelessly naïve, but perhaps both sides could do something radical, like stop trying to kill each other for a while? Accept each others existence and try to make the best of things like the rest of us?

Sod it, the garden calls, and I’m looking at fitting more trellis and planting a vine or two on a south facing wall. I’ve always fancied trying to grow grapes. Maybe there’s a sheltered enough spot for a fig tree?

We all have to create our own little piece of heaven where we can, because no-one is going to do it for us. You won’t get it by voting or shouting the odds, you’ll only get it by doing. There’s a life lesson in there somewhere.