Even by our country’s standards, this has been a grim week and it looks like it’ll get worse.

So let’s not go there today.

Let’s think about anything and everything that’s good in our own lives, no matter how big or small, let’s try to do one positive thing in the next few days.

For me, it’s been a busy week of doing the usual, dog walks and work around the house and gardens, but this week has also been about apples.

Fuck me, what a bumper year, I can’t remember seeing so many.

I’ve pressed around 70 litres of juice – 20 for the fridges to be drunk with breakfast or lunch and 50 litres of cider.

The dogs have been there for the whole thing, Cairo is quite the apple thief and we’ve had to stop a number of times so that she can chase them as they’re thrown for her – Milo patrols the grounds or sleeps in my office as I do the physical, repetitive work of cutting the apples, macerating and then pressing the juice.

It’s hard work and it’s instantly rewarding.

The juice tastes nothing like shop bought apple juice – so much sweeter and flavoursome.

I’ve given hundreds of apples away to neighbours and also to the farm shop -she’s going to make me an apple pie as thanks.

I have a couple of hundred of apples in the store and have dried around a hundred so far.

It’s been a fantastic crop.

As I type this, I’m getting ready to cook a curry with chilis, peppers and onions from my own garden, I’ll add some chilli and tomato sauce that I’ve been making for a few weeks now.

I have a bottle of beer in front of me and two sleepy dogs elsewhere,

Milo is on good form at the moment and loves every minute of our walks through the fields or snuggling up for the evening next to me and Cairo.

Cairo is the sweetest dog and has completely charmed their new sitter, which is lucky as I have a funeral to go to in a week or so.

I’m meeting friends in London in two weeks, including a couple of the Feral Ponies who will help me celebrate one of their number, who has:

– Had a new baby

– Got through the bullshit that my old company put him through.

He doesn’t know that they’re coming out as it’s a work day, The Smurf will join us at some point and I’m looking forward to a day of laughter.

Life can be good if we let it and we all need to pause for a moment, turn the phones off, ignore the television, get outside or listen to music and read a good book.

All the bad stuff isn’t going away, but if we let it infect us, we’re the losers.

Believe it or not, most of my interactions with the police during my life have been fairly positive.

That’s possibly because the police were more proactive and visible when I was younger and I was never more relieved in my life when two huge coppers stopped me and my friends from becoming statistics behind a Chinese restaurant in London.

I’ve been arrested once, when I was still in my early twenties on a case of mistaken identity.

It was quite amusing as there were cars, dogs and a load of coppers for me and a couple of mates who were on our way home from a night out.

I was arrested by a WDC and read my rights.

A tiny uniformed sergeant then decided that HE would take me in.

I was wedged between two monsters in the back seat and was then questioned.

After a minute or two, I said that I’d been told my rights and that I would now exercise my right to be silent.

This seemed to be a personal affront for him because he promised me a hard time in the cells.

Me being me, I couldn’t let that one go and I told him that I knew I was going to get a kicking but as long as he had the bottle to come into the cell alone, I’d take whatever was given when I finished with him.

I can still feel the shoulders twitching against mine as the two beasts in the back suppressed their giggles.

Nothing happened.

No charge, just very late home and straight into work.

That’s by the by.

The case of my Uncle, which went on for so many years and is all here –

In the end

Showed me the very best of the police, I can never thank them enough for the care and dedication that they showed.

The fact that Susan Auckland never went to prison wasn’t their fault, it was inter-force failings and it led to me writing my first ever letter to the Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire saying that his force had failed my uncle.

At some point I’ll be writing another letter to a CC, but for a different reason.

And I can’t say anything at all about the case, apart from the fact that it involves poor old Arthur again.

But, first a genuine question for you.

What’s worse:

Casual robbery – phone snatching, car theft, shoplifting etc.

Or deliberately defrauding the vulnerable?

For me, it’s the latter. Most small-time criminals are as thick as whale shit and once they’ve started down that path, I’d imagine that it’s hard to change.

White Collar fraudsters have had all the advantages that the phone thief never will and their crimes show a mindset that is beyond redemption.

Last week, I received a letter from another Police Force.

I wondered if I’d managed to speed in their patch before I opened it and was confused as I haven’t been through that county for years.

It turns out that before Susan got her hooks in, Arthur’s Financial Adviser had fleeced him and a large number of people for a LOT of money.

I rang the WDC who’d sent the letter and we had a good chat.

She had discovered Arthur’s part in the fraud by being diligent and good at her job, he fell below the threshold that the investigation was set at.

The fraudster has already been arrested and is likely to plead guilty at court, the CPS has the trial ready to go – more or less.

I’ll be there at the sentencing and I plan to make him far more famous than a simple court report ever could.

Properly famous.

The WDC gave me the details of the person at the company that this cunt worked for and they were fantastic.

At some point, they’ll pay the estate back what was stolen plus any dividends and interest that would be due.

Then the kicker.

The fraudster may have been doing this for THIRTY YEARS.

Like I said. He’ll he famous.

If you have vulnerable relatives, it may be worth checking in with them to make sure that they’re not being abused by somebody like this.

At some point, I’ll be giving more details and I’ll be writing to a Chief Constable to suggest that his officer gets an award.

Watch this space.

I’m sat in the garden as I write this, it’s Sunday afternoon, the sun is actually shining and one of the dogs is sat at my feet. The other is indoors, asleep in his little bed, content with his safe and warm little world.

Well….

When I say garden, I mean a space of half an acre or so in front of me with a view that is unbroken until the Shropshire hills get in the way.

It’s beautiful, it’s peaceful and it’s mine because I worked for my whole life, paid my mortgages and my dues and tried to live a life more or less within society’s rules.

I’ve never taken a penny from the state and have paid a LOT of tax for an ordinary boy from a council estate in Hackney.

I’ve not posted much recently. The twin horrors of Irina Zarutska and Charlie Kirk showed a face of humanity that is more than depressing, vapid evil, gleeful celebration and chilling indifference to the public murders of innocents.

The Unite The Kingdom protest was reported exactly as could be predicted, everyone is either far right or too stupid to know that they’re being turned into Nazis – or whatever.

The Southport inquiry is shaping up to be incredibly grim.

And our retarded government just rewarded Hamas for a mass murder event by unilateral recognition of Palestine.

If we’re not careful, we can get into the mindset that all is lost.

And it isn’t.

The vast majority of people are still good, honest and friendly, particularly out here in the Shire, I’d be shocked these days if I met somebody out walking that didn’t say hello and stop for a chat.

Communities still exist, we look out for each other, donate surplus fruit and veg ( for free obviously) and watch each other’s houses when neighbours are away.

For something more concrete – I’ll give you this.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a councillor and I see that as a privilege rather than a perk, if you’re not helping, don’t bother.

A car stopped on the road last week and a lady leaned out for a chat to say thanks for helping with some speed issues through her hamlet.

But that’s not what I’m going to write about.

We see the planning applications as soon as they come in and I’m proud that we’ve never played the NIMBY game, each application is looked at on its own merits.

And so one came in from a company wanting to change a residential address to a shared children’s home.

Me being me, I looked the company up and the alarm bells started ringing.

It’s a company owned by a Zimbabwean who has a string of failed companies and some complicated relationships with interrelated companies and some very dodgy looking accounts.

The application was absolutely full of holes too.

So I flagged this up and found that the house is one of only three that were built in 2017 on a rural road – and that a previous councillor lives next door and is trying to sell up.

They were unaware of the application as the Zims hadn’t posted it in public, but the Zims are awful neighbours and there have been a number of rat infestations along with a number of ‘incidents’.

I wrote to the chair of the council asking for details of all and any contracts held by these people and enclosing details and photos of a previous place that they’d flipped like this in Dudley – this is the house as of a few weeks ago and that’s a year after planning was granted.

I worked quite closely with the neighbour on the other side of the current house that they wanted planning for and we found a huge number of issues with the company, the person owning it and some potential fraud on a large scale – all passed to the relevant authorities for further investigation.

My theory for what it’s worth is this.

The Zims didn’t and don’t have a contract, but the change of property designation makes the house fit for HMO use, so they’d flip it, fuck off and leave the neighbours to deal with whatever horrors came next.

I also think that they assumed that a load of rural fuckwits wouldn’t know what was going on and they’d get this waved through.

But.

This isn’t a big town.

The neighbours mobilised, objection after objection, the county council took a side before the outcome was officially decided.

And it’s a big fat fucking NO.

But it’s worse than that, a number of councils are now investigating, the police may be along with the QCQ and the Charities Commission.

I did that.

I could have ignored it and let it pass, if I had, I doubt anyone would have known.

If we don’t stand up for ourselves, who will?

By the way, when I saw the company name in the application, it wasn’t apparent that they were Zimbabweans.

I couldn’t give a fuck about that, you’re either ‘us’ or you’re not. Anybody scamming people aren’t ‘us’.

The end of this week brought forward some good news.

One of my feral ponies is a dad again, he’s currently being fucked over by the company for something that they’ve got completely wrong – at some point they’re going to have to pay him a lot of money and I’ve made sure that he’s fully supported by experts still in the company and by solicitors.

He’s a fantastic man to know, hard working, intelligent, funny and very, very personable.

And he’s invited me to his house on Friday to take part in a Naming Ceremony- he’s of Nigerian descent and I’m incredibly honoured to be invited.

So, with all the awful news, the certainty that our government would rather rape us financially than actually fix anything, we have to take each small victory as it comes.

I’ll leave the ending of this to Churchill

‘This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.’

I was going to write about something else today but I’ve totally forgotten what it was.

It’s been an interesting and quite wonderful week, I packed the car last Monday and set off on a road trip with Cairo on Tuesday.

Milo’s getting on a bit and doesn’t really have the patience needed for four hour drives.

So it was just me and the girlie.

She lay in her bed on the front seat for around 15 hours of driving, taking in, Gloucester, Portland, Llanelli, Newark and Clumber Park before returning home on Saturday.

We didn’t pause for more than 5 minutes at most services – we had a coffee and a walk with one of the Feral Ponies on Tuesday at Gloucester Services but otherwise we stopped for as short a period as possible.

She’s amazingly calm in the car and as long as she’s with me isn’t bothered by anything.

We met old friends in Portland and I spent two days with some of the best people I know in the whole world, walking, eating and drinking and taking in the beautiful scenery and amazing history of a part of England that isn’t that well known.

We also took a photo that is now a tradition.

It was with some regret that we left Portland but we moved onto Llanelli and another old friend who somehow ties this little story together.

I’ve known her since around 2008 and we used to run training courses for our company, with me as the ‘expert’ doing the actual job that we were preparing others for.

She’s a gentle soul and is constantly trying to get herself into harmony with ‘the universe’ and it was her who first gave me the notion of invisible wheels of varying size that sometimes click over in our favour.

We walked the beaches and she cooked a fabulous dinner before we discussed the book that she’s writing- it was fun to play a little with her constructs and give a totally impartial view while asking questions about

Why?

How?

And.

Are you absolutely sure about that ?

We did another walk along the beaches and paths in the morning before I packed Cairo and the car up again for the longest part of the journey.

And the part that worried me the most.

Newark.

And people that I’d only met for an hour or so once before.

One of them is a Twitter friend and that’s always been a fairly good indicator for me – people are usually their real selves after a while and I’ve not yet met anybody in real life that I didn’t really like.

But I was staying in their house, with their new dog, that I helped to source for them.

With the fucking Canine Angel of Death.

And a dog half her size.

I found Dottie (the dog) was up for adoption by chance and was actually offered that the chance to adopt, but two dogs is enough really and I knew that these people wanted another Jack Russell.

We met for a coffee before they went to meet Dottie and I was convinced that I could feel those universal gears sliding into place.

And so it was.

And then some.

Cairo and Dottie were amazing together, no dramas at all, unless you count Cairo killing some toys…

And dinner was one of those wonderful occasions when you find that you’ve met people who you like very, very much.

And the universal gears kicked in a bit more, Dottie’s new Dad had actually been her old owner’s commanding officer in the army and they knew each other.

Dottie was being given up because the grandchildren were allergic – no other reason – and so she is with people who will love her and protect her for ever.

Both Cairo and me had a wonderful time and we’ll all stay in touch and meet up again.

A long walk around Clumber Park on Saturday morning and then home after a two hour drive.

A BBQ on Sunday and a long walk this morning that could have turned very nasty.

Two much larger dogs sprinted out of a gate and had a go at my two ( on leads) – they backed off and then the bigger one grabbed Milo.

Cairo leapt and pounced, digging her fangs into his ear and throat and both dogs ran off, totally outmatched by her speed, power and ferocity.

I had a little chat with the house owner and we walked on.

So there’s a few stories here.

I met my old friends and made some new ones.

I travelled quite a bit of this beautiful country, from beaches to hills, quarries to countryside, big houses and flats, through rolling hills and river views finally coming back to my own little piece of land and the view of the hills as I write this with a beer on one side and Cairo on the other.

And I saw our flag everywhere.

Shops, houses, bridges, roundabouts and on actual flagpoles.

It’s a tenuous connection at best, but Milo, Cairo and me are Pack.

We’d die ( or most likely kill) for the others and I’m seeing encouraging signs in our country that the wider pack may just be waking up.

Who knows?

Happy Bank Holiday.

I’m not much of a religionist, the whole concept, particularly organised religion makes that little voice in the back of my mind ask too many questions.

I was asked to leave midnight mass many years ago when I broke down into a fit of laughter.

Nobody ever did see the funny side, but a married couple two rows ahead of me were giving it the full devout treatment.

He’d been selling her for blow-jobs in the back of one of the pubs two weeks earlier.

Each to their own though, my hypocrisy just doesn’t run that deep and to be clear; I’ve known some very religious people who have been amazing humans and fantastic company.

I’m nowhere near to being an atheist though, I’ve seen some strange stuff and dallied with Hindu gods in my time.

Of Gods and Thunderdogs

Quarantined Dog

I read an awful lot and I walk hundreds of miles a month, the two things combine nicely in my mind, the peace of walking in countryside and woods allows my little brain to make sense of some of the things I’ve read.

I never really think about religion or gods though, not unless something catches my eye or I half-hear something that makes me question what I’ve seen or heard.

And so it was yesterday.

A normal walk, five miles of canals, woods, roads and fields.

And I followed one of the dogs into a little copse that’s usually more enclosed.

To see this tree and the vine on it.

I had a vague notion that it might look like a rune, ran it through an AI and the answer was that it did look like the Algiz Rune.

The runic symbol Algiz (ᛉ) is from the Elder Futhark alphabet.

Algiz, also known as Elhaz, is often interpreted as representing protection, divine connection, or awakening, and its form is visually evocative of a person standing with arms raised in a gesture of defense or invocation, elk antlers, or a stylized tree with branches extending upward.

There’s a load of information here.

https://vikingr.org/magic-symbols/algiz?srsltid=AfmBOopdL3JYDWVHjI-BM98j3FxHxvIQtUgsX6aVIAsg6Sz10SDgUp0N

It’s interesting in its way and the idea of the symbol, once you’ve seen it, can’t be unseen.

I’m sat in the orchard while I write this and I’m sat in the shade of two silver birch trees with my two little protectors – or they’re sat with theirs.

I’m not superstitious, nor a true believer in anything.

I’ve always had a strange affinity with crows (and knives but that’s another story) and if I ever see them, I pay a little more attention to the world, especially if I’m driving. There’s no logical reason for that and it sounds a bit dumb even to me, but it’s hardwired in for some reason.

But this post is about signs.

I saw a tree and vine that made me think about things.

While I’ve been typing this, Spotify has been running a playlist for me.

A song by Mike and the Mechanics has just played, it’s maybe the first time I’ve heard it in ten years.

Silent Running.

‘Take the children and yourself
And hide out in the cellar
By now the fighting will be close at hand
Don’t believe the church and state and everything they tell you
Believe in me, I’m with the high command

Can you hear me?
Can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running? Can you hear me calling you?

There’s a gun and ammunition
Just inside the doorway
Use it only in emergency
Better you should pray to God
The Father and the Spirit
Will guide you and protect you from up here

Swear allegiance to the flag
Whatever flag they offer
Never hint at what you really feel
Teach the children quietly
For someday sons and daughters
Will rise up and fight while we stood still’

I was going to write about the need we all have to identify and protect those we love against evil.

But, you know.

A fucking song.

Anyway.

None of this means anything at all, but I do have something running in the back of my mind right now.

I’ll listen to it.

Oh yeah.

I also bought a T Shirt.