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.

Anybody who watches my X feed will see that I gave Milo an arbitrary birthday date as I genuinely don’t know what it is.

I don’t know how old he is, I don’t know his full history.

I know that an obese man with a beard who may have done a menial job hurt him very badly.

I know that Warrington Animal Welfare are fucking liars.

And that’s it.

None of that really matters though, not really.

But today is a Sunday and it’s the 3rd of August.

And that’s the day that I adopted him in 2019.

I wasn’t alone that day, a friend came to see my aunt and uncle in Richmond, Yorkshire that day and it hadn’t been that long since their nightmare ended.

I’d spent a couple of years on that saga and the same friend was instrumental in helping with so many things.

That story (once afuckingain) is here.

In the end

I’ll explain later why this is relevant.

And while I was in the car, I got the call from Warrington asking me to pick Milo up that day, so a relaxed journey became more.

It was a shock as I’d only been to see him the day before, although a home visit the same day should have been a clue.

And so, many hours, loads of money at Pets at Home and a lot of driving, I adopted the little bugger.

That was a trigger for so many things and one of my biggest regrets is that I lost my friend and haven’t seen her since the end of 2019.

Still,

Having Milo made me understand what I actually cared about and, in truth, it was mostly him.

I didn’t give a shit – and still don’t about most people and I’ll choose him every single time over anybody left in my world.

He’s had some very painful operations – both his back knees were operated on, giving him a healthy hatred of the vet.

And when his friend from next door accidentally kicked him six feet into the air, I thought I’d lost him.

This was during Covid and I think that the vet who originally told me that I couldn’t carry my little buddy to the emergency table saw something in my eyes that he’d rarely seen.

Anyway.

A few hours later, the tough little fucker only had a cracked rib and it didn’t slow him down at all.

We’ve been everywhere in the UK together, he’s seen people come and go and he’s now had a very violent ‘sister’ for over three years.

Life isn’t perfect but, quite frankly, it’s as good as it gets.

I still have a social life that doesn’t include home, I’ve given up work for now, I’m vice-chair of the council, a trustee for the RAF and have been asked to be a school governor.

And this week, the investigative part of me kicked back in.

Twice.

I’ll anonymise this, but a planning application came in to the council, it was unusual so I did a little digging.

Fast forward two days and I’ve written letters to the head of the council asking for details of any contracts, to the CQC asking for an investigation and to HMRC to check that the non-UK national who owns the country pays any tax.

And then today, a field opposite suddenly had caravans and vans.

Nobody knows the actual details of who owns it, a few emails were sent to the council and – because it’s opposite my land, I wandered past.

While I was walking the dogs. I alerted a couple of the local landowners and I used all of the experience that I gained with my uncle, found the owner on facebook, then their home address etc. etc. and messaged them.

Panic over.

They were in their own field for the first time in 16 months.

This is the actual conversation with one of the landowners-

A strange Sunday but it looks like this right now.

Milo is asleep next to me.

My constant companion for six years.

Six years to the day.

With every day, even the bad ones, making me thankful for an arbitrary decision to adopt a dog, my little friend, smart and tough, funny and sometimes strange.

2193 days.

I was born in London and until I was nine or so, we lived in the East End, just off Well Street Market.

My memories of that time are a bit mixed, it was safe to be a kid on the streets and anybody that tried to even talk to children that they didn’t know were taking a real chance with their health.

My parents moved us out partly because of me, I was very good at Judo and getting better.

But I was also fighting on a daily basis, I got the shit kicked out of me by a 15 year old Turk and went back for another beating every few days.

I wasn’t going to stop until I beat him.

Or. You know.

So we moved out and I kept moving, further North every time.

So, I’ve moved from the 3rd floor of this place, not even a balcony.

To here :

I had a few different jobs along the way, including a part time role as a nightclub bouncer on the Old Kent Road and I’m still proud of the fact that I never once had to lay hands on anybody.

I was back in London on Thursday, catching up with the Smurf (she’s made a full recovery) and we had a nice dinner, some drinks and a singalong in the Marquis pub and then a wander before I saw her to the Tube.

I had a slow walk back to the Rag Club and a last drink in the bar.

Pall Mall is dead at night these days and there’s so few people that you can actually stop and take photos.

And then, on Friday morning I went home.

The doglets made their usual fuss and we did a shortish walk as it was hot ( three miles or so ) and then it was a pub lunch at the Joules brewery.

A completely different life in the space of one short train journey.

Why am I writing this?

I had two conversations over the course of twelve hours.

One with The Smurf, she’s Jewish and is becoming increasingly more scared about living in this country.

She asked me what I would do if somebody broke into my house to hurt us?

This is clearly a big concern for her and my simple answer was, ‘I have a lot of trees’.

She lives in London so doesn’t have that little bonus, but her husband paid more than a million pound in taxes last year and it’s a saddening fact that my friend is seriously thinking of getting out of the country – and that the country will lose that much needed money.

The second conversation was with a black cab driver – we talked about moving to the country after he’d picked up on my not quite Northern accent.

He asked if the local town was fucked up yet?

The answer is no – right now.

But unless we do something, it’s coming, we’ll have a sudden unexplained spike in violent crime, rape and robbery.

Then we’ll find out that a group of unvetted savages have been given free accommodation, money and the freedom to do whatever the fuck they want.

But something seems to be shifting, ordinary people are making more noise, protesting and demanding change.

Our government of course, want to clamp down more and more, but it genuinely feels like they may lose this one.

Something needs to change.

And soon.

To repeat myself, I love films and it’s the small moments that stay with me more than the big megabucks sequences.

And once again.

It’s The Terminator

Sarah Connor:

What did he just say?

Gas Station Attendant: He said there’s a storm coming in.

Sarah Connor: [sighs] I know

Get ready – pick a side.

I already have.

I was 19 when Rage in Eden was released.

To say that it had an impact on me is quite the understatement, an album of superb music and with lyrics that hinted of a curtain of deceit and of truths half-seen.

44 years later, I still listen to it

And somehow it seems appropriate to write about it.

‘Grey men who speak of victory
Shed light upon their stolen life
They drive by night and act as if they’re moved by unheard music
To step in time and play the part
With velvet voices smooth and cold
Their power games a game no more
And long the chance to use it’

Only the names have changed, the rhetoric is still the same and the press, so supine, so fucking cowardly during Covid are still playing their part, talking up the idea of war with Russia while ignoring the daily invasion and rape of our homeland.

It’s as if Alfred the Great ignored the Viking invasion whilst sending threatening messages to Moravia.

And the only conclusion that’s left after years and years of this shit, huge amounts of legal immigration and enormous numbers of hostile men landing on our shores – or brought onshore by the ‘Border Force’; the only conclusion is.

The only fucking conclusion – according to Conan Doyle and the Casebook of Sherlock Holmes is:

‘When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’

It’s deliberate.

It’s not a series of mistakes.

It’s a planned invasion, supported by the last three governments and funded by us.

For the life of me, I can’t imagine the reason, if it were fiction, there’d be a plot where an Islamic power is already nuclear capable and there are dirty bombs in all of our cities.

It’s not fiction though.

It’s an abomination.

Our streets are increasingly unsafe, our taxes, already the highest they’ve ever been will rise again this year.

We’re penalised at a state and local government level and I saw today that somebody has had the bright idea of charging the ‘middle class’ more for water.

For water.

The next big idea will be some sort of land tax where your garden will be classed as an asset that somehow means you pay more for local services that you may well use less than somebody in a two up two down.

Meanwhile, the boats keep coming and we keep paying – a bill in the billions now, with no end in sight.

Justice isn’t just two-tier now, if you’re a member of the supposed ‘far right’, you can expect punitive sentences for minor infractions while child rapists walk free.

It can only be deliberate.

And this week, we find out that the previous government used a super-injunction against the whole country.

And I’d give any money that this is the tip of the iceberg, our legal systems are weaponised against us, our politicians hold us in contempt and the press, so completely captured print garbage like THIS.

‘England’s players have taken the knee before each of their four games so far but have decided they will remain standing before kick-off on Tuesday, with the squad stating they and football need to find another way to tackle racism.’

It’s laughable.

They’re still kneeling for a dead drug addict, career criminal who died in another country.

And the press and our deeply sinister Prime Minister make statements.

All this while anti-Semitic hate is increasing at an exponential rate, people are marching in the streets in support of fucking Iran.

Our real enemies are within.

Every single party is complicit, 99% of our politicians are worthless.

I don’t know what is going to lead to the flashpoint, but it’s clearer by the day that it’s coming.

Until then, some 45 year old lyrics are still appropriate.

‘Your propaganda touched my soul
Those thin and cherished words
A willing victim for the kill again’

Dark times are just over the horizon.

It’s a hot evening and the dogs are very tired, especially Cairo who had a little adventure when she chased a mystery dog earlier today.

Her turn of speed is still quite incredible and she was almost a mile away by the time I got to the top of the field she’d run from.

I was sitting drinking a beer when Milo wandered over and said that they’d like a story to doze off to.

I had a little think and this is how it went.

‘OK Cairo, you’re not the first escapee dog that I’ve ever had and you’re not the worst.’

She gave me a tired look and let out a little sigh.

‘Let me tell you about Lucky.

One of my brothers brought him home, I don’t know where he got him from, but he was a medium sized Doberman with a full tail and floppy ears.

My brother got bored with the work involved with having a dog very quickly and so Lucky became mine. It was me that walked him, fed him and cleaned up after him.

It was me that chased him and climbed all over the neighbourhood fences when he escaped.

The little sod could climb a six foot fence in half a second and he’d be gone.

Fence after fence.

Onto the roads and away.

Sometimes I’d be able to catch him, but the neighbours weren’t exactly happy with a dog and then a man climbing their fences, although one or two found it funny.

With me so far?’

The dogs blinked sleepily, still just about awake.

‘OK – let me tell you one more thing about him.

He hated being left alone and he’d eat anything ANYFUCKINGTHING that he could because he was so stressed.

He ate through the back of a sofa – and out of the front of it.

He pulled a doorframe off the wall and chewed it up.

He ripped a mattress to shreds.

And much more.

Including carpets and clothes.

Anyway.

I was living with my parents at the time and my dad worked away from home some weeks, my mum still worked and I was working shift patterns at a computer centre.

On one of the day shift weeks, I wandered home, walked Lucky and then had dinner with my mum.’

The dogs looked curiously at me, they’d seen my dad but had never met my mum.

‘You never saw her, she died a very long time ago but she had a couple of things in common with you two.

She was small, only Four Feet Ten Inches tall, but she was very, very clever.

And so she asked me if I felt like a beer.

We walked out of the house and instead of going to our regular pub, she walked me to one that we didn’t like.

I looked at her, she was up to something.

But what ?

‘What’s going on, why are we going to this fucking shithole?’

‘I just feel like going there’

I knew that this was a lie, but why?

We walked into the pub and I bought us drinks.

We sat down and I scanned the room like I’ve always done.

I saw something strange and gave my mum another chance to tell me what was going on.

‘So why are we here?, this place hasn’t got any better and half these cunts are already drunk‘

‘No reason – honestly’

‘I don’t believe you.’

I scanned the room again and saw the same anomaly.

A man was staring at us.

Mum was only 19 when I was born so he was early 40s, same as her.

I looked more closely at him.

He was scared.’

The dogs were more awake now, sat on all four paws, the possibility of blood and violence waking them up.

Milo raised a paw.

‘Where was Lucky?’

‘He was at home, but I didn’t tell you when he escaped he’d sometimes be gone for hours and when he got home, he’d have a muzzle full of foam, he looked rabid but really he was just tired and happy.’

So the bloke was scared, but I didn’t know him. He was scared of me but not because of me.

I looked at my mum.

‘Who’s he? Has he been giving you trouble?’

I glared openly at him now, sure he’d tried it on or done something or threatened her.

He went a very pale colour of green.

He was fucking TERRIFIED.’

The dogs were fully alert now, the promise of blood, real or remembered making them hyper attentive.

‘Mum, who. Is. That. Fucking. Bloke. What has he done?’

She looked at me and I knew that she was lying but…

‘He’s nobody, I don’t know him. We shouldn’t have come in here, you were right, let’s go to the other pub.’

I was completely wired now, just one notch below violence, I knew that he’d done something,

I walked her out of the pub and stared at the man the whole way, he was 20 or so years older than me and he was more scared than I’d seen anybody for ages.

So we went to the other pub, I played pool and flirted with the barmaid and then walked mum home.

I let it drop for the night

And then the next evening after work, I had Lucky on my lap and was sitting talking to Mum.

She looked at me.

‘You were half right last night, whoever he is thought he was a big, tough man. He talked to me on the street the other day and said that people are sick of him’ – she nodded at Lucky – ‘getting out and that one day somebody is going to shoot him.’

I smiled at her.

I could see it now.

‘What did you say?’

‘I told him that I was pleased, that I hate that dog, he’s eaten anything nice that I’ve had, but that my husband and my boys love him. So if he’s brave enough, perhaps he should tell you to your faces.’

I smiled again.

And there the story ends Doglets, nobody was hurt but that man avoided us like the plague for as long as I lived there. I’d see him occasionally and he’d scuttle off.

She destroyed him without anyone raising a finger.

Did you enjoy th?’

I stopped speaking.

They were asleep.

Another long day, full of fun and adventure over.

It’s Saturday evening, I’m sat listening to music and drinking beer while I type this.

The dogs are asleep somewhere after another long day of walking and running around with an occasional nap or snuggle break and life is very calm.

I’m now at the point where I’m really not that fussed by anything now, I KNOW I should be angry at the constant horror show that this country has become.

I should be raging at our incompetent and possibly corrupt government, I should be mortified and disgusted that actual terrorists get better treatment than normal concerned people and I should be screaming from the rooftops about Prevent classifying concerns over mass immigration as a potential terrorism red flag.

But I just can’t hold on to the anger these days.

So much is wrong and I don’t think it’s fixable, the roller coaster of civilisation has started the longest and scariest descent of the ride and the maintenance crew has been replaced by Bonobo monkeys who seem to have found a drug stash, so I don’t think that there’s going to be an ascent.

Not for us anyway.

So my little brain has started to cocoon itself off, I’m focusing on the good things, daily long walks with the doglets, getting to grips with the things that need fixing – the photo at the top is a shed door. I was going to pull the whole thing down but I’ve cladded the outside and put in a new floor.

If it ever stops raining, I’ll make a new door and fit it.

Simple little tasks that I’ve not typically done throughout my life – I’ve always been too busy.

I’m joining the welfare committee of a local ( national) Forces Adjacent charity and joining the Mayor in a few weeks to open a school fair.

I’m horribly respectable – and according to my mental lifecycle clock, I’m about ten years early for this sort of thing.

Just to keep my hand in with the old world of work, I’ve given the Feral Ponies an introduction to a major company and they’ll get an internal recommendation from one of the directors ( if they want to apply for any jobs) because I’ve vouched for them.

It was nice to be offered an open ended ‘ we’ll have something for you if you want it’ too.

But I don’t really.

Not right now, I want to go for early morning walks in fields of grass, barley and wheat, I want to watch the birds of prey and listen to the quails in the undergrowth – while waiting for Cairo to decide that they might be fun to chase.

I want to watch Milo grin at me so that I’ll throw him a treat and I want to just stop and stare at the beauty around me.

The days are still getting longer for a few weeks and the crops in the fields are ripening quickly, I’ve got lots of sawing and cutting, drilling and fixing, painting and oiling to do – all watched by the doglets who seem to like this new life and follow me everywhere around the grounds.

It could be a lot worse.

So for now, I’ll take the calm and peace. I’ll put the anger aside, I’m not sure it’s helping anyway.

Better to try to be content than to fight this battle against shadows created by our own government.

Anybody who reads this drivel even occasionally knows that I love books.

So, like Galadriel, I shall diminish and fade into the background.

I think.

Maybe

“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”

She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.

“I pass the test,” she said. “I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.”

Let’s just get this out there.

It’s all YOUR fault.

We don’t have enough housing for the population.

That’s your fault.

Our sainted NHS is a badly managed shitshow with a postcode lottery that will determine the quality of our care.

That’s your fault.

Our roads are a joke, if pothole dodging were a sport, we’d be world class, along with India and Gaza.

Public transport in rural areas is almost nonexistent.

Both of those are your fault.

Nonces, rapists and terror suspects are out on bail or given laughable sentences.

Middle class women that made a mistake on social media have been imprisoned, Lucy Connolly’s appeal failed so she’s still in prison at our cost despite being no threat at all to the public.

That’s your fault.

The Metropolitan Police arrested and charged a Jewish man for taking the piss out of Hezbollah.

That’s right.

A fucking terrorist organisation is being protected from offence by our police.

That’s your fault.

Our government just gave away the Chagos islands to a foreign power that’s a client state of China.

That’s bad enough.

We’re paying them somewhere between 10 and 30 billion pounds too.

That’s your fault.

In one street In Leicester, at least 43% of the population don’t speak English.

I’m willing to bet that some areas are even worse.

Many of these people are having their whole lives funded.

By us.

That’s your fault.

Our councils have lost the battle to square the finances in the face of this huge influx of immigrants and are penalising the council tax payer as a result. Even though services reduce year on year.

That’s your fault.

Over SEVEN MILLION people in the UK are functionally illiterate, a staggering figure and one that should terrify us all.

We’re breeding generations of people that will find the concept of electricity and running water impossible to grasp if we don’t put a stop to our decline.

That’s your fault.

Our Prime Minister has been apparently targeted by a gang of Rent Boys, but the press, as usual are more or less silent.

The same Prime Minister has been called a congenital liar so often that he probably thinks it’s a compliment.

That is also your fault.

Rape, murder and assault figures are at the sort of levels that we used to associate with failed African states. The numbers are hardly reported and if you want to discuss them, you’re a fucking bigoted racist, gammon Nazi.

Or something.

That’s your fault.

It’s all your fault.

Or should I say Our Fault.

It’s nearly unfixable now.

What comes next is going to be grim.

Happy Sunday.

Some statistics from this week.

Forty Seven days

Two years

Ten miles

Thirty nine hours

Twelve years

Ten hours

Today’s the 18th of May, it’s a Sunday and I’m sat in the garden, drinking beer, listening to bird song and watching Cairo drift off to sleep in the sunshine.

Or I was, she’s wandered off again. It’s even money as to whether she’s gone hunting or wandered off for a doze. She was so broken yesterday after walks and ‘helping’ me work and playing with the water gun, that she could barely move.

Milo’s definitely asleep somewhere, we did a nearly six mile walk earlier and he’s also had a couple of patrols around ‘his’ land.

It’s been forty seven days since I left work – I only know this because they haven’t closed my accounts properly and I’m getting mails telling me that my phone is out of policy.

I miss it even less than I thought I would. My days are still full, but not tied to an artificial timetable.

And for the first time in weeks and weeks, I went to London on Thursday.

It was a full day, up at six, walk the dogs, home, shower, put a suit on and drive to the station.

Train to London, cab to the Army and Navy Club and then lunch in the bar above Waterstones on Jermyn Street.

On to Piccadilly for a couple of drinks with the son of a friend who passed last year – and one of my feral ponies.

Meet The Smurf, go for dinner in Mayfair and catch up on her recovery. She’s 90% there but the strain of a very close call with death and a genuinely life altering operation is there on her face if you know her well enough.

I pretend that I don’t and keep the compliments flowing on a semi-regular basis.

Get a text from one of the other feral ponies – three of them are in town.

Meet them at the Cellar Door – chat to the singer, she vaguely recognises me – have I been there before?

Erm. Yes. Twelve years ago, we went there a lot.

Drink like seahorses with the ponies, one of them pays for it on his corporate card, I’m apparently four people from Security.

Onto Soho with the ponies and The Smurf, three clubs, litres of gin and all of them packed off in cabs by 3am.

Off to bed.

After ten hours of drinking.

And I can’t fucking sleep.

Breakfast in the club, cab to Euston and a train back home – I’m in First so I have a bit more food.

Home for a quick lunch and then a walk across the fields to install a new kissing gate for the parish.

Walk back home to get chainsaws, saws and a fucking tomahawk so that we can clear the tree stump from Hell.

Many hours later, ten miles of walking back and forth, more swearwords from a couple of us than I think the third of our group has heard in their lifetime and the motherfucking stump was cleared. The cunt.

And our gate was installed.

Home for a couple of beers and a bit of dinner.

And sleep.

I’d been awake for thirty nine hours at that point, I’d walked ten miles and was somewhat surprised to make it to early evening.

Yesterday was a day of walking and more work , the dogs had some fun on the canal and helped me check a shed in a copse of trees that I’m going to repair for varmints.

And today was spent walking, doing minor jobs and chilling.

It’s been two years since my Dad died and I wasn’t sure how I’d feel today.

Life is there to be lived, I miss him, but can’t bring him back.

And I won’t be sad.

Life is here for us to enjoy if we so choose.

I choose to.

Remember to live.

Those stats won’t stay still

Sunday, May 11th 2025

A beautiful, glorious, sunny and warm day.

A day to spend outdoors, in the fields, in the park, on the streets, in your own garden.

An almost perfect English Summer’s Day.

If you’re not looking at the news of course.

Don’t go outside?

Fucking Hell.

Our ancestors are so mortified that they’re actually cringing in their graves. They’re too traumatised to spin.

We’re that pathetic.

It’s around 1830 right now and I’m drinking a beer while I cook dinner. The doglets are both shattered.

Milo because he’s walked around 5 miles today in the killer heat ( spoiler, I carry water as well as home made treats like dehydrated chicken and chicken sausages) – Cairo because she’s followed me all round the land while I cut bits of tree down and burn them – oh yeah, I dug a wildflower area over too. And also because we played for the best part of an hour with the hose and the water gun.

She absolutely loves it and so do I,

We get to play in the open air, she goes absolutely fucking apeshit, and I laugh.

A lot.

I can’t tell anybody how to live their lives, I can’t say what’s good or bad. I can’t say what’s safe or dangerous, but I can tell you what I know.

Days like today are for spending outside, having fun or getting things done. Or both.

The day that the MSM can tell us to avoid sunlight are apparently here

All we can do is laugh at them.

Hide inside.

Fuxake 😂

See that line in the field behind the dogs?

We made that, we did it over a few years and we did it by walking the fields.

Hardly anybody uses it, apart from the chap that owns all 216 acres of it and it links to more fields, a short road past a vineyard and even more fields.

I know this because we walk it regularly, anywhere between four and seven miles on a given walk – and Milo still has enough energy at the moment to run for the sheer joy of it for lots of the time.

Cairo is still propelled by rocket fuel but she’s better at coming back now after she runs off on the hunt.

We do a LOT of walking and we added some time on today to help look for a farmer’s lost dog ( not found yet, but I’m hopeful it’ll turn up soon).

Because that’s what you’re supposed to do, I think.

You don’t have to be the life of the party or one of those fucking people who wants to be everyone’s friend.

But when you get offered a choice, take the nicer one if you can.

Walk instead of driving sometimes, take a moment to look at the everyday beauty that you miss if you’re head-down and hurrying, or calling another driver a cunt because they don’t want to drive as fast as YOU do.

Take a breath.

There’s miles and miles of bluebells around here right now, they’re ethereal, beautiful and short lived.

Like us.

If you can, choose that slower, nicer path, enjoy these days while we have them.

Happy Sunday all