Sunday 22 July 2012

Broad beans and cabaret this afternoon


I popped down to my allotment yesterday afternoon to see what I could harvest in preparation for cooking a dish for this afternoon's Brent Stop the War/PSC fundraiser. Pretty dispiriting compared with last year when courgettes, french beans etc were available. This year the slugs have had them and much else beside. The combination of early drought and later heavy rain - and lack of warm sunshine - has been devastating.  I have been left with lots of broad beans and a few globe artichokes so I am having to use my imagination and creativity. Plenty of raspberries for summer pudding but sweet corn has barely moved for weeks.

All this has led to many conversations with fellow allottees, not just about climate change but also recognising that if we were small-holders relying on our crops to feed our families this year, they would probably starve. Which of course confronts you with the realities of farming in this country as well as subsistence farming abroad. Salutary

Anyway the sun is out so this afternoon's fund-raiser in a lovely garden in Willesden Green with wonderful food, live music (including a cabaret performance by Green Party member Deborah Fink) and bar should go well.  The garden party starts at 4pm so there is still time to book your ticket.

Cash bar. For more information or to reserve your ticket
ring / text 07951 084 101

1 comment:

Trevor said...

Although I'm no expert I think it is safe to assume and it wouldn't surprise me that maybe The lack of a wide variety of veg on your allotment is down to climate change.
and I base my assumption on the following facts.
1.humans( particularly the government and health experts) have long known about the danger of smoking and over 60 years ago Doctor Richard Doll wrote a Report that Highlighted the link between smoking and Lung cancer.
and the government's response was lukewarm to say the least.
Doctor Doll even Watered His Report Down which was unhelpful considering his report acted as a much needed eye opener on how bad habits can cause serious problems environmentally and physically.
and so basically when you have people @ the wheel of government who are warned about a huge pit if you like in the road of life and their response to to drive on right into it...well problems can surely be expected.
2.The government recently gave a certain Louise Casey the responsibility of trying to help parents who consistently have more children than they can manage, to learn to be basically Wise by thinking before they act rather than continuing to bring more and and more children into the world which they cannot afford to feed clothe and look after.
so the responsibility is put upon the welfare state and the tax payer to help look after these often unplanned babies.
now to try to inspire women to make wise decisions is not a bad idea of course, but when you compare what these women do and the effect it has upon society on whole, in comparison to what the government did by legalizing smoking which has played a major part in why 130,000 people die in this country alone every year from lung cancer, I think it is obvious that the government made a very reckless careless and irresponsible decision when they legalized smoking.
after all their decision even though the public themselves ultimately make the choice to smoke or not, but the government being well aware of the dangers and yet decide to close their eyes and open them instead to the thought of raking in billions in tax revenue rather than thinking of the thousands of deaths that would surely occur says it all really.
therefore I conclude that if human governments are capable of making bad decisions that have a negative affect upon human society, then we should not for a moment think it is not possible that human activity can also cause damage to the climate.
for example I urge local residents to take a walk along Hannah close and atlas road and see for yourselves how human activity has caused serious environmental problems.
the dust in the air is unacceptable in my opinion and when you see how the dust alone regularly blocks the street drains literally solid, if you are reasonable you will agree with me that human activity is damaging not just the inhabitants of planet earth(our home)but it is damaging our home Too and that cannot and should not be allowed to get out of control for good reason.
anyway that is my opinion.