NO REST YET, thanks for your help... Where were you?

Grant aided neglect...

Today is yesterday's tomorrow...

Yesterday we took a detour on our way home from the market to visit a field in a neighbouring commune. One and a half hectares sheltered by mixed woodland, at present being wasted in my view to provide maize for the cattle industry.It is pointless planning for a sustainable way of living if there is nowhere to accommodate the realisation of the hopeful vision. The field is fifteen times bigger than the garden we presently occupy,we wont be abandoning the progress we make here,but our terrestrial universe is expanding. Forward planning is essential.
Anne-Sophie and I may seem naive to the majority of keyboard stabbing modernists who insist that the world is doomed, most of the inspired negativity is media led .There no sin in naivety.We don't subscribe to consensus of mass delusion, the popular view.It is doomed. Why buy in to a way of life that is guaranteed to fail to meet our long term needs?
Cows take up a lot of space more sustainably occupied by people,families. Many grant aided petrol driven and debt ridden profiteers will just have to bite the bullet. Whilst not wishing undue hardship on any working family,support must inevitably be withdrawn from an historically compromised system of agriculture that is fast
turning an agrarian heaven into an ecological hell.
The field looks sick. The crop unsuited to the ground , nitrogen starved plants not thriving alongside the more robust forest land,many cobs of corn ,blackened and diseased. The land is at present rented by a farmer who shows little concern or care by conduct for the needs of the ground, his sole motivation being the bottom line.
We don't under estimate the enormous amount of work needed to return the earth to a durable state of grace. We don't see any but the choiceless option, encouraged by our practical good results so far we are both as a married singular unit, up for the challenge.
There is enough sand by the roundhouse site to start building the walls. It is not enough to be intellectually obsessed by ideas then delegate the work to others. Enough we have had of the privileged overseers cracking the masters' whip whilst servant and slave bend their back bear the pains and do the essential work. Such systems encouraged by the compromise of state and temple have driven us thus far to the edge of the abyss. We are determined to head in another direction. What ever slim chance of survival we may have is not within the power of pyramidic institutions to administer or implement.We must take the initiative ourselves. That we have learned through our journeying and well enough we modestly do without taking liberties.The path we follow leads us ever closer to the domain of our natural evolved destiny. Home.
One step at a time,the path that leads to there starts here, there is work to do, walls to build. The road that leads away from that little responsibility leads Nowhere.
Doing the do iz all.

Forward planning...

Grasshopper...

"EMERGY"

Last Year,leading up to the Christmas holiday I nosied into Toby's list of friends, hoping to find a clue to my daughters whereabouts ,a little news at least. I found a photo with her name. I wish I could have copied it to post it here. The hair colour was not natural,possibly a wig, peroxide white.The person in the photo was dressed in fishnet tights and a seasonally bright red costume more appropriate to swimming than a practical working winter uniform. An alluring image to some I have no doubt. It made me feel nauseous. Emblazoned across the image in electric blue was the word "VODKA".That made me feel worse. I don't habitually subscribe to the alcoholic culture. The image may not have been her at all,there is a lot of that about,the memory of it has however stayed with me,a source of some sadness.
I was moved to write to the Photo given that it had her name on it but as I was ignorant of how Facebook works, if indeed it works at all, I completely messed up sending the message. I even messed up spelling her name correctly. My eyes were full up and I was too anxious to escape from the emotional morass of unhappy feelings to
check what I had done.What I thought I had sent didn't get through.I found that out yesterday. For the record I post the note here. It was meant to be read,there is probably less chance of her getting the message by posting on my blog than if I had just left it to gather dust on a file disk.
Toby,her brother tells me she is shining, to his perception perhaps. Little evidence of that is witnessed from her father's realm. I have little faith in the accuracy of his reportage.He may have cynically conjured a montage for his site just to be provocative, It didn't stay there for long,then neither did my daughters name.


"December 22nd 2008 at 3:06a.m.

No closer to freedom than the Russian revolution.
What iz the vodka label advertising?Don't poison your future family life. Sorry to see you are going grey already.What ever you are selling I have never ever wanted. I love you the way any "fucking sad old twat of a Dad "would, with tears in my eyes.Glamour ain't beauty girl.don't wear the good stuff out, it is meant to last a lifetime.Check out my blog if you're curious,Got any non toxic photos?Dobri dyen Babushka Yalublyu tebeh It's not sirilicscript I didnt finish the course before I left school ,Do the head work yourself.You Know where to find me if you need me."

I hope to write up some of my more tear jerking Christmas tales before the holiday season starts. You will probably be glad I didn't if I fail. Lapsed Christians celebrate in denial of the massacre of their own innocents.

To the late Toby Izlington...on the dangers of conforming to a redundant academic faculty.

BEWARE OF KLEVVA SPEAK. You seem to have hoovered up a lot of less than useless waffle over time, which may make you feel more acceptable with your peer group. I never dumbed down to relate to you conversationally in your early years son. It is essential to maintain a practical common lexicon.I have heard you use phrases that though delivered with confidence make you look like a confused intellectual, an arrogant one at that. It has never been my wish that it should be so. Having heard you using the term "paradigm shift" a few too many times to not be a matter for concern I feel I must insist that you shift your own and move your head to safer ground. You appear to be at some risk caused by your perceived need to "DUMB UP". I found a neat little example of a symptomatic observable"glitch".

" Thanks for the presentation. I think you have hit the hammer right on the head with the paradigm shift idea..." From someone calling themselves a "Campus Technology Co-ordinator".

Funny, if it wasn't so tragic. They have the technology but perhaps they don't have the intelligence they were born with.
Your FFFing Sad Old Tooter of a Dad remains unmoved and duly unimpressed by the standard of modern higher education. They would do well to insist that seven years "on the shovel" ought to be prerequisite to applying for a post in a teaching facility. Sounding as though you know is like seeming to care.
I never claimed to be a teacher Toby, it wouldn't be safe. I will stick with my practical applications son. The TOOTER doesn't need a POOTER.
They that learn know that they who teach don't do the do. You would be well served if you could work along side me and shoot the breeze occasionally. If the historic mistake isn't buried in short order it will virally infect all of whom it attempts to influence. Peer group acceptance of your ideas is no qualification that would pass muster in the real world.The consensus delusion contributes too little to the common life support.
At home now we have just managed to buy four bags of hydraulic lime, we will have saved for the next four by the time they are used up. I am not setting absolute deadlines as to when each task is meant to be finished, It is on going, for life.
Progress in all directions. A worthy cause for modest celebration.
It looks from this side of the quarantine moat as though the " clever kids" of the U.K. are desperate to get into debt. Crisis avoidance doesn't seem to have been put very high on the popular agenda. Your voluntary acceptance of our "Last Worlder" strategy would serve you with the nourishment that your umbilical strangulation and amniotic suffocation has deprived you of most. Your overburdened mam can't compensate for that unfortunate start, nor may your valued peer friendships.The state institutions are evidently in receivership, morally , economically and intellectually bankrupt.Catch up
and keep up or be left behind in the trashcan of the post Empires' decay. Your subscription to moribund reconstruction is lamentably out of date for all the liquid crystalline flash. Protesting retrospectively against eviction in Calais is an ironic turn of coat. My own protest against my eviction and the wholly undue uncaring and callous lock out by your "liberal" family group, found no practical support in your personal camp. You actually capitalised on it. So you still do in many ways.
"Them paradigms are a shifty old lot an no mistake, they concentrate so bloomin hard on the ever changin variables they misses the constancies altogether." Sez Iz "They would hit the wall afore they found the door,I'm mortal sick of havin to hold it open."
"There's better ways forward thats for sure.""Justice for all sez I not jus for us OR them."
Our little situation is temporarily obstructed by law Toby. Without the need for undue protest the rules are to be reviewed. Others will most likely benefit, what with the ever shifting paradigms n'all.(They can't help it they do it on their own)We accommodate the fact of Law into the strategy of our progressive planning. Our desired result will be achieved to our own satisfaction,we will go round the elephant that bars our way.Basic political "science" son. Out dated or improper law difficult to overturn once due process is being served. O.K. the point will be understood well enough even if you aren't ranting against the eviction of the immigrants. When you said you were coming here via Dunkirk the only other option was you have a bloody useless sense of direction. You may have,we will have to see. You may not turn up here at all. I will without a doubt have a pile of stuff to say about that if you don't.
Well there you are then SNOT. I will see you if you ever get here in reality. Don't leave it too late.

Father and son...

How old is the right age...?

Two people over the space of a week passed comments about my age. One comment , "Chill out old man"in some kind of retaliation against my criticism of a festival . The "Old Man" crack though poorly designed was meant to be a put down I guess. The other reference to my age came from a local man who was delivering telephone books in the village. We were engaged in conversation,just shooting the breeze,he spoke of some unnatural prejudice that he had to face,(he sported a full beard,he said he was a "Goth"). He asked me how old I was. On telling him he looked surprised. He was just checking out his curious estimate. He had figured me to be at least fifteen years younger than my actual fifty eight years. The other fellow had never met me in real life,a Facebook aquaintance, I can't claim to know him,I am not one for using age as any kind of rank or credential,nor youth for that matter. One size fits all civilization makes no differentiation. The second man although our meeting was brief expressed integrated views that weren't spawned in some spurious , exclusive ageist mindset.
I see no stigma in being old,attitudes are borne from experience. We may reject the counsel of caring friends and relatives but I see little need to stick ones head in the fire even just the once as a token act of rebellion against the collected common wisdom.
There are some who adopt the posture "if it is good for one,it is good for all" The first man felt challenged by my criticism. The thinking is flawed in my view. My preference
is more closely expressed as "if it is good for all,it may be good for one". Old and young are a singular entity. What is good for all we may pass on and share to the common benefit WE are inclusively THE PEOPLE.
I doubt that either of the men will read this, I would be frankly amazed if anyone does.They can pick the bones out of it themselves,or leave it on the side of the plate, as they like.It makes no odds to me. I am not dead yet.
I'll post a picture taken earlier today, the view from the path outside the house, Father and son working together to improve the familial homeland. The older man is still doing manually strenuous work(he's nearly seventy years of age) he never seems to stop.His son is driving the digger. Fair play to both.

Three kilos of peaches make nine jars of conserve...

Methinks they protest too much...

Until my little haven is complete,I have to accept that I will have to stay plugged into the national grid.Gradually we will reduce our dependency. Maintaining healthy bodies and healthy minds at home is our full time preoccupation.Our little field is still without a workshop,it will take a lot of manual effort,I have yet to see if whats left of me mortal credits are sufficient to the needs.If I don't get manual assistance @ 0% Commission, to mix the mortar I will have to rely on using an electric mixer. If that is beyond our economic reach I am resolved to just potter on mixing a few buckets at a time until the job is done. This isn't a protest against the Big Mistake, we are slowly but surely leaving all that behind both the protest and the mistake.. Achieving more with less is what it's about. If your progress leads you anywhere but towards a sustainable and equitable homelife, you are heading in the wrong direction.Here I am writing in English,who that ever spoke or wrote that language would understand to realise the point of the message."Superior" cultures become decadent then die.Abandon hope all who look to the high tables of the priveleged for a direction forward.The bi polar choice of Party or Protest is ultimately the road to poverty. How many of the 20,000 disappointed B.G.G. Festi fans have homes that really work properly. A vast number are just waiting for their overworked parents to die before any worthy lasting contribution will be forthcoming. I doubt that many of the Vestival crowd that recently invaded the Isle of Wight to protest against the wind turbine factory have invested their expertise and intelligence in providing their own domestic environment with sustainable energy source for their own cottage industry and home needs. We have had the technology and the collective knowledge to have divested ourselves of the need for the crude and wasteful 240 or 140volt domestic grid supplyfor the best part of a generation already. Those rich and priveleged enough to Protest and party are hardly to be held up as iconic examples to those forced by economic need to work throughout the summer. Then what?Indulgence in the regurgitated festifool nostalgia of the late sixties. I admit it I was there in 69 and 70. There has been plenty of time since then to wish I wasn't. It isn't worth repeating a new version of our historic folly or recycling the old one.
Three kilos of peaches has just been turned into nine jars of peach conserve, They will contribute well to the gradual improvement in the quality of our life here. Some of the stones will be sown in pots to bring on as new trees. A few for our little patch and scores to give away. this year we will sow silver birch and ash seeds to replant in the utility wood and to repopulate a small field that is to become our final homeland. I will be sowing damson and mirabelle stones in the hedge between the hazels. We are still looking to find a good crabapple. Hello Family. I haven't left you behind. I have just gone on ahead of you. Drag your heels at your peril.If you wait till I am dead you will be too old and decrepit to benefit from what I am doing now.The way the youth parties it is probably to late for them already. Leaves them fit for nowt worth keeping.
We will inevitably pull the plug on the mains electricity supply. Most of our vocational interests don't need any. This years Tax on the field came to an E-normous single Euro. The "rates" on the house cost about a hundred and eighty Euros.You'll not find one of these when you are out shopping. It's a life of working progress.
All is well in the Izdom of Iz. I still try to get through to the people I care about.I have given up on talking in frustration to the wall. Blah,Blah. Ha, Ha
Pardon me did I wake you. It is a quarter past four,in the afternoon.Go back to sleep. I will write again soon.

Ready for the syrup...

Merci Beaucoup, Jean-Gérard et Yvonne...

Peaches and brugnons in scary quantity. Our good neighbours have been giving away some of their excess harvest.Bountiful nature makes folk generous.Anne-Sophie has heard that her Aunt Paulette has a stash of preserving jars she wont be using this season, what luck! A friend has given us some jam jars, I will be making peach conserve this afternoon. Anne-So has already stoned and bottled three large jars of brugnons,a small strong flavoured old variety of nectarine type fruit.The syrup is being prepared, there was just enough sugar in the cupboard for the job. Some of the brugnons will be preserved whole. Looks like I will be doing some baking this evening.Peach pie and a crumble . All the less perfect fruit will be trimmed and made into compot. The aroma in the kitchen will be delightful

Les pêches et les brugnons...

On Iz High Horse...

I have been reading about the intrigues leading up to the cancellation of the Big Green Gathering. I guess I am biased. Not partisan in favour of police or festi fans,but on behalf of the environment I am kind of glad that it didn't happen. I can't see the point of luring 20,000 people to a rural region in the name of progressive "green" politics. The self indulgent waste of resources would have been better spent closer to their homelands or perhaps not spent at all. The busiest time of the year in the garden is regularly ignored. Britain is in recession it imports most of its food. One third of the European domestic debt is owed by British households, maybe partying will take minds off responsibilities something to look forward to in the holidays. Doesn't say much for the quality of life at home.The reportage spoke of steel perimeter fencing, watchtowers,a small army of security people. With the vast number of vehicles anticipated to arrive en-masse blowing the green credentials out of their exhaust pipes. The ecology might well sip a small oxygenated sigh of relief. It is about time the "smiling revolution" came out of their exclusive festival closets and attempted to integrate with the working population. No noble cause is going to be won by peeing their energy up against the tent flap. If that was the optimum way forward there would be little need to protest by now. Count your blessings sez I make your idealism make sense at home in your local communities..20,000 people stomping the life out of rural land does more harm than Agribusiness. Is that what is meant by treading lightly on the earth? The "underground" subculture of theatrical distraction is a cynical facade posturing under the green flag of convenience.ZERO FUN MILES, the good work, the real progress, starts and ends at HOME.Learn to enjoy it. Learn to share it.Doing the do is all .

It is two inches long and it eats carrot leaves...

Today is yesterday I'm in tomorrow now...you mean it's Tuesday already?But the news said it was Wednesday

13th September 2009, yesterday, was a Sunday. For the most part a cloudless breezy blue sky day. A little bit of hoeing and sowing, mache, a hardy late season salad green. Then off to Plelan Le Grand to pick up the bread from the market. Thought I might hear from the late Toby”Triscal” Izlington,(call him SNOT). Even his Facebook site registered a notification of a comment on his wall as Wednesday whilst the rest of the world was dwelling in Thursday, in my matrix at least. I spent some time in thought trying to reconstruct the memory of some writing that I lost whilst feigning interest in a movie. No good, I can remember to speak but not to rewrite. A pity, it was a good piece of work. As the day cooled I watered the garden after raking flat a patch of newly weeded ground. The Ble Noir in the centre circle has germinated after only three days. We collected a bucket of peaches excess to Marie Therese’s needs. One small tree had broken in half snapped at the trunk under the weight of fruit. After tasting these small beauties I will never be impressed again by the overblown bland commercially grown canning factory varieties. As each year progresses we will accumulate more preserving jars, we have some peaches already bottled in syrup and some have been made into compot.I guess we will have to “put up” with having to eat so many fresh ones. We could do with a bit of help. What can’t be conserved or eaten is given away to local friends and relatives. Boxes of intoxicating delicious aromatic edible jewels.
Five or six small trees are growing well in our little field, they don’t last many years as productive trees but they are easy to grow, there will always be more to follow the ones that are spent.
Today,14th September is about to see me wheeling barrows of seaweed to the field . It has been rained on a few times,but it is not quite ready for use on the ground. I will bring it closer to it’s final destination and stack it in the centre of the bottom circle. I will wash more salt out of it when I am doing the watering of an evening.
That night... it rained.
Everything moved(or was it me?) I found myself completely surrounded by Monday,
I think I will go outside and try and wear a hole in it. The path needs hoeing, plenty of tidying from unfinished jobs ,that'll do for the present, it'll set me up nice for a pleasant tomorrow.

The Tree House Gallery is closed...

... the donations page,however is still open. One wonders if they will be publishing their accounts. Do tell.

It's just a phase they are going through,bless 'em. It keeps them off the streets.

It works better as a roof in a photograph. at least there is no fear of rain pouring through the screen. Comments on the tree house being "really cool", by curious visitors were confirmed in the night. "Bloody freezing" would be nearer the mark. The "house" had no walls to speak of save for a bookshelf, below which was a metre of space.hardly the most practical of barriers against the wind . None of the "artists" endured the spartan comfort of the tree houses,some valuable lessons may have been learned had they been forced contractually to inhabit the platforms full time.
Messrs Adams and Ogilvie,budding architects I am told could do with a professional spanking for their part. I would love to meet them to discuss their work. As a subcontract carpenter and joiner I encountered many design failures pumped out by button pressing computer aided whizz kids. By the level and the square,put your professional ambitions on ice until you have learned how the three dimensional world works, and please don't turn your hand to designing boats,even temporary ones.
What purported to be a library was the worst of locations for books.A place to collect mold spores from the flimsy bark bindings hurriedly tied to the spines to make the picture look right I guess. The bark strips quickly fell off once someone tried to use the books. Some of these people are post graduates, thinks I . Happen they should get a backyard of their own to complete their learning curve. Better off shop window dressing .
I read and copied the various promotional blurbs on the Tree House Gallery web pages. I will most likely target some of the Silly Con Artists at a later date on my blog if I have no opportunity to vent my spleen at them in person.They're lovely people mind you. Pleasant polite sociable individuals. Well spoken and well meaning,but as a working collective,by no means well seemingly unused and untrained to create any much of lasting worth. A multi disciplinary body with little discipline. I was up every day at sunrise. Greeting and greeted by the early morning joggers, strollers and constitutional dog walkers. Where was the team? They didn't emerge until most of the morning was over. Those who didn't scuttle off to more comfortable surroundings for the night were huddled in a little yurt at the back of a shelter that served as a rain proof office. The media 's obsessional promotion of the various illnesses and pandemics was enough of a discouragement against joining the group all be it in warmer and dryer circumstance. There are worse discomforts than sleeping in a tree house. Minimising the risk of illness is a good way to avoid dying of an N.H.S. cure.
So what's next? I have heard tell that the B.B.C. "Apprentice" team may cover the cost of dismantling. Folk are too soft. My prefered option is to compel all who promoted their names and their firms on the web should physically dismantle the installation and carry it manually through London to storage space which I have heard was offered by a "man from the Tate". It doesn' cheer my little albionic heart in the least to bear witness to webwide beggary for food materials workers performers and money. Hardly dignified in the fifth richest country in the world.The blagging could have been done for their cause a lot more discreetly. Was the event a registered charity? I don't think so. Yet it posed as an act of altruism. Who was the event intended to serve? I stayed there for over a week. Never really got a clear definition off anyone involved. I was left having to make one or two up for myself. It didn't do what it said on the tin lads and lasses.If the self funding group sells the installation to reimburse itself It will lend the lie to any claims it made in it's promotion. The sordid end of game intrigues and commercial politics I don't want to waste my head on. Compromise is difficult to wash off when it sticks to idealism.The more you try to scrub it clean the deeper it ingrains.
No apologies from me. I wish much luck in their individual futures. May the late Toby "Izlington" get the point of my incessant grumbling if no one else does.

Aubergines...

Home based economy...

Our microscopic income has afforded us a replacement for the camera that was stolen whilst visiting the Tree House Gallery in Regent's Park. It means we will be subsisting on not much more than a hundred Euros this month, but a record of the continuous progress is regarded as essential. I am so grateful to be back in my "reality zone". My workshop development has been on hold for months awaiting recovery of my health.
I found myself being extremely critical of the "goings on" in Regent's Park. I will most probably stab out miles of writing on my impressions , later (much later I hope) it isn't over yet. I am intrigued to see how the "Backyard in the park" event will end. Not so much the performances or talks,as the installation itself. My little sanctuary doesn't seem like such a foolish indulgence now. Temporary establishment doesn't work for me.Once we have started sticking stones down more sense than mere photograghs will come of the space. Permanent facility for all manner of creative work integrating art and craft at home.
I have often heard the phrase "get a Life!" but am still at a loss as to what folk mean when they say that. I am certain that it must mean a different something to each person who utters it. For me, a working life is my soul posession.Finding a way to optimize the gift has been the purpose of the long journey to date.
A design for living ,designing for life,is what I envisaged going to art college to study 3d design would be all about. It didn't happen. My burning vision of what I wanted to achieve in my hopeful youth is still with me in spite of much cynical opposition and obstruction encountered on the way. I feel young enough to think of my "life's work" ahead with optimism. I don't plan to retire as such. The gradual movement towards a long term sustainable pace is evolving.The seasons dictate the agenda of our labours. Perishables need preserving. Plantings and sowings need nurture. The work we do today is destined to support and enhance life far beyond tomorrow.Designing and building a future fit to live in is our modest full time occupation.
Anne-Sophie prepares peaches to make a compot. There will be apples to gather later. I will be sowing green manure on the centre circle as soon as the recent rains have dried enough. The winter salad is reviving since it was planted a day or two ago. A patch of mache has been sown but is not yet showing. I have just lifted some carrots for supper. We have all the ingredients now for Brinjal (aubergine),pickle. We will wait till the fruits have reached optimum size. they are looking good.I look forward to filling jars.The nearer to tasting.
Two summers ago my son sent me some runner bean seeds. They were hard to find in this region. We shared some of our seed with Marie Therese who also shared hers with friends. The way it is going we may never need to buy runnerbeans ever again. We have some in the freezer some are stored dry. what is left after this year will be planted on next year. Tomorrow we will be freezing patisson squash. I made Borsch today for the first time. I topped it with cream and basil flowers. It was good. Our home economy is strong and stable. The little bit of good we can generate is invested towards the greater good to come. Out of our context I still appear to be a raggedy man,I am content not to need to dress up to enjoy the ever growing prosperity at home. Austerity is not poverty.