Last day of Winter. It's cold and wet and the forecast for the rest of the week isn't much better. The war in Ukraine is thill raging although talks started between Russia and Ukraine today.
Here's a cat to cheer you up.
Monday 28 February 2022
27 February 2022
Great walk on Old Pale with Pete and Anthea. Unfortunately, there was a haze so we couldn't see Liverpool and Manchester. We had a crafty pint in the Blue Cap on the way home.
26 February 2022
Another walk by the river. It's beginning to feel more spring-like but still pretty cold.
Thursday 24 February 2022
24 February 2022
Even grimmer news. The Russians have invaded Ukraine. I hope they meet little resistance. Why? Becuase the Russians will win and I don't want needless lives to be lost. Let's hope Putin has bitten off more than he can chew.
I've taken lots of pictures of this barn on Eaton Lane. Here is my latest. It's probably the least interesting one becuase of the way the light is falling.
23 February 2022
Putin has sent troops into the Donbass. Ukraine could be next. Not good. Pathetic sanctions from the Tory government. But they love their Russian donors and the City is a money laundering centre for dodgy money.
Not that any of this bothers Rio. He's snug in his basket. He even has his own chair!
22 February 2022
22 02 2022 - Today is twosday and today Peter and I went out for a local walk around our village. It was cold and blustery but thankfully not wet - apart from the muddy footpaths. It was a good walk followed by a pint in the Bulls Head.
Today we saw ten Cormorants which is the most I've ever seen by the river. We also saw a Grebe and some Canada Geese. It was hard getting a decent pic of the Cormorants with my mobile (see pic 2).
Monday 21 February 2022
21 February 2022
Today's Big news is that Boris Johnson is expected to remove all remaining covid restrictions in England. Rishi Sunak wants to end free testing and it's not clear yet when this will happen. There will be no requirement to self isolate. Imaging being a teacher and having to go into work when you know that you have covid.
Of course this is all to improve Johnson's chances of remaining PM and help him to curry favour with the coronavirus idiot sceptics on his back benches. But he did say 'let the bodies pile high' and that is what has happened with over 180,000 deaths so far, and BTW now the queen has covid.
To add to all this the country is still recovering from 3 consecutive storms - Dudley, Eunice and Franklin. There has been widespread flooding, 4 people died and 1.4 million were left without power.
On a brighter note here's a photo I took the other day of the Three Trees near where I live. One had been damaged in the storm.
Sunday 20 February 2022
18 February 2022
I missed another day but I have got plenty of photos to share. I recently rewatched one of my all-time favourite films, In The Heat Of The Night which stars two of my favourite ever actors - Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger. Set in the deep south Poitier plays the role of Virgil Tibbs a detective who has been visiting his mother and is waiting at a station for a rail connection when a murder happens in the small town. Stieger is the local police chief. Highly recommended. I couldn't resist taking some photos.
Wednesday 16 February 2022
16 February 2022
It's wet and windy with storm Dudley. Worse to come on Friday apparently. Today I have been finishing my brief guide to campaigning which I have plans to share with a new left party.
More will be revealed when I've had a discussion with them.
Tuesday 15 February 2022
14 February 2022
Valentines Day. I didn't get a card. Despite the rain which we've had for the past few days Peter and I managed a half-decent walk. We met up at the Bulls Head near Mottram St Andrews, sheltered from the rain for an hour while we nursed our pints, and then when it has stopped we went for a short walk down to the River Bollin, doing a circuit back by Mottram Hall. This was far from what we'd originally planned but we managed without getting wet.
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| Down the lane |
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| RiverBollin |
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| Mottram Hall |
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| The Bulls Head |
11 February 2022
Friday. The big news at the moment is Ukraine. Russia has moved troops close to the border and there is a row about Ukraine joining NATO. I'm no fan of Putin but I can see the Russians have some legitimate concerns. The Western media seems very keen on there being a war - but there's nothing new about that - they always big up western sabre rattling. Johnson is mouthing off but no one takes Little Britain seriously anymore.
A quick trip into town so I took this photo of the figures on the Salty Dog.
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10 February 2022
Went for a walk by the river and took this picture of a Cormorant, one of my favourite birds.
8 February 2022
Doing a short blog post every day sounds really easy. It should be but here I am a week behind and some days with no photos. Anyway here's a photo of some Buzzards circling over the back garden.
Thursday 10 February 2022
7 February 2022
Great walk today with Peter visiting White Nancy near Bollington. It was built as a monument to Waterloo. We were lucky with the weather it was mild and sunny for most of the walk. Tons of MUD though! I never want to see any mud again! We had trouble finding a pub that was open in Rainow so moved on to the Holly Bush in Bollington for a pint of Robinsons.
6 February 2022
Today I attended a Zoom meeting for the Chiltinas. Based in the Chilterns this is a concertina group set up by my father Geoff Thorp twenty-five years ago. They used to meet at his house Witchway Cottage near Maulden, and my stepmother Carol used to make them cakes. Good to see that they are still going strong. Many thanks to Dad's friend Martin Henshaw for inviting me.
My Dad died seven years ago. Here's a picture of me and my Dad out walking in the Pennines near Todmorden.
Sunday 6 February 2022
5 February 2022
Today I spent some time watching Guy Standing talking about universal basic income on YouTube. He's done some great work on UBI and the commons and I'd recommend any of his books on these subjects.
4 February 2022
I managed to spend a fair amount of time reading when I should really have been writing but I wanted to finish The Nutmeg's Curse by Amitav Ghosh. It's an excellent and thought-provoking book that takes us on a journey from colonialism to the climate crisis and concludes that we are going to have to respect sentient nature if we are going to survive.
Thursday 3 February 2022
3 February 2022
The big news today is the energy crisis. Bills are set to rise by 54% this year - that's an average of about £700 per household. Sunak has announced a £350 rebate - £200 of your bill paid by the government and £150 off council tax. The £250 will have to be repaid over the next four years.
All this from a government which recently wrote off £8.4 billion that it spent on rubbish PPE and £4.3 billion on covid loan fraud!
To cheer things up a bit here's a photo I took last summer of bees on one of my Sunflowers.
2 February 2022
Another quiet day apart from a visit to see the diabetic nurse. The latest test results are good!
Here's a couple of pages from a book I started to write years ago with illustrations and walks on my favourite mountains.
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| Lochnagar |
1 February 2022
A quiet day for me. The good news is that it's been fairly mild which is great given that we have an energy crisis on the way. The bad news is that Boris Johnson is still PM and still lying in parliament about #PartyGate and the Sue Gray report. Ian Blackford, the SNP leader in the HoC was kicked out by speaker Lyndsey Hoyle after calling Boris Johnson a Liar. The country continues to lurch from crisis to crisis.
Here's another book from my recommended book list. vast tracts of our country are in private hands. Much of this was common land stolen from us.
Tuesday 1 February 2022
31 January 2022
Out for a walk with Peter. We met up at Wincle, one of our favourite spots. Wincle is on the River Dane, it has a good pub called the Ship Inn and it's very own brewery which makes really good beer. It's also great walking country being close to the Roaches and Lud's Church.
Today we crossed Danebridge and walked along the River Dane path. This is an excellent if muddy, walk by the river, which passes through a gorge and then you meet the path which goes uphill to Lud's Church. Finally, you cross the ridge and descend back to Danebridge, and here we had an excellent pint of pale ale at the Brewery.
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| Had to take a photo of this handsome chap |
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| Rock outcrop near Lud's Church |
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| Lud's Church |
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| Stuttlingsloe from the ridge |
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