The trees at the bottom of the garden are being blown around in a most spectacular fashion. My weather app promises ‘sunny intervals and a fresh breeze’. Well, the breeze is certainly fresh! It’s not a bad day though. Maybe we’ll go and investigate the forest path again, now that the bluebells are long gone. We shouldn’t get blown away there.
“Trees at the bottom of the garden” - that sounds rather grand, doesn’t it? In fact the garden is quite small and would be even smaller if we and the next door neighbours decided to erect a fence between our respective bits of garden.
On the radio news I heard talk of Boris Johnson’s aim to remain prime minister into the mid 2030s. Perhaps that explains why there were plans to build a tree house in the grounds of Chequers. Here’s a section of a report about it:
“Boris Johnson planned to build a £150,000 treehouse for his son at Chequers but was stopped when police raised security concerns, it has been reported.
The prime minister and his wife, Carrie Johnson, wanted to install the structure during autumn 2020, according to a report in The Times. But they were forced to scrap the plans for the treehouse – which would have been built using expensive bulletproof glass – due to concerns it would be visible from the roadside, it has been claimed.
It is understood there were discussions about the project being funded by David Brownlow, a Tory donor, and that designs had been prepared.
The proposals were cancelled after Johnson’s close protection officers raised security concerns. However, Downing Street sources claimed the prime minister was also warned about the optics of spending £150,000 on a treehouse.
It was far from certain whether permission would have been granted by the Chequers Trust, the body that runs the Buckinghamshire manor house, due to the number of protected trees surrounding Chequers.”
When I first saw this suggestion my reaction was that he and Mrs Johnson need to be reminded that this is not their “forever” home but clearly he has ambitions for that to be so. A Tory party spokesman said that Mr Johnson wants to continue doing good things for the country. This had me spluttering into my cup of tea as I tried to think of the good things: the rich have grown richer and the poor have grown poorer! It’s rather like looking for the benefits of Brexit, such as this one:
“On 23 June 2016, Geoffrey Betts, the managing director of a small office supplies business in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, had high hopes for his firm, and the British economy, when he voted for Brexit.
“I thought we would be like … ‘here we go, here we go. We are going to become the most competitive country in Europe and we are going to be encouraging business.’ Now I think: ‘What have we done?’”
His firm, Stewart Superior, has survived, but not without major restructuring and huge efforts to get around obstacles that Brexit has put in the way of the export side of the business.
In late 2020 Betts decided there was no option but to set up a depot inside the EU single market – in the Netherlands – at considerable expense, to avoid costly delays in transit, mountains of Brexit-related paperwork at the border, and VAT issues when sending goods to customers on the continent.”
For more details on that story, here’s a link.
We watched a bit of Glastonbury last night, accidentally tuning in to the televising of Paul McCartney on the famous pyramid stage, but we didn’t keep going long enough to see the surprise appearance of Bruce Springsteen which we might have enjoyed seeing. The vastness of the crowds is astounding. I’m not sure I would enjoy being so packed in. I have though enjoyed open air concerts in Hyde Park in recent years. Tonight I won’t be seeing the Eagles or Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, two performances I would have liked to see. So it goes.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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