Rosie Wench's Cottage

WWII veteran Captain Tom captured the heart of the nation and inspired many when he set out to raise £1,000 for NHS charities during the pandemic by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday in April 2020. On the day of his 100th birthday, Captain Tom’s campaign had raised £32.8 million!

17th July, 1717 - The premiere of George Frideric Handel’s Water Music.

Handel composed the Water Music in response to a request from King George I for a concert on the River Thames. On this day George I boarded a barge at Whitehall Palace to listen to the performance by 50 musicians aboard a second barge, as he sailed up river to Chelsea.

17th July, 924 - The death of Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons.

WWII veteran Captain Tom captured the heart of the nation and inspired many when he set out to raise £1,000 for NHS charities during the pandemic by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday in April 2020. On the day of his 100th birthday, Captain Tom’s campaign had raised £32.8 million!

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 & 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬, Joint Patrons of The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, have written a letter to mark its 𝟏𝟕𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐍𝐇𝐒 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 was founded in 1851, as the world’s first hospital dedicated entirely to cancer treatment, research, and education. It is a specialist cancer hospital and research centre that works closely with its principal academic partner - the Institute of Cancer Research. Together they are ranked amongst the top five cancer care & research centres in the world caring for over 60,000 patients every year.

In 2025, the Princess of Wales underwent her chemotherapy treatment at The Royal Marsden in 2024. She became Joint Patron alongside her husband who had been its president since 2007.

They said :

❝ As The Royal Marsden celebrates its 175th Anniversary this year, we wanted to write to thank you, the staff and volunteers of this remarkable institution, for all you have done and continue to do.

We are extremely proud to be Joint Patrons of The Royal Marsden, a place that means a great deal to the both of us. Since 1851, the hospital has led the way in cancer research, education and treatment, building a legacy of innovation and compassion for its patients. This compassion is something we have experienced ourselves, along with the professionalism and dedication that have come to define The Royal Marsden.

As you mark this significant milestone, we hope you will have the opportunity to reflect on the outstanding work undertaken at the hospital, and all that you do, day in, day out, to ensure it remains a kind, caring and safe place for patients and their loved ones.

Even with the enormous advances made over the last 175 years, from genomics and immunotherapy to data and AI, The Royal Marsden's values and core mission have remained unchanged; to provide compassionate, personalised care through collaboration and innovation, to help people live well beyond cancer.

Homemade Cornish Pasties, the miner's treasure.

The word pasty is derived from the medieval French word paste... a pie filled with salmon, venison or other meat, vegetables and cheese, baked without using a dish.

In the 13th Century pasties were a food for the wealthy. In the year 1208, King John granted a charter to Great Yarmouth, Norfolk to supply “100 herrings, baked in 24 pasties.”

It was in the 17th or 18th Century that pasties became associated with the tin miners of Cornwall. The Cornish pasties often contained a savoury filling at one end, and a sweet filling at the other. The pastry was simply to stop the fillings of the pasty being contaminated by the miners’ hands.

Lancashire cheese and ham as a filling.

(We've had them, and they're grand as'owt!)

Then there's the Butter Pie that grew from the need of Lancashire's large Catholic contingent to eat no meat on Friday.

The former East Terrace Garden at Windsor Castle has been redesigned by King Charles, and renamed the Venus Garden. Today it opened the the public for the first time, and will remain open until mid September.

The design reflects the King's keen interest in biodiversity and sustainability. The floral shaped pattern is based on the orbit of planet Venus over the course of eight years.

This area was the private bowling green of Charles II. It was first laid out as a garden in the 1820's to provide a pleasant view from George IV's new private apartments. It has been changed several times over the last two hundred years. It was here that Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret grew vegetables as part of the "Dig For Victory" campaign during WWII. The last major transformation was designed by Prince Philip in 1971, and featured around 3,500 rose bushes.

16th July 2026. King Charles and Queen Camilla were close to my farm, during a visit to Dorset today.

You have never known the joy of food until you are lunging at your friend to rip the best part of the chicken out of their hand, rolling around on the tarp, stuffing it in your face before they can retaliate, and you realize “holy shit did I just growl?” And then you realize they are doing it too.

- grocery shopping at farmer markets

- growing food

- cooking your own meals, even worse when you enjoy it, do it well and use gas stoves

- living in the countryside, or dreaming about living in the countryside instead of cities

- owning property/house

- homeschooling your children, wanting to stay home when you become a mother

- knowing correct grammar

- preferring books over TV shows

- wanting to know the complete ingredient list of drugs and vaccines, listening to your personal doctor instead of the doctor on TV

Better to deprive the accusations of any power by doing these very sensible things anyway.

We have a few farm shops around, and whilst it wouldn't be possible to do a full shop there, we have got some great quality fruit, veg, cheese and meat from them. And they're well used, which is great.

We have various herbs growing and using them freshly picked really does make a difference.

Hubby planted fruit trees and bushes. We've had our own gooseberries and cherries this year, and Hubby and our younger son have been picking wild plums and blackberries.

Getting out into our glorious English countryside keeps one grounded in the Local Environment that's ours to honour and protect.

The more they try to say that great authors like Tolkein, C. S. Lewis etc are White Supremacist, the more I want to read them.

Because I can't see anything in their sublime work that it's wrong to learn.

If such people don't want me to learn this stuff, then By God Who Made Us

You have never known the joy of food until you are lunging at your friend to rip the best part of the chicken out of their hand, rolling around on the tarp, stuffing it in your face before they can retaliate, and you realize “holy shit did I just growl?” And then you realize they are doing it too.

💗 Men are not predators by nature.

💗 Half the human race is not evil by birth.

💗 Manhood itself is not something to be rejected outright.

💗 Not all masculinity is toxic.

💗 There is beauty and joy in masculinity.

I adore being a woman, and I love my fellow women and girls dearly.

But I equally love men and boys.

I revel in femininity, but it's not immune to being used badly instead of well.

Masculinity is the same. It can be used badly, certainly. But it can be used well too.

“white men can’t be oppressed” -> gay men

“heterosexual men can’t be oppressed” -> trans men

“cis-het men can’t be oppressed” -> intersex men

“perisex men can’t be oppressed” -> disabled men

“able-bodied men can’t be oppressed” -> neurodivergent men

“cis-het perisex white able-bodied neurotypical men can’t be oppressed” -> buddy let me tell you about wealth and class and homelessness and immigrants and minority languages and cultures and being a child and being an elderly person and and and

Privilege is also fluid and dependent on context. Most if not all people have ways in which they are privileged and ways in which they are not. Hold privilege over others in some contexts and not in others.

For fuck's sake, even Joe Biden, arguably the most powerful person on Earth, was run out of the Presidency mid-election by his own party because he was old and had a stutter.

His whiteness, maleness, cisness, heterosexuality, Christianity, Americanness, and relative wealthiness did not protect him from ageism and ableism (there was also a lot of indirect racism and misogyny in there, as a lot of the "OMG Biden's OLD!" stuff was actually just blatant code for "What if he dies in office and a woman of colour replaces him?")

Some people have more privilege. Some have less. Nobody is immune to having privilege. Nobody is immune to being discriminated against. It is context-dependent.

This, exactly this, is why I have absolutely no time for the Oppressor v Oppressed world view.

No. It doesn't mean that I ignore the terrible things that people do to each other. Those things are real and to be fought against.

But they're not simple black and white to fit into neat boxes for judging purposes.

It's a landscape of infinite shades of grey, stemming from the fact that whatever differences are between us, common humanity will always unite us, for good and for bad.

when you say "Zionist"

it's either "Jewish person who has LESS THAN NO say in the war/terrorism policy of govt of the political entity-nation of Israel but who I get to hate and attack because they are Jewish" or "Jewish person who wants to go to/worpship in/die in their Homeland" OR "Person who happens to be Jewish, who wants Palestinians dead and therefore is an evil shit, not for being Jewish but for this attitude"

And you have never differentiated between these people! You seem weirdly Super Excited that using the term Zionist means you to get to defame and attack Jews. No matter what Zionist even means. And it actually seems to have a lot of meanings, some good some bad.

Almost like the word, or the longing for Home, isn't the problem, it is The Humans who want to kill other humans who are the problem.

So frankly? "Did you know X is a ZIONIST???" is just a dogwhistle to me at this point. In the bickering I've been seeing, "Zionist" could just mean "on their blog they expressed a deeply held desire to visit the Wall in Jerusalem someday" and not "Wants genocide" but YOU GUYS treat them like they're the SAME THING.

and I'm a freakin' GOY. I have no dog in this fight but the Native American solidarity with Jewish people for being systematically eradicated over centuries, and the Human need to see neither Palestinians OR Jews suffer or die.

Palestinians should have somewhere safe and secure to call Home (away from Hamas who are doing them no favours.)

I just don't know where that home actually is. And if you think about it, that really sucks. 😕

(I'm English. I know that The Nation of England was born from the union of Anglo Saxon Kingdoms in 927 AD. I get to put my finger on where my People can call home. That's not something trivial. I don't want other Peoples being denied the same chance.)

But The Jewish People should have exactly the same, and in their case, history has the answer. Israel is full to bursting with archaeological evidence of the Jewish people living there over millenia.

What Hamas did on Oct 7th 2023 was brutally evil. Israel had every right to fight back.

Of course the major downside was that this meant war and war invariably gets incredibly nasty. Innocent people get hurt. And regardless of the reasons for the war, this is never going to be OK.

Yes. I'm sure that there absolutely are Israelis who are gleefully revel in the deaths of Palestinians.

Human beings have the ability to be foul pieces of shit and none of us is immune to it.

But said people are doing this, because they're indulging in the dirtiest corners of being human, not because they're either Israeli or Jewish.