So, frost scorched mornings like in this first photo are already fading into the past as the garden magnolias launch the most magnificent of springs. The veggie patch is all prepped for a new year of growing which will be different from past plantings now grumpy husband’s blood tests have confirmed his borderline, pre-diabetes diagnosis. No more oceans of spuds and rivers of tomatoes for us (well less spuds and tomatoes that’s for sure, maybe puddles instead of floods) and for the first time ever: celeriac, pak choi and turnips which my probably over-extensive research has suggested are much better carb wise and not too difficult to grow in our soil and climate. And it’s been a useful distraction having positive research to engage in and the garden to look to in these crazy, world-tilting days that have been Jan-March 2025.

The world we all share has shifted so radically in that time – political friends have become enemies, truth has given way to opinion and out and out lies, as leaders (elected and otherwise) have twisted words to try and convince us that war (trade and conventional) is justified behaviour, and for the good of the people rather than the good of those in power. During these weeks, the news has been almost impossible to watch without weeping tears of impotent rage, and it has helped me immensely to focus on nature, to watch the garden still growing and the sun still rising. Last time I posted here I did my first ever vlog which included reading a story I wrote about fear. When I read it then, on US presidential inauguration day, boy was I full of fear (as well as a cold) and my fear is as palpable as my sense of foreboding on that January video. I’m no less fearful now, perhaps more so since things I feared might happen are happening, but as the nightmare continues to unfold, it seems to me that liberals like me can no longer float round their gardens sitting on fences real or metaphorical. We have to say what we see and who we stand with whilst we still can, use words not to twist truth but to magnify it.

So here’s my truth – the ‘war’ in Ukraine is not a ‘war’ but an invasion, and it’s not an invasion of Russia into Ukraine but of Putin into Ukraine. The soldiers fighting Putin’s invasion are mostly North Korean’s with no choice, and I don’t see why ordinary powerless Russian’s should be implicated in Putin’s madness. And the war is Gaza is not a war either but an invasion too, then a genocide. I’m in no way condoning what Hezbollah did. They massacred innocent civilians, held innocent people hostage then murdered many of them anyway. Terrible. Awful. Dreadful. But I fail to understand how the solution to that from Netanyahu was to unleash armageddon on innocent civilians, but this time in their tens of thousands – innocent, powerless people – women and children, doctors, peace keepers. And my being anti-Netanyahu armageddon is not being antisemitic. That’s just another word trick used to try and shut people up from telling the truth. It totally riles me, this word distortion, that is used these days, to obfuscate – like when billionaire-owned presses who’s main job is to sell stories, report peace demos held against what is happing in Gaza as pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli, when they should, more accurately be saying that the demos are pro peace and anti murder. News outlets really should be held accountable for the storms they stir up using antagonistic language, and ordinary people need to learn to read between their lines – to see how they are being manipulated. Seriously, non of it makes any sense to me. Do these men (and they nearly are all are men) think war is better than peace or selling copy more important than the truth?

Maybe I don’t understand because there’s a fundamental difference between those in power and ordinary people like me. Maybe a little bit of power is never enough. The longer I live on this wee blue planet the more I’m sure of the veracity in the saying, power corrupts. And if power does corrupt then perhaps absolute power corrupts absolutely – drives you power crazy and proper mad. Maybe even seeking power interferes with your moral compass? That would explain why Trumpian spokespeople lie every night on TV. Are they doing it to get power? Are they doing it to protect their potential to get more power. Do they even know they are lying? Have they somehow deluded themselves that the lies are real. And what about JD Vance now he does have power? I read Hillbilly Elegy a couple of years ago and find it inexplicable that the self-aware narrative presence that wrote that memoir is the same consciousness that went to Greenland this week, toe-cringingly waving at non-existent crowds and saying things like Denmark hasn’t done enough to keep Greenlanders safe. Can’t he see how weird that sounds out of the mouth of a person who lives in a place that doesn’t provide its citizens with universal health care? And can’t he see how he looks like a sleazy protection racketeer ? You guys need us to keep you safe from bad stuff happening. Bad stuff like his administration muscling in to take them over one assumes.

I have no solutions to any of this, other than to teach real, complete history so people can learn from what happened before, but since I can’t make that so, and because there is little else I can do other than write my version of the truth in blogs and stories, that is what I’m going to do. I started this blog in 2015, to document my writing journey. Since then I’ve had loads of stories published, won some comps, done a masters in creative writing, had two books published with a third on the way this August, but blogs must, like veggie patches, adapt to changing circumstances – so this year as well as growing pak choi and writing about writing, I’m going to write about freedom, truth and the liberal inclusion I believe in. And I’m going to read some of my flash fictions that tell my version of the truth. To get started, here’s my rerecorded inauguration day story, not told sadly or down-heartedly like in January, but told boldly, stoutly and defiantly. There must be loads of Americans living inside the enfolding Trumpian dystopia who wish they weren’t, and loads of Israeli’s who don’t want any more innocents killed, and loads of Russians who don’t want Putin as their absolute Tzar but can’t say so or he’ll have them Novichoked or chucked out of a window. I might have no power but I do have a voice.