Safe

Apart from the small herb patch, I had no plans to produce food in my garden this year. Then the squash appeared then my kind friend L brought me two tomato plants and two pots crammed with lettuces. So, as advised by amandoAlentejo and Maria in Wales, I made a small 'lasagne/nettle sandwich' bed, started planting out the lettuces and discovered there were twice as many as it seemed. Two hours a day in the garden since then has not been enough time to extend the bed enough so today I worked all day, planted all the lettuces out then found my ancient mosquito net scrunched in the shed and thought it could have one more tired outing to protect the plants from birds.

Using different muscles, I cycled to my old workplace, Asylum Welcome, a bit over an hour before the possible far-right protests and found a small band of pro-refugee demonstrators. The police were already there and had cleverly blocked access to the building with a police van.

I cycled on, wanting to see which, if any, shops had boarded themselves up and met a few friends in a 500-strong march headed for Asylum Welcome. The boarded shops were... Sainsbury's supermarket. Not the Kurdish supermarket, nor either of the two Syrian restaurants, nor the Bangladeshi restaurant, nor the Lebanese restaurant, all of which had small groups of men chatting amiably outside.

I wasn't able to go back to my old workplace but I joined others near to Oxford's largest mosque. A third group of peace activists in Oxford went to protect the local hotel where asylum seekers are housed.

I later found this in the Guardian: Nick Lowles, a long standing expert on the British far right who now leads Hope Not Hate, told the Guardian that he was sceptical there would be widespread trouble on Wednesday evening. The expectation was triggered by a list of targets found on social media. Lowles, speaking before this evening said: “I think it’s a hoax, designed to spread fear and panic. The list has been compiled by one man in Liverpool, who simply googled immigration law firms etc. No-one is organising the local protests and there is very, very little chatter about it on the forums and WhatsApp groups that have been key over the past week.”

He was right, but I'm very glad that the furore meant that reasonable people were out in such huge numbers this evening. The far right need to know that we are many, they are few.