Newsletter – Issue 13

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the 13th Leach Press and Oakist Press newsletter, 24th August 2026.

The aim is simple – once a week, I'll send a short update covering new books, new videos, events, projects and life at Oakwood.

Thank you for subscribing and supporting independent publishing.

The newsletter archive is now live on the website. Each issue also includes a photo appendix from around Oakwood.

New Oakist Press books

Four new books have recently been released through Oakist Press.

All four books are available here:

If you've bought and enjoyed any of these books, a review on Amazon, Goodreads or social media really helps independent authors reach new readers.

New Leach Press book

One new book has recently been released through The Leach Press.

The book is available here:

New videos this week

Watch all videos here:

Oakwood Rewilding Project

Work continues at Oakwood in Llanbrynmair.

We have pretty much given up on the cricket bat company regarding the willow scheme. But we have had contact from The Woodland Trust asking us to confirm our curtilage and we expect to hear if our proposal was successful this week. We have found a local free tree supplier but no contact yet. I have sourced some local (Welshpool) acers for a small (thirty trees or so) maple copse to be planted in winter. I have also started sourcing trees for a cider orchard, although I still need to find a local(ish) source of tart apples on M25 rootstock – if anyone can help here it would be much appreciated.

The polytunnel is blooming with courgettes, carrots, marrows, beans, tomatoes, salad leaves and other leafy greens. Something has got to the cauliflowers, but the broccoli is looking good. Cabbage white damage is evident but nowhere near as bad as last year simply because we kept the door shut. Erika continues to plant new goodies and remove the old ones. She obsesses over her aubergines and asparagus.

A wild seed mix has arrived for the Pond-da-Rosa – will scatter this in September.

The Oakwood chicken project is also taking shape. The house is now in position and the framework for the run has been assembled beside the woodland. We will be taking Elsi to choose some birds the first week in September.

Erika and Elsi are planning to keep bees for honey. Erika is now sourcing the necessary kit.

Looks like we will not get the campsite up and running until next year – it's too late now, although potential campers still appear in the pub (often walkers of the Gwydir Way). I have public liability insurance in place and Justyn is going to act as the general manager.

The Art-a-van has been totally stripped and cleaned (on the outside at least). No physical progress on the stand-alone solar system (except planning and sourcing cheap panels).

We continue to maintain the paths round the site.

The Pond-da-Rosa: Life returns to the bare ground

When Lake Rose was filled in, one of the big questions was what would happen to the great expanse of flat, bare ground left behind. For a while it looked rather bleak, but nature has wasted very little time in answering.

The smaller Pond-da-Rosa remains, although it is currently completely dry. Around it, across the former bed of Lake Rose, vegetation is now appearing and noticeably increasing almost day by day following the first proper downpours for some time. The area is still sparsely populated, with plenty of bare ground between plants, but an interesting pioneer community is beginning to establish itself.

Some of the first arrivals are exactly the sort of plants that thrive on newly exposed, disturbed and periodically wet ground. Water pepper, redshank, marsh cudweed, pineapple weed and creeping buttercup are appearing alongside several species of dock and willowherb. Sea couch and holy grass are beginning to provide grassy cover, while spiny sow-thistle, stinking goosefoot, slender borage, warty bedstraw, rock dandelion and broad-leaved plantain are adding to the diversity.

The mixture is particularly interesting because it hints at the character of the former lake bed beneath the apparently dry surface. Plants associated with damp and disturbed soils are establishing alongside species happier on drier exposed ground. The old Lake Rose bed may, therefore, develop into a mosaic of different conditions rather than simply reverting to ordinary grassland.

This is all happening before our deliberate wildflower seeding has really had a chance to make its mark. We have already been scattering seed collected from plants elsewhere at Oakwood, and we have also bought wildflower seed suitable for the heavy clay conditions around Pond-da-Rosa. These will add to what nature has already brought in.

There are even the beginnings of the next stage of succession. Oak is growing on the former lake bed, while we have planted purple willow. Whether other woody species eventually arrive by themselves will be fascinating to watch.

For now, the plan is largely to stand back. We don't want to clear away the pioneer vegetation simply to replace it with the plants we have chosen. The existing plants are stabilising the bare soil, building organic matter and creating shelter and habitat for whatever comes next. There is still ample exposed ground into which the additional wildflower seed can fall.

Lake Rose may have gone, but ecologically its former bed is becoming something new. What looked only recently like a large patch of mud is already turning green. Pond-da-Rosa remains as the smaller pond within this changing landscape and, although dry at present, adds another variable to what happens next. Over the coming autumn, winter and spring, we intend to let the plants themselves show us what this strange new patch of Oakwood wants to become.

Appendix 1 gives the August Rewilding Plan. More photographs have also been added to the August appendix on the website.

Still need more rain so hoping El Nino gets going soon.

A quieter week than usual at Oakwood, mainly because I was hit by a particularly nasty bout of gout. Very painful, and a useful reminder that eating reasonably well and cutting down on the booze might not be such a terrible idea. I kept work to a minimum while it settled down.

A few practical things still got done. I fired up the new heating system for the first time this year, and the gravity-fed control system is all working nicely. I plumbed in a permanent water supply for the header tank, so that is another job finally ticked off. I found a locally sourced carpet off-cut for the horsebox, ready to be fitted this week. I have also been doing quite a bit of sorting and reorganising of storage, particularly for the DJ kit, and have given the storage unit on the field a much-needed reshuffle.

Meanwhile, the blackberries have gone completely bonkers. They are everywhere at the moment, so there should be plenty of picking over the next few weeks.

And despite the dodgy foot, we managed a curry night at the local pub. Rural pubs need people actually using them if they are going to survive, so eating curry and supporting the local community seemed a perfectly respectable bit of work for the week.

DJ news

One new set this week. I thought I would do something a little different and put together a psychobilly show:

The December ska and punk all-dayer in Newtown – celebrating my 60th, along with Erika's and Justyn's birthdays – is now well into the planning stage. Flyer and link below. All welcome.

Facebook event link:

Modelling

My model of the Peace Convoy on the A303, bound for the Battle of the Beanfield in June 1985 is now complete and I have mounted it on the wall of the horsebox. Just need to surround it with clear plastic sheet. You can find videos of it here:

Coming soon

Work continues on a number of current and future projects, including:

• Further video episodes of Physics, Consciousness & Reality
• Further video episodes of Living on the Road, Waterways or Off-grid in the UK
• Further video episodes of Crime, Punishment & Justice (although not until one of the above is complete)
• Further videos on off-grid living, continuing on the theme of solar (full solar design example next, hence slight delay)
• New Oakist Press releases:
  • Monique & the Thingies (Tom Rantula – in final stages of production): follows Monique and Malachi, two rebellious spider monkeys who leave Monkey Island after giants destroy their forest. Seeking the “perfect thingi”, a better way of organising society, they travel through strange animal communities governed by surveillance, religion, authoritarianism, hierarchy, tradition and claims of superiority. Their adventures are comic, dangerous and increasingly political, exposing how power can corrupt even apparently orderly societies. Gradually, they discover that freedom cannot safely be entrusted to rulers or supposedly higher authorities. Their journey ultimately points towards cooperation, mutual aid, collective decision-making and individual responsibility as foundations for a freer society.
  • Resources and the Future: An Anarchist Perspective (Dicky Dread – being proofread by Jude Daniels): asks what happens when societies built around endless economic growth encounter the physical limits of a finite planet. It argues that money and markets can obscure the realities that actually sustain civilisation: energy, materials, ecosystems, land, water and biodiversity. Drawing on physics, ecology, history and numerous case studies, the book examines energy, food, technology, wildlife, scarcity and social organisation. Rather than proposing a rigid utopia, it explores a resource-based future founded on sufficiency, ecological stewardship, decentralisation, cooperation and mutual aid, suggesting that gradual experimentation could move society towards systems better aligned with planetary limits.
  • Books from Marge Hunter, Saz Denny and Stu Schotnes
  • Education: An Anarchist Perspective (Dicky Dread)

Author's note

A slightly quieter week than usual, thanks largely to the gout, but Oakwood carries on changing whether I am charging around it or sitting with my foot up. The former Lake Rose bed in particular is becoming one of the most interesting parts of the site to watch. Sometimes rewilding is as much about standing back and seeing what happens as it is about doing things.