I am having a bath. I don’t have baths very often, but I’ve a bad head cold so I’m hoping some vapour bath bubbles and a hot steamy room will help unclog me a bit. But I don’t have baths very often, to the point that I once shared the fact on social media. A bath in a new home. A photo of my feet sticking out of the water. I’m 186cm tall (6’1”) so most regular sized baths are a little too small for me to lie out completely. So there I was, happy in my bath, cropping the photo a bit to keep…

I don't get it. According to Reddit and the tech bros, The Algorithm knows everything about us. It hoovers up everything we do on the internet and builds a profile so amazingly accurate it can deliver adverts to us with the pinpoint precision of a laser-guided missile of Capitalism. Last month I wanted to replace our old bed. So I made a few Google searches. Almost instantly the adverts in my YouTube feed were suddenly all for bed and mattress related businesses. The Algorithm knows!!! There's…

This week I wrote a bunch of blogposts! Some of them were quite fun, some others were rather personal and dealing with complicated emotions, but I am once again feeling pretty chill about life. The weather continues to go colder and I’m having a really good time. I’ve been doing some small changes that already feel good and working on figuring some things out as things move along. Here are some notes on other things that happened between October 13 to 19, 2026. 💻 Work has been interesting. My…

When it all comes crashing down, and it will, believe you me it will, there will be people who will be trying to make sense of it all. Some of those people will look to the past in order to build the future, which makes sense until you understand that's what we've been doing for a few thousand years. Some say the past is prologue. Eugene O'Neill wrote "there is no present or future —— only the past, happening over and over again —— now.” I don't know about either of those things. The past sets…

Our shy skittish cat jumped up onto my lap—and, in doing so, knocked against the rickety side-table, so that first my dinner plate and fork crashed to the ground; and then, a brief moment later, my 850-page book—or perhaps the crashes were the other way around, it’s difficult to reconstruct. In any case, the cat transformed from cat to whirlwind, and I have a spiral of long parallel scratches tracing my lower arm from wrist to elbow. They’re almost pretty; I could imagine getting that pattern…

The Snow Day That Told Me Something Was OffIt's snowing hard enough that I'm not braving traffic to get to the gym. Too cold in the garage to tinker with anything. No new book on the nightstand, nothing worth watching on TV. So I do the thing you're not supposed to admit to doing in retirement: I sit there. Coffee, then the window, then the TV, then lunch, then the window again. And honestly? That day was fine. Good, even. Sometimes you need a day like that — your mind needs a break from…

So today marks the 4th anniversary of us moving to our 2.5 acre smallholding in north Wales. I can't believe it's been 4 years already - it feels like 5 minutes ago that I wad writing my 3 years at the smallholding post. Last year's update wasn't as positive as previous years thanks to us having to get a new roof, which cost a shit tonne of money, and caused leaks all over the house. But I'm happy to say that the update for this year is mostly positive. I ended last year's post by saying: If…

Ever heard someone called a berry picker as a derogatory insult? Well, according to Green's Dictionary of Slang, it has been recorded in American slang since at least 1968 as "a rural person, a country dweller." Meanwhile, the Wabanaki have been harvesting wild blueberries for thousands of years, by hand or with hand-held rakes "which look something like a dustpan with fine metal teeth." But what I'm really talking about here is how "berry picker" is slang online, particularly on Indigenous…

on the price I'm willing to pay Diary:Hi, I have been thinking about the time I spent looking and admiring certain influencers on social media. I would say I tend to admire their material possessions. On how big their houses were, how fast their cars, how expensive their handbags and how cool their niche styles. I won't say I'm better than anyone for feeling the slight regret of admiring something like this. It's normal as a social creature, to have that kind of motivation and strive to be…

2026-10-11Hello! I'm this close to pulling an all-nighter over nothing. No idea why, but there's always something worth doing.Past ten o' clock, I was still walking outside, exploring abandoned paths and overgrown gardens. I found this shed on my travels and decided to photograph it.I haven't yet gone back to this shed; maybe it's open during the day and I never noticed. Over my walk, I tried taking loads of photographs to get in the creative mood. It's crazy how a new scene will present itself…

Bookstores, like libraries, are full of possibilities. The possibility of adventure, education, learning a new skill, the exploration of ideas. For us readers, these institutions of amalgamated human knowledge are sacred ground. Books allow us to explore real places, other lives, made-up worlds, different cultures, religions, careers, and human experiences without leaving the comfort of our own couch. As one of the great authors of our time George R.R. Martin said, “I have lived a thousand…

Much like your favourite recipe websites, I'm not going to get straight to the point, I'm going to start with a backstory and you're not getting a skip link. Having grown up with a dad who read cookbooks for leisure, and who caused me to turn vegetarian for several weeks once at the age of 13 when he presented me with a lamb heart stew for dinner, it was inevitable that I would be a foodie. Dad’s squid and red wine stew was my favourite dish as a child. He can't cook any more, but I have fond…

This morning after the usual reflection and waffling I found myself heading out. Away from the house. The two puppies of chaos love to see me and hate me to go. The writing always swirls around me when I reach Coffee Bean. It’s also Monday and I get some money today from social security. Other places could be difficult either way what I get but honestly I get more than most. With the latest cost of living bump I will almost make $3k a month. Sounds like only a little but consider our rent is…

I've spent a great deal of mental energy ruminating about things I've said and done. Those thoughts that come when I lay down in bed or have any real moment of silence. Replaying my words, practicing other things I could have said, trying to decide how bad the thing I said was. Very little of these thoughts are really directed toward those I may have hurt. They're focused on me, my social performance, my reputation, my embarrassment, me me me. The anxiety says I need to focus on myself and…

It's an acronym I was not familiar with until recently: NIMBY -- Not In My Back Yard. Last year I was visiting a vineyard in southern England. Yes, the South of England temperature spectrum is warming to support serious grape growing. During the tour of the estate we were shown extensive vineyards, beautifully manicured, creating an impressive spectacle. The cellars were excavated below ground, and some small buildings offered tasting sessions and appropriate nibbles of food to enhance the…

Take a few minutes to watch the video above or, if you’re more of a written word person, keep reading. It’s not uncommon for me to come home from a trip with thousands of photographs. On a wildlife trip I can average 1,000 photographs a day, which is really easy to do when you’re in a moving boat, excited about bears and your cameras are set to shoot 10 frames a second. Even when I’m not photographing wildlife, if I’ve had a good day out with my camera I can come back with hundreds of images.…

The GNOME Foundation seems to be ...kind of a train wreck. And that makes me sad because it represents such a vibrant group of people who make cool shit and give it away for free. Every time I stop by the GNOME forums I come away grimacing. The community always seems to be in some state of discontent. One day it's feature requests that devolve into "feel free to see yourself out". Another day it's a former director airing dirty laundry about being unduly banned. Most recently there's been a…

This summer has been brutal, amongst others, I grow a fair number of cloud forest orchid species in a grow tent in my garage. This summer got hot in May and stayed hot until about a week ago. Normally in UK summers I can ride out short periods of temperatures above the low 20s (°C of course, I don't use the ridiculous US measurements). By giving the plants high air movement and high humidity. This year however, things started well above 25° in may and reaching well into the 30°s inside the tent…

Jesus fuck. The three children killed were aged five, eight and 11. A seven-year-old and a 54-year-old teacher were taken to a hospital in a critical condition. It is unclear if the attacker had any links to the school. On June 16th 1999 —over 27 years ago— I wrote my 4th ever blog post about a shooting incident in America. I now can’t recall what happened that day, but the history books do. I wrote about another shooting 21 days later. The issue remains. As complex as it may seem. It’s the…

There aren’t many lifestyle changers that appeal to me at my age. I’m pretty set in my ways. However, after my daughter and son-in-law surprised me with a Tushy Spa bidet attachment for the toilet, I can say this is a welcome change for some of those ways. I was first exposed to the Tushy bidet after they moved into their new house earlier in the year and installed one for themselves. I was hooked. Earlier this summer they gifted me with the same model for my birthday. This past weekend my…

My apologies to those who have found that the Contact Form had ceased to work. I have installed a new one. Many thanks to the kind gentleman who told me that it was out of action – I had not known. In the last few days, I’ve had a number of comments appear on old posts. Some of these do not appear to be genuine, but are evidently by bots. Or, as we now call them, AI agents. I’m not the only one, of course. I came across an interesting article at A London Inheritance, which, after a discussion…

Cakes, the final affront here.These are the continuing ravages of the Bakeshop Wrecksurprise.Cakeman's Log: The shop is back to normal now, after a mysterious ailment afflicted my crew.It started when we were accidentally exposed to corigrAtUIAt ions. Maybe the big sign should have tipped us off. Anyway, we didn't realize the danger until our handwriting started to devolve.I mean, what do you call this?! "It's red, Tim.""That was a rhetorical question, Leonard.""Oh. Sorry, boss." I thought the…

Something really funny about seeing the morning routine post is the amount of people that had a line about feeding their cats, because if you are a cat owner you know they are relentless in their routine and you love it. Paying the cat tax here. I also recently got my hair done (dyed and bleached) and cats always get too overstimulated by the new smells and try to groom my freshly done hair, ha ha ha. Bonus cat (my friend's cat). reply via email: hello@fiddery.com

https://bubbles.town/static/bubbles_1200x630.png While reading 6 Months of Bubbles by Gordon, I started wondering to myself how I'd change bubbles to make it easier to discover fresher and more niche content, while still providing the "best" posts for easy reading. Here's how Gordon put it: I want eclectic, quirky, different world-view posts to be featured. I want to see the strange little blog you’ve never heard of. I want to read about a hobby I’ve never heard of, or read a personal essay…

A weekly recap of the articles and posts I’ve read that I think are worth your time. The Only Winning Move Is Not To Play: The Pattern Of Thinking That Justifies Cruelty – ideatrash — “There are ways that the world is cruel that we cannot change; entropy exists, life feeds on life. But there is a giant difference between those things we cannot change and needlessly increasing suffering in the universe.” * Lost & found in Tokyo: a first-timer’s adventure — Lottery win = travelling. * An Open…

In 2018 I ran the New York City Marathon in 3:04:18. My coach at the time was a New Yorker, and his pep talk before the race was worth more than any course map.Since then, three friends have asked me how to run New York. Three times I passed on the same tips, and three times they came back and said the tips had saved their race. Then I came across a rule: the third time you use an idea in conversation, you have to write about it. By that count, this post is overdue.Things you cannot…

Over the weekend, John Gruber posted a piece titled “X Once Again Marks the Spot”. He announced this on Mastodon by saying “I’m sure this one won’t make anyone angry.” I’m not angry, John, I’m just so very tired. Others have written about this with more gusto than I can muster. Ernie Smith’s piece matches many of my feelings. Even if X is great now (which I sincerely doubt), I definitely don’t need another social feed to follow. I stopped posting to Twitter in late 2022, and gave up on it…

I have a hard time resting. Rockies Front Range That’s not to say that I am very productive, I am not. I just can’t seem to get rest when I feel like I could be doing things (even fun things). I was able to convince myself to not chase light during golden hour and find an interesting foreground for the mountains. I’m lucky to have this mountain view for the next few days and with the weather always changing the chances for epic sunsets are always present. But balancing the need to rest (I’m…

2026-10-09Hello!After making the wrong measurements for the rug, I put my focus on smaller items in my room. This was cheap, and so I couldn't pass it up.I still haven't returned the rug, by the way. I keep meaning to, but I've forgotten every time I have the opportunity.I also can't believe how much dust accumulates after just a few days of moving stuff around. Also, my hands have a weird rust smell on them, so I should probably be using gloves now.Finally, a blogger's look into why the New…