Two weeks ago a buddy took me and the kids for a short boat ride to Sambro Island. They did all the planning, getting the boat in the water, etc. I took the kids. There sits a lighthouse with a small, modern, solar station beside it. It and all the buildings around it are falling down with the memory of how Canada became to be. This trip happened days after I listened to a story on CBC radio about another lighthouse at risk of being lost. We aren't good in Canada at commiting resources to…
The kitchen light was the only one on in the house, and Cole was already under it when Russ came down. Six birds on the counter, out of the plastic now, pale and sweating in the trays. Their mother had made this every year for the church supper and God knew how much of it for other people’s funerals, and someone at the visitation — one of the Kellner women, an aunt by marriage — had said of course they’d want her chicken tomorrow, everyone would expect it. As if expecting were a kindness. So…
I've not seen sunflowers with orange petals before. This local planting caught my eye and Idecided to stop and photograph a few of them. To my delight bees were feasting onthe pollen. (click to enalrge)Summertime––warm days, lots of sunshine, stormy afternoons and delightful things everywhere to photograph, things that may not be there in the other seasons. Swimming, flowers blooming, boaters, kids playing sports and a lot of other visual eye candy. Here are just a few things I’ve encountered…
It’s time again to return to Door County, Wisconsin. This year, we kept things super simple: fewer trips up and down the peninsula, more time on the lake, more quality time together. Apart from the no-see-ums, which made our kids look like they had chicken pox, we accomplished our goal. Before we left, I told […]
Bad news: My 11 a.m. Tuesday flight to New York was cancelled Monday afternoon. I now have to get to the airport at 5 a.m. to play standby roulette. Good news: Managed to get a seat on 7:30 a.m. flight to Atlanta, and a connection to LaGuardia. Bad news: Middle seat… Good news: …in an exit row! Bad news: The layover time in Atlanta is 30 minutes. Good news: Doing a 10K bike ride most days has made me pretty good at airport sprints. I should be able to make it, assuming the flight doesn’t…
not last nightAfter dinner when I checked this it was still tacky. Got the 2nd (and final) coat on it this AM. I tried to sand it with 320 grit and that didn't go well. It wasn't tacky to the touch but the sandpaper grabbed and stuttered like it was. I'll have to let this set up for while before I try that again.found the MIA center punchI spent almost an hour sifting through the shitcan trying to find it. Got this sent out this AM. I still don't think it is worth to try and fix it but he is…
Some of the things I most love doing now, I loved doing as a child. Here is a list of five of them, what are yours?1. Writing poetryI don’t know why I started. I also don’t have those poems anymore, thanks to the awkward almost adult “this is fucking crap!” phase. (if you are a young poet, please listen: if you feel like throwing your old poetry away, don’t. By the time you are an old lady like me you’ll long to read your poems).2. Being craftyI remember sitting with my grandmother, tongue…
12 Miles of NothingnessThe idea for this walk came from the "Boundary Walk" for the Beltane Pilgrimage. AI based research managed to find 8 out of the potential 29 walks. A tick-list was formed. Rare access to the car, meant I could head off to Tenbury Wells for a route that I approached with justified trepidation.In this part of the world, the paths are usually in chronic condition. A look on the map, and I could see that there was little of interest. Although the paths were better than…
How has the weather been suiting you? Is the so called heat wave a good or bad thing, putting aside, if one can, the fact that when we are all brown bread, it will likely be even hotter? At my age there is nothing I can do about it anyway - if ever I could have in real terms. Well, for me, I love it. I delight in getting up and seeing sunshine. I feel lifted by it even when hot, though hot and humid probably takes the edge off it for me. Dry heat is fine, sticky heat less so. But on the whole,…
TROUBLED HEARTS AND TORCH SONGS When someone pops a sticker on your cameraphone at the door it generally means a performer is going to get their kit off, repeatedly. Not in this caseI am relieved to say, though this 90-minute chamber musical does have one late and I suppose spoilable coup de théatre. And the first excitement is the seats: if there’s one thing the dear Menier’s usual benches are not, it’s an acreage of comfy pink plush. But for Mark Sonnenblick and David Cromer’s show there it…
Much as we love investing at Monevator, even we believe saving for an emergency fund comes first. Building a cash stash to bubble wrap you against life’s bad breaks is probably the most important financial move you can make – after clearing bad debt, of course. Stuff happens, as they say in polite company, and that’s the starting point for why you need an emergency fund. Why you must have an emergency fund When you’ve got a job and good health and your income exceeds your outgoings, setting…
I’m not sure why Amazon decided people who send gifts from others’ wishlists don’t need to be thanked, but that’s exactly what it has done. It used to be possible to send a sender a “Thank You” email, which may be superfluous if the sender and recipient know each other in real life, but is very important to those of us who receive gifts from those who admire our work online. For several years now, though, I had noticed that though it was still possible to send such a message, the gift sender…
A little over two weeks ago, I woke up with a deep feeling of exhaustion, and not the type of exhaustion that would disappear with a few good nights of sleep. In fact, I had actually experienced a good night of sleep when I woke up. While I felt perky, as I went through the ... Read more The post Self-care during the chaos: Selfish or life affirming? appeared first on Shay Stewart-Bouley.
Let's try and keep this mostly pictoral. A tour of Harrow School buildings with The London Appreciation Society. Arrive Harrow-on-the-Hill station, turn right, buy a Tesco meal deal, pass 1970s shop with moulded cement brick façade on upper floor. There are few examples of these across London, such as in Portobello Road market which is now a Tesco store.Up Petersborough Rd. Literally 'up' – it's a hill. The hill. Harrow Hill. Sat on a bench for a lunch munch and admired the view. Near the top,…
The vibeMotivated.I have that excited, slightly impatient feeling that comes when I want to build things again. Ideas are starting to feel more real, and I keep wanting to see how far I can take them. There is a good kind of momentum right now, and I want to make the most of it.Highlights💻 I finally upgraded my 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro to a 16-inch M5 Pro MacBook Pro with 48 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. I have been getting deeper into AI work and dabbling in app development again, so the…
This is a p.s. to the last post – ‘Cows do not f*ck’ about anthropomorphising. It now transpires most of the post was getting the meaning back to front! No apology if it was part of your reading… it has led us here and to what perhaps AI can ever ‘do’ – teach us what is really worth ‘knowing’? Came across the phrase ‘rat race’ via morning reading ahead of journaling [‘Meeting Life’ by J. Krishnamurti]. It may remind me which way round ‘anthropo-ing’ goes: rats simply move. I do not know whether…
Day Ten in Nagoya. No new kyujo to report. As I mentioned over on social media, Nikkan Sports is reporting that the Japan Sumo Association plans to cut back on its Jungyo tour dates from next year, from 90 tour dates to something around 70. Chairman Hakkuho has told the Jungyo Department to make the … Continue reading Nagoya 2026: Day Ten
A repeat of an article I first published on 30 July 2009. I’ve expanded and updated it. I signed off the air for the last time in 1994, capping a nine-year side career on the radio. People still sometimes ask me if I miss being a disk jockey, and for a long time I always wistfully answered yes. But not anymore. It’s not that I would be rusty as heck after all these years – and boy, would I. It’s that radio has changed drastically, and it just wouldn’t be any fun for me today. I listened to a…
As much as EDC (Everyday Carry) is basically a pastiche of performative masculinity, it remains true that some things are genuinely useful to have on you. One of these things is a pen. Just as the pen is mightier than the sword, so is it more useful. Despite what the EDC bros might believe, I almost never, going about my normal life, have the need to stab, slash, or otherwise cut things. I do quite frequently need to write things down, however. In my day job, having a pen somewhere within reach…
import { Image } from "astro:assets"; import december from "@images/posts/lifenotes-49/december.png"; ✨ Highlights I went to see Nilüfer Yanya with my friend Rachael, she’s really good! I managed to get my ADHD care transferred from a private clinic to the NHS 🎉 Went to a fun Christmas comedy evening and to drag bingo with my friends. My mum came to stay with me over Christmas 🎄 And then we went down to my sister's in Devon to celebrate her birthday 🎈 🎮 Played/Read/Watched Shrinking season 2:…
This will be a shorter newsletter than usual, so I’m glad that I’m not attempting to charge anyone for it… Long-standing readers of this blog, especially those who stuck with the ‘Twelve Days in the Year’ series, will be aware that I’ve been struggling for some years with chronic fatigue of some sort, which was if not caused then certainly exacerbated by my second bout of COVID in 2020. Well, I now have that AND a regular tendency to fall into a black pit of despair at any thought of my job.…
Titus Salt (1803-76) was born near Leeds, educated in Wakefield and served an apprenticeship with a wool-stapler in Wakefield. He moved to Bradford in 1821 with his parents & siblings at 18. In his years in Bradford he worked with William Rouse & Son, learning textile manufacture. Titus’s father, Daniel, founded a Bradford business as a wool-stapler. In 1824, Titus joined his dad’s business, Daniel Salt and Son, expanding with a spinning business in Thornton Rd in 1834. By then Bradford was a…
TIG FROMM The One, The Only Droids Basic Figure Item No.: Asst. 71760 No. 71830 Manufacturer: Kenner Number: n/a Includes: Collector coin, baton Action Feature: n/a Retail: $3.79 Availability: ca. Fall 1985 Appearances: n/a Bio: The leader of an underworld gang of thugs and cutthroats who prey on the weak and helpless of INGO. (Taken from the packaging. The cartoons had bios.) Image: Adam's photo lab. Availability: Click here to buy it at eBay now! Commentary: I was feeling uninspired, so I…
The lofi girl was right Sometimes, fighting for a change isn’t worth it. You try. Again and again. And as hard as you can. You see the problems. You feel their weight. And you have solutions to propose: clear, practical, good ones. So you speak up. Naively, you assume others will care. Why? Because you believe in something simple: that people value integrity. That a company thrives when its employees do.
Garden jobs. Quiz night. The Odyssey. Eating out. Some good walks. Still hot and sunny. Everything is parched. Panorama from Sugar Loaf summit Computer admin Tuesday morning, once I’d surfaced. Another sunny, breezy day, RW here cutting the hedges. Scything in progress, and hedge trimmed Oven glass door glueing seems to have worked – although we’ve not used the oven yet. Pottered around outside for a couple of hours in the afternoon, turning one of the many old dustbins into a new compost bin,…
With the ‘lights on’ over Cwmbach in recent weeks I’ve recognised I would need to do something about the fresh grey ballast vs the cinder ballast used in the sidings. Procrastination set in - I dislike weathering ballast and certainly not the airbrush - but the need for some gentle modelling to occupy a busy mind over the weekend resulted in this…It is done. It wasn’t as hard as I feared (how often do we as modellers finding ourselves uttering those words). It looks good and I’m released to the…
I don’t know how we got into Czech movies, but this is a little gem! An exceptionally funny and nonsensical comedy! I need to dig deeper into this treasure chest. Rating: 🤯Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!
I listened to the audiobook… and, once finished, I immediately ordered a physical copy. This is one of those books you need to reread every now and then, or at least it left me a very strong impression. Rating: 😍Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!
This post contains mentions of sex and suicidal ideation. My other selves are not the problem. The problem is The Not Knowing. (Huge caveat: I’m lucky enough to not have daily blackout amnesia but instead lesser daily amnesia between us, and none of us commit crimes behind each other’s backs. Some individuals with DID go through this, and they have a right to disagree with my above sentence, and to speak about their experiences. But this is my blog and I’m discussing my own experiences here.)…
A lovely vegan sushi restaurant Z found. One does not simply fly from Denver to Taipei… because there are no direct flights. So this year we decided to fly from Denver to Tokyo first, and then, after a few days, move on to Taipei. My wife is the only one among the three of us who has ever been to Japan. (1) The life-sized blue whale statue outside the science museum; (2) the model train at the Railway Museum We spent a few days in Tokyo first, visiting places like the National Museum of Nature…
