Small, quizzical, geeky Christian Brit with disabilities. I can also be found at https://baroque-mongoose.dreamwidth.org/ for longer reads.
Also, just to make it 100% clear, I am not available. Should you wish to flirt, please go and do so elsewhere. Your co-operation in this will be much appreciated.
When I move, I intend to have cats in my life again; but I can no longer manage a regular litter tray, so I've been investigating other options. There's an excellent raised one, but you can't get it over here.
So... shout-out to my online friend Ruth, who said "get one of those rabbit hutches on legs". You can put a litter tray in and leave a door open for the cat, and you can open the top to muck it out. Utterly brilliant idea!
This morning we had a joint service with another local church... where I discovered that the GP I went to see about my weird little lymph node problem is a member of that church. I didn't recognise her initially, but I will talk to anyone wearing an obviously hand-knitted cabled jumper! 😁
I'd like you all to give a warm welcome to Robin.
Who's Robin, you ask? Robin is my lovely new alto recorder, named after my favourite (lovely) alto, the inimitable Robin Blaze (and if you're now wondering what happened to him, I can tell you - he's still singing, just no longer doing solo work). Realising that Robin (the recorder) was who I need in my life right now took a bit of a circuitous route, but... here he is now.
I am doing one of the readings at my mother's funeral, so I was told it would be "better" if I brought the rollator rather than the wheelchair... as if I couldn't also use the wheelchair as a rollator over a short distance. I need to get up one step to reach the lectern. OK, I can do that if I lean on things.
In our church they'd literally just bring me the mike once I got up to the front; but in this one they can't see past "you have to read from the lectern". It's mildly annoying.
Today, to celebrate my 62nd birthday, let's enjoy the fact that women have always been interested in astronomy! This panel is from the 10th century. And yesterday I finished a very enjoyable OU short course on exoplanets, proving that some things don't change in a thousand years... we've just learnt more. 😁
Last night my sister quoted me a poem by @brianbilston@mastodon.online about a retired mafioso. It was a gem.
Brian... I don't know if you've posted that one on here, but if not, would you do so, pretty please? Because I wish to boost it, that all may enjoy it. 😊
Is it me or do these 13th century knights look extremely worried about something? Maybe they're all going to fight a snail...
And another thing about moving back north: I should be able to have cats in my life again. This flat is really not suitable, as there's no direct route to the outdoors and no room for them to run around inside.
So, that little fan I took to church yesterday... I was very glad I'd thought to bring it, as it *was* hot in there, and I had it running all through the service. Got home, went to find the charger... oh. Couldn't find it. I have a ridiculous number of charging cables and none of them fitted the connector.
Then, just now, it occurred to me to try the cable that charges the electric candles. That one fits. Problem solved!
Sigh. The portable fan is coming to church this morning. I *hope* they've got the hall reasonably cool so it won't be needed, but you don't know. It's around 21 degrees already and it's only half past nine.
At least it's supposed to cool down a bit after Tuesday...
I didn't realise my public liability insurance auto-renewed. I don't need it to do that. They gave me a phone number to ring, but no e-mail address; unfortunately the menu options didn't work (which is not uncommon), so in the end I had to hunt down their chatbot... which, fortunately, did connect me to a human pretty fast. I've now cancelled it.
Seriously, though. Why can't I just e-mail?
And today we have a charming little 13th-century boat. The paint on the sail hasn't lasted too well, but there's enough of it left to give the idea, at least.
I still have the cold and am fed up with it, so here's some full-on mediaeval weird for general cheering up. I don't know the date on this one, but given it's a blackletter font I'd guess maybe around 14th century.
Last night I was checking to see if I was likely to be still infectious (the answer is yes, so I'm not going anywhere today); and during the course of that I discovered that there are nearly 200 different known cold viruses, so here's your TIL. No wonder this cold's very different from the last cold I had (the previous one involved massive nose-running, whereas this one is squatting in my head making me feel yuck).
The Internet is great. It means I can talk to everyone without giving them this beastly bug!
The cold has claimed squatter's rights in my head and I consequently feel fairly rubbish, but, on the bright side, not as rubbish as I did before I managed to eat some breakfast. And on the further bright side we are not yet in the manic hanky-washing phase, which is just as well because there is still stuff in the washing machine from the last load (I can't dry it all at once in here).
And it can't alter the fact that the book has got to an exciting bit. 😁
Civilised temperatures are returning, but I'm still bringing the fan this morning. That hall gets stuffy very easily and tends to remain so for a while after it cools down outside.
And today we have... 13th-century cooks. What a miserable-looking lot they all are!
I've lived here for the best part of seven years now; and, today, our brand new community centre is finally opening, after all these years of being in various temporary locations (or not existing at all).
Well, hey. Better late than never. Maybe in a little while we might even get some shops...
It's slated to be a bit cooler today, so it should be worth opening a window. We've even been promised some rain - woohoo! The grass is looking awful already.
And yet... it is amazing how I've handled the last few days. Usually the cooler goes on as soon as it hits 24 degrees. Yesterday it hit 27 in here briefly, and I was unusually unfussed.
I think I'm being looked after.
The cold has been causing high-frequency deafness, which I don't normally have any trouble with, despite being over 60. This means I can now chart my recovery by checking the current top of my frequency range! I've never had this happen before, so it's quite an odd thing; however, this has been a particularly severe and protracted cold. I'm happy to say I'm on the mend now.
I love when characters develop on you unexpectedly. Amiable Comic Relief Half-Orc has rapidly blossomed into Outright Noble Half-Orc Who Puts Other People Who Reckon To Have A Good Alignment To Shame.
You go, Darg!
Today's D&D session is mostly going to be one of those logic puzzles.
The party needs to know which way the group they're following went. There's a crossroads, so they have three choices. There are three drunken halflings at the inn. One of them has only had three flagons of ale, so his memory is reliable. The second has five, so he'll remember correctly about half the time. The third has had seven, so you can't trust a word he says. But nobody knows which is which... and, naturally, they all disagree about which way the group went!
D is for Dentistry! I have no idea what that weird black ribbon thing is with the teeth; but, yes, indeed, this is a 14th-century dentist and his victim, er, I mean, that is to say, patient.
I am returning home today; and I don't often have occasion to say this, but Sibyl has been astonishingly well-behaved for the duration of this visit. A little out of her usual routine, but no scares or nocturnal awkwardnesses... unlike the last funeral I attended! Gold star to the little wretch... for once.
I have an online friend who is Austrian. She's mostly fluent in English, but she was struggling to pronounce the word "squirrel". I asked her what the problem was, and she said it was S + Q + vowel + R.
So we put our heads together and came up with the practice sentence "Squirting squires squaring with a squirrel squad." By the time she'd gone through that a few times, she could say it!
There were a lot of female scribes in the Middle Ages (and I have a fair number of images of them); so it's no great surprise that you see quite a few women in mediaeval manuscripts doing interesting things. This 13th-century lady is out hunting with her falcon, and her trailing robe and veil don't seem to be slowing her down at all!
Yesterday I wrote a short scene which was supposed to be nothing more than a bit of light relief involving a rather over-perfumed male courtesan unsuccessfully attempting to charm one of the main characters into becoming his new patroness. And this morning I woke up and realised that, in fact, this scene was going to have pivotal significance to the plot.
I do like writing. It's so unexpected!
Sigh. So, you know I was saying yesterday about how Sibyl was particularly well-behaved while I was away?
On the way back I had a rather ghastly vegan burger for lunch (the patty itself was fine, but the trimmings were... ill-advised). Sibyl got blocked. I was ill most of the afternoon and evening. She started unblocking herself, and I thought "why do I still feel so ill?" Then I was sick.
I'm on ondansetron. I should not be sick.
I'm fine again this morning, but I now heartily disrecommend Burger King...
I very rarely use snail mail these days. But when I do, I calligraph the address.
I *wondered* why I was still feeling washed out yesterday after recovering from the digestive problem. Well, now I know. I've got that stinking cold my sister had. Talk about bad timing!
And now I need to pray really hard that neither of my brothers-in-law catches it, because they both have operations coming up, and one of them's already had several postponements.