Happy Solstice!
We’re going to light the fire bowl, sit in the garden with a bottle of English wine and be all pagan-y.
I know a lot of you live in Hot Places, so this may not resonate with you, but it’s cold here. It’s been cold all summer so far. We had fires right into June.
To the point I really worry we’re headed into global cooling territory.
This is not like Midsummer where I growed up.
On the other hand, it’s not been unusually cold in the Winter, either. No significant snow in years. It’s like it’s just damp and cold and miserable all year round.
Global Miserabling.
June 21, 2022 — 6:19 pm
Comments: 6
Ya think?
Well, it made me laugh. Also, please note the police don’t suspect it’s arson, they suspect it’s suspected arson. And that one sad, lonely quotation mark…perfect!
The actual story is boring. Though I note that they as
I picked up my new glasses today. I’ve been careening around with my head tilted to one side dealing with old pairs of glasses with one missing earpiece. I think I have five pairs now.
They did the exam two weeks ago. I paid an extra £10 for a 3D scan and then the examiner and I flew around the inside of my eyeballs like we were fixing to take out the Death Star. I have shallow fissures inside that are apparently not dangerous. It was kind of creepy, honestly.
They said a week to ten days on the glasses, but to call them if two weeks went by. That really should have been a hint. It’ll be two weeks tomorrow, and sure enough – my glasses have apparently been rattling around in the office for who knows how long.
What happened to making them while you wait? Nah, don’t answer that. I think we’re going to have to get used to shit service for a while, and covid is the scapegoat.
June 20, 2022 — 8:02 pm
Comments: 5
Wait, I haven’t posted yet?
I didn’t go in to work today. It was absolutely glorious and I sat in the garden and drank herbal tea and shitposted on Twitter allll day long on me phone.
This is the front garden, where the chickens live. It’s where our garden chairs are and we look out over the sheep field. But the real miracle is the back garden this year, out the kitchen door.
Uncle B has been working on it for years, and it’s really coming into its own. Last year was good, this year is spectacular. Everything is a harmonious height and color.
I’m trying to work out how to walk down it with a video camera to give you an idea.
June 15, 2022 — 8:19 pm
Comments: 5
It started out so well…
THERE IS AN ELEGANT STYLE AS WELL AS HIGH-GRADE QUALITY IN THE CLOTHES WHAT HAVE ADOPTED THE REFINED MATERIALS. WE DESIGNED CLOTHING TO BE COMFORTABLE AND DURABLE WITH NATURAL FABRICS AND CARED EVERY DETAIL. THERE IS A COMFORT TO YOU FROM THE CLOTHES, AND MAKE THE BETTER FEELING AND ENJOYING OF THE LIFE INTEREST FOR YOU. THE ORIGINAL FASHION BASED ON FUNCTIONAL NEEDS AND MODERN PATTERNS. WE NEEDING A KIND OF BUSINESS, A RED-POWDER BOSOM FRIEND, ALSO NEEDING A KINO OF STRONG BRAND CULTURE WHAT URGES THEIR LIVES TO GET MORE PERFECT AND EXPRESSES OUT THEIR EMOTION. OUR GARMENTS ARE CAREFULLY TESTED FOR BECOME LONGER LASTING WEAR.
Really, they needn’t have bothered with the Made in China tag.
June 14, 2022 — 6:36 pm
Comments: 9
Foot!
It’s Monday, so have an amputated gangrenous foot! mmMMMmmm! Hey, at least I didn’t give it to you in color. In color, it’s really choice.
We went to a military show this Saturday. The standouts were the The London Branch of American Civil War Veterans, which was really a thing (but these weren’t really them).
One exhibitor proudly told me 100,000 Brits fought in the American Civil War. He didn’t specify, so I assume both sides, which is kind of a messy thing to be proud of. Being from Tennessee, I had family on both sides, too, but not sure I’m proud of it. It was the ugliest of wars.
I reckon 80% of the people who dressed up at this thing were dressed as American soldiers of one kind or another. I wonder if that’s because there’s so much more US milsurp.
June 13, 2022 — 7:37 pm
Comments: 3
Shiny
It’s a Stanley Steamer! Spotted at one of the country shows. Classic cars and steam engines are a big feature of the shows, and this is both.
I’ve got to go to a lecture tonight. It’s being given by my boss, so I really do have to go. On – what else? – local history.
I will leave you to contemplate the color version, which is big, red and shiny. I strongly suspect Stanley came out of that trailer behind him and not under his own, erm, steam.
June 9, 2022 — 3:59 pm
Comments: 3
Old man on a park bench
We were driving through Burwash over the weekend and somehow, for the first time, noticed this. Yup, it’s a bronze Rudyard Kipling on a park bench. It’s well done, too.
Burwash is where Kipling’s last home was. Bateman’s. I’ve posted about it many times. It’s one of our favorite National Trust days out, though we haven’t been in a while. We quit the NT after the year of the ‘everyone is gay’ – a dual membership was getting on for £100 anyway.
Burwash itself is a pretty little village. Imagine driving through it so many times and never noticing this.
I’m sure that plaque to the left tells more about the statue, but this is Uncle B’s photo. I was too lazy to get out of the car and cross the street.
June 1, 2022 — 8:10 pm
Comments: 5
My best friend had the whole set
I don’t know why these popped into my head today. My best friend had the whole set. I lusted after it.
It took several different keywords to find them, but I think it’s the Johnny West Family 12″ Marx action figures from the Sixties. I pinched the photos from this guy’s collection. It’s a shame it’s a bit out of focus, but you can just make out a viking, a knight of some kind and I think that’s Genghis Khan in the background.
They did more stuff than I realized! The articulated horses were awesome.
My other best friend had the GI Joe with the cheek scar and the real peachfuzz beard. I lusted after him, too.
It’s not so much that I liked dolls, it’s that I loved miniature things. Little tiny facsimiles. Friend #1 above had the Barbie Camper set and I particularly yearned after those teeny, tiny Coke bottles.
My parents stopped giving me dolls. I developed a reputation for dissecting them. This is not as serial-killerish as it sounds – we’re mostly talking about dolls that walked or talked or like that. It was much more fun to take them apart and poke at the workings than it was to play with them in the expected way.
May 26, 2022 — 8:05 pm
Comments: 6
Neat!
A Brit I know is travelling in the US at the moment and keeps posting back pictures of historical markers. They have information signs here, of course, but not in this very particular style and not in such profusion. Anyway, he seems to find them amusing.
I went looking for some of my favorites to share back and found the Historic Marker Database.
Fun! I visited some of my favorites from back home.
You can also use the topic list, series list or geographic list but honestly – the funnest thing is to click the star at the top of each page to be whisked away to a random marker.
Will 100% pull over the car to read a historic marker.
The Bell Witch, by the way, is one of my favorite quirky Tennessee stories. It was an early 19th Century poltergeist tale which, looking back, wasn’t all that exciting. But I grew up on stories from the little red book and it was edgy stuff to a six-year-old.
May 24, 2022 — 7:24 pm
Comments: 6
Iconic
Atlas Obscura has an interesting article about the vanishing SEE ROCK CITY barns. Current signage regulations means they can touch up the old ones but they can’t paint any new ones. When the barns fall down, that’s the end of it.
There were once 900 of them all across the South. It’s now down to 70, mostly in Tennessee.
Rock City is going strong, it’s the barns that are disappearing. I gather Rock City has rebranded itself a nature trail sort of thing, which sounds better.
I once lived in the shadow of Lookout Mountain. I have a vague memory of seeing Rock City when it was still Fairyland – a bunch of little gnome sculptures lit up with colored lights. In my memory, it was dilapidated and sad.
Looking at the history, though, I’m not sure the timeline is right. It may be a false memory. I may have heard my parents talk about it. I was very little when we lived there.
May 23, 2022 — 6:37 pm
Comments: 4