some good things

Mar. 17th, 2026 11:22 pm
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[personal profile] kaberett
  1. Allotment salad!
  2. Got Things Into The Ground (as well as out of it); I am as ever running massively behind but the weather was lovely and touching soil remains very good.
  3. It was warm enough to have the back door open for a bit.
  4. I am really, really enjoying the self-indulgent Very Expensive Lebkuchen I got from SousChef in the January sale. They make an excellent supper.
  5. Bloods taken today do include a full blood count; alas no ferritin (that's scheduled for... May? April?) but I do get a sneaky extra update on how my estimated haemoglobin is doing.
  6. libgourou continues to Work. I remain very pleased about this.
watervole: (Default)
[personal profile] watervole

 

Go here to watch the performance

I've just watched it and it's great!

Excellent cast all round, great costumes (Gatwa looks amazing in his skin tight suit)

I mean, what could possible fail to delight in a show which starts with Gatwa playing  a piano in a ballgown?

Multi-racial cast, loads of laughs, Algernon and Jack definitely have bromance going on, and Oscar Wilde's brilliant script.

 

I think Wilde would have loved this performance as much as I did.

You've got one more day to watch it before the free view comes to an end!

 

 

 

 

 

vital functions

Mar. 15th, 2026 10:37 pm
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Reading. I continue to work my way through the She's A Beast archives, to a degree that is not necessarily ... uh ... optimal, in terms of all the other things I want to do...

I slowed down on LIFTOFF, on account of resuming reading from the start with A, and then this evening I tripped and fell and am. More. of the way through it. again.

Finished What Is Queer Food? by John Birdsall. Ultimately the argument is that the queerness is a function of community -- the role that food plays in eating together -- though he also tries at various points for "enjoying food is queer" (among other things), which I do not think I am the target audience for. (Having said which I am now wondering what it would take to convince me of that line of reasoning, and Ideas Are Stirring. Hmm.) Overall a mixture of anecdotes from culinary history and fiction to fill in events that went unrecorded; he does hold space for people to be complex and flawed, and I appreciated the history that was actually history, but -- alas, this did not really work for me.

Writing. Words. Continue. To be. Eked out.

Watching. The 2026 Migraine World Summit is ongoing and eating a lot of my time and brain; thus far nothing has made me actually vibrate with fury and I've had a couple of useful joining-the-dots moments, so mustn't grumble there, really. And I have finally watched the talks from last year's Day 2 that I missed due to time changes, and have started transferring my digital notes from last year into my notebook...

Playing. Inkulinati: we continue Not Dead Yet in the Exploders run on Master difficulty.

The Ridiculous Colours Game.

Sudoku... appears to have let go of my brain for now?

Cooking. This evening I have been attempting to remember how to make Spätzle, and got there eventually (part of the difficulty being that this is the first time I've made them since acquiring a dedicated Spätzlebrett, and I needed to reestablish correct consistency of the dough...)

Eating. This morning we engaged in a Weekend Morning Ritual of going down to the local fancy bakery and getting brunch from them. We also got Treats for Afternoon Tea; I am delighted that they'll supply me with cardamom buns that I don't have to actually make myself.

I have also been Craving Brownies, but not enough to actually make them myself (and also The Oven Is Broken), and consequently have eaten them courtesy of both Wagamama (ritual Thursday night takeaway) and London Zoo (Saturday afternoon tea).

Exploring. London Zoo! Saw creatures! Maybe I will even go back and edit in more details about the creatures! Creatures: good.

Several bimbles around local front gardens (etc) to enjoy Spring Flowers.

Growing. Harvested (and consumed!) more salad. Transplanted some garlic. Wrangled some more weeding. Have yet to sow any more things but really want to have Actual Plants this growing season so, uh, maybe that can be a priority for Breaks From Migraine World Summit, not that that's worked so far...

Observing. THE BAT.

And then for brunch this morning we took our breakfast slightly further than usual to a different park bench, this one surrounded by daffodils, and then additionally wandered a little way down the New River (neither new, nor a river) to see if the coots were doing things yet (which I have also been checking every time I go to the pharmacy to pick up meds). The coots aren't, BUT there were TEN EGYPTIAN GOSLINGS peeping about the place!!! At least one of whom was Extremely keen on coming All the way down the bank and plapping along the edge of the bricks, presumably because they were warm and felt nice on feet? Certainly two very gentle attempts to chase it back towards its parents got them contemplating hissing at me, and only persuaded it to maybe do the thing for about thirty seconds at most, so I gave up on that and just stood back and watched them for a bit, and then was very relieved that the foolhardy baby did upon parents Alarm Calling (as best we can tell about A Passing Dog) go FWEEP FWEEP FWEEP all the way back up and into the bundle of its siblings. An unexpected and very welcome delight.

zoo!

Mar. 14th, 2026 10:49 pm
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[personal profile] kaberett

highlights included:

otherwise everything is still Migraine World Summit (though I have once again learned a useful thing today! neck pain can be a prodrome symptom!) and Special Interest.

miscellany

Mar. 13th, 2026 10:48 pm
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[personal profile] kaberett

In apparent celebration of Migraine World Summit, I have spent this evening having an unscheduled migraine attack for no obvious reason. I disapprove. (Because I've been doing a lot of audiovisual processing, captions notwithstanding? Because I had my screen much brighter than usual for a while playing a colours game?* Because oven't?)

Nonetheless I have watched and made digital notes on all of 2026 Day 2, watched and made digital notes on 3/4 talks from 2025 Day 2 (which I missed at the time), and made physical notes for 2025 Day 1 and 1/4 of Day 2. I am... sort of catching up.

I am really enjoying my pens. I also find myself with the problem of wanting lots of different notebooks and, also, to keep everything in One Single Solitary Notebook, For Convenience...

* NB I am a rocks nerd. My colour discrimination is ludicrously good. I am sorry that that link is weird and competitive about my ridiculous score, but not sorry enough to provide you with the bare link.

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I currently have a bit of a special interest happening, right. So I spent a bit of today's therapy session talking about it, as one does, and then meandered around to one of my current Big Topics[1], and made it all the way through to the wrapping-up stage of proceedings!

... when My Favourite Metaphor About Therapy abruptly suggested itself to me and I had. A Moment.

Which is how I found myself explaining that, in a thematically appropriate coincidence, said favourite metaphor is "emotional heavy lifting, with trained spotter".

To which came the response: "... can I. borrow that."

And thus: A Good Grade In Therapy.

[1] social anxiety. it's the social anxiety.

apparently we also need a new oven

Mar. 11th, 2026 10:40 pm
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[personal profile] kaberett

Via divers alarums and excursions we have established that the oven seems to trip All The Electrics... when it hits A Certain Temperature. Read more... )

But. BUT. Today I SAW THE BAT for the first time this year (having been doing a questionable job of actually managing to watch for it at bat o'clock over the last several weeks); and my Special Interest In Moving My Body went surprisingly well; and A curled up on the sofa and did some more Reading About Special Interest with me; and I am actually doing alright.

Freedom of speech

Mar. 11th, 2026 02:18 pm
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[personal profile] liv
There's been a rant I have been meaning to turn into an essay for a while, but Ken White (Popehat) has done it better, so I direct you to his really well-written and referenced (though US-centric) article: The Fashionable Notion of 'Free Speech Culture' Is Justifying State Censorship, Ironically. Criticism. Is. Not. Censorship, and “Free speech culture” has a natural tendency to discount the speech rights and interests of people who criticize speech.

This is important in Europe too, not just in the US, because it's a deliberate, specific Russian infowar tactic to promote far right events at UK universities and claim censorship if anyone objects. A network based at [Cambridge] University and backed by Thiel, which it said was using the issue of free speech to “normalise white nationalism on UK campuses”. Neither Putin nor Thiel has anyone's freedom at heart, and they're all too successful at distracting people with a toddler-like notion of "freedom" where you get to say the naughty words without being told off.

shorter version of my original opinion, building on White's piece )

For All Mankind season 1

Mar. 11th, 2026 12:30 pm
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 I've just finished the first season of 'For All Mankind'.  Enjoyed it, but I'm puzzled by the season finale.

 

How did Ed manage to get upto the Apollo module and down to the moon again?  And then up again!  

 

Surely there's no way salvaged fuel could power two lunar take-offs, let alone give the course correction for the Apollo module as well?

 

and the way lunar landers worked was for the base part to be left on the moon, in any case. 

Diabetes and iron deficiency....

Mar. 11th, 2026 10:12 am
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 Went to see the diabetes nurse today to sort out medication.

I forget how it came up, but apparently iron deficiency can lead to blood sugar readings that look exactly the same as diabetes...

 

So, now booked in for an iron test, just in case it isn't diabetes at all. 

 

Also, skinny people can sometimes get Type 2 diabetes, so I'm not even sure which kind of diabetes I have... But the treatment is the same either way in the early stages, so what the heck.

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Back at the beginning of January [profile] beadsbuttonslace wrote up some reflections on this book, which interested me enough that I put in a hold on my library's only digital copy, which was an audiobook, and then I managed to listen to it in under a week, and now I am subscribed to Johnston's newsletter (and reading its archives) and also trying to work out whether I want to buy a physical copy or a digital copy for my own library.

Which is to say: I liked it. A lot.

Read more... )

And some final notes:

vital functions

Mar. 8th, 2026 10:57 pm
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[personal profile] kaberett

Reading. I confess I have tripped and fallen into a special interest and am therefore currently primarily working my way through the archives of She's A Beast. BUT.

  • This was all kicked off by A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting, Casey Johnston, inhaled; more comprehensive notes on this topic currently part way through being typed up.
  • I am also about half way through (reading!) LIFTOFF: Couch to Barbell, also Casey Johnston, and am having fun starting to play with moving my body in ways.
  • Continuing the theme of Moving Bodies In Ways and What Even Are Muscles, I have also started Science of Pilates (Tracy Ward).
  • I also continue to work my way through What Is Queer Food?, John Birdsall, and am nearly done. Probably more thoughts on this at some point in the upcoming week.

Writing. Words continue to, very slowly, go up.

Listening. More Hidden Almanac. Very close to being caught up to the point I've theoretically listened to with A (some of which I wound up being asleep during)...

Playing. Inkulinati Exploders run on Master difficulty continues. We have now broken a quill (DEMONS :|) but we do continue to progress...

Another round (well, most of one) of The Little Orchard, this time with The Child deciding that we SHOULD turn the Bothersome Crows back over and put them back...

Cooking. New recipe! Meera Sodha's leek & chard martabak. Unlikely to make again but not sorry to have made.

Exploring. Adventures this week have included:

  • Wood Green Mall, which contains PRIDE STAIRS, and the Community Diagnostic Centre, which contains GIANT WATERFOWL MURAL
  • the walk between Wood Green underground station and Wood Green Mall, feat. ACORN BOLLARDS
  • went for a bit of a Cross Walk one evening earlier this week (brain said AAAAAAH) and discovered along the way a fantastic white-with-pink-stripes camellia
  • generally Going Out To Run Errands is currently accompanied by Many Flowers and that is nice, actually

Observing. flowersss.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Mar. 8th, 2026 11:42 am
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[personal profile] watervole
 Absolutely bloody fabulous!
 
I have the audiobook and have listened to it many times.
 
I love the science, I love the characters, I love the problems that the characters have to face and the way these are tackled.
 
I'm not in the least surprised they're making a movie, and I'm going to see it as soon as it opens.
 
The plot is ingenious and unlike any other I've encountered.  Earth's sun is losing energy - which means everyone on Earth will die as the world gets colder and colder.  There is a limited time span in which to try and find out what is causing the problem and what, if anything can be done about it.
 
Everything goes in a single 'Hail Mary' project - the only thing that might, possibly might, find a solution.
 
If you haven't already read it, buy it.  (Unless you read and hated 'The Martian', but I don't know anyone who did...)
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 This book just didn't work for me.  I only got part way through before abandoning it.
 
It's a clever idea, that characters involved on opposing side of a long-running time war start a correspondence, but I found I had little interest in the characters, and little idea of why the time war was being fought.
 
The descriptive text is very good, but that's not enough to hook me on a book.

Mythos /Heroes by Stephen Fry

Mar. 8th, 2026 11:25 am
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[personal profile] watervole
Heroes is well written, as you'd expect from Stephen Fry, and has some gentle touches of humour.
 
The problem is that after a while the Greek myths all start to feel the same.  You don't want to read them all in a short period of time.  They're not exactly in depth stories.
 
This is a book that I think I will dip into now and then, but having got part way through, I've no urge to finish it all in a few sittings.

3/5

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 It's so nice to read a book involving narrowboats by someone who actually knows what they are writing about!
I remember once reading a romance involving a narrowboat and spending more time mentally nitpicking than getting involved in the romance...
 
Beecroft knows how a weed hatch works and what you use it for, and likewise for the rest of the waterways equipment.
 
Does it also work as a novel?  Yes, it's a gentle story, made up of different people whom Emily meets and re-meets along the inland waterways.  I particularly enjoyed the group of student with their floating party, who keep needing Emily's help due to their general ineptness with narrowboats. 
 
Emily has her own, health-related problems, but there are also other boaters happy to assist her when her pain flares up too badly.
 
People help her, and she solves problems for them.
 
There is also romance, but romance with a very Beecroft twist - which happens to work for me :)

Guards Guards, by Terry Pratchett

Mar. 7th, 2026 06:55 pm
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'Guards Guards'  is Pratchett on top form (much though I love his books, some are much better than others...).
 
It's the first book about Sam Vimes and the Night Watch, and we get to know and love the characters who will make many appearances in later books.
 
It's got a plot that makes sense, and has some good twists in it.
 
It's funny, but it also has characters who feel like real people. Sam Vimes the drunk captain of the Watch has pretty much given up on everything, finds there are some things that even he won't give up on.  
 
The various mystical brotherhoods that meet in Ankh Morepork are hilarious.
 
My favourite character is Lady Sybil Ramkin, breeder of swamp dragons.  The kind of person whose family goes back so far that she is perfectly comfortable spending all her days dressed in old clothes and mucking out dragon pens, and feels no need to attend balls and the like.  
 
This is the story where the Librarian (an orangutan, for those who don't already know) gets enlisted into the Guard, and we discover the mysteries of L-space... 

have a daffodil(s)

Mar. 5th, 2026 11:23 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

a frenzy of daffodils, with ridiculous doubled frills; the one in the foreground has a green streak

About twenty metres up the road is a front garden that is, at this time of year, full of ridiculous daffodils. It is an Annual Delight. I took this photo yesterday, and then I dragged A out to visit it at lunchtime today, in glorious weather. It has been a good day.

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