Hanging by its back feet, stealing grub from the bird feeder, which we later discovered empty and broken. Sorry birds.
Admin1 is reading Beyond the Hallowed Sky by Ken Macleod. Enigmatic aliens! Scottish FTL submarines! Libertarian left politics! What’s not to like?
Admin2 is reading The Lying-Down Room by Anna Jaquiery
Sunshine
It is now exactly ten years since our solar panels came on stream. In that time they have served us 14,474.704kWh of electricity and £7,594.93 of free money, more than paying for themselves. Hopefully they have also reduced more pollution than was engendered in their manufacture, having offset just over 10,000kg of CO2. Good stuff all round.
Admin2 is reading The Promise by Damon Galgut; change and decay in a South African farming family; best Booker-winner I’ve read in years.
Cloud of the Day: Lenticularis
A delicious pile of pancakes for the last day of a month that fluctuated between balmy (11.9 °C today) and freezing and had an average amount of sun and rain.
Admin1 is reading Death Descends on Saturn Villa by MRC Kasasian (unfunny and annoying).
Winter Wonderland
It unexpectedly snowed again today; the temperature was -3.2 °C last night and did not get higher than 1.3 °C today. We had a lovely family meal as the sparkling flakes fell all around outside and scored 12 on the GSQ.
Admin1 is reading Still Life by Val McDermid. Admin2 is reading Beloved Poison by ES Thomson.
Storm Arwen
After Black Friday, white Saturday. Admin2 woke in the early morning to find white stuff blowing all over the place in the raging winds. We’ve had over 25mm of assorted precipitation (snow, sleet, rain, hail, graupel and diamond dust) today and the day is not over yet [update: total was 26.1mm, which is half all the rainfall we’ve had this monh]. And along with Arwen we have Omicron. Happy days.
Admin1 is reading Surgeons’ Hall by ES Thomson.
Cloud of the Day: Cirrocumulus radiatus
Admin1 snapped this lovely display from the library roof.
Admin1 is reading Dark Asylum by ES Thomson. Admin2 is reading Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson.
Shine On Beaver Moon
If we had been on the other side of the world we would have seen the longest lunar eclipse this century and the longest partial eclipse for 580 years.
Admin1 is reading Beloved Poison by ES Thomson — Gothic, gruesome and gory, with a gallery of grotesques. And very odoriferous. Admin2 is reading Still Life by Val McDermid.
We scored 10 on the GSQ.
Here Comes a Front
And here comes the cold weather. November has been quite gentle up to now.
Admin1 is reading A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry. Admin2 is reading The Shadows of Men by Abir Mukherjee.
Neon Lights
“Dear Leeds, we are your people” and various other uplifting messages strung across the cloudy sky above the shops.
Admin1, whose booster shot yesterday has plunged him into the morass of misery today, is reading The Shadows of Men by Abir Mukherjee.
Starling the Show
Singing a song for us.
Admin1 is reading the 700+-page Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson, which posits a high-tech solution to climate change, along with its drawbacks and political problems. In typical fashion for NS, the digressions along the way are much of the appeal: Punjabi stick-fighting, microwaving grapes, eagles vs drones, Netherlands royalty, how to tie a turban, the Line of Actual Control, Texan feral pigs, skycranes, and much else.
Admin2 is reading the 900+-page Anathem, also by Neal Stephenson.
We scored 8 on the GSQ.
Good Morning
Got up in the wee hours and saw this lovely sky.
Admin1 is reading Nightshade by ES Thomson. Admin2 is reading Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov.
Best Friends for Five Minutes
Our cats in an uncharacteristic affectionate pose. They spend most of the day annoying each other and half the night charging up and down stairs playing a crazy game of hide-and-seek.
Admin1 is reading Cover Your Tracks by Clare Askew. Admin2 is reading Nightshade by ES Thomson.
We scored 10 on the GSQ.
Cloud of the Day: Altocumulus
The sky was beautiful all day and filled with fireworks all night.
Happy Birthday Guida.
Admin1 is reading Murder at the Loch by Eric Brown, a very old-fashioned murder mystery by a writer more known for his SF. Admin2 started reading A Knife in the Heart by Barbara Nadel but abandoned it because it was too educational and out of date about life, culture and politics in Istanbul.
Sundog
A colourful cloud rocket taking off to celebrate Diwali.
Admin1 is reading The Guest List by Lucy Foley, in which a load of ghastly guests attend a wedding on a stormy Irish island. Unfortunately, only one gets murdered.
Admin2 is rereading Enigma by Robert Harris.
Aaaaargh!
A visitation by hideous ghouls which chilled us to the marrow as the door creaked slowly open…
Admin2 is reading Nighthawking by Russ Thomas; a mediocre whodunnit featuring metal detectorists and buried coins and corpses.
October was sunnier than in 2020, 2019 and 2017 but worse than all others. This is because we have given up climbing on the roof to move the panels around to optimise them for winter.
Water Tower
A puddle full of raindrops, fallen leaves and reflections of Potternewton Heights.
Admin2 is reading Girl One by Sara Flannery Murphy, a compulsive book involving mothers and daughters conceived without fathers.
We scored 8 on the GSQ. Alas.
The Magic Flute
A bit of magic for the family today: a cut-down opera with minimal scenery, accordion instead of orchestra and dress-down costumes, but magnificent singing.
Admin1 is reading Hidden Depths by Anne Cleeves. Admin2 is re-reading Spies by Michael Frayn.
Autumn Sun
Shining through the trees.
Admin2 is reading The Watcher by Ross Anderson: eurgh! another Girl book! How common is this curiously reversible dementia in young women?
Zoom Room
Welcome Lena to another cold-ridden two-house quiz meal. We had baked chicken and apple strudel and scored just 9.
Admin1 is reading The Girls Beneath by Ross Armstrong and Admin2 is reading Borderliners by Peter Hoeg.
Rainbow
A beautiful bright and evanescent rainbow briefly lighting up the autumn leaves to celebrate Admin2’s booster jab.
Admin1 is reading The Midnight Hour by Elly Griffiths. Admin2 started reading Too Much of Water by LC Tyler but is probably going to look for something else [update: rereading The Pesthouse by Jim Crace].
Fall Rain
Warm rain from a Spanish plume, soon to be followed by an Arctic blast.
Admin1 is reading All the Hidden Truths by Claire Askew. Admin2 is reading The Midnight Hour by Elly Griffiths.
Prickly Pear
Last of the garden cucumbers; tiny and a funny shape but fabulously tasty.
Admin1 is reading The Blood-Dimmed Tide by Rennie Airth. Admin2 is reading The Girls Beneath by Ross Armstrong
We scored 10 on the GSQ; reverted to Zoom thanks to the Worst Ever Cold.
Crowd of the Day: Spanish March for Climate
AGS, PCS, TUC etc supporting the Spaniards who are walking from Portsmouth to the COP26 in Glasgow.
Admin1 is reading River of Darkness by Rennie Airth. Admin2 is reading Cover Your Tracks by Claire Askew.
Moonlight Night
The waxing moon sits next to Jupiter in the clear evening sky.
Admin2 is reading Hidden Depths by Anne Cleeves.
It’s Light Night All Right
Hordes of people cram into a churchyard to stick their heads in luminous flowers and hear the hum of nature. Light night is a brilliant institution; it’s understandable that it’s always too crowded to be bearable.
Admin1 is reading The Death of Kings by Rennie Airth. Admin2 is reading The Blood-Dimmed Tide, also by Rennie Airth.