‘Tis the season for nuts (see UK politics) and this year the council is asking citizens to collect tree seeds to turn the city into a forest. We are making an anti-contribution by having our massive hedge chopped down.
Admin1 is reading Run Time by Catherine Ryan Howard and Admin2 is reading Peculiar London by Christopher Fowler
Category: nature
Gold Leaf
The leaves are turning, and this one has a spangle of glittering dewdrops. Winter is coming but the sun is shining and our solar panels have made more money this year than in any year before.
Admin1 is reading The Lost Man of Bombay by Vaseem Khan.
We scored 12 on the GWQ. A return to form!
Critter of the Day: Hoverfly
Nature’s little helicopter, floating silently before this excessively complicated construction of petals, frilly skirt, dome, pillar, sphere, hammers, nails and curly springs.
Heatwave well over. Top temperature today: 17.2 °C.
Admin2 is rereading A House of Knives by William Shaw. Admin2 is reading The Sun Chemist by Lionel Davidson.
Dandelions Old and New
Spring is well under way with little suns everywhere evolving into ghostly moons.
Admin1 is reading The House of the Hanged Woman by Kate Ellis. Admin2 was reading Among the Ruins by Ausma Zehanet Khan (a film-maker campaigning for a political prisoner is murdered in Iran) but found it, worthy as it probably was, too depressing, intellectually challenging and boring to read late at night so has switched to The Darkest Evening by Anne Cleeves.
Flower of the Day: Zebra Primrose
Somebody spent ages going over these blooms with a highlighter and felt-tip pen — or maybe they just grew that way.
Admin2 is reading Hot Water by Christopher Fowler.
Flower of the Day: Magnolia
Spring blossoms in a tasteful design, suitable for curtains and similar household textiles.
Admin1 is reading Ocean Prey by John Sandford, readable as always. Admin2 is rereading Counter-Clock World by Philip K Dick.
Flowers That Bloom in the Spring, Tra La!
Municipal plantings coming up.
Admin1 is reading The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky, vaguely competent skiffy which suffers from content/tone mismatch. Admin2 is reading 1979 by Val McDermid, a half-baked potboiler seemingly aimed at LGBTQ+ YAs.
We scored 9 on the GSQ.
Pollock
Actuall not a pollock but a very distorted shubunkin.
Admin1 is reading The Curator and Admin2 is reading Black Summer, both by MW Craven.
Condensation
Droplets on wavy glass, saturated to the max.
Admin1 is rereading Seventy-Seven Clocks by Christopher Fowler. Admin2 is reading Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr.
Conkerama
Autumn’s bounty of inedible chestnuts.
Admin1 is reading Telling Tales by Anne Cleeves. Admin2 is reading The Reckoning by Rennie Airth: events in WW1 resonate in a nostalgic post-WW2 world where the characters wait uneasily to see what the Labour government will do.
We scored 10 on the unchanged GWQ in the new-look magazine. So it’s the Guardian Saturday Quiz now.
Conkerona
A virus-shaped chestnut pod collected by Admin1 on the way to an unscheduled spot of work.
Admin1 is reading Too Close to Breathe by Olivia Kiernan, another horrible book with another annoying detective. Admin2 is reading The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas.
Critter of the Day: Speckled Wood
Pararge aegeria. We tried to persuade it to open its wings, but it just stayed perched on a leaf in a dancer’s pose.
Admin 1 is reading A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee. Admin2 is reading The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.
Fruity Bodies
Moss feeling the joys of spring.
Admin1 is reading The Salt Marsh by Clare Carson.
Autumn Leaves Are Falling Fast
Cold, dark, wet.
Admin1 is rereading Black Widow by Christopher Brookmyre.
Lavender’s Blue
Admin1 is reading Grave’s End by William Shaw, in which we learn a lot about badgers. Admin2 is reading Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell, which was phenomenal.
Cinnabar Eggs
Watched a cinnabar moth laying eggs in precisely spaced rows like a miniature 3d printer.
Admin1 is reading The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin. Admin2 is rereading Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd.
Flower of the Day: Camellia
And another battle-scarred peacock.
Today was the warmest day this year: 22.7 °C. It was also the sunniest: 9.12 kWh.
Admin2 is reading The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman.
Moss
Admin1 is reading The Body in the Mist by Nick Louth — police procedural meets Cold Comfort Farm. Admin2 is reading Mother Land by Paul Theroux; seven squabbling siblings and their 100+-year-old manipulative mum.
Bare Wintry Trees
Admin1 is reading White Hot Silence by Henry Porter. We scored 9 on the GWQ.
Mellow Yellow
All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey. We did sod all watts today.
Admi1 is reading Sins of the Dead by Lin Anderson. Admin2 is reading The Testaments by Margaret Atwood.
Khofi wa tsikulo: Zambean
Home at Last
Monkey Pools
Guida and Fiona’s Chris swimming in a natural water feature.
Admin2 is reading My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Autumn Leaves with Colour-coordinated Cat
Admin1 is rereading When the Devil Drives by Chris Brookmyre. Admin2 is reading A Spy’s Life by Henry Porter.
Beside the Seaside
Morning in Scarborough. We were staying in an enormous flat in the Green Gables Hotel which was huge, gothic, understaffed and virtually empty and had a beautiful cat and a dark park next door where admins 1 and 2 saw the bright stars and listened to the loud owls. Admin 1 has been rereading The Redeemer by Jo Nesbo. Admin2 has been reading Thin Air by Ann Cleeves.
Critter of the Day: Painted Lady
Vanessa Cardui, a migrant from Africa, sitting on the road. Fun fact: it is the only species of butterfly ever recorded in Iceland.
Admin1 is reading The Shadow Killer by Arnaldur indridason.