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A celestial selection box! A backdrop of cirrus, contrails  in all directions, a circumzenithal arc at top right, a tiny sundog at bottom leftish and a Kelvin-Helmholtz wave left of centre. Atmospheric Optics used to explain all these things but something has gone horribly wrong.
We had a warming meal of spag bol and apple crumble on another chilly day and scored 10 on the GSQ.
A1 is reading The Sins of Our Fathers* by Asa Larsson. A2 is rereading Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru.

Sundowner

A2 went to town today for the first time in weeks. On the way home she saw this pretty sky with the low sun behind a cloud.
A1 is reading The Ice by Laline Paull, a near-future “cli-fi” (urgh) novel whose plot-driving event happens on Svalbard during the total solar eclipse of 20 March, 2015. We pondered going to Svalbard for this (extremely expensive) or the Faroes (just very expensive, but clouded out anyway), but ended up watching it from the UK, where there was a 90% eclipse — blog post. Anyway, the book was somewhat off-putting initially, being very blokey and privileged (arms fairs, private clubs, rich bastards), but rapidly paid off further reading with terrific writing and some very affecting quotes from real polar explorers as chapter headings. An excellent read.
A2 is reading Never Coming Back by Tim Weaver.

Cold Case Coppers Come Knocking

Current crime fiction fans A1 and A2 were surprised when a pair of detectives (bearing a slight resemblance to characters Catherine Cawood of Happy Valley and Steve Arnott of Line of Duty, who are standing in for them in this photo) turned up unannounced to question A1 about a 1996 unsolved murder close to his former flat; sadly he couldn’t help them with their enquiries.
A1 is reading Cold as Hell* by Lilja Sigurdardottir. A2 is reading The Arsenic Labyrinth by Martin Edwards.

Diwali

It’s Diwali! The Sikh Temple opened their gigantic box of fireworks and filled the sky with whooshing crackling sparkling sprays of light and colour.

A1 is reading The Creak on the Stairs* by Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir. A2 is reading Cold as Hell* (too right it is) by Lilja Sigurdardottir.
We had meltingly tender Italian beef stew and trifle for our family nosh and scored THIRTEEN on the GSQ; thanks everybody.

Near and Far

Now that the data cable has arrived, A2 has been trying out the £2 camera’s 1 cm macro
and 26x zoom on a mistifying morning.

It’s not bad for £2 + £4 cable and various bits of salvage (luckily A1 found some unused metal hydride batteries and charger lying around so we have everything we need now). Thank you Salvation Army.
A2 is rereading Sovereign by CJ Sansom.

Carrot Cake

Something everybody could eat, unlike A2’s kedgeree for which the vegetarian and fish-refuser had to have substitutes of cauliflower cheese.
We did this week’s and last week’s GSQs and scored 11.5 on one and 8.5 on t’other, keeping our average a bit over 10.
A1 is rereading Mr Mercedes by Stephen King. A2 is reading Reykjavik* by Ragnar Jonasson and Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, which is more like an Agatha Christie, to whom this book is dedicated, than Ragnar’s usual helping of doom and gloom. Not bad though.