Lots of small-time organisms growing on a wall.
Admin1 is reading Cold Water by Dave Hutchinson, the fifth book in his highly impressive and eerily prophetic Fractured Europe series. This is from the first volume, published in 2014:
The early years of the twenty-first century brought a symphony of slamming doors. Economic collapse, paranoia about asylum seekers — and, of course, GWOT, the the ongoing Global War On Terror — had brought back passport and immigration checks of varying stringency, depending on whose frontiers you were crossing. Then the Xian Flu had brought back quarantine checks and national borders as a means of controlling the disease; it had killed […] between twenty and forty million people in Europe alone. It had also effectively killed Schengen and kicked the already somewhat rickety floor out from under the EU.
Europe in Autumn, p27
This was written pre-Brexit, pre-COVID. There’s an interesting (if somewhat academic) analysis of the series in relation to Brexit here.
Admin2 is reading Babel by RF Kuang, but gave up halfway through because it was so stupendously bossy; with the author and all her characters lecturing the reader and each other on linguistics, racism, sexism, colonialism, imperialism etc. To be fair, it was set in a university (an alternative Oxford in Victorian times) so some characters were lecturers, but still. Show, not tell.
We ate roast chicken and squidgy chocolate pear pudding again and scored 11.5 on the GSQ. Bob was quizmaster and did pretty well.
Another rainbow. It is also the day of our belated celebration of Audrey’s birthday, when we gave her 2 books she’d already been given and various other quite dangerous things, ate pasta and fruit salad and scored 12 on the GSQ.
We missed the 
A rainbow marks the dawn of another year. 2022 had up and downs, from 39.2 to -5.5 °C, but it was our 
The table is set with a red bedsheet, flowers and napkins folded into Christmas trees (thanks Guida) and the cats are first up for the forthcoming feast of chicken, roast potatoes, Yorkshires, gravy and two veg, followed by trifle. Dave was too sick to participate except on the phone but we managed to score a creditable 12 on the last quiz of the year, bringing our average to 10.1730769230769 according to the spreadsheet. Gifts were exchanged, drinks were drunk and crackers (containing no plastic or useless metal things but impossible origami instead) were pulled and so that was Christmas.
Our pudding today was 
The skull beneath the skin of creepy Bob, who had been enjoying his mum’s face-painting skills and was brandishing a Santa’s skull balloon. Dave was ill and absent from our family meal this week, so we scored a pathetic 8 on the GSQ.
Today the family all tested negative so were back around the table eating stroganoff and parkin. It was a joy to see them all again and against the odds of our ignorance we scored 10.5 on the GSQ.
Taken on Admin1’s new phone, a view over the rooftops to a misty Gledhow Valley Lake, looking like a Chinese painting.
All day we have been veiled in fog. A man came round to cut off the top of the laurel tree in the centre of the picture so the sight has changed and Admin1 has animated 
The moon shining down in a misty sky. This morning was properly foggy.
This scary puppet joined us for our family meal of meatloaf and fruit salad.
A morning fog blurs the turning leaves.
The almost-full moon through a veil of cirrus, and a planet so close it looks like a little ball.
Cheeky little critter surrounded by the detritus of its feast. Now that our hedge is gone they just hang around the house.
A nocturnal predator enjoying a daytime doze among our overgrown ivy.
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.
An evil spider with a web like lightning and an underbelly with glowing eyes is sucking the life out of a helpless trussed-up bluebottle.
A young dunnock trying out our unpopular bird food.
Admin2 took this unprocessed photo of the Chapeltown carnival with the camera accidentally on night setting. It could pass for an 
An iridescent cloud shimmers above golden linings and a smoking chimney.
A bird reaching for the berries on the elder tree on another 32 degree day. It all falls apart tomorrow.