An occasional journal
Today we had new handrails fitted on our garden steps which makes getting up and down them one hell of a lot easier.
The acetone smell of the paint turned out to be very attractive to insects (pheromones probably). Here’s a jewel-like rosemary beetle revelling in the perfume, its antennae vibrating with excitement.
A2 is rereading The Predicament by William Boyd.
The clouds have now blown away and the Dwarf Mini is out observing a supernova in a distant galaxy.
Later: And the results are in! I first photographed this galaxy (C 30, known as the “Deer Lick group”, bizarrely) a couple of weeks back on 21 August. In early September there came news of a supernova, so on the first clearish night for ages I had another go. Clouds moved in so there there were fewer exposures this time (hence some of the fainter stars don’t appear), but the supernova — designated SN 2026aaiv — is clearly visible. A supernova is an extremely energetic explosion that happens when a star reaches the end of its life, and can briefly outshine a whole galaxy of billions of stars. Luckily this one is about 45 million light years away.
In preparation for reading Cold Sunset by William Boyd, A2 is rereading the rest of the trilogy (so far), starting with Gabriel’s Moon. A1 is reading The Lost Women by Tim Weaver.
A2 blows out the candles on her exquisite cherry almond cake after a succulent roast chicken dinner and before we scored 9 (8 would be more accurate but hey it’s a special day) on the GSQ.
The cat wanted to join in too.
It is also (and is on this day every year) National Read a Book Day. A1 is reading The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davies. A2 has 6 exciting new books to choose from (thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you A1) and is beginning with The End of Everything by M John Harrison, a post-apocalyptic alien invasion story which was like a weird dream but good all the same. First book I’ve read where the colophon warns AI not to scrape.
Oh no I can’t think of anything to say about this leggy creature of autumn, except that its diet of squashed slugs, bird droppings and jam seems more healthy than that of its lookalike the pholcus which just eats other spiders, the bastard.
A1 is reading Body of Lies* by Jo Callaghan, the conclusion of JC’s trilogy of crime novels about an AI detective. Somewhat melodramatic and polemical, and unfortunately the plot was in service of the polemic, rather than the other way round.
A2 is reading The Clues in the Fjord* by Satu Ramo.
Here’s the Moon swaddled in a blanket of cloud. And here it is earlier; stark naked and red in the face:
August was our third sunniest August ever but less warm and wet than the average August.
A2 is rereading Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, which featured no fewer than 5 moon-grey cats.
Today we had a chicken, courgette, cheese and pasta bake with a veggie version for Bob, followed by air-fried peaches and ice cream and the GSQ on which we scored 10, or possibly 11.
Blimey, is it really more than a week since we had new books? Well, Slow Gods and The Bone Clocks are both big books which require close attention. A1 is now reading The Silent Bones* by Val McDermid (something of a return to form) and A2 is reading Body of Lies* by Jo Callaghan.
A1 assures us no amphibians were harmed in the creation of this bangers-and-batter dish, followed by a banana and carrot cake and by the quiz at which we scored a sad 9.
This bee was running round and round in the passion flower, getting so plastered with pollen that she could not see her way out,
A2 is rereading The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell.
Another old favourite, followed by a sublime blackberry crumble and the quiz at which we scored an acceptable 12.
A1 is reading Slow Gods by Claire North (thanks A2!), which was a Slow Read — partly due to other commitments, but mainly because it’s a dense and intriguing hard sf novel, worth savouring. CN isn’t usually noted for hard sf, and they* do slip up a bit here: a supernova neutrino burst isn’t planet-destroying, and for neutrinos to hurt a human you’d have to be at about the same distance from the supernova as Mars is from the Sun. And that would be the least of your worries…
But the meat of the book is about a star pilot, strangely changed (“I am a very poor copy of myself”) by the experience of FTL travel — through “arcspace”, or the “dark”, in an echo of Adrian Tchaikovsky — to be near-immortal. He is born in debt-ridden servitude in a hyper-capitalist society, and his only escape is the nearly always fatal piloting job. It’s the story of his coming to terms with the changes he undergoes, and what it means to be human … or at least a conscious entity.
It’s an impressive book, if flawed, which I suspect will appear on various award shortlists.
A2 is reading Silent Bones* by Val McDermid.
* CN prefers non-gendered pronouns, and this novel contains more variations on pronouns than you can shake a stick at.
A pretty pink sunset marks the end of the heatwave, maybe.
The weather stayed clear for the eclipse yesterday. Here’s the traditional colander shot, awkwardly taken because it was difficult to hold a camera and a colander at the same time and there was only a tiny bit of unshadowed wall to project on:
And here’s a montage of images from the Dwarf Mini and a first stab at a video, 2 hours in 20 seconds:
Later we watched a small selection of Perseid meteors. A great day!
And today is our warmest day of the year: 34.1°C
A1 is reading The Pinnacle by Abir Mukherjee, which had lots of horrible people being horrible to each other and swearing a lot. Disappointing — like his mate Vaseem Khan he should stick to historical crime novels.
A2’s toilet tome is Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. Delete your Facebook account NOW!
Tomorrow is the Clacton by-election and our rubbish collection day, so Count Binface‘s supporters are lining the streets
Here’s a delicate blue butterfly sipping from the tiny pink flowers of a mint plant. And here’s a Common Zebra spider with a fly as big as itself:
A2 is reading Kafka on the Shore* by Haruki Murakami
Our family meal today was at Gez and Dave’s house and featured cod loins wrapped in parma ham with green beans and potato gratin with sausage rolls for the fish refusers. Present at the gathering were Dave with a broken foot in a velcro boot, Bob and Lena all the way from Sweden and Ivy visiting Faye.
A2 contributed a Dubai-style chocolate, pistachio and shredded wheat cheesecake but unfortunately dropped it and had to scrape it back together and apply another layer so it did not look as good as the before photo here but it tasted pretty acceptable. And we scored an astonishing 14 on the GSQ, bringing us back above 10 at long last.
A1 is reading The Killer’s Mark by MW Craven. A2 is reading Pinball 1973* by Haruki Murakami.
An unlucky bird must have flown full tilt into our window today. There was no corpse on the ground below so it must have flapped away with an aching head leaving a print of itself on the rain-soaked glass and a feather where its beak should be. Here’s a brief video:
Later: a pile of feathers at the bottom of the garden provides a clue. Most likely the pigeon rammed the window when fleeing in terror from a sparrowhawk but the bird of prey caught up with it and now it is probably a ghost indeed. How sad.
A1 is reading The Burning Tide by William Shaw. A2 is reading The Pinnacle by Abir Mukherjee.
Another old favourite for our family meal, followed by ice cream in colourful cones and by the GSQ at which we scored a slightly improved 11. And thanks go out to Gez and Ceri for bringing us coffee from London and Rutland respectively.
A2 is reading The Killer’s Mark by MW Craven.
This plant continues to flourish in its tiny pot, bearing hundreds of fruits and overtopping the wall.
July 2026 was just above averagely warm but it was our sunniest July ever: 271.107kWh and our third sunniest month since our records began. It was also our driest month of all time at 0.6mm, though the accolade on our weather records will always go to the 0.3mm of May 2025 when it rained plenty but our weather station was out of action.
A2 is reading The Burning Tide by William Shaw.
Welcome red and black flying insect, parent of black and yellow crawling caterpillars, though we haven’t seen any in these parts this year.
A1 is reading Solace House by Will Maclean. A2 is rereading, after like 50 years, The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark.
Welcome home Gez, to a warming curry cooked by A1 and followed by a damn fine cherry pie and damn fine coffee, after which we scored 10 on the GSQ with Faye as quizmistress.
A2 is reading The Killing Stones by Ann Cleeves.
And later, an unexpected noctilucent display, later in the year than we have ever seen them
This thing has been sitting on our windowsill unwatered since Christmas, when it didn’t bloom anyway, no leaves and a dried-up bulb that suddenly burst into bud.
A2 is reading The Haunting of Hill House* by Shirley Jackson.
Pyronia tithonus, sitting on grass that has lost the distant memory of rain.
A1 is reading Pandora’s Boy by Lindsey Davis.
Gez and Bob are off on an adventure so our dinner companions were Dave, Faye and a bonus Ivy. We had fruit salad for afters and scored a satisfactory 10 on the GSQ with Ivy as quizmaster.
A2 is reading Solace House by Will Maclean, an absolutely phenomenal book featuring a bunch of alienated students, a house packed floor to ceiling with rubbish, a secret cave, a mysterious poem, The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke and a shedload of magic mushrooms.
The tiny Pyrausta aurata, a princess among moths with its gold-flecked velvet gown, flowing blonde mane and blue eyes.
A2 is reading London Burning* by Anthony Quinn.
While preparing for last night’s Dwarf Mini observing session (details here), A1 tried out his new phone, a Pixel 10a, on its astronomy setting. And accidentally caught the International Space Station as it flew overhead:
A fabulous family feast featuring green stuff, eggs, potatoes, salmon, tuna, cheeses, cold meats, chicken legs, sausage rolls and a peachy pie pudding, after which we scored a calamitous 8 on the GSQ. Outside, the street party was going on with more people than usual, most of whom seemed to be complete strangers.
A1 is reading The Graveyard of the Hesperides by Lindsay Davis. A2 is reading Buyer Beware by Catherine Ryan Howard; a woman with a dodgy past moves into a house with a dodgy past. What could possibly go wrong?