A very large 2000-piece jigsaw, which took us two weeks to finish and required the whole table to do. Why is there always one piece missing?
We had toad in the hole with garden broccoli and rhubarb crumble with garden rhubarb for our family meal with garden flowers on the table and scored an absolutely appalling 6 on the GSQ.
A1 is reading Cut Short by Leigh Russell. A2 is rereading PopCo by Scarlett Thomas.
Author: admin1
All the Pretty Colours
Spring-like weather: sunshine, showers, rainbow (with a faint secondary at top right).
A1 is rereading Henry Porter’s Empire State. A2 is reading The Candy House* by Jennifer Egan. They can remember it for you retail.
Buckets of Rain
Lots of rain overnight, but we woke up to find the rain gauge blocked. Probably pigeons again…
Also the webcam is mysteriously refusing to upload. Can’t blame the pigeons for that.
[Update: all fixed now]
A2 is reading Invisible by Paul Auster; a novel about a dying poet writing a memoir with assistance from a novelist.
Belt of Venus
The Belt of Venus is the pinkish area in the centre of the picture. The darker blueish area below is the shadow of the Earth, rising as the Sun sets.
A1 is reading Too Close to Breathe* by Olivia Kiernan. A2 is reading The Snow Girl* by Javier Castillo; a dogged reporter on the case of a lost child.
New Year’s Day
Midnight fireworks viewed from the traffic island.
2023 was our wettest year ever but also featured our longest dry spell from May 20 to June 17. Full info here.
We tried the GSQ on our own and scored a miserable 6. It was from last year so it doesn’t count.
Misty Sunrise
Morning pigeons! Morning Sun! Nice to see you again after yesterday’s incessant deluge.
A2 is reading Snare by Lilja Sigurdardottir.
Cats of Baghdad
In the 9th century Baghdad was apparently crawling with cats. At least, according to A1’s latest game Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which has a very impressive recreation of the city. And local wildlife.
Guida (Fawkes) Night
Happy birthday, Guida!
We had various pasta bakes for our family meal, followed by parkin and custard. We scored a reasonable 11 on the GSQ, then repaired outside to let off a box of fireworks to celebrate.
A2 is reading The Black Path* by Asa Larsson, which was so complicated she lost the plot.
The History Man
The splendid interior of the Local History section of Leeds Central Library, where A1 spent the day shadowing the staff.
A1 is rereading No One Home by Tim Weaver. A2 is reading The Last Goodbye, also by Tim Weaver.
Rainbow
A showery but sunny day.
A1 is reading The Hermitage by LJ Ross.
One Love, Two Jabs
A1 and A2 went for our latest covid boosters and received an unexpected flu jab in the other arm as well. Scott Hall Road looked unappealing in the drizzle, but murals are also a feature of our perigrinations to the health centre so here is a work in progress celebrating the carnival (which we missed this time round — thanks to covid).
On our way home we went to the traditional Salvation Army charity shop and bought 6 books, 2 pie tins, a bag of ribbons and a camera which works perfectly except the battery compartment doesn’t shut.
Sight of the Night: Perseid
We went out meteor-spotting last night, and we managed to capture a short, fast Perseid — the trail was short because it was close to the radiant point in Perseus. Admin2 also saw a fireball earlier.
Happy Flying Ant Day!
Loads of these came out to play today, including one which flew straight into Admin1’s mouth.
Admin2 is reading Fludd* by Hilary Mantel. Her slim volumes about weird northern ne’er-do-wells are much more entertaining than her Booker-winning turgid tomes about Tudor luminaries.
Set the Controls…
A fine 22° halo seen today, with added contrails and their shadows on the cirrus clouds. Admin1 timed the shot so the high contrail at 7 o’clock was heading directly for the sun. The blue dot at 1 o’clock is a lens artefact.
FireIceland
It’s all happening in Iceland:
This is the new volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula, about 24 miles from the capital Reykjavík. You can watch it live on this link. [Update 15 Jan 2024: live multiview link]
In contrast, Admin2 is reading Snow by John Banville. A priest is found stabbed in the library of a snowbound country house. Suspects: the Colonel, his neurotic wifeling, wayward daughter, arrogant son, apple-cheeked retainer and halfwit stable boy. Whodunnit? It gets darker.
Storm
Yesterday we had balmy temperatures and constant sunshine: 12.101kWh, Today: thunder, lightning, stair rods, massive puddles and twice as much rain as we had in the whole of February.
Windrush Day
Happy Birthdays Twins and Happy Windrush Day everybody. Here is Admin1’s time lapse sequence of the wind rushing through the clouds and the trees.
Pop-up Poppies
Since the replacement of our back garden hedging with a fence, a number of these plants have shot up in the disturbed soil. They appear to be Papaver somniferum, otherwise known as opium poppies.
Today was our second ever sunniest day for the solar panels (13.430kWh), and the recent run of good weather means it’s on the 7-day sequence records.
Admin2 is reading Wilful Behaviour by Donna Leon.
Smoke Alarm
Returning from work yesterday, Admin1 was alarmed to see pillars of dark smoke rising from the vicinity of our house. Rushing home, he turned into our street to see a number of residents standing outside their houses and looking worried, with multiple sirens heard in the distance. Fortunately the fire was a few houses away, in the next street.
May 2023 was our third sunniest May ever and slightly warmer and a lot drier than the last couple of Mays.
Admin1 is reading Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan. Admin2 is reading The Axe Woman* by Hakan Nesser.
A frosty dawn
Here comes the sun after another chilly night.
Admin1 is reading The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox, a fantasy about libraries and fairyland. Not wholly successful in its mix of mythologies, but redeemed by some nice writing and interesting ideas.
Admin2 is reading A Memory for Murder* by Anne Holt.
Mars occultation
We got up this morning at 4:30am to be greeted by cloud cover, but within 15 minutes it had cleared, allowing us to see the occultation of Mars by the Moon, starting just before 5am from Leeds. This is a quick and dirty upload, and a rather poor animation; more later perhaps.
The photos were taken through an ETX125 telescope with an attached Canon 7D camera, controlled from a Pixel 6a mobile running the excellent DSLR Controller app. There’s just a suggestion of surface detail on Mars.
Andromeda Galaxy
This picture is a tiny detail from an unzoomed shot taken with Admin1’s new phone — a Pixel 6a — from the light-polluted suburban environment of our garden. The inset in the green circle is a screen grab from Stellarium, a wonderful sky simulation program available for Linux and Windows. It shows that the faintly elongated blur at centre-left is, indeed, the Andromeda Galaxy; all the surrounding stars are correct. Our galaxy will collide with Andromeda soon. (OK, in about 5 billion years; no worries.)
It’s amazing that a small phone can capture something like this.
Today 2022 became our best year ever on the solar panels, and Admin1 is reading The Blood Divide by AA Dhand.
Autumnal colours
All the colours of the autumn leaves, the rainbow and Diwali. Oh and a person of colour for PM.
Admin1 is rereading Soul Music by Sir Terry Pratchett.
Moon and Jupiter
Crescent moon, with a faintly visible Jupiter above it, preceding the coldest night of the winter so far at -3.3°C.
Admin1 is rereading Bryant and May on the Loose by Christopher Fowler. Admin2 is reading Bad Day at the Vulture Club by Vaseem Khan.
Double Sunrise
Not really — it was taken through a window and got reflected.
Admin1 is reading The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan.