Author: admin2

Autumn Crocus

Flowers with no leaves that grow in the woods at this time of year.
September was our rainiest September ever: 141.6mm, beating last year into second place, and our second coldest, only beaten by last year, but the solar panel output was close to average.
A1 is reading the unseasonal The Masquerades of Spring by Ben Aaronovitch, a Rivers of London “novella”. Time was when a 165-page book would be a fairly standard SF novel.

Cats’ Chorus

The castrato and contralto singing for their supper, spotlit by a sunbeam.
A1 is reading The Girl in Cell A by Vaseem Khan, a grim “psychological thriller” which, in the unerringly accurate words of A2, “vanishes up its own arse” (link is a sort of spoiler, so be warned). A disappointing and miserable read.
A2 is rereading Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd.

Sunday Lunch

Yesterday was one of our rainiest days of all time: 39.3mm, making this month our wettest this year and our rainiest September ever. Today was bright and sunny, the washed-clean solar panels served up 6kWh and the family came round for lunch. We had roast chicken, roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips, onions, cabbage, cauliflower cheese and Yorkshire puddings, followed by Swedish applekaka, and scored a miserable 9 on the GSQ.
A1 is rereading The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson. A2 is reading The Art of a Lie, also by Laura Shepherd-Robinson, which was very entertaining. Thank you A1.

Not a Fun Guy

A Miserable Mushroom in the woods.
A1 is reading The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson, a Georgian-era picaresque novel. Indeed, Henry Fielding, one of the originators of this type of fiction (Tom Jones), is a character. It’s very hard to write about this terrific and wonderfully well-written book without spoilers, so you’ll just have to read it yourself 🙂

Another Rainbow

Another rainbow on a stormy day.
A2 is reading The Girl in Cell A by Vaseem Khan, a disappointing psychological thriller set in small-town USA, from a writer who usually writes engagingly about Parsee policewomen and baby elephants. Abir Mukherjee’s last book was a thriller set in America too. Maybe publishers are persuading their authors to be more global.

After the Birthday

Transit of Bob. It was A2’s birthday yesterday so she got a lot of lovely presents of things to drink, read and wear to the gym. Our family dinner was chicken, bacon and broccoli with A1’s cherry cake and perfect garden apple charlotte for afters. We scored 9 on the GSQ. Could have been worse. And we could have seen the lunar eclipse if it hadn’t been cloudy, and then raining. But it was clear in Lusaka (see right) — thanks, Guida!
A1 is reading The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith, the latest biceps-straining volume in the Strike/Ellacott saga. Expensive, too — probably the first £30 mass-market novel (although it’s been heavily discounted).
It’s nominally a fiendishly complicated crime novel (and it is complicated — you may want to take notes), but RG is having great fun with the on-off relationship between the protagonists, which fortunately errs on the right side of soapiness; you can imagine her smirking at the readers’ reactions. The targets this time include Freemasonry and another stab at an evil Boris Johnson analogue, who really seems to appeal to writers (cf Mick Herron, MW Craven etc). Can’t imagine why… Criticism? There’s a bit too much phonetic transcription of accents, and the subplot about human trafficking gets somewhat lost in all the fol-de-rol. But a thoroughly enjoyable read nonetheless.
A2 is reading The Predicament by William Boyd, which was absolutely delightful. Thank you A1.

September in the Rain

We had more rain this afternoon than in the whole of August, including 16.5mm in one hour. It’s all gone now and all A2 could find to photograph were a few drops hanging out to dry on the washing line. Turned upside down they are tiny bubble habitats containing miniature versions of our garden.
A1 is rereading Doctor Sleep by Stephen King. A2 is rereading Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood.

Feeding Time

Today’s family dinner was spag bol with stuffed mushrooms for the kids and trifle for pudding, after which we scored a miserable 8 on the GSQ. Can’t win them all.
But we did win on the solar panels, which passed last year’s total with four months left to go. August itself was averagely sunny and warm, but very dry (and nearly half of the total came down yesterday — 10.5mm out of 22.5). Only 2022 had less August rainfall, and 2025 is looking like it will be our driest ever year by some way, even allowing for the weather station’s downtime in May/June.

Cannibalism

Focus on the Pholcus: the cosmopolitan cellar spider. We have been tolerating these spindly spinners with their messy webs on the assumption that they will tackle the fruit flies, house flies and bluebottles hanging around our house but it turns out that their favourite food is other spiders, those that probably have more interest in flies.
In other news, our new weather forecast page is progressing.
A1 is reading The Sycamore Gap* by LJ Ross and A2 is reading Human Remains* by Jo Callaghan.

Burger Meister

A1 cooked succulent burgers, chips and salad for our family dinner and A2 made courgette, halloumi and chickpea fritters for the veggies. We had a chocolate, cherry and cream cake from yesterday’s paper for afters……and managed to score 12 on yesterday’s paper’s quiz. We’re on a roll!
A1 is rereading Bryant & May: The Running Man by Christopher Fowler. A2 is reading Butter by Asako Yuzuki, which was tasty and fattening.

Dish of the Day: Pasta Bake

We intended to feed the family with leftover spag bol but it was mouldy so A2 rustled up some emergency pasta bakes with and without tuna and A1 made a delicious blackberry crumble with custard. Thus fortified, and with the irrepressible Bob as quizmaster, we scored 13 on the GSQ, our equal best this year and bringing us back above 10 again.
A2 is reading Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky; anarchists exiled to a prison planet investigate the strange and ultimately liberating ecology.