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
Tag: admin2 reading
Dinner with the Family
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.
Ghost of a Pigeon
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.
Dish of the Day: Chicken Bacon and Broccoli
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.
Passion Flowers
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.
Critter of the Day: Cinnabar moth
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.
Dish of the Day: Curry
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
Flower of the Day: Surprise Amaryllis
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.
Dish of the Day: Spag Bol Again
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.
Critter of the Day: Mint Moth
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.
Salad Days
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?
I Love You
The air fryer leaves a message on A1’s pork chop.
A2’s bathroom book is Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
An Active Sun
Between 23 June and 5 July some sunspots moved across the Sun as it rotated (it takes about 25 days to rotate fully). I managed — with some difficulty! — to photograph the Sun with the Dwarf Mini every day until 3 July, when the clouds moved in. I then made this video, showing the spots as they developed and moved across the face of our star.
This isn’t perfect. The images were all taken at different times so they needed rotating to orient them correctly … which is quite hard to do with something like the Sun. Still, a first effort.
Coincidentally, these spots erupted in flares during this time, and caused massive auroras over the US on their Independence Day.
A2 is reading Quite Ugly One Evening by Chris Brookmyre.
Coq au Vin
Another Sunday, another family meal, followed by pineapple upside down cake and a score of 10 on the GSQ.
A1 is reading Deadly Election by Lindsey Davis. A2 is reading The South by Tash Aw; the opener of a four-volume family saga about a Chinese clan in Malaysia. Aw’s books normally arrive about five years apart so we will see how it goes.
Busy Mini
Here are a few recent pics from our Dwarf Mini telescope. This is the Dumbbell Nebula, in Vulpecula (The Fox):
The Pac-Man Nebula, in Cassiopeia:
And the Andromeda Galaxy in, er, Andromeda:
Much bigger versions and more details on our ROAST blog.
A1 is reading The Ides of April by Lindsey Davis. A2 is reading Seascraper* by Benjamin Wood, a poignant and atmospheric book about a shrimp catcher which had echoes of Beryl Bainbridge. BW is on record as admiring The Dressmaker.
A Great Tit
Another common bird which we have never photographed before. Sadly we didn’t see a pair of great tits.
June was averagely hot and sunny and somewhat drier for the time of year.
A2 is rereading Clown Town by Mick Herron, which completes the series so far.
Silver Surfers
It has been 25 years since we tied the knot at Lusaka Civic Centre so we celebrated with a lunch of baked potatoes, cold meats and salad with the family, who brought wonderful presents and an unexpected bottle of champagne. We had cherry cake on galaxy-themed paper plates for afters and scored a disappointing 9 on the GSQ. Must try harder.
When darkness fell, the first noctilucent clouds of the year filled the sky; a special gift for us on our special day.
A2 is rereading Bad Actors by Mick Herron.
Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries
The cherries are a small selection from our garden tree. The books are presents for the birthday boy.
On the equal hottest day of the month A2 cooked a dinner of roast pork, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, stuffing, gravy, carrots, broccoli and garden peas, followed by a leftover carrot cake trifle with garden cherries on top. Enjoy!
A2 is rereading Slough House by Mick Herron.
Happy Solstice
And happy Dad’s Day too! We had spag bol and carrot cake for tea and scored 11 on the GSQ.
A1 is rereading The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley. A2 is rereading Joe Country by Mick Herron.
Moon and Venus Conjunction
Taken with the Dwarf Mini. And this is A2’s preferred shot, from the Canon:
A nice atmospheric sunset shot of the coppery moon with the silvery planet floating directly above.
A2 is rereading London Rules by Mick Herron.
Roast Chicken
For our family dinner today we had A1’s lovely roast chicken with halcyon potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, mixed vegetables, stuffing and gravy, followed by tiramisu ice cream (which took a lot longer than the recipe’s stated 5 minutes to thaw), followed by the quiz at which we scored a sadly deficient 8, bringing our average down below 10.
A1 is rereading The Three by Sarah Lotz. A2 is rereading Spook Street by Mick Herron.
The Unbearable Lightness of Beeing
A busy bee covered in pollen forages in valerian.
A2 is rereading Real Tigers by Mick Herron.
Planets
Venus and Jupiter caught between clouds and telephone wires, with Mercury behind a tree.
A2 is rereading Dead Lions by Mick Herron.
Rhubarb Crumble and Custard
First home-grown pudding of the year, following a dish of porky vegetables and rice and followed by our worst quiz score of the year: a totally miserable 6.
A2 is rereading Slow Horses by Mick Herron. Always a pleasure.
Spin Cycle
Another rider on the anemometer merry-go-round/ Look at that pigeon go!
A2 is reading City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer; a compendium of novellas concerning the imaginary city of Ambergris, with an appendix at least as long including information about squids, a partially decoded cryptic text, bibliographies, glossaries and tasting notes on the fonts employed. Reading it I was struck by the similarity to the works of Alasdair Gray and sure enough it turns out that Jeff is a massive fan of Alasdair and cites him as a mentor. Books send out hyphae into the literary subsoil and somewhere far away another book pops up like a mushroom.