{"id":21632,"date":"2025-09-07T21:12:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T20:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/?p=21632"},"modified":"2025-09-20T08:11:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T07:11:54","slug":"after-the-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/?p=21632","title":{"rendered":"After the Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 600px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('video');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-21632-1\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" loop=\"1\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/charlotte1.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/charlotte1.mp4\">https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/charlotte1.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-21645\" src=\"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/7fba6f82-1121-413f-8392-be5bea7d59f7-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/7fba6f82-1121-413f-8392-be5bea7d59f7-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/7fba6f82-1121-413f-8392-be5bea7d59f7-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/7fba6f82-1121-413f-8392-be5bea7d59f7-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/7fba6f82-1121-413f-8392-be5bea7d59f7.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/>Transit of Bob. It was A2&#8217;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&#8217;s cherry cake and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/food\/2020\/oct\/21\/how-to-make-the-perfect-apple-charlotte-recipe\">perfect garden apple charlotte<\/a> for afters. We scored 9 on the GSQ. Could have been worse. And we could have seen the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/live\/cz6025w5123t\">lunar eclipse<\/a> if it hadn&#8217;t been cloudy, and then raining. But it was clear in Lusaka (see right) &#8212; thanks, Guida!<br \/>\nA1 is reading <em>The Hallmarked Man<\/em> by Robert Galbraith, the latest biceps-straining volume in the Strike\/Ellacott saga. Expensive, too &#8212; probably the first \u00a330 mass-market novel (although it&#8217;s been heavily discounted).<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s nominally a fiendishly complicated crime novel (and it <em>is<\/em> complicated &#8212; 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&#8217; 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&#8217;t imagine why&#8230; Criticism? There&#8217;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.<br \/>\nA2 is reading <em>The Predicament<\/em> by William Boyd, which was absolutely delightful. Thank you A1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Transit of Bob. It was A2&#8217;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&#8217;s cherry cake and perfect garden apple charlotte for afters. We scored 9 on the GSQ. Could have been worse. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/?p=21632\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;After the Birthday&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,32,16],"tags":[19,20,22,27,43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21632"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21672,"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21632\/revisions\/21672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}