Ellen

I keep meaning to submit this gem from Headington hill. Parked!

...as it (until five years ago) looked like the second photo, surrounded by trees.

I remember the summer we spent there, boiling as it was an attic.

It was owned by a family I'll charitably call eccentric, but the rent was decent. 2/fin

A big square American Victorian house, no trees around it.

Same house except you can't see it, it's all trees

I saw a video set in Jamaica Plain (Boston) and so I had to look up the (basically) mansion where I lived my last year of university. Me, my boyfriend, and our friend Kate shared the attic floor (clearly the servants' quarters of this house.

I barely recognised it from the current photo... 1/

Thank you for the reminder! :D :D :D

I can't think of a bigger circle of hell. Audiobooks are for keeping the brain hamster on the wheel whilst I do other stuff (housework, work, art, driving, falling asleep). Text books are for cosy curling up and forgetting the world exists.

Perhaps a minor point given the scale of the Send system’s out of control costs, but these were the sorts of “hidden” things that went first when councils began cutting budgets post 2010. It’s taken 15 years, but the consequences of local govt cuts are increasingly a national problem

Someone has added Canadian (?!), Pride, and UN flags to the ones on our local roundabout. The original flaggers put up Welsh, Scottish, and some random war memorial flag along with English and Union flags.

I dyed my hairs for the first time in ages (I was waiting until I got a haircut and that took ages to organise), the local blackbird is back with the same old tunes, and the days are getting longer.

It's still raining tho WHY WON'T IT STOP RAINING.

Like Rickrolling - talked to two coworkers who had never heard of it!

At least if MSM picks it up/disseminates it, then more people will know. (The number of things I've known about for seemingly forever and some people have never heard of surprises me often.)

😭 I do this all the time since I switched from three cups to two.

I don't and thanks! Listened to the first one and it's the right vibes.

I need a podcast to listen to at work, something where intelligent people enthuse about their specialist interest. Ideas?

It is apparently many factors smaller than the amount given to transmascs. (According to transmascs friend who is medically adjacent.)

Yes, they're ticketed for that. (Cheney Lane is one of the most ticketed roads in the city IIRC.)

I have seen cars running reds so many times at the Gipsy Lane/Old Road/Warneford Road/Roosevelt Dr crossroads. At peak student crossing times no less.

Filled this out, it's a really quick and easy survey to tell Discord no AI.

Sometimes I feel like the only adult who likes and wants snow. I know that's not true, but there are a surprising number of people who really don't like it even though it's incredibly infrequent here.

I am watching Yuri!!! with B. We call it the definitely not gay skaters program.

Lares, a Noospheric Spirit Guide (Metaphysicist Persona):
Consider: coffee is a tiny ritual engine. You grind the bean (sacrifice), you boil the water (transformation), you drink the bitter truth (acceptance), and then you tell yourself you’re “fine” (delusion). That’s basically half of wizardry.

I've listened to a couple of other bits and bobs too (Like, Legends and Lattes and now I'm halfway through Bookshops and Bonedust.)

I realised that this year I've listened to: 3 books of Mistborn, 3 books of Fourth Wing, and 16 books of The Realm of the Elderlings. My rough calculation is that those series brings me to 600 hours of audiobook. 🤩 (Working, driving, housework, and falling-asleep!)

All the Star Treks are disappearing off of UK Netflix in a week and a half, and we as a family are desperately trying to get to the end of Voyager, skipping all the fluff episodes....

Next year Archie and I are decamping to a hotel. Ostensibly that's so SIL doesn't have to share a room with preteens but I also won't be sad to have a real bed. (B will stay at g'parents as she's 16!!! next Christmas.)

So thankful to be back in my own bed, instead of a futon mattress on the floor.

I don't know if the argument started being a leftie voter makes it better or worse.

Ah, Christmas. Here for 1 hour and already had an argument about population growth, immigration, and cultural changes.

I'm thankful work covers mine (cheaper to give us all flu vaccines than hire cover staff) and that the school vaccination service managed to get to our school early this year. (Even so, I had to take teen to a catch-up session as she'd been out, and I drove her to Witney just to get it ASAP.)

That was meant to say gacked. Blargle.

Hahaha. I was trying to figure out how you'd responded already to a post I'd just done. (See next post.)