New build smell

It is with deep regret I announce that I am back in the UK, a country I already had a strong dislike of which has blossomed into deep hatred from simply being elsewhere for twenty days

Lamb is traditional at Easter, and even more traditional is making stock the next day

I introduced Lucy to Tunic and now it’s 2am and she won’t come to bed

Trying to retrain my brain from “I’m tired, I don’t want to do exercise” to “if I do exercise I might feel less tired”

A lovely spicy Sunday

Cycled into work for the first time this year and I feel great

My wee nephew just said “bye bye” to me on the phone, first words I’ve heard him say 🥲

Yesterday’s mammoth cooking project

My favourite thing about living in the UK is those magazines that report on what happens in soaps like it’s news. Must be utterly baffling for anyone who moves here

Older gent in front at the pharmacy, kept insisting he had something to show them. Pulled out of a brown envelope…a picture of Charles & Camilla? On closer inspection, a 100th birthday card! Don’t think I’d ever met a centenarian. Amazing.

I knew my partner was The One the first time I visited her parents and in her childhood bedroom was a full run of Artemis Fowl

People who self-censor swears are so f*cking funny to me

Upon the High Weald yesterday

Day 2 of being off sick and can’t shake this guilty feeling that I ought to be Doing Something Productive with my day, despite the fact my brain is absolutely not capable of it right now

Two years with this wonderful human 🥰

I think this might be the most onion I’ve ever seen in one place

Feeling deeply, profoundly demoralised today, despite a weekend of making big strides forward on my game engine

At what point is the deadline for working my way through the leftover Christmas chocolate? At what point does it just become “we have too much chocolate in the house”?

I’m the biggest clean freak of anyone I know - to a probably unhealthy degree - and a past me would have absolutely had a panic attack, but at this point I’m so fucking cat-pilled I just went “aww sorry baby”, cleaned up and gave her an apology cuddle.

Managed to startle the cat when she was in her litter box today…which unfortunately meant in her haste to get away she trod on one of her recently laid delights. And then proceeded to run around the flat, which I could prove because she left prints. Cats!

Walkies

Was quite proud of my 900-ish day streak in Duolingo until I looked at this calendar

We have been climbing

This rewatch of the Expanse is great, actually even better for having now read the books. Though it does mean we now say “we should space her” when we put the cat outside when she’s being annoying at 4am

Well, they got the name right.

Had some lovely Japanese food. Shout out to the couple next for us who asked for spoons for miso soup

Spotted so many red kites on the bus to Oxford. Hard to believe these were once extinct in England!

My new profile photo is from a New Years’ Day walk near the farm my mum grew up on, which is still farmed by my uncle. This old house and the area around it are referred to as “Macaleese’s” after the family that used to live there nearly a century ago. It was used to store hay bales until the top floor collapsed. I love it.

We finally harvested our Lion’s mane! It became some rather nice crab cake-like things.

We got the modelling clay out the other weekend so I decided to make this lightly deranged toothbrush holder.

Oh hey the fire worked

When I worked in the games industry I remember being told the average tenure was six years and thinking that was crazy low. I lasted…five and a half years.

Last night I went to the launch of Amy Acre’s new collection, Mothersong. There were readings from Amy, Fran Locke, Cai Draper and Jess Murrain, and it was lovely.

We lost my wonderful Granny today at the age of 92. I’ve never known someone so warm, selfless, and caring. She died peacefully and surrounded by her loved ones, so it’s the best it could have been, but I am devastated. Love you forever Granny.

Rye’s summer with us came to an end last week and now she’s off to see her mum and dad in Australia! I’m going to miss this lil pudding so much. 🥹

I’m at day four of going cold turkey on Sertraline (ran out, pharmacy being slow) and lemme tell ya I am having nil craic with these withdrawal symptoms

In ’the naming of cats’, T.S. Eliot posits that every cat has a secret name known only to themselves. I have determined that my cat’s secret name is ‘piss goblin’

A glorious, if slightly muggy, day walking on the High Weald.

Someone created this evil-joel emoji on our work Slack and honestly it is quite useful for when I need to be vaguely menacing

I’ll be wandering around WASD this week if any pals want to hang out! I’ll be at the Thursday night thing and at the expo on Friday and prob Saturday. Please be aware I have been doing gamedev again so will probably trauma-dump.

We went for a walk/forage on the Ridgeway today which was very muddy but gorgeous. We found:

• Jelly ears!
• Oysters!
• Gorse!
• Nettles!
• Wild garlic!
• Turkey tails!
• Ground ivy!

So after posting my Manifesto I tried some pizza from Veggie Crust on the Old Kent Road and while it was no Mario it was some pretty good Good Shit Pizza.

We went to a couple of cool exhibitions today - the ASMR one at the Design Museum and the one about Japanese silk braiding (Kumihimo) at Japan House.