An occasional journal
wildlife
Jay of the Day
Apr 10th 2018
Yay and Hooray! Admin2 has been stalking this bird unsuccessfully for ages but Admin1 photographed it through a rainy window on our most dismal April day ever (0.42kWh).
Admin1 is reading Silenced by Kristina Olsson. Admin2 is reading The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths.
Critter of the Day: Female Blackbird
Mar 11th 2018
So not black.
Admin2 is reading The Happy Isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux.
We scored 10 on the GWQ.
A Charm of Goldfinches
Mar 4th 2018
Admin1 is reading The Lake by Lotte and Soren Hammer.
We scored 8.5 on the GWQ.
Black and White
Mar 3rd 2018
Blackbird and starling sheltering from the snow.
One snowy day in March, Admin2 is reading The Familiar 1: One Rainy Day in May by Mark Z Danielewski (hard to categorise, but a labour of love with masses of magical illustrations, typographical tricks and interleaved narratives, each in a different font, and an enormous number of volumes to follow).
Critter of the Day: Bullfinch
Feb 22nd 2018
Admin2 is reading A Long Way from Home by Peter Carey; three peculiar people go rally driving in Australia and have their lives changed in many ways.
Critter of the Day: The Other Tit
Feb 11th 2018
Admin2 is reading A Room Full of Bones by Elly Griffiths, fourth volume in a series about archaeology and criminology in Norfolk. Corpses and curses.
We scored 10 on the GWQ.
Critter of the Day: Tit
Feb 9th 2018
Admin2 is reading Fire Down Below by William Golding, the last volume of a thumping good trilogy about the physics and sociology of life aboard a clapped-out sailing ship during the Napoleonic wars.
Gold and Bull
Jan 29th 2018
Finches in the branches.
Admin1 is reading Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds.
RIP Phobos 2009-2018
Jan 18th 2018
Phobos was a big healthy lively and friendly cat until yesterday morning when his back legs suddenly stopped working. Today we took him for a lethal injection. No choice. Saddle thrombus is the worst; neither instantly struck down nor with a lingering illness that we could come to terms with, but his old self from the waist up and dead from the waist down and in agonising pain (until the vet gave him some excellent drugs). We will miss him so much.
Gulls Just Want to Have Fun
Jan 8th 2018
Admin1 is reading Cut Short by Leigh Russell, which was readable but had a worryingly negative attitude towards anyone who wasn’t middle class. And her detective is rather emotionally erratic … still, first novel so room for improvement.
Admin1 has been playing Grand Theft Auto 5 (thanks Gez & Dave!) on his new XBox (thanks Admin2!).
Critter of the Day: House Sparrow (?)
Jan 6th 2018
Admin1 is reading Black Day at the Bosphorus Cafe by MH Baylis, this one centred on the Kurdish, Greek and Turkish communities in Tottenham. Baylis’ three Tottenham-set detective novels were a great find, and really summoned up the area well … in particular the smells! Very big on odours, is Mr Baylis.
Admin2 is reading Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, a haunting ghost story voiced by ghosts.
We scored 10.5 on the GWQ.
Critter of the Day: Squirrel
Jan 1st 2018
Stealing nuts!
2017 had average weather and average sunshine.
Admin1 is reading A Death at the Palace by MH Baylis — a well-written crime story evocatively set in Tottenham (the palace of the title is Alexandra), with an incongruously jolly cover. Admin2 is reading The Power by Naomi Alderman, which was electrifying.
Critter of the Day: Blackbird
Dec 17th 2017
Admin2 is reading Light in a Dark House by Jan Costin Wagner; a Finnish story with an open-ended finish.
We scored er um 6 on the GWQ.
Critter of the Day: Bullfinch
Dec 15th 2017
On the wing…
…and in the trees.
Pyrrhula pyrrhula, so good they named it twice. We’ve never knowingly seen one of these before.
Admin1 is reading The Twelfth Department by William Ryan.
Critter of the Day: Robin
Oct 22nd 2017
Admin1 has been watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind (we had mash for dinner, and Admin1 missed his chance) and reading Watching You by Arne Dahl. We scored 7 on the GWQ.
Critter of the Day: Frog Playing Frogger
Oct 19th 2017
We have had as much rain today as in the first eighteen days of the month so the roads were congenial for amphibians.
Admin 1 is watching Black Lake, a highly derivative (and highly daft) Swedish cabin-in-the-woods drama, and reading After the Fire by Jane Casey, chiefly interesting for its setting of a tower block fire in north London. Admin2 is reading I Know Who Did It, a whodunnit by Steve Mosby.
Critter of the Day: Angle Shades Moth
Sep 11th 2017
Phlogophora meticulosa on our living room wall.
Admin1 is reading Hostage to Murder by VL McDermid (workwomanlike, but a bit too soppy and gay for me). Admin2 is reading The Tourist by Robert Dickinson, a typically tangled time-travel tale.
Critter of the Day: Tiny Moth
Aug 27th 2017
Pyrausta purpuralis on a bay leaf.
Today was the hottest day this month: an unimpressive 27.7 °C.
And we scored 9 on the Guardian Weekend quiz, thanks to guesswork and generosity.
Critter of the Day: Faux Phobos
Aug 26th 2017
A cat that looks like our cat and is sometimes accompanied by another cat that looks like our other cat. Admin1 is watching Messiah and reading Unforgivable by Mike Thomas: home-grown terrorism in downtown Cardiff. Authors do tend to give their detectives convoluted backstories, but MT really piles on the baggage.
Admin2 is reading The Arc of the Swallow by Sissel-Jo Gazan, an evil crime/science/family drama that panders to antivaccinationists.
Coffee of the day: Burundi Gahahe: tooty fruity.