Vermilion Sands
An occasional journal
Critter of the Day: Holly Blue
Aug 13th 2017
Celastrina argiolus on a hedge.
Admin1 is reading A Deadly Thaw by Sarah Ward, which was … preposterous. Admin2 is reading Eleven Days by Stav Sherez.
We scored 8 on the Guardian Weekend quiz.
Take Five
Aug 10th 2017
Admin2 found a fiver on a wall and took note.
Admin1 is reading Before the Fall by Noah Hawley, writer of the Fargo TV series; well-written and engrossing. Admin2 is reading Buried Lies by Kristina Ohlsson which was endless.
Cafe de jour: White Dwarf: honeyed and citrussy.
A Hard Rain
Aug 8th 2017
We had more rain today than in the whole of April: 14.1 mm.
Admin2 is reading Going Out by Scarlett Thomas, which was ridiculous but not in a bad way.
I Am the God of Hell Fire
Aug 6th 2017
Pallet Man up to his tricks again. Admin1 is reading The Killing Bay by Chris Ould; a low-key crime story set in the Faeroes; it would have helped to have read the prequel. Admin2 is reading The Legacy by Yrsa Sigurdasdottir which was disturbing but compelling. We scored 7.25 on the Guardian Weekend quiz.
Café si el dia: Bolivia Vincent Paye.
Critter of the Day: Lily Beetle
Aug 5th 2017
Found these handsome insects on the remains of an ugly plant which they had reduced to sticks. Whole lot went into bin. No loss. Even the bloke who gave it to us said the flowers looked like the face of the devil.
Yesterday was our sunniest August day ever: >11kWh. Today was the second sunniest.
We are watching Ripper Street.
Plums for Africa!
Aug 3rd 2017
We have more plums on our tree than you can shake a stick at.
Admin1 is reading The Legacy by Yrsa Sigurdasdottir, a rather gruesome Icelandic crime story; readable, but one did wish for a single interaction between characters that wasn’t argumentative, insulting or depressing. Bit of light and shade, you know?
Admin2 is reading Giotto’s Hand by Iain Pears, which was full of larks and jollity but flimsy and implausible. You can’t win.
Rainy Day Women
Aug 1st 2017
A changeable day with sunshine, heavy rain, thunder and lightning.
Admin1 is reading Disclaimer by Renee Knight. Admin2 is reading Phone by Will Self: a 617-page paragraph with lots of… and italics and repetitions and repetitions that randomly switched protagonists in mid-sentence but was surprisingly compulsive, maybe because there was no place to stop.
Coffee of the day: Rwanda Gihombo: fruity.
Critter of the Day: Comma
Jul 30th 2017
Polygonia c-album sitting on a bush.
Admin1 is reading Eleven Days by Stav Sherez. Admin2 is reading The Silent Girl by Hjorth and Rosenfeldt. Whereof we cannot speak… We scored 9 on the Guardian Weekend quiz.
Cloud of the Day: Cumulus Congestus
Jul 27th 2017
Admin1 is reading Tell No Tales by Eva Dolan, a realistically messy crime story tackling inner-city hate crimes; readable, but unconvincing villains.
Coffee of the Day: Red Giant: sublime.
Ants Gotta Fly
Jul 25th 2017
It’s Flying Ant Day in Leeds. The ground ants had been milling around all over the place all afternoon and when this squadron emerged they turned very aggressive and had such a go at Admin2 that she could only take the photo after removing her trousers and standing in a bucket of water. An hour later, it was all as if it had never been.
Admin2 is reading Golden Hill by Francis Spufford; a mysterious migrant from England arrives in the 18th-century village of New York.
Flies
Jul 24th 2017
Admin1 is reading The Silent Girl by Hjorth & Rosenfeldt. Admin2 is reading A Short Ride on a Fast Machine by Magnus McGrandle, which whizzed along at great speed.
You Are My Honey Honeysuckle, I Am the…er…Hoverfly
Jul 22nd 2017
Hoverflies seem to love honeysuckles. Bees, meh!
Admin1 is reading The Man Who Wasn’t There by Hjorth and Rosenfeldt. Admin2 is reading The White Road by Sarah Lotz; the mountaineering bits were quite evocative but the notion of earning millions of pounds from flogging a website was sort of unbelieveable. And we scored 10 on the Guardian Weekend quiz.
Making a Beeline
Jul 20th 2017
Two bees queueing in a hollyhock.
Admin1 is reading The Intrusions by Stav Sherez, and agrees with Admin2′s opinion (somewhat implausible) but readable enough to invest time in other books in the series. SS does tend to pile on the misery for his detectives, though.
Admin2 is reading Persons Unknown by Susie Steiner.
Clouds That Look Like Things: Bacterium
Jul 17th 2017
This is actually a cloud of yesterday; today there were no clouds at all and the solar panels did 12.87 kWh: best day this year.
Admin1 is reading The White Road by Sarah Lotz — an interesting ghost story about potholing and mountain climbing, with an unlikeable but engaging protagonist; not a book for those worried by depths or heights. Or ghosts. Or cold. Or for claustrophobes or agoraphobes.
Admin2 is reading Before the Fall by Noah Hawley; a plane crash deconstructed.
Clouds of the Evening
Jul 15th 2017
The sky clears as the sun goes down.
Admin1 is reading Persons Unknown by Susie Steiner — superbly involving, with all the good points of Missing, Presumed plus better controlled plotting.
Lily the Pink (remix)
Jul 14th 2017
Admin1 is reading Trust Me by Angela Clarke, which was very poor — amateurish and implausible — and given up on halfway through.
Cold Weather Blues
Jul 11th 2017
Today the thermometer topped at 14.0°C. Our coldest July day for at least the last seven years. Admin1 is reading Short Ride on a Fast Machine by Magnus McGrandle. which was interesting for its peeks into two subcultures of which I know nothing: bicycle couriers and backgammon. It did suffer a bit from first-novel syndrome — MM didn’t seem to quite know what sort of novel he was writing: a heist caper? A comedy? A character study? Still, entertaining enough.
Admin2 is reading Mount Misery by Samuel Shem, a darkish funnyish novel set in an American mental institution.
Crowd of the Day (well, yesterday): Kirkstall Festival
Jul 9th 2017
There were much bigger crowds outside, but the abbey is more pretty.
Admin2 is reading The Man Who Wasn’t There by Hjorth and Rosenfeldt, which was interesting but would have been helped by reading the preceding books in order; and the successive books because it ends in a … We scored 8 on the Guardian Weekend quiz.
Dragonfly
Jul 8th 2017
Perched on the wheelbarrow handle. Possibly a female ruddy darter, Sympetrum sanguineum.