By Slanted Light

Oops, got a bit behind again, didn't I...

Thursday 5th March
My Riverford shop was entirely packaging-free this week, except for the box itself - which is returned to be used again and again.


Friday 6th March
Food from the local grocery shop not being thrown out because no one bought it.


Saturday 7th March
Who isn't made happy by a surprise plesiosaur outside the library?


Sunday 8th March
Metal detecting rally! Now who couldn't be happy about wandering around this sort of landscape all day, looking for buried treasure? *g* I got to try my new waterproofs out (which were) but it was also gorgeously blue-skyed, and full of other happy people wandering around with things going beep. Lush. *g* I wanna do it again!






Monday 9th March
Food saving again... and actually being a bit achey from the day before, because I knew it meant I'd been outside exercising my muscles!

Tuesday 10th March
Daffodils in the garden and cleaning my finds from Sunday. Nothing really exciting, but it made me happy to find out what it all was. I think the shotgun caps at the top are actually from the early 1900s, that's a spent copper bullet case below them. Not sure what the two bendy iron things are - they're sort of shaped, so look like something, but I can't quite work out what. Not sure about the trianglish-shaped piece of metal either, but maybe off a plough. A very heavy-duty length of chain! Strange horseshoe - seems very light, but I'm pretty certain it is a horseshoe. Someone suggested a racehorse shoe. Anyway - no hammered coins or even Victorian pennies, but solid farm history all the same...


Wednesday 11th March
Erm... no pics today. Oh, my creative writing group, which is down to just me and my friend a few doors up - but we actually did some writing, and I quite liked what I got done. So that made me happy.

Thursday 12th March
My sister's birthday - so messaging with her, and despite being job-hunting she sounds in decent form, and she liked my present (although we thought waiting until the whole coronavirus thing has died down might be a better idea for actually having it, cos it's a year's pass to her local zoos. Not much point in it if they stop people going out to places like that, so we'll see what happens first.

Oh, and I finished work to the theoretical deadline (it used to be one, but it isn't any more really), so I got to catch up on The Voice, which I am now missing on a Saturday because of food saving.

Oh, and also someone in the village posted on Fb about getting organised to help older villagers who might be worried about catching coronavirus out shopping etc., which did make me happy because the local environmental initiative that I was planning to be involved with seems to have faded instead to people who want to manage other people rather than coming up with action and getting on with it themselves. There's far too many managers in the world. If you don't want to get your hands dirty, if all you want is to say you organised other people to do things, then I'm about ready to say shut up... Okay - /rant. *g* (But I was quite disappointed about that, I hadn't been expecting it...) So the fact that someone's actually doing it re: helping people out, is a happy thing.

Friday 13th March
There was hand sanitiser in the shop when I got there for something else entirely. So I bought it all, cos apparently that's what people do now! No, clearly I didn't cos I'm not a selfish fool, but I did buy two little bottles, one for the car and one for my bag. There was a maximum limit but it was five bottles - honestly! I wasn't happy but I was rather amused that all the eggs had been bought up... eggs?! Is there a chook somewhere with a sore throat and a shifty gaze that someone's not telling us about?! Still no loo roll.

Food saving was a happy thing again tonight. I'm clearly using that as my emergency-happy-thing, aren't I... Okay, work today is blargh as always, but it's archaeology/history blargh, which is quite happy-making. Work in my field of interest - who would have thought such a thing could happen! Oh, and plus as soon as I get done it's the weekend of course, and I can read, and sort out my finds, and maybe try detecting at a beach somewhere or something, weather depending...

Go on then. How're you doing? What are you hoarding? I must admit to buying four bottles of wine, which is two more than I'd usually buy at one go - but only cos they'd run out of them last time I was there, and they're quite nice kinds. Probably won't help much with the plague, mind, or the apparently impending apocalypse though - well, not only four bottles. *g*

Anyone else wondering whether they should re-read all their dystopian apocalyspe fiction for hints just in case...? *vbg*

I got behind... even more behind... But mostly I have bonus pictures...

Monday
Foodsaving is go!

Also, I've signed up to go metal detecting on an actual rally on Sunday. Eeeeh!

Sunday
A couple of hours in a friend's garden. *g*


Saturday
The Voice. Always a happy thing, for wanting everyone to do so well.

Friday
Reading a really good book (love Elizabeth Jane Howard - author of the Cazalet books).


Thursday
Sunshine...

I have to admit that wild and woolly weather makes me happy - though I'm saying that as someone who's not been flooded out or lost their roof or anything... The wind this morning reminded me of being on the Isle of Man though - fab and blustery... okay, probably more than blustery, but still...

I did a quick sweep of the garden this morning to make sure that everything was tied down, and going past the bush in the first pic, with its creamy white flowers and amazingly beautiful scent made me happy! I remember it from last year, when I'd just moved in - it smells so gorgeous. And the view's not bad down there either... *vbg* The second pic is my view outside for much of today... *g*

About half an hour ago the rain started coming down again - and harder, and harder, until I thought surely that's hail - and yup! I couldn't open the door right away, cos that's the direction it was coming down in, but just as it was easing up I did - and if you look carefully in that second last pic, you can see hailstones bouncing around. In the very last pic - that smooth patch, just under the car? That's water gushing as I've never seen it do before into the drain!

Earlier this morning, too, I was sitting quietly when I heard a bit of a rumble - thought it was a truck or tractor... caught a flash out of the corner of my eye, but thought it was just my eyes... and then DOOOOM! - thunder! No more after that, but that one was a belter... *g*

And then at one point late this afternoon, there was even a slice of blue sky hanging around for a wee while (I ducked out fast for a quick walk!). Mostly, though, I've been cosy inside doing laundry, and making beetroot coconnut soup (yummy!) and catching up on bits of tidying and chores, and thinking that I should do dusting and hoovering and stuff, and then getting distracted... *g* Hope you've all been having a good day!

( The less happy bit )

But - I did eventually get to my destination, and had a wee walk in the refreshing sea air, so that was something. It wasn't metal detecting, but I did get a change of scenery. Plus - as I left home there was a rainbow! Over blue skies (well, the big grey clouds had just passed). *g*




The moon always makes me happy too. *g*

Came home via the supermarket (trying very hard not to breathe in anyone's direction, but I realised that I just couldn't cook tonight...) and bought chicken soup and garlic bread for an easy dinner, then crashed in front of the second Worzel Gummidge ep from Christmas, and tonight's The Voice, both of which also made me happy. Caught Live at the Apollo after that, with comedians I'd not seen before who all three made me laugh (Ellie Taylor, Tez Ilyas (brilliant) and Fin Taylor), so that was another happy. *g*

And finally - tomorrow is another day, and before then I hope there will be cold-drugs and sleep... *g*

Today was odd in that the work I was supposed to be doing didn't transpire, but I was quite motivated to get on with the work that I could be doing that had a later deadline, so I did. I also decided I'd go and work in a library for a change of scenery, which was good, although it was a bit noisy (what are libraries like these days - bloody people on phones and computer games without headphones, and... all this in what's supposed to be the study area!) and so didn't last long. So I look myself and did some more work in an independent cafe, and then I wandered back to the car via a secondhand bookshop, where I might have found three items of local history interest that might have ended up here with me... Which sounds a bit like I shoplifted them, but obviously I didn't. *g*

Working without a deadline was actually quite stress-free, so that was a happy. *g*

Oh, and landlady nipped in to give me some spare roses she had left over after putting hers in a vase! So I have half a dozen rather lovely deep pink roses. *g*

And Melissa Scott posted another Astreiant story to her Patreon, and I love it death. Ongoing Nico and Philip - yeay! It always makes me happy to get those emails. *vbg*

One last happy - just in time for my new hobby, someone posted this good news to a metal detecting fb (it's old, but still) - Antidepressant Microbes in Soil. So better not to bother with the gloves after all... I wonder if this helps to explain why most children are so much happier than most grown-ups - they're far more likely to be grubbing around in the dirt! *g*

Have a pic of today's wanderings. Love the atmospheric compost recycling bins...!

How're you doing? *g*

Today's happy things - looking out the window this morning and seeing that it had very unexpectedly snowed a bit overnight! *g*
Today was alternating sunshine and chucking-it-down-rain-and-hail-and-sleet!

It's a bit frustrating having to wait to use my new toy (I'm not quite that hardened yet!) but it makes me happy knowing it's there waiting... *g* (Detectorist-eye view - yes, my kitchen floor has metal in it... *g*)

1. ( The mould update )

2. I've been watching The Detectorists, which my brother recommended. I'd heard of it, but sort of connected it to The Office, which I didn't like (the connection is Mackenzie Crook, who was in The Office, but wrote, directed and is in Detectorists), and so ignored it really - but it's bloody brilliant, and I love it to death! It's a sharp but gentle comedy, filmed in a way that makes England look just amazing (probably because it was filmed in Suffolk, which I've always loved) and I keep putting it on repeat. I might also be eyeing up a new hobby... *g*

3. It's tax month. Queue dread-tummy and panic-face (well, ever since the returns were due back last April, to be honest...), but bravely sticking to my decision that if I had to be self-employed again, I'd get someone else to do them for me this time. So I did. Which was it's own panic-face, but... I'd massively massively over-estimated what I'd have to pay! I can afford to pay them! And deal with some other stuff! And... have enough to perhaps treat myself to a new hobby... *vbg*

4. Work continues blah, exam work is now contracted to continue blah, tutoring has vanished after all, and I'm still waiting to hear back about the food saving re-application.

5. I've started work on my Mt TBR for this year - Darkhaven by A.F.E. Smith, which I thought someone had recommended, but is actually signed to me by the author, suggesting that I gave into one of those author-tables somewhere... can't remember where... But it's good! I'm enjoying it, actually. Not that I'm signing up for Mt TBR or any reading challenges. I'm trying not to succumb to counting how many books I read this year...

6. And when I finally dragged myself out into the world today, this is what it looked like today!










And - and - I saw a kingfisher! My first kingfisher ever! The most gorgeous flash of blue, as it zipped around the Bishops Palace moat, and then went and sat on some greenery on the wall - me cursing that I'd not brought my proper camera. In fact I thought there were two, and apparently there are two there, so it might have been. A kingfisher! *g*

So really I should be saying less blah, and more don't-I-live-in-a-lovely-part-of-the-world... *g* In other news, we're down to -3C tonight, but sunshine is forecast again tomorrow!

Take a minute to think about it - someone in your family or one of your friends has definitely been hurt by the Tories. Their library has been closed, the waiting lists at their hospital have been lengthened, their school has been turned into an academy where money has been taken from the classrooms to pay the management, their nearest post office has been closed.

Perhaps it's worse. Perhaps the medicine they need for their illness isn't available to them, because the NHS can't afford to pay what the big drug companies are demanding for it. Perhaps they have been turned away from a day's work yet again because they're on a zero hours contract - and there's no law against the company doing that on a moment's notice and yet requiring employees not to work elsewhere. Maybe they took out a pay day loan, which has legally been allowed to charge literally hundreds of percent interest.

All of this was allowed under a Tory government, because it profits the rich and they don't care what happens to the people it affects. Voting for the Tories again is giving that family member or friend yet another little kick to make sure they stay down.

Please do whatever it takes today to stop more years of the same.

Here are some more reasons, if you're still not sure.

I missed a day again - something to do with not being able to focus on work and so not finishing it until nearly four in the morning... *headdesk* But today is the last of my Eddie icons:

"What have you been reading? The Gospel according to St Bastard?"

Now that could apply to many things these days. The newspapers. Full of St Bastard news.

... oh, except yes! I just went to check the latest horrors, and the Scottish court has actually ruled Johnson's prorogation of Parliament unlawful! Finally - some sense! It's clearly unethical, so how on Earth it could have been legal was beyond me - and it wasn't! It is officially "illegal and in breach of the constitution, as it was designed to stifle parliamentary debate and action on Brexit"! Of course they're appealing the ruling in their turn, but surely it's time for common sense to prevail... we've had the silly season (on top of the whole ridiculous Brexit season, where politicians should have been focused on actually making sure the people in their country are safe and progressing, which is what their job is)...

Judges rule prorogation is illegal

Which interestingly calls into question the role of the queen in granting permission for Parliament to be prorogued - was she misled? Did she agree with Johnson to start with (and therefore wasn't impartial)? Or did she simply rubber-stamp the request so as not to get too caught up in the politics of it...?

...Job 2 and Job 2.2 are over! Well, 99.9% over except a couple of relatively minor things that I can't do until other people get back to me. But over in the sense that after five weeks (wait, five weeks, was that all?) I am taking a day off tomorrow. Three days even, cos I am not working over the weekend either (for the first time in five weeks). Yeay!

D'you remember how I actually thought that Jobs 2 would be a nice break from Job 1 and I might actually have the time and inclination to write at the same time? Silly, silly Slantedlight... Although I might have, except for unexpectedly having to take over a second team alongside my first and... oh well. Done now, and there's a few days to relax a bit. *g*

Of course now I'm not quite sure what to do with myself until I start work again on Monday, back at Job 1... *headdesk* Hopefully I'll think of something... *g* I nipped over to a nearby sixteenth century National Trust place this afternoon when I realised I was done - it was so nice to get out! That bed? That's a "campaign bed" - they came apart and folded up, and that's what officers actually took with them when they were off on army campaigns, or exploring or the like back in Victorian times! Oddly enough I'd just been reading This Thing of Darkness (by Harry Thompson - brilliant book, about Darwin and Fitzroy on the Beagle) and it'd described Darwin taking a bed with him on a trek over the Andes - presumably it was something like this. Mad!

So I think hopefully I'll get out again tomorrow - maybe Bath, but actually maybe Exeter for a change, I've not been there for yonks, and I've always liked it... or maybe just Taunton, or... the world is my lobster! Well, anywhere within driving distance... *g* And there will be catching up of emails, and lj reading and posting, and tidying up of the wee annexe, and... stuff. Yeay!

How're you doing? *g*