My Small Red Bush* - A Garden Photos Event Announcement

* Which could never be confused with Ms Scarlet's Big Pink Bush™

 

 Prompted by Mr Tonking's recent seed spreading effort and Dinah taunting Us with her bat (also, to a lesser extent, Jon's pricking out) I bring you the first reminder (following February's general announcement) to get gardening and to photograph evidence of your efforts ready for: 

The House of

I N F O M A N I A C

Garden Photos Event 2022

 

 As with the last couple of years, this year's event will be held in November and will follow straight on from the now traditional Hallowe'en prelude, Terrifying Triffidery.  There is no theme for the main event but, inspired by a comment from Dinah, I would like you to search out old photos of gardens you tended - or even played in as a child - from years/decades/aeons ago and send in one or two (or more, if you feel so inclined) to be featured along with your efforts from this year.  Remember to provide captions and/or blurbs to go with your photos, too!

☙❧

 Right.  Now that's out of the way, here's how the Hexenhäusli Device Gardens are coming along:

 Above is the titular Small Red Bush (which was a free gift with last year's two bat flower rhizomes which came to naught.  Bah!).  And to the left, an orchid (that first featured here) that until recently was positioned on my bathroom windowsill, but once it flowers it drips sticky nectar/sap everywhere so it's now outside in my Gin Time Corner.  You can see it festooning a stem of a Himalayan Honeysuckle below.

Tunes on Tuesday Turns Back Time

 I half prepared this post as filler, thinking that I probably wouldn't publish anything until next weekend, but then I went and managed the previous Early Start post and never finished this one (which was inspired by some of the songs a work colleague plays first thing in the morning before the phone lines are switched on)!

 Fortunately, no further musings from me are necessary - I can just let the music play:

Aqua: Turn Back Time

Sydney Youngblood: If Only I Could

Shakespears Sister: You're History

Propaganda: Duel

Bass-O-Matic: Fascinating Rhythm

ABBA: Cassandra

Erasure: Drama!

An Early Start

 Having mentioned to Jon that I have a couple of posts started, and to Mago (after his inspiring link) that I may go down to the beach this weekend, I bring you this new post as the first step in ridding myself of Lazy Baggageitis (and its instigatory conditions). 

 I woke up at about quarter to five this morning and laid there for a while listening to Beaky in a sing-off with some other balckbird as the sun was nearing the horizon.  Half an hour later, sick of Beaky's increasingly strident racket, I got up and decided to go down to the beach...

Sunrise in the north-east from the cliff top

Down on the promenade

Reasons Why...

 I've been half-heartedly trying to work out what's keeping us from updating this blog more regularly.  I mean, in the last four months, We've managed a paltry 12 posts - three per month, and they've been a struggle - whereas by this time last year We'd put up 29!  I know it should be quality over quantity, but I can't even claim that what We have published is anything to write home about - with the possible exception of the new and improved Freakin' Green Elf Shorts Travel Map, of course.

 Are We not blogging because the weather has been so nice?  Not really.  We've barely been down to the beach so far this year, and only partaken in a few perambulations inland.  Although, I have been spending rather a lot of time up the allotment... 

Apple blossom at the Device Allotment

(two eaters and a cooker)

For Dinah, my young Bramley with a close-up of its delightfully fragrant blossom

.  .  .

 Have We been dreaming too much?  Hardly.  I don't know about only living twice - We're scarcely living once - but it is an excuse to listen to Natacha Atlas singing the David Arnold produced "You Only Live Twice":

.  .  .

Bluebells and Black Shuck

 Another weekend, another round of clear skies and sunshine.  Although, the North-East wind is keeping things cool here, and we could do with some rain because everything needs watering.

 Still, I shouldn't grumble as its conducive for ambling around the countryside, demon dog or no!

The way up Toll's Hill is lined with bluebells

Behold!  The terror that is Black Shuck!

 

 On remote costal tracks in North Norfolk, beware of Black Shuck - a terrifying demon dog that will leap into your arms and expect to be cuddled like a baby while he licks your ear.  Until - after about three seconds - he gets bored and wriggles out of your grasp to go and investigate a nearby hedgehog turd or similar.

Snakes Heads and Dogs Teeth

 I still haven't done anything worth blogging about, but Ms Scarlet has managed two posts within a week (one of which was a blatant infringement of Sideboard rights) so I thought I'd better make some effort lest I get accused of lazy baggagery. 

 

 So, inspired by Jon's recent posts featuring his fragrant back passage, may I present my allotment (from two weeks ago), and my little shady garden (from this morning):

 

Fruit tree blossom starting to come out up at the allotment

(those are appletrees on the left, and the big one with open blossom is a plum)

That's a Bramley apple in the middle, and a loganberry going up the side of the shed

(between the shed and the bay tree is a horrid pear tree)

Near the allotment wood anemones grow

A Very Special Bio-Hazard Warning

 Today is a special day.  At least, I think it is*, and so do one or two others (who have buggered off on holiday so I can't check with them to see if I'm remembering rightly).  So, just in case it is, in the absence of something dedicated specifically** for the date, may I present instead, the updated new Freakin' Green Elf Shorts Travel Map!

As with with many things in life, click to embigulate

 I'm sure Ms Scarlet must have managed to get to a post office by now, and that the Freakin Green Elf Shorts are winging their way to Mistress Maddie if, in fact, they are not gracing her shapely gams as I type!

* Or it could be 10 days hence?  Or some other date entirely.  My memory is unreliable at the best of times.  EDIT 6 April: I have just discovered that the day in question is on some other date, months from now.  Ah, well, at least it was an excuse to unveil the map!

** Such as a trip over the Cusp just like we didn't have for Ms Scarlet's birthday, or even my birthday, or even The Very Mistress's Sweet Sixteenth last month!

"These people came here for a glimpse of Fanny"*

 And Fanny they shall get!  (She's just there on the right, see?)

 Anyway, the first three months of 2022 are just about over and what have I got to show for myselves?  Practically nothing!

 So, just like last year's quarterly catch-ups, here's the first quarter's list of some of the things that have kept me entertained/distracted/sane(ish):

Read:

DS9: Revenant, by Alex White  ∘  No Shame, by Tom Allen  ∘  Typeset in the Future, by Dave Addey (Well, partly read - I've read about 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien, and I'm about to start Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

Death by Chocolate/Asphyxiation/Explosion*

* Delete as applicable

 Just a quick post so that I don't forget how.  As I've STILL got nothing of substance to blog about, I thought I'd present my birthday haul:

 Let's start with the most exciting gift: the Lego International Space Station!  My sister Indescribable and her family got me that (you'll note that the space shuttle has already been built - my nephew, Count Podgkinson (4) "helped" me with it). 

 My niece, The Little Witch (8), made me the pretsles prestons out of pipe cleaners (she was closer the first time, but insists that they're called Prestons), and the other niece, Vom Smallhausen (5) coloured in the My Little Pony on the lower right.  I'm not sure why they thought I'd like a MLP card (nevermind two of them), but at least the more professional looking one has got rainbow hair and a Star Trek cutie-mark.

 Other than the two Co-op bars, all the chocolate has been devoured.  Well, except for the last three truffles and that Ferrero Rocher (the boxes are empty - the unseen FR box is propping up the Lego set).

 With some of the money that The Parents gave me, I bought Typeset in the Future - because I love Dave Addey's website;  Jupiter Ascending - because I love the ridiculously bonkers premise and the amazing worldbuilding - and Channing Tatum isn't bad, either;  and As I Try Not To Fall Apart by White Lies - because I can't help but love the 80s-esque songs that my favourite glum, beardy, miseryguts and his band belt out.  In fact, here comes one now:

 

The tinsel is a dead giveaway...

 Oof!  I'm back!  Well, briefly, at any rate.

 I've had some things to deal with which is why I've been, well, not here...  And despair at the state of the world is only part of it.  Signs of an impending infestation of unicorns, and that little shit Beaky skulking around the garden have been of more concern...

.  .  .

 But first, to accompany your scrolling, here's another almost certainly miserable* song from my favourite glum, beardy miseryguts, White Lies: "Time To Give"

* I try not to listen to the lyrics, remember?

.  .  .

 Anyway, back to the topic at hand: Beaky.

This was the view from my kitchen window this morning.  Looks okay, doesn't it?

Until you notice the blurs of black on the bench and birdtable...

The Infomaniac Garden Photos Event 2022 Announcement

The House of

I N F O M A N I A C

Garden Photos Event 2022

 

will be held again here later in the year

(unless any of you fancy having a go at hosting, that is)

 You know, this might be the earliest announcement for the Infomaniac Garden Photos Event ever published?  If I could be arsed I'd do some research to check, but I can't, so you'll just have to go along with it.  Unless you'd like to check for yourselves, of course?

 Anyway, as I've treated myself to a day off work and have got shit all else to blog about, I have taken The Very Mistress's advice (command? order?) and come up with this primer for this year's Event, complete with photos of the pre-Spring blooms here at Hexenhäusli Device!

. . .

  Oh, before we go any further, here's a musical accompaniment to your downward scrolling: The Procession of Celestial Beings, composed by Joe Hisaishi and performed by the New Japan Philharmonic World Dream Orchestra (from The Tale of Princess Kaguya - which I watched the other day).

. . .

A Saucy Deviation

 In an effort to continue the blogging impetus that I started last week, may I present a slight deviation from that of Ms Scarlet's original ketchup-based post. This post has a high Star Trek content, so you may be pleased to find that it is mercifully brief...

Sketches:  For a while now I've had an idea to illustrate a scene from the backstory I worked up for the Star Trek map that I created back in 2019.  As I don't have an art project on the go right now, I started sketching...

Here we have a Daughter of the Fifth House with her Yehtee assistant

(and a cartoonish interloper) disembarking the Royal Yacht

And here are some quick passes at the yacht

inspired by batjorge's Quantum Projection.

Snippets: "Every morning he'd arrive at work, ascend the steps to his cubicle and strip down to his trunks."

 

Screenshots:

 Two years on from the last playing card reveal in a Star Trek production, comes glimpses of another deck - in this case, from a game of Leonian poker in Star Trek: Discovery (which I'm not watching, by the way - I didn't much care for the last season, and this one's on yet another streaming service that I'm just not going to sign up for.  Well, until Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with the yummy Anson Mount/Captain Christopher Pike starts later this year, that is).  

 It was the Arcadian Queen that got my attention - as seen on Star Trek fan, Jörg Hillebrand's twitter account, here.  Arcadians are very seldom seen aliens who first appeared in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (the one with the whales) - which is where the third screenshot comes from.  I can feel the need to make some of these cards, just as I did with the Romulan pikhmit/pixmit cards here.

[Screenshots from Cygnus-X1 and Trekcore]

 

Sounds:

"Tilted" by Christine and the Queens. 

 I discovered this thanks to The Great British Sewing Bee.  A small part - "I'm doing my face with magic marker" - was playing during the modelling of one of Raph's creations in series 7.

 A blast-from-the-past that I'm listening to as I type this is "I Wish I Cared" by a-ha.

𝄇𝄆

 And that's it.  I aim to be back by this time next week in some form or other.  Have a good week!