GPE 2024 : Terrifying Triffidery

 

 You made it.  Splendid.  Welcome to the fifth annual Terrifying Triffidery show!

The hors d'oeuvres are here!

Hang on... I didn't think we were serving our Bloggerati guests with food?

We're not.  We're serving them as food!  The triffids are getting peckish and without Gavin and his monstrous arms we have no way to hold them back.

We are NOT feeding our guests to a load of house plants with ideas above their station!  And where is Gavin?  I haven't seen him since last year.

I think Maddie made off with him.  Or was it Hound?

Christ!

 

 Ah.  Don't pay the SubCs any attention.  And don't open that door!  Just follow me to the orangery where one of the staff will be serving Champagne or cocktails or something before we begin the tour.

What's Witchface talking about?

We don't have any staff.

Unless you count the woodsman?

I hope he's changing out of that horrid flannel shirt...

 Right.  Let's have some music to accompany our tour.  Oh, and remember to keep all your appendages on this side of the velvet rope - unless you don't need them, that is.  And some of the triffids' tendrils and tentacles are quite long, so be on your guard.

Garden Photos Event update

 Well, the deadline for sending in your garden/graveyard/windowsill/duck photos has come and gone, and I'm surprised to have received entries from as many as six Bloggerati (thank you all).  I am not surprised that dear Savvy's entry wasn't amongst them...

 

 Anyway, you still have time to get your photos in if you want to take part (into the first week of November, if absolutely required), but please note: if you have a Terrifying Triffidery photo, you MUST email it to me by midday tomorrow UK time.  That's anywhere between 5am on the US west coast to 8am on the East, I think?  And 1pm in Franconia...  (The expected Australian entry is in, but if there are any more you'll have to work the time out yourselves as your country spans too many time zones for me to be arsed to list).

 

 Everyone is welcome - even newcomers, friends-of-friends, lurkers, Lady Goldberg-DeWoofs etc. - so if you'd like to take part, please do!  This blog's gmail address can be found in my profile up there on the Sideboard to the right.  If you have any questions, please ask away in the comments.

 

Hope to see you and your  I N F O M A N I A C  Garden Photos Event snaps soon!

Incoming! GPE at Two O'Clock!

Or is it ten past twelve?

Who knows?  I think Witchface must've been having a moment when this title came to mind.

 Oh, all right.  Forget the time/direction, then.

the House of

I N F O M A N I A C

Garden Photos Event

 

is almost upon us!

 When you say "almost", what exactly do yo-

 Christ!  Shut up!  I'm doing this and I don't need any of your 'help'.

 Well, I just don't want anyone to start panicking because of a misunderstood deadline.

 They should be panicking.  There're less than two weeks to go!

It sounds like you're the one who's panicking...

A few deep breaths later...

 Right.  As I was saying: it'll soon be Garden Photos Event time so I hope you've all been taking photos of how your expansive grounds | bijou courtyard | overgrown wilderness | rampant houseplants | tasteful city garden | impenetrable jungle | potted paradise | graveyard that you frequent [delete as applicable] has grown over the year, as I'll want your carefully curated selections - along with terse or verbose captions - in my in-box by Monday 28th October, please.* 

 And remember also to include a photo or two of a particularly spooky plant in your collection - or, failing that, a rather more mundane plant which has been snapped at an odd angle/close-up/while drunk - for the GPE preview Terrifying Triffidery on the 31st.

 This blog's gmail address for sending your photos & captions into is in my profile on top of the Sideboard over there.  Or, if you have the Host's personal hotmail address, you can use that instead.

 

☙❧

 

 For anyone new to this/with only a few houseplants/concerned about your gardening abilities (etc.) who may be wondering if you can take part: Yes, you can! 

 As you can see by looking back through previous Garden Photos Events (see my handy GPE Page) pretty much anything goes - and the more the merrier!  You don't have to provide dozens of photos - one or two will be fine - and there'll be no judging or negative critique.  After all, in the exasperated tone of the GPE originator herself, The Very Mistress: 

 

May I remind you that the Garden Photos Event is NOT a competition!

 If you have any questions, thoughts, or ideas about the GPE, please sound off in the comments.

  

☙❧

* But, because I am a soft touch, as long as some of you send in your photos by then, the rest of you lallygaggers can have a bit longer.  But not much longer, mind!  I have things to do, and I don't want to be curating photos all the way through November.

(I'll leave it up to you to decide who's going to be in my good books by getting their photos in on time, and who will earn under-my-breath mutterings and a spectacular eye roll come 29th October.  Or later.  Almost certainly later.)

 

See you and your triffids (good or evil) next week!

"Just spun in a web made of moonlight"

  Another clear sky yesterday which means more photos!  And a timely release from Sophie Ellis-Bextor with "Freedom of the Night" as an accompaniment.  Yes, I know: I spoil you.

First glimpse of the Moon emerging from the hazy clouds over the North Sea horizon

Cloudbusting

 Yesterday was the first clear-skyed day for some time, and the last chance to see C/2023 A3, otherwise known as Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS or Comet A3, for 80,000 years.  An occasion such as that warranted leaving work early and hightailing it home in order to witness said comet, so I did.

 Having miscalculated the amount of time required to get home, take Bitey out for his evening "movement", and then wander up Madam's Lane with Camera and Tripod, I set out with all three - getting hotter and hotter as I neared Madam's Lane (it had been a VERY warm day for the time of year).

 Once I'd trudged up the not-very-steep-or-very-high Toll's Hill to the Nightship stop (very near boiling point), I gazed around the points of the compass, marvelling at the beautifully clear skies above and to the North, the East, and the South.  And there to the West was my target - obscured behind the only clouds in the sky.  Drat!

The view west from the Nightship stop looking out over Toll's Hill and not seeing any comets.

Where was Kate Bush when I needed her?

 Not wanting to have a completely wasted trip, I thought I'd take some photos of the stars coming out in the west.  But that was scuppered by the Moon which was massive and brilliant, totally obscuring the stars in Camera's sights.  Bah!

 Still, I did inadvertantly get a shot of the light from Cromer lighthouse:

An Argument of Witches

 Well, it has been 19 years since that fateful day 19 years ago...

Did Witchface mean to say "19" twice?

Who cares.  Just let them get on with it otherwise we'll be here all night.

 As I recall, our very first post did not have a title - that came later.  As did the eye.  No, not the one on the Sideboard (although that one did come later, too), the tiny, blue, glowy thing in the 19 year old post.

The Eye

 As blog beginnings go, it could have been a little more spectacular, I suppose.  Having said that, I'm glad it didn't happen like this.  At least, I don't think that's how it started?

 Didn't it?

 I don't know, I was asking you!

 My mind has blocked out the traumatic incident that led to you and your bloody SubC taking up residence in it, thankfully.

Hey!

 Yes: Hey!  And, traumatic?!  I hardly think it was traumatic.  In fact, I'm sure it was wonderful!  You should be grateful I arrived to instill a bit of pizzazz into your life because you certainly weren't doing anything with it.

 "Pizzazz"?  Christ.  No one says pizzazz anymore.

 Oh, pish posh.  Anyway, it's a good job I did turn up - just think how lucky you are that this isn't going to happen now.

 That happened because of you, you silly witch!

Yeah!

 You're the one that cuts the toenails, so it's clearly your fault. 

 If you hadn't been in me then you wouldn't have been summonsed to the future and my great-to-the-power-of-six (or is it seven?) nephew wouldn't have had to travel back in time to stop it from happening!

*Ahem*  We're getting somewhat off topic, here.

What exactly is the topic again?

Who knows?  Some sort of half-arsed anniversary malarkey, I guess.

Well, it's certainly half-arsed.  The time would have been better spent

visiting everyone else's blogs and replying to previous posts' comments.

 That will have to wait until tomorrow as we're in the middle of an argument now!

EDIT: 16:55 10/10/2024

Jon has already provided the link to a similarly themed choon in the comments, so here's a little something else for this post's soundtrack - Donovan and "Season of the Witch"

An Oddity or Two

 You can thank Madam Arcati for this post, for if she had not seen fit to furnish us with her August flowering foxglove, you would be hastily scrolling through/clicking past a Star Trek fan art post featuring a barely clothed Rutherford.*

 Except for the first photo, here are some late blooming floral oddities from the gardens of Hexenhäusli Device this morning:

From yesterday's Bitey walk: A foxglove in the wild.

Sorry.  Please ignore Bitey's fluffy bottom, and focus your attention on the rather lacklustre foxglove.