WARNING: This post may contain poo!
As the second day of the weekend also turned out sunny (but not as balmy as yesterday), I had no choice but to go outside again. But this time down to the beach where some misty mysteries lay in wait:
Despite the above - and a couple more muddy scenes further down - I managed to navigate in my Not-Wellies without getting them wet or mucky (at least, no muckier than they already are). Fortunately - due to a few days without rain - most of the bogs and swamps that pass for tracks and footpaths around here have dried up, leaving only a few lingering patches of mud that were relatively easy to pick my way through/past.
Yes, the sun was out so I had a wander around my neck of the woods this lunchtime. First stop were the reservoirs next to the radar station, then it was across to Hungry Hill, down past the Shrieking Pits, alongside Fox Hills, though India Woods to Osier Carr and Little Broad. Then, I crossed the River Mun at Gay's Plantation and made my way home via Frogshall to Northrepps, up Toll's Hill and down past the old station and Mole End, then home.
Below, from the front of Hexenhäusli Device, we have the first daffodils 'Tete a tete' and species crocus 'Barr's Purple'. And then, below them, just inside the gate to the rear grounds, a couple of cyclamen.
This is the post I was working on before yesterday's walk in the snow photos (and that tit killing) usurped it. Some of the comments from the last Blogorati Stars post (featuring 'Petra) got me thinking about how to get more of you lovely Blogorati into the night sky. Short of launching you into orbit aboard Ariane 5, that is...
As only two of you - the aforementioned 'Petra and the inestimable Mago - actually appear in the IAU's list of approved star names, some plotting scheming unconventional thinking is required to get the rest of you up there. For example, Melanie Reynolds used to be known as Proxima Blue - in her words: "inspired by Proxima Centauri, yes I know its a red dwarf, shush! You don't know her heart." - so why not work up a star map of the constellation Centaurus and pop Melanie in there in place of Proxima? Because I can't see it. Centaurus is too far below the ecliptic for me to see its nether regions (where Proxima lies), so there'll be no photos and, therefore, no star map. We'll have to come up with a different star.
This just in: Killing and carnage in the immediate vicinity of Hexenhäusli Device!
I wasn't going to post more snow photos because I'm sure those of us with snow are sick of it, and for those without it's just rubbing your noses in it. However, I'm still working on the post which I'd intended to publish, so as I've gone to all the effort of trudging around the frozen countryside this morning, you might as well have a look at the best bits.
The photo above is the view across to Hungry Hill. To the left is the old reservoir which, as you'll see from the photos below, is frozen over. But doesn't it look lovely?
Like much of the UK (except Devon, it seems), Hexenhäusli Device and its environs has become encumbered with a blanket of snow - the most we've had since the end of Feb/beginning of March 2018. Unlike three years ago, I didn't have to struggle to get to work (not that I struggled very hard, it has to be said) thanks to working from home for some reason...
Anyway, here are some photos (which are very similar to those 2018 ones):
Almost a year on since the last Blogorati Star's post, may I introduce our next Star:
I don't know how I missed it, but Petra was in the same batch of approved star names as Mago back in December 2019. Perhaps it's because she's...
Yes, at 196 light years away poor Petra (AKA WASP-80) is too dim to be seen with the naked eye, with an apparent magnitude of only 11.88. If you get your telescope out however, Petra can be found in the constellation Aquila (the Eagle) just off the tip of its beak at right acension 20h 12m 40.18s, declination −02° 08′ 39.1″. She also has an entourage - at least one planet, Wadirum, constantly orbits her, attending to her every whim and desire.
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| I haven't been out stargazing lately, so I put this star map together from a photo I took back in August 2019 (which is why Saturn is in Sagittarius here rather than Capricornus) |
Yes, Mago will have some stellar company with this Diva Lady. And speaking of Mago, let's pre-empt his Sunday Music with some 'Petra-themed tunes:
Thanks to Mago's unintentional prodding, I've come up with a list of books I've read over the last year or two. Well, most of them, anyway. And I've just discovered that the last time I did a proper Books post was in September 2018! Although I can't remember everything I've read since then (I'm sure it's not a lot), I did find one book in my Kindle that I must have read just after that last book post:
∘ Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers
It was while dragging a draft post about books into 2021 and getting it fit to be published, that I noticed that there were 1300 posts on this blog. But, upon closer inspection, 16 of them were drafts, so it'll be at least a couple of months before I hit that nice, round 1300 published posts.
I pondered deleting the drafts as some of them are bloody ancient, but I thought I might actually finish them off one day and publish them. Then I got to wondering if anyone else has a load of half-finished (or less) posts languishing in their "drafts" folder. So, do you? If I show you mine, will you show me yours? I hope so, because here are mine:
Out of these first five, I'd just about managed to get "Books" in some sort of order, but I've ruined it with some questionable font/size choices, so that's going to take some unravelling. Then, I'm preparing for this years "Coven Awards" as I had an idea for a revamp which means taking note of things as they happen, rather than trying to remember stuff in a panic half-way through December. There's also some preparation for a trip over the Cusp for "Ms Scarlet's Birthday" in March - but the rest of that post depends on whether we get this pandemic under control and the Cusp opens its borders. Obviously, "Isn't It Drafty In Here" is this post, which just leaves "It's a Faake! prose" - which I will probably delete it as it's only a half-arsed Star Trek story that, despite the Jan 3 date, has actually been hanging around since at least Feb 2019 (which is the penultimate time that I edited it). The only reason it's still hangning around is that I've been using it to upload images to my Blogger gallery, and Jan 3rd was the last time I did that...
Having found myself awake just before dawn, I thought I may as well go out and see the sunrise as the sky was relatively clear. In the fifteen minutes it took me to get dressed and make my way to the cliff top, the inevitable clouds had arrived and made things a little more interesting.
It was (and still is) very cold and frosty, so I had to be careful getting down the slope to the promenade. Once down there, I could only get about halfway along before great sheets of extremely slippery ice across the prom (from all the water draining out of the cliffs) halted my progress. Fortunately, there was a small amount of beach, so I descended the steps to the sand and made my way east.
