Why I write

Everybody's doing it.

The Daily Create today asks for us to answer the question “Why I write”. So why do I write?

I write because I am angry,

I write because I am sad,

I write to get my thoughts clear in my head,

I write in the hope that others will answer my questions,

I write because I have an itch in my head that I am trying to scratch out,

I write because bombs are illegal, and words aren’t (yet),

I write because I write.

flickr photo by athene.noctua shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

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Celebrate the season

It’s a beautiful sunny day here in Glasgow today, so Niall and I were delighted to see that today’s Daily Create urged us to get outside and take photos of our surroundings. At the moment our pathways are carpeted with autumn leaves, and I spent a glorious time one evening last week kicking through them:

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I paused to take this shot of our beautiful main building:

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and then we headed for Kelvingrove. Niall stopped here to admire the view before getting out his camera:

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I turned as we walked, and snapped the Uni tower again through the trees:

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The sycamore leaves are glorious at the moment:

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The Kelvin is full of leaves, drifting downstream like confetti:

Bridge over the Kelvin

The Botanics is splendid as usual:

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I love this monkey puzzle tree

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Then back to work, past the local secondary school:

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Visualising scales

I recently sent Wendy a string art card I’d made and she responded by playing it back to me. As I listened to how she heard my strings, I realised that I also wanted to play me making the cards. wendy-card

The first thing I do is use a stencil to prick out the ten points.

Then I take the first colour of thread and join up alternate dots 1-3, 2-4, 3-5, 4-6. 5-7, 6-8, 7-9, 8-10, 9-1, 10-2. I fumbled this a bit, just as I do when I am sewing in a hurry:


Then I take the second colour of thread and join up every third dot:

1-4, 5-2, 3-6, 7-4, 5-8, 9-6, 7-10, 8-1, 2-9, 10-3:

Working out the last few notes in that was a bit hard!

So there we have it – musical instructions for making string art. 🙂

 

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Christmas Korknisse

Autumn is here and my thoughts have turned to Christmas, and what I can make for friends and family this year. Last year I experimented with some Korknisse – cork elves – and this year I wanted to improve on my design and make them into Xmas tree decorations. img_1356

So I bought some red and green yarn, and found tiny bells and googly eyes on the internet. I already had gold thread in my stash to make the hanging loop with – I think this might have been from Granny Sarah’s stash as it is a very old bobbin.

Today, as I was coding data for my PhD, I made my first one – now all I need to do is glue the hat and sweater on and it will be finished.

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Season of mists

It’s a misty morning again today, and I am sitting here in my cozy study looking out over the garden settling into autumn, with the rowan from next door heavy with red berries, and our resident squirrel bounding across its branches. Our huge sage bush glistens in the morning light:

Sage

We have a very industrious spider – or maybe there is more than one – with webs spun all over the sage bush:

Trap

and all over the washing line:

Webs

Autumn webs

The virginia creeper is my pride and joy:

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And this plant (what is it  – I used to know) thrusts its berries out to tempt the birds:

Berries

A nasturtium leaf gleams with dew:

Glisten

Autumn is here, and it is time to start putting the garden to bed for another year.

 

 

 

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Old books I would not want to be without

The Daily Create yesterday was bizarre:

There are only 3 tweets with this hashtag on Twitter. We found it via @mr45144 and we would love to add some #ds106 love to #OldBooksIDareNotPartWith today.

Find a book you dare not part with, take a photo, tell us why!

Dare not part with? Dare not? What an odd choice of words. It doesn’t surprise me that there were so few tweets to that hashtag. There’s lots of books I love having as possessions, many more I loved reading, plenty I would not like to be without. But it’s not a matter of being bold or craven. So here’s some books which define me – ones I pick up over and over again – either virtually or actually:

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My Chambers dictionary – because etymology is interesting, and cryptic crosswords are good things to do. D&G’s ATP and Wittgenstein PI – two books that are never far from my thoughts. Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, because my study is a place I can sometimes lose myself in my thoughts and my writing. And EZ’s Knitter’s Almanac, because she gives me confidence to experiment.

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RSPB Scotland Loch Lomond

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We had a day off today, and the weather was at least dry (in the morning), so N and I decided to head out to the RSPB Nature Reserve at Gartocharn – a fairly new reserve that we pass on the way to Ross Priory. The Visitor Hub was shut, as it’s only open at the weekends, but N and I were hoping that we could still wander around the paths. It was quickly obvious that we could not do that, as the paths do not exist yet – we’ll have to go back at a weekend and walk around with a guide.

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It was still a stunning site, though – with beautiful views:

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And lots of coal tits on the feeders. I got  a lot of pics of “where a coal tit was until I pressed the shutter”,  as they move so fast, and a few good ones, like this coal tit perched on top of a feeder:

Coal tit

And, as we turned to go back to the car, I noticed signs that Autumn is on the way:

Autumn

 

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5 Secrets about DS106

portent

Today’s Daily Create is to:

Use the Portent Title Generator to randomly generate a title about DS106…then WRITE THAT POST!

So here’s mine:

5 Secrets about DS106 the government is hiding:

  1. It’s free. Take that, government capitalist pig dogs.
  2. It’s fun. Yes, fun! We drones are allowed respite from our toil.
  3. It’s real learning. Not like that rote stuff the government pretend is education.
  4. It’s collaborative. As we riff off each other, we learn more and more.
  5. It has nothing to do with the moon landings.  Or maybe it does …
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Blah

It’s been a fairly awful week. It should have been a restful week’s holiday around the house forgetting about work, but instead it was a stressful period that’s still not over. So Kim’s weekly challenge this week is particularly apt: Fighting the Blahs. On Wednesday, determined to salvage at least a couple of days peace, Niall and I headed up to Ross Priory for lunch. It was an overcast day, with the clouds down over the hills as we looked over Loch Lomond:

Loch Lomond from Ross Priory

But this is always one of our favourite places, with such a beautiful house:

Ross Priory

A gate with no fence or wall around it:

The gate to nowhere

A walled garden with a sundial:

THe Walled Garden

Without any sun this is not much use:

Sun Dial

And lots of flowers with hoverflies and bees:

Symbiosis

So I could practice using my camera in macro mode:

Just visiting

And a final puzzle – what use is this here?

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As we wandered around we spotted some brambles – so we popped back yesterday to pick some. Next: bramble and apple jam making 🙂

 

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Swans

Down at the pond earlier I was taking a picture of this beautiful swan preening itself:

Preening

when I noticed another swan heading towards it:

STalking

Oh, hello:

Hello

Getting closer:

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I’m off then:

Stalking

Uh oh:

Puffing up

And then the attack:

Chase

At which all of the gulls flew up off the pond

Duck pond

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