Diary – Fireflies

Diary: May

Off The Grid We went away for Easter, up to north Wales, where the house we were staying in had even less phone reception than we get at home, and a strange habit of blowing up routers. As a result we spent much of the week without the internet. It was interesting going off gridContinueContinue reading “Diary: May”

Diary: March

Monty Don Enough people mentioned them to me that I sat down and watched the two programmes on Japanese gardens by Monty Don. I try not the be the sort of scholar who sucks his teeth at all the inaccuracies and misrepresentations in popular media, so let’s just say that it was a mixed bag:ContinueContinue reading “Diary: March”

Diary: February 2019

Delete Your Account We had a seminar on social media use at work last week, prompting the question why use Twitter, etc? There were a variety of answers offered, but as someone who uses social media quite a lot, I found it really quite hard to answer. In the end I think I use SMContinueContinue reading “Diary: February 2019”

Diary – November 2018

Mapping To me this is perfectly normal, I’m not sure that my wife or her parents agreed: When I look at a line of hills, I want to know what it’s is I’m looking at. It worked quite well for Snowdonia: but I’ve had distinctly less success so far with the Brecon Beacons. Anyway, asContinueContinue reading “Diary – November 2018”

Diary, Sept 2018

— I — https://twitter.com/historianhelen/status/1039501223295107074?s=21 Last summer, waiting to pick the boy up after some event in the local town, I followed the sound of hubbub round the back of the shops, to discover a bridge across the river. It was hot, not as hot as this summer, but hot all the same, and down belowContinueContinue reading “Diary, Sept 2018”

Diary 9.0

Moving Sheep The National Library Of Wales has some great historic photos of sheep (and some other things, too…). They’re great pieces of evidence of the ways that the bodies of sheep have been changed through breeding, even over comparatively short time spans. Everyone knows (…) that there was an explosion of breeding and experimentationContinueContinue reading “Diary 9.0”

Diary v8.0

Ghost in the machine I’m not sure I can express this without seeming a bit condescending, but my voyage into shepherding has been a total education in so many different unexpected directions. One thing I’ve been thinking about is the extent to which we tend to think about creative expression in terms of novelty andContinueContinue reading “Diary v8.0”

In Spring

“In Spring It Is The Dawn” starts The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. For me in the winter, the most beautiful moments are the ones with cold and clear skies, where the very emptiness gives a real sense of the vast amount of space above our heads, straight off to infinity.

Diary v.6?

World building I watch Game Of Thrones – I’m not particularly proud of it, but it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure. I think that its great strength in the early stages was a willingness to violate time honoured rules of narrative in fantasy – most obviously to let anyone, anyone, die at any moment.ContinueContinue reading “Diary v.6?”

Diary V

Tree trunks I’ve been reading a book recently that I picked up after hearing of it on the Talking Politics podcast. It’s interesting, but I’ve also found it a little intimidating because it’s somewhere north of 700 pages long. What’s more, looking at my to-read shelf, I can see at least 4 other brick-sized booksContinueContinue reading “Diary V”