solarbird | Network

Posted by Sarah Brown

https://cheezburger.com/42392581/20-pawsome-pictures-of-feline-bedhead-fiascos-and-fluffy-flyaways

Cats with bedhead are tiny storms in fur form. They roll out of sleep looking like they lost a wrestling match with a dryer sheet: whiskers pointing in four time zones, ear tufts doing jazz hands, and static turning every strand into a rebellious exclamation mark. One side is sleek, the other is chaos couture. The chin has mysterious crumbs and the chest floof has adopted a dramatic swoop that says "I'm with the band." You reach for a brush and they blink, offended, as if grooming notes apply to other species. Then comes the ceremonial three-lick effort. Lick, lick, give up. Followed by a proud flop that re-seals the style with carpet.

The more they "fix" it, the messier it gets with tongue cowlicks, zigzag part lines, and a tail puffed like a dandelion about to make a wish. Sunbeams become blow-dryers and zoomies flip to the tornado setting. Ten minutes later, "post-nap" upgrades to "headline act." That's the secret: bedhead isn't a flaw, it's the brand. Unbothered, floofy, gloriously disheveled, perfectly Caturday.

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https://cheezburger.com/42392581/20-pawsome-pictures-of-feline-bedhead-fiascos-and-fluffy-flyaways

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

My husband is the middle of five siblings. The three oldest were high achievers who earned advanced degrees and are now comfortably retired, living far from their hometown. The fourth, a brother, has struggled all his life. After four years in the Army, he drifted between unemployment and low-paying jobs, never able to support himself. His parents covered his expenses or let him live with them, even paying for his car while he worked as a pizza-delivery driver. He also developed substance-abuse problems.

After my husband’s father died, the brother stayed in the family home, supposedly caring for their mother but, in fact, exploiting her. He drained her accounts to feed his habit and neglected her care, and after her death he was convicted of elder abuse — something his out-of-town siblings hadn’t realized was happening. Before she died, their mother begged them not to let him be homeless.

Because the brother couldn’t maintain the house, the siblings sold it and split the proceeds. With his share, they bought him a mobile home and placed funds in a protected account, which covered rent and utilities for nearly 10 years until the money ran out. They eventually transferred the bills into his name and explained how to manage them.

He rarely communicates with the family, except when he’s in trouble. Once on his own, chaos followed. He claimed that his pizza-delivery job was enough to live on, but he missed rent, faced eviction and squandered money on predatory car loans and endless repairs. Last year, his siblings discovered that his car had been repossessed and his water had been shut off for six months. His trailer was collapsing from a leaking roof, and garbage was piled everywhere. Yet he had never asked for help. They stepped in, restored utilities, reclaimed his car, cleaned his trailer and signed him up for Social Security. But he quickly burned through a lump-sum back-pay benefit (he said his account was hacked, though he was more likely scammed). Soon after, he fell behind again, and his Social Security is now being garnished by the I.R.S.

The mobile-home park wants him out for unpaid rent and unsafe conditions. He’s clearly mentally ill, but perhaps not impaired enough for a sibling to secure guardianship. My husband and his siblings want to honor their mother’s plea to keep him housed, but contributing to his rent payments and repairing his trailer isn’t financially sustainable for them, and none of them want to take him in because he’s horrible to live with. Social services might help, but he resists cooperation and can’t manage on his own.

So they wonder: At what point do they stop trying? Are they obliged to sustain someone who refuses to sustain himself? Do they owe him the effort of seeking guardianship, or is that more than can reasonably be asked? — Name Withheld

( Read more... )

jesse_the_k

The American Foundation for the Blind is researching AI:

( details on how to participate )

In addition to the environmental and ethical violations which LLMs/AIs depend on, the endless hype and inaccurate performance make me shudder and growl. Yet I admit I’ve used neural text-to-speech voices for casual audio reading. The neural voices require an internet connection and they lose intelligibility at speed. They’re best as substitutes for human readers.

Blind computer users set their on-device system text-to-speech (TTS) at high speeds. Three hundred to five hundred words per minute are often cited. For screen reader applications, a robotic voice is a feature, enabling bits to flow from device to brain with minimal interpretation.

Neural voices produce much higher quality than system-level TTS. When fed appropriately coded input, they can laugh, whisper, and sound sarcastic as well as "analyze" an essay to produce a "podcast" dialog between two synthetic discussants. Some samples here: https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/

But I know well the expertise that skilled human narrators bring to their work—whether it’s commercial audiobook production, volunteer alternative-format creation, or podfic elves making magic. I don’t want a world where those jobs are outsourced to computers.

On the gripping hand, I remember when skilled Linotype operators--many Deaf--were obviated by computerized systems where reporters keyed their own copy. I used the bridge technology of phototypesetting, as well as pioneering desktop publishing. It's expected that admin workers now create flyers and graphs and charts.

Have you tried neural voices? Recognized them on YouTube or TikTok or your recent tech support call? Do you have thoughts for or against?

adafrog posting in

fandom_checkin

This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Saturday to midnight on Sunday (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #33616 Daily poll

Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 1

How are you doing?

I am okay
1 (100.0%)

I am not okay, but don't need help right now
0 (0.0%)

I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans are you living with?

I am living single
0 (0.0%)

One other person
1 (100.0%)

More than one other person
0 (0.0%)

Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

thawrecka

This was my assignment:

Shared Warmth (1056 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 黄金台 - 苍梧宾白 | Golden Terrace - Cāng Wú Bīn Bái
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Fu Shen/Yan Xiaohan
Characters: Fu Shen (Golden Stage), Yan Xiaohan
Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Slice of Life, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Summary:

Two moments in their relationship in which Fu Shen and Yan Xiaohan take care of each other.

But first I wrote this pinch hit, because I saw it on the PH list while I was actively watching Pluto, and got inspired:

Preludes and Endings (Arr. for Piano) (1854 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pluto (Anime)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Paul Duncan/North no. 2
Characters: Paul Duncan (Pluto), North No. 2 (Pluto)
Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Canonical Character Death, Angst, First Kiss, Robot/Human Relationships
Summary:

Paul Duncan uses the time they have to reach out for North no. 2's hands.

The Pluto fic did better than my Golden Terrace fic, and I can't say I'm surprised. The former was just better, and even though I signed up thinking I could write the latter I really struggled.

After this I'm taking a break from exchanges until Yuletide. I did a bunch over the last year, and it turns out instead of giving me the joy Yuletide gives me they mostly made me stressed. I did read some great fic, though, and got to write some interesting stuff.

cyberghostface posting in

scans_daily

Art is by Steve Yeowell.

( Scans under the cut... )

merryghoul posting in

doctor_who_sonic

Do you have a Doctor Who community or a journal that we are not currently linking to? Leave a note in the comments and we'll add you to the watchlist (

doctor_watch).

Editor's note: Because of the high posting volume and the quantity of information linked in each newsletter, doctor_who_sonic will no longer link fanfiction that does not have a header. For an example of what a "good" fanfic header is, see the user info. Spoiler warnings are also greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Off-DW News
Blogtor Who's Friday Video of the Day is the UNIT case file for the Zygons from Doctor Who's YouTube channel
Doctor Who News: Issue 621 of Doctor Who Magazine
Blogtor Who: The cast of Ghost Light to reunite at Utopia
Blogtor Who's Saturday Video of the Day is Big Finish's trailer for their audio Snare from The Ninth Doctor Adventures
Blogtor Who reviews Big Finish’s The Thirteenth Doctor Adventures: The Return of the Doctor

(News from

doctorwhonews_feed and

blogtorwho_feed, among others.)

Communities and Challenges

dw100: Challenge #1058: refine

Discussion and Miscellany

purplecat with a postcard with an image from from Smith and Jones

Fanfiction
Completed
Stuck by

badly_knitted [Three, Jo | G]

Recommendations

paranoidangel recommends the fic sparking joy by

TechnicolorRevel [TARDIS, Nyssa, Bill, Charley | General Audiences]

If you were not linked, and would like to be, contact us in the comments with further information and your link.

icanhascheezburger_feed

Posted by Briana Viser

https://cheezburger.com/42377989/good-morning-meows-of-cat-memes-for-pet-owners-running-on-coffee-and-cuddles-september-13-2025

Morning isn't truly morning without two things: the small of coffee brewing, and your cat's meows. There's really no better morning ritual than hearing your cat scream at you for breakfast. For many pet owners, their pet is their unofficial alarm clock. Nothing is warmer than the mix of impatience and affection that somehow feels more comforting than any sunrise.

When you have your first cup while your cat happily eats his breakfast, you can contemplate all that the day will bring. Your work bestie is sure to have some tea on her new guy, and your office nemesis will probably be complaining about something loudly in the kitchen for all to hear. Regardless of how you spend the rest of your day, you know that everything will be better after giving your cat some pets before leaving for work, and knowing your cat will be there when you get home. So for cat lovers running on coffee and cuddles, these memes are for you.

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https://cheezburger.com/42377989/good-morning-meows-of-cat-memes-for-pet-owners-running-on-coffee-and-cuddles-september-13-2025

icanhascheezburger_feed

Posted by Ely Bulnes

https://cheezburger.com/42375941/from-alpaca-to-zebra-26-cats-cuddling-with-every-animal-in-the-alphabet

Cats are kind of infamous for being independent and a little standoffish. My own mother has written felines off as selfish creatures, and every cuddly kitty she meets is just an exception to her narrow worldview. However, cat pawrents know that they are actually the snuggliest creatures on Earth, they are just a little more specific about when and how they want affection.

What's even cuter than a cat curling up on your lap? A cat curling up with another animal! From the fluffiest of farmyard pals to unexpected wildlife companions, cats seem to have no problem making friends of all shapes and sizes. Below, we will explore the animal kingdon from A-Z (literally!) with 26 photos of cats interacting with creatures of every kind. From alpacas, to iguanas, to zebras, here we have irrefutable proof that cats don't just rule the internet; they are the kings of interspecies relations!

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https://cheezburger.com/42375941/from-alpaca-to-zebra-26-cats-cuddling-with-every-animal-in-the-alphabet

mxcatmoon posting in

fandomcalendar

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icanhascheezburger_feed

Posted by Laurent Shinar

https://cheezburger.com/42356229/hed-side-eye-me-like-i-was-the-guy-she-told-him-not-to-worry-about-house-cat-spends-years-ignoring

It should come as no big surprise that cats are a picky and particular bunch. Their mood and motivations can be swayed by something as non-intrusive as a gentle breeze and you will never quite know what or why their minds were changed. And to be fair, they likely do not know either. Which is what one man experienced after the passing of the other cats in the house, when the remaining feline suddenly became affectionate to him after years of throwing him side eyes.

Now we will say that this man did bring a dog with him into the house at the beginning of the relationship, and while the doggo did do its best to love the cattos, there is a good chance that this transgression is what stopped the clouder of cats from giving him the time of day. But regardless, the remaining cattos change of tune is an exciting and unexpected one that is for sure.

Is your inbox feline too professional? Add some cats falling off counters. Subscribe here!

https://cheezburger.com/42356229/hed-side-eye-me-like-i-was-the-guy-she-told-him-not-to-worry-about-house-cat-spends-years-ignoring

languagelog_feed

Posted by Mark Liberman

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=71056&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=melvillian-non-hyphenation

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=71056

Frazz 9/10/2025 — Caulfield and Mrs. Olson discuss Melville's novel:

Continued in Frazz 9/11/2025:

It's true that Moby-Dick is hyphenated in the title of the 1851 American edition:

And also true that none of the other 80-odd instances of the whale's name in that edition are hyphenated, e.g.

In the British first edition, even the title is unhyphenated:

The Melville Electronic Library has side-by-side versions of the American and British first editions, with various textual observations — including this:

[I]n modern usage—both scholarly and now popularly—the hyphenated Moby-Dick designates the book; the unhyphenated “Moby Dick” represents the white whale.

Leaving the hyphen behind, there's more from Frazz, fore and aft of the two strips above — 9/8/2025:

9/9/2025:

9/12/2025:

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=71056&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=melvillian-non-hyphenation

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=71056

hekateras posting in

fandomcalendar

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iamrman posting in

scans_daily

Writer: Steve Englehart

Pencils: Tom Derenick

Inks: Mark Farmer

Aquaman continues to be absolutely bloody useless.

( Read more... )

languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=71037&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=two-new-foreign-words-turkish-kahvalti-and-french-pave

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=71037

I probably learn at least one or two new foreign words per day, and they always delight me no end.

The first new foreign word I learned today is Turkish kahvalti (lit., "before coffee) which means "breakfast".

Inherited from Ottoman Turkish قهوه آلتی (ḳahve altı, “food taken before coffee; especially breakfast or lunch”), from قهوه (ḳahve) and آلت (alt), equivalent to kahve (“coffee”) +‎ alt (“under, lower, below”) +‎ -ı (possessive suffix), literally “under coffee”. (Wiktionary)

This tells us how important coffee is in Turkish life.

The second new foreign word I learned today is French pavé, lit., "paving block; cobblestone". Here's how it came to my attention.

For the last year and a half, I have been carrying around — including to Korea, London, Belfast, across the United States, down the Mississippi — a very heavy book that I was commissioned to review for the French Sinological journal, T'oung Pao. I thought that surely, in the midst of all that travelling, I'd be able to knock of the review of Étienne de la Vaissière's 648 pp. Asie centrale 300-850. Des routes et des royaumes. Although I had written about one third of the review within the first two weeks after I received the big book from the T'oung Pao editorial office, i just couldn't finish it off for the next year. Finally, when the new academic year began at Penn, I said to myself, "This is just too humiliating. If I don't finish off the review within one week, it'll drag on for another year." So I sat down and cranked out the review, and am very relived to have done so.

When I sent in the review, the book review editor, Isabelle Ang, exclaimed, "It is a 'pavé', so it’s totally understandable that you needed a lot of time to write it!"

I knew immediately and instinctively what she meant by that, since I myself had grown accustomed to saying to others who would ask about that big book, "It's a brick".

Every time I learn a new word, especially a foreign word, I feel smarter.

Selected readings

"Massive borrowing" (2/18/19)
"Borrowability" (1/10/09)

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=71037&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=two-new-foreign-words-turkish-kahvalti-and-french-pave

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=71037

peasina posting in

pokepodproject

Welcome to our Adopt-a-Pokemon thread, aka the pinch hit post! Please familiarise yourself with our rules before picking up a pinch hit.

To claim a Pokemon, please comment on this post. Anonymous commenting is on, meaning you don't need a Dreamwidth account to comment. Comments are also screened, so no one else will see them besides the mods. Please include the following information in your comment: the AO3 name where you will post your work, your email address, which Pokemon you are claiming, and whether you are claiming the Pokemon as a writer or a podficcer.

Here's an optional commenting template

AO3 Name:
Email:
Pokemon:
Writer or podficcer?:

Writers, please only claim one Pokemon at a time. When you've posted your completed pinch hit to the collection, you may claim another if you like. Please also note that the maximum number of stories an author can write for this event is five, including assigned stories that were not pinch hits. There is no maximum for podficcers. We will email you to let you know if your adoption has been successful. Adoptions are given on a first-come, first-served basis.

The following Pokemon need a writer! The deadline for these pinch hits is Sunday 21 September at 20:00 PM (UTC).

Typhlosion

~~Feraligatr~~ CLAIMED

Mareep

Flaaffy

~~Bellossom~~ CLAIMED

Azumarill

~~Umbreon~~ CLAIMED

~~Murkrow~~ CLAIMED

~~Heracross~~ CLAIMED

Magcargo

Delibird

~~Houndour~~ CLAIMED

Miltank

Once a Pokemon has been claimed, it will be crossed out above.

There are currently no Pokemon who need a podficcer! Should this change, we will update this post.

Thank you for checking out our pinch hits!

allekha

Z and I are picking up new household repair skills. A couple of weeks ago we learned how to patch holes in the driveway, because getting our bumpy one entirely redone is not happening anytime soon, and after pouring two bags of cold tar into the biggest hole and punching it down as best we could, we have a slightly less bumpy driveway! We're hoping to take advantage of the warm weather to do the other big ones. I've also been trying to clear out the plants attempting to invade it.

Our attempts to repair a window screen did not go so well. We'll have to give that one another go at a later time.

We bought a water softener earlier in the week and were going to install it this weekend, but we ended up having issues with the filter pitcher we had been using to make our water palatable. Might have gotten some sort of bacteria or something growing in it. So right after my skating lesson finished, we went to buy all the parts to install it and did so in a marathon plumbing session last night. Had a bit of an issue getting the fittings to/from the softener to tighten enough, but we managed it on our second try, and no leaks! And our tap water now tastes perfectly good! Certainly learned a lot installing that. We're hoping it will also help with issues we've had with our laundry.

(This plumbing work ended up delaying the posting of the next chapter of my WIP, sorry readers! Tasty water came first.)

Z has also decided that he wants to learn how to cook more, and he spent quite a while on Wednesday working on herb bread from the machine and tomato soup for dinner for both of us. It smelled amazing, and I love tomato soup, so you can imagine my surprise and disappointment when I ate one spoonful of soup and had one bite of bread and discovered both were far too hot-spicy for me to eat. Poor Z found a recipe for an Italian herb mix that advised adding a disproportionate amount of red pepper, and he used it in both. At least he was able to eat it, and he made up for it with a delicious pasta dish the next night!

mrshamill

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Current Mood: sad

peasina posting in

pokepodproject

All podficcer assignments have now been sent via email. If you haven’t received yours (and it’s not in your spam/junk folder), please contact us confirming your AO3 username and email address. The deadline for podfics is Sunday 28 September, 20:00PM UTC.

Adopt-a-Pokemon (aka pinch hits) will be posted shortly.

We hope you enjoy your assignments! Happy podficcing🎙️💙

the_shoshanna

We managed to pack all our stuff up again and move on to Fishguard!

An uneventful last morning in Hay-on-Wye: we had breakfast, chatting again with Mary. Geoff meant to ask her about the local effects of Brexit (prefacing the question with "I know this might be a sensitive or political subject, if you don't want to talk about it I certainly understand"), but she misheard and thought he was asking about the local experience of COVID.

So that's what we ended up hearing about!

She said it wasn't so bad; there were a handful of deaths, mostly among the elderly (one man was a hundred and three), but not much sickness otherwise, although she did also mention the twenty-something son of a friend who was very ill and has never fully recovered. When they were under lockdown, the whole community divvied up responsibility for checking on people; she was responsible for one side of her street, and every day she would go knock on doors and check in, take grocery requests and deliver the groceries after the designated shopper had got them, and so on. (The nearest grocery store is actually in England, over the border, and they were under a different set of restrictions, but the people tasked with getting everyone's groceries just went anyway, because the alternative was to go ridiculously far to the nearest one in Wales, in Brecon.) In one row of houses inhabited mostly by older people, they would all sit out in their back gardens and chat across the fences. One day one of the women Mary was checking on didn't answer her door, and the neighbors said they hadn't seen her the previous day but since the weather had been bad they hadn't thought anything of it; but Mary figured, well, risk or no risk I've got to go in and check on her. So she went in, and the woman wasn't sick but had fallen quite badly; it sounded like she'd dislocated her knee! Mary knew some first aid from having worked with the Scouts and got it back in, and within two days the woman was basically fine.

Mary said that probably COVID hadn't been so bad there because it's so isolated and everyone is mostly spread out; I mean, yes there's a town, but it's not city-dense, and there's also plenty of people up on the farms who might see no one for a week at a time. She hadn't heard anything about the horrific death rates in the Montreal seniors' homes, or the refrigerated trucks outside the New York City hospitals, or (I assume) the huge pop-up hospitals in China, etc.; I got the sense that her local experience was just that the community put their heads down and got on with it. She at least, and her circle, weren't paying much attention to the larger situation. It was wonderful to hear about such solid and thorough community mutual care!

Then we packed up (paranoically checking for anything that might have rolled out of sight and be at risk of being left behind), shouldered our own huge hiking packs for the first time since landing at Heathrow, and walked ten minutes to a bus stop on the street below Hay Castle.

(I love my huge hiking pack, by the way. I can carry so much with, relatively speaking, so little effort, because it's well made and balanced. It's from Osprey; they make excellent gear.)

I had discovered by the merest fluke, about two weeks before we started this trip, that the bus we were depending on to get from Hay-on-Wye to the Hereford rail station had been cancelled and replaced by a different service, run by a different company, and leaving fifteen minutes earlier. Thank God I saw that! Although I probably would have discovered it anyway, if somewhat later, in the course of last-minute double-checking; there's several reasons I'm mostly in charge of logistics on our trips, but my tendency toward compulsive re-confirmation is certainly one of them. I'd even found a live bus tracker and checked on the previous day or two to get a sense of whether it tended to run on time, because it only runs every two hours and if we missed it we'd be in trouble. Anyway, thankfully it wasn't raining, and we got to the stop in plenty of time, had a pleasant wait (including chatting with another waiting passenger), and got on with no trouble.

We really weren't much of tourists in Hay-on-Wye. We wandered through the castle lawn but didn't pay to go inside; we wandered through bookshops but didn't explore the town otherwise; we strolled along the river path. I couldn't tell you a thing about its history. But we had a nice restful time there!

The bus ride to Hereford rail station was an hour long. The bus route began about a half hour before where we boarded, and there were six or eight people already on it when we arrived; I think three got off, and we were two of about eight getting on, at least half also with luggage, clearly traveling some distance/going on a trip. After that more and more people got on at the various stops in various small towns (interestingly, the bus also seemed to stop when waved down for a pickup, or when a passenger asked to get off, even when it wasn't a posted stop). But I don't think anyone got off again until we'd reached the outskirts of Hereford. I suppose people go into the big city for various things they can't get in the little towns, but have little reason to go from town to town, unless maybe they're visiting friends or something.

Then we had about an hour wait for a train to Fishguard, our next stop. The train was crowded and we couldn't sit together for a while, until there was a lot of passenger reshuffling at Cardiff (unsurprisingly) and we were able to move, and the overhead luggage rack didn't look wide enough for our big hiking packs even when there was enough space available for them lengthwise, so we had to have them at our feet and wedge our legs around them; poor Geoff started out sitting next to a woman who had one bag at her feet and another big one on the floor in front of his seat, so he had to put his big pack on his lap and I'm not sure he could even see around it! But once the train emptied out a bit we were able to be more comfortable. It was about a four-hour ride, with the usual gorgeous scenery of hills patchworked with fields and studded with cattle and sheep, with a few towns and industrial bits for variety, and some impressive tidal flats as we ran along the seaside for a while. Our host at our next B&B had texted (aha! Texting!) to confirm that he'd meet us at the station, and he said to sit on the left side of the train for some beautiful seascapes after Swansea, but I think the tide must have been out.

As we approached our stop, by which time the train had of course emptied out greatly (ours was the second to last on the line), a young woman (twenties?) sitting across from us asked if we were hiking, and we stuck up a conversation. She was coming to Fishguard to do rowing; she's on the Welsh team, she said! (She also said she was Australian; I guess rowing teams recruit from all over, like other sports teams?) We've been to Australia, though nowhere near where she was from, so we chatted about that a little; and she'd been to Canada, though nowhere near where we're from! So I said, "Well, if you're ever in Ontario, feel free to look us up!" -- I meant it mostly as a joke but it ended up serious, and Geoff gave her his card and she said she'd drop him an email with her contact info. I don't think she has, though; I mean, we only chatted for ten minutes. It was fun, though!

Then we arrived at our station, disembarked, and met our host Mike; he and his partner Christine run our B&B here. They have a working smallholding (mostly timber at this point, I think, plus a kitchen garden? Christine also keeps chickens, and we have six of their eggs in our wee fridge), and they rent out one self-contained attached apartment. Their home is a rebuilt and modernized (obviously) twelfth-century farmhouse, and our bit is at the end, what used to be the barn. (In the pictures on their website, we have the far right end: http://ffynnonclun.co.uk/index.htm.) The ground floor is a small room, but big glass double doors let in lots of light during the day, and there are some small windows as well. The floor is stone tiles, there's a loveseat and an armchair, a small dresser and a dropleaf table that we're just using as surfaces to put things on, a small wood stove that we're not using, and off of on one side of the very end is a bathroom with a shower stall with on-demand heater and -- blessed device -- a washing machine! We have done so much laundry. Paralleling the bathroom on the other side is a small but well-equipped kitchen; this is a self-catering B&B, they provide food but we have to cook it and clean up from it. As well as the eggs, the fridge is stocked with bacon, pork and apple sausages, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, a loaf of homemade laverbread, butter, homemade apple-blackberry jam, and milk, and everything that isn't homemade comes from neighbors, pretty much. The milk isn't homogenized, which was fun to discover! I'm not sure I've ever even seen unhomogenized milk before. Apparently it's just not a thing around here. Mike did confirm that it's pasteurized, though, not raw. And the water comes direct from their own springs! (Filtered and UV-treated, delicious, but he did say not to drink it after it's sat for a day, like if you didn't empty your water bottle but just kept drinking the same water, because it's not chlorinated and things will eventually grow in it.)

The walls and ceiling of the room are whitewashed or plastered, and there are two huge tree trunks, bark still on them, embedded in the ceiling and running the length of the room, as ceiling beams. The walls are a good two feet thick. And between the doorways to the kitchen and the bath, a steep ladder leads up to the sleeping loft! There's a thick sturdy rope looped around each step of the ladder for handgrips (they are wide flat steps, not just rungs), and two birch tree trunks, each about as thick as Geoff's wrist, embedded from the loft floor to the (quite low by that time) ceiling, also for hanging on to as you ascend or descend! The booklet of info about the place warns, "No socks on the ladder!" and that is a rule we are holding to. There's a window and a skylight in the loft.

The fuses for the hob and oven, the washing machine, the on-demand shower, and the immersion heater for hot water from a tap each have to be switched on individually before they can be used, and you won't have hot water from the tap for an hour after you switch on the immersion heater (but if you're using the wood stove, that also heats the water tank, so you don't need the electric immersion heater). In some ways this is very rustic! On the other hand, on-demand hot water means an infinite supply, and there's (solar-powered) underfloor heating that can also be switched on (oooooooh so cozy), as well as things we take for granted now, like, obviously, wifi. Mike gave us a quick tour of all the switches and how to use everything. Also there's a washing machine but no dryer, and the weather didn't seem conducive to hanging laundry outside, so he helped us set up a big drying rack in his plastic-sheeted shed, which will be dry and warm, and which holds, as well as the usual collection of shed clutter, several tomato plants and also their big solar batteries.

He and Christine had been incredibly helpful and friendly in our correspondence ahead of time, with suggestions of things to see and do, offers of lifts, and so on, and while obviously this is a business for them, it's not like staying in a hotel or even a large multi-room B&B; it's very personal. So I brought them a gift: a half-liter jug of local maple syrup I picked up at a farmer's market before we left. That's part of the reason my bag has been so heavy; I've been hauling that around for a week! Mike and Christine (who came by as he was showing us around) seemed surprised and delighted to be given it, which is exactly the reaction you want to such a gift! (And Christine actually lived in Toronto for some years, many years ago, so she's familiar with it; years ago we brought some to someone in Australia, and they were like, ".....thanks? What do I do with it?" And then we were trying to explain that it can be used as sweet (e.g. on pancakes) or as savory (e.g. with pork) and that clearly did not compute.)

The B&B is up a long steep hill from town; Mike gave us a ride down to a pub he recommended for dinner, where Geoff had duck and I had fish pie, along with tasty local beers. Then Mike picked us up on his way home from picking up his son, who lives in Cardiff and was arriving for a visit; he'd intended to be on a train, but the train broke down and there was a lot of back and forth on plans, but eventually the train company put him in a taxi to the station and the timing worked out perfectly for Mike to fetch all three of us home.

We had a very cozy night in our loft, warm under a thick comforter and with the lasting warmth of the underfloor heating still radiating upward (stone holds heat!), and Geoff only bonked his head on the low-sloping ceiling once.

And that brings us up to the end of yesterday, but it's eight-thirty pm and I've got to stop writing things up for the evening. I will hope to write up today tomorrow: short version is, today was great.

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solarbird

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September 2025

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収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

cheers, love - the cavalry's queer!

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20 Pawsome Pictures of Feline Bedhead Fiascos and Fluffy Flyaways

(no subject)

Neural Text to Speech and an AFB AI Survey

Daily Check In.

My Rare Male Slash Exchange fic

The New Adventures of Hitler

Saturday 13 September 2025

Good Morning Meows of Cat Memes for Pet Owners Running on Coffee and Cuddles (September 13, 2025)

From Alpaca to Zebra: 26 Cats Cuddling With Every Animal in the Alphabet

Multifandom: Vocabulary Word Prompt Community

‘He'd side-eye me like I was the guy she told him not to worry about’: House cat spends years ignori

Melvillian (non-)hyphenation

Invisible Inc. Datalog Exchange (2025)

JLA Classified #25

Two new foreign words: Turkish kahvalti and French pavé

Adopt-A-Pokemon! [Pinch Hits]

Household adventures

(no subject)

Podficcer Assignments Out!

A long update that doesn't even catch me up to now!

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September 2025

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