Amanda Hill

It took most of the day, but managed to get two IT people from two different organizations and two different cities into the same room at the same time to resolve a problem. #SmallWin

Value advanced fares were great. That was for a first class seat! The ticket for the journey home was also in the book: £56 for a standard fare during rush hour.

Value advanced first class single ticket from Manchester to Euston in 2006.

Memento of a former life, found in a book.

Trees in autumnal splendor.

Trees in autumnal splendor

Was gifted an unexpected free two hours this afternoon. Would have been a crime not to go out for a ride.

The eggplant flower from a month ago did produce an edible fruit, but it was the size of a grape. Not exactly a feast.

Carrots and onions.

It's been a disappointing growing season, but I did get a small Thanksgiving harvest.

Envelopes labelled "Mrs J. C. Dodds" and "Jean Wadds".

Contents of envelopes all photos of the same woman.

Satisfying to reunite mislabelled photos which have been separated by most of the alphabet for about 50 years.

And it never looks like the forecast.

I’ll admit, and I’ll own my anxiety: I’m terrified that AI will kill my plans, that it’ll rearrange the coordinates of my life in ways I cannot anticipate, that it’ll mean the death of the written word and the end of creativity and so on.

20/22

Sunshafts in light mist around a tree with autumnal leaves.

Trail leading past a tree with orange leaves under a blue sky.

Glorious conditions for an #earlyMorningBikeRide

Baking trays with multi-coloured tomatoes ready to roast.

I finally have enough tomatoes to roast some into soup. In *October*. And we still haven't had much rain.

Thinking it might be Bryophyllum pinnatum, or Mother of Thousands. (Sounds a bit ominous.)

Small succulent plant with serrated leaf edges.

A small succulent gift. Can anyone identify it for me? Trying not to kill it in the first week...

Orange dahlias at sunset.

Dahlias making up for a disappointing summer.

Saskatoon police identify century-old remains of 'woman in the well' found in 2006 | CBC News The remains of an unknown female were discovered in a well shaft in Saskatoon's Sutherland neighbourhood in 2006. Now she has been identified as Alice Spence (nee Burke), a woman of Irish ancestry, ab...

This is believed to be the oldest investigation in Canada to be solved with the assistance of investigative genetic genealogy.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Pipes of mud made by organ pipe mud dauber wasps.

I've not seen these before: vacated nests of organ pipe mud dauber wasps.

The IMLS's Freedom Trucks Project Is Propaganda in Support of Historical Erasure: Book Censorship News, September 12, 2025 This week, the IMLS announced their Freedom Trucks initiative. It is blatant propaganda.

$14 million dollars allocated to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) was pushed through to the America 250 team to fund "Freedom Trucks"–propaganda telling a whitewashed version of history.

What's happening at IMLS is beyond budgetary concerns.

bookriot.com/imls-freedom...

Wooden spoon in a mix of dried fruit, suet, eggs and breadcrumbs.

Mixing up the Christmas pudding.

Make a wish...

Small child in front of a cart selling cotton candy/fairy floss.

Charmed to learn today that Australians call cotton candy/candy floss "fairy floss".

Trees changing colour and a wet road with fallen leaves.

First day of Fall is looking the part.

Traffic cone with white aster sprouting from the top.

Love the persistence of this aster, frothing from the top of its traffic cone.

Dead tree in front of a colourful sunrise.

Taking down some dead ash trees tomorrow. 😥

Potted plant with large leaves in front of a black background.

Planted a piece of supermarket turmeric root a while back. Nothing happened for weeks, but now it's a respectable little houseplant.

White lighthouse with red door and top in front of a blue sky, framed by trees.

To the Lighthouse

Post-it note on a floppy disk reads: "Donna, this was in a box at the table. Are you keeping this stuff?"

Scenes from the archives.

180 to go. Revisiting these posts to update the dead links is reminding me of how depressing the overall project was. Such a massive loss of life and potential.

Yep.

Bumblebee on dark red Dahlia flower.

The dahlias have come back into flower and are being appreciated by the bees.

☹️

Oh, that's fun. All my links to LAC's digitized First World War service files database are broken. I've fixed three. Just 276 to go.

Eggplant flower.

So far, the garden has produced one whole eggplant (and it's on the menu tonight).

Feels like the plants are coming out of a two-month sulk due to the drought. Not sure this flower has time to grow into a fruit, but maybe?