Jasmine

A large white and grey rabbit eats a huge mouthful of long grass. There is a green fern to the left of the image. The foreground is focused on Big Ben's glorious whiskers.

Such an excellent lad

A tabby cat with partially closed eyes sits on a cat tree. She is beside the window.

I think the new phone is roadtrip ready now, thank goodness. Of course, this was the first photo I took with it.

Switching to a new phone on the eve of a long drive was not on my to-do list, yikes

Several black screws lie on top of a lined notebook page. The outline of five different lengths of screw have been recorded on the pages with a written description of where on the nerf blaster they belong.

Thank you, past me.
My nerf mastodon needed a quick fix to run. Reassembly was, thankfully, a breeze.

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

I had a glorious game early on where everything matched up perfectly, sweeping me into what looked like a very planned win from the outside. I didn't know how good I had it until I played every other game since.

A tabby cat sniffs the lower fronds of a fern appreciatively

Important Hazel update

Some drawings from the market where I had my stall.
The rats were so, so lovely. Talking to them was my absolute highlight of the whole event 🐀🐀🐀

A blue background with the header Te Mani Rongonui o Te Tau. Bird of the Year 2025. Celebrating 20 years. Below, there are 5 birds with their name below a photo. From left to right, we have: Black Robin, Takahe, Westland Petrol, Antipodean albatross, New Zealand falcon.

An important vote has been cast

A spread of nine images, forming a mood board with the predominant colours blue, red, and orange-brown. In the top corner we see a wet pavement, lit with neon lights that highlight that it is old and ragged - not quite pot holed, but also not smooth. The next image is an aerial image of a city, looking down onto night time skyscrapers. The third image is a space nebula. It is red, with a pale white-ish line running at a right angle across it. In the next row down, the first image is a white space ship hovering above the clouds of a planet. The second image is two planets colliding. The third image is a close up of cut wires. In the final row, the first image is a highly stylised artwork of two woman in silhouette under a red umbrella. Their faces are covered by the umbrella. The background is grey with lighter grey rain streaks. The next image is a clean reflective hallway. The floor is dark and polished and the walls are white with wavy panels that stick out. It is very modern and very clean. The last image is a sterile white skyscraper with sterile white windows.

A mood board spread of nine images. The predominant colours are forest green, warm autumnal oranges, and sky blues. The images are aligned so that the warm oranges are in the four corners, while the greens and blues form a cross in the middle. Each row is as follows: Autumn oak trees with orange leaves, warm light streams through the trees onto the soft grass. On the next image, a snowy mountain takes centre view between blue skies and a forest tinged with orange and yellow leaves. On the next image we see a castle at sunset. It is perched atop a cliff, so that we see forest stretching away beneath as far as the eye can see. The sky is warm and orange, tinting the stone of the castle and its towers. In the next row, the first image is a mossy green forest. Moss covered trees twist around a path that leads deeper into the forest. The next image is a wattle and daub house, the roof is reddish brown and the wall are whitewashed, but the cross crossed beams on the outside are a vibrant blue. There are other houses close to the main house, forming a street that is lined with white gravel. Plants cling to the corners of the houses and at the edge of the path. In the final image in this row, we have a mossy ruin. Steps lead down from an archway and we can see trees surrounding the structure. It probably once had a roof, but that is long gone. Moss clings to every surface. In the final row, the first image is a black metal lantern that glows warmly from the candle within. It sits on orange and red leaves and we can see branches in the background. The second image is a grey wolf, at ease with it's mouth slightly open in what could be considered a smile. The final image is of a candle burning on a silver candlestick beside a stack of pages. Both are nestled close to the bark of a tree, perhaps even resting in a cubbyhole in the tree itself.

First attempt at making mood boards. These are for a short story I'm working on and my novel project.

This was a delightful first market experience. I met so many people, chatted with other stallholders, and a happy number of my creations were sold.

My absolute favourite part were the people who came as a pack of rats (and one cat!)
They were genuinely so lovely.

These sound delightful. Sports in speculative fiction has so much potential for ideas.

The fantastic thing I have discovered about this kind of cat bowl is that ants can't seem to figure out how to get into them. They run around the bottom, but never end up on top.

There were a lot of interesting panels to pick between.

Did you have any favourites?

A tabby cat with a wide open mouth, actively about to chomp on a huge mouthful of grass. She has the eye closest to the grass closed, so it looks like she's winking. Her other eye is open and the light catches it just tight to highlight blue amongst the green

A tabby cat who has just closed her mouth on several blade of grass. Her nose is puckered as she bites down and her whiskers splay out to the right and left of the photo

It's BITE ON GRASS TIME

A yellow poster with red lines radiating out like the sun. In the round yellow center it reads "Saturday 23rd August, 10am - 2pm, Panmure Community Centre, Auckland LARP Faire. Costumes, accessories, trinkets, jewellery, dice, 3D prints, and more!"

I will have a stall at the LARP Faire in the morning!
I will have candles, soap, crotchet, paintings, and enamel pins.

It's my first stall, so I'm looking forward to the learning experience and the chance to chat with people who pop in.

Both of the 'Worldbuilding Through...' panels.

'Researching the Occult and the Paranormal', particularly the insights on including real-world elements vs making up your own fictional ones while remaining respectful.

'Sifting Through Histories', although I only made it to half.

Hoot!

A tabby cat reclines in a cat tree. The photo is a close up with her front paw blurred in the foreground and her contented face resting on a fluffy raised cat bed in the background. She has very long white whiskers

The pleased face of someone who managed to get accidentally locked out all night

Worldcon is all wrapped up. I feel like I got good value from the virtual experience, despite the streaming hitches early on and catching panels around my regular job.

I'm looking forward to watching some of the replays for panels I missed.

Medieval stone carving of a lion for a column base at the Met Cloisters, NYC

Medieval stone carving of a lion, supporting a funerary sarcophagous; at the Met Cloisters, NYC.

Medieval stone carving of a lion; at the Met Cloisters, NYC

Medieval bronze aquamanile (water pitcher) shaped like a lion; at the Met Cloisters, NYC

Lions that don't look like lions are one of my favorite subgenres of art.

(all from Met Cloisters, NYC)

An old black cat with amber eyes. He is sitting in the sun at the bottom of a grey cat tree, with a toy mouse under his tail

A skull cat cave, with a black trail draped put of the mouth

He's my wee lad in honour of black cat appreciation day

I'm deep into the @seattlein2025.org virtual experience and enjoying it!

So far, I've attended about the same number of panels per day as I did in Glasgow, plus some wonderful virtual-only readings.

People love my notes on Discord, which is mildly overwhelming but also nice.

I swear there's no dignified way to get off an assisted pull up machine

Three bottles of what will hopefully be nice ginger beer in 1 week

First batch is bottled. I'm really hoping nothing goes pop in the night.

A promo poster. It shows a book called Ikusei (Nurture): A Carefully Curated Anthology of Haikus by Various Authors. The book is on a red background with the Quillkeepers Press logo in the top right. Text reads "Get your copy today" and "The book is available now exclusively on Amazon. Order now and enjoy the journey!"

I have 5 haiku in the recently published Ikusei anthology.
It's exciting to see my work hitting the digital shelves.

Just because you all need more archaeological finds and sites in your feed. LIDAR-scan of the Iron Age farmstead and burial grounds at Lyngaland, south of Ålgård, Southwestern Norway. The site consists of a single farm and north of 100 burial mounds. Dated to 400-600 AD.

I'M GONNA TELL MY KIDS THIS WAS D&D is this month's free 1-page TTRPG.

Bored of not rolling ALL your dice?

Go on adventures! Roll all the dice! All the time!

Design notes on my Patreon here: www.patreon.com/posts/im-gon...

A rather large glass container. It contains a mix of raisins, sugar, and water that only fills a small fraction of the container.

I've never made ginger beer before. Starting the experimenting with an NZ recipe!
In theory, it should be ready to start brewing nice ginger beer at the end of the first week of next month.

An image of a pale horse, lit from behind by a soft sunrise or sunset. Underneath the image, we see the words "Before you buy a horse. Here are a few buying tips on things you should know and what to look out for before you buy..."

This is a very regal horse.
I mean, I wasn't looking to buy one, but this one seems friendly.