Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!
Nov. 30th, 2025 02:42 am![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
denise posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_newskarzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.
( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )
Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.
On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.
Cats
Nov. 27th, 2025 12:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lexinI am thereby caught, because they already had one they were looking for a good home for. His current name is Quata, and he’s a medium haired tabby.
The reason he’s an indoor-only cat is because he has cerebellar hypoplasia, also known as “wobbly cat syndrome”. He’s a sweetheart and not as wobbly as some cats I’ve seen with that condition, but is definitely best kept indoors.
He arrives at my place on Saturday afternoon. I am going to change his name to Geraint, which is a solid Welsh name.
Opal
Opal is over grooming, and I’m not sure why. The area in her middle back is devoid of fur, but she won’t let me put ointment on her, even though it would help. It’s a worry.
I can’t take her to the vet this week as I’m not paid again until Friday, and had a lot of expenses this month, what with cremating Smokey and having to pay the man for repairs on my fence. Fences, as I discovered, are not covered by buildings insurance.
The Ghosts of Merry Hall - review
Nov. 22nd, 2025 03:57 pmwatervole
Disclaimer - I'm a good friend of the author -but if I hadn't genuinely liked the book, I'd simply have avoided writing a review.
I had high exceptions, as I know Heather - MA in creative writing, judge for the Carnegie medals, etc.
But, also :) far more importantly from where I stand - she's an excellent musician for longsword dancing!
I've done a fair bit of editing work in my life, so I tend to evaluate novels on both how well written they are, and how much I enjoyed the story.
Ghosts of Merry Hall is very well written
You can always tell which character is narrating. Firstly because a new chapter starts whenever this changes, and secondly because they have really distinctive voices.
You learn about Nell - a mother with a teenage daughter who is recently separated from her husband, and Dolly the ghost, by the way they view the world around them.
Dolly desperately wants to make contact with someone, to tell the story of what happened in the past, but making contact with the living is hard. And every effort leaves them more scared and less likely to want to remain in Merry Hall...
As the haunting gets more intense, the atmosphere gets tenser and tenser.
We learn about the past through Dolly's memories - and very interesting memories they are - but Dolly in the present day is desperate for those memories to be more widely know, even if there is a cost to the living.
It's interesting. As a reader, I'm sympathetic to Dolly, but I'm very glad I'm nowhere near her!
I don't normally read ghost stories - I don't really like being scared... So, for me, the book is only a four. But for someone who enjoys a good haunting, it may well be a five.
PS. I love the cover art. It was nice working through the story and realising where each element in the artwork had come from in the story
Book Bub
Nov. 22nd, 2025 03:45 pmwatervoleI'm taking time out from social media and also reading the news. It was pushing my stress levels too high (though DW is much better in this regard than Facebook is).
But having picked up yet another Pratchett ebook at a low price and another book that looks interesting for under a quid, I suppose I ought to mention it.
https://www.bookbub.com/ebook-deals/free-ebooks allows you to sign up for a mailing list (I limit it to one post a week, as it's too much if they send it daily) that tells you of discounted books on Kobo and Amazon.
They're usually popular old classics like Pratchett (that I've already paid for in paper form, so feel no guilt about getting a cheap copy), popular books that have already sold in vast numbers and are now on a brief offer for those who weren't tempted at full price (just read a really interesting biography of Captain Cook that is not something I'd previously have considered reading), and occasionally books that are newly released and they're hoping to generate publicity by getting positive reviews. I suspect many of the books listed on their website fall into that category.
You can tell it what kind of books you prefer, so I get mostly offers for SF/fantasy/non-fiction/bestsellers. Getting a selection of about ten a week works for me, and I suspect I'm buying about one a fortnight. (I bought two this week, one Pratchett and one by an author I've never tried, but looked interesting)
I'm also spending more time reading books in the time that was previously wasted doom-scrolling FB and the newspapers!
Really bad news
Nov. 17th, 2025 06:01 pmlexinSmokey came to live with me when I was living in London and shortly after my mum died. I had wanted a cat for some time, but given that I visited mum every three weeks it didn’t seem fair to have someone have to come in and feed it while I trotted off.
She came from the RSPCA cat shelter in (I think) Finsbury Park, with all the palaver that entails around being inspected and providing reliable references.
I chose her rather than her sister because Smokey was lively and the sister wasn’t. And because I knew that as a black cat she might struggle more to find a home.
Why now? Smokey had been struggling more and more each day. She had a hard little cough that I didn’t like the sound of. She was struggling to jump onto my bed. Her coat was “staring”, meaning it stood up rather than lying down and being glossy, and, as I became aware on Saturday night, her purr had changed. In fact she didn’t seem to be able to purr properly. Worst of all, she just sat in a corner all day and looked mournful. In short, it was time.
I wish I could believe in things like the “rainbow bridge” but I can’t.
She was the best cat, and I will miss her always.