Robin McKinley's Blog

 

Peter and I had a blazing* row this morning.

            About the NHS.

            Other couples fight about sex, money, in laws, who left the cap off the toothpaste tube, and who does the dishes.**  We fight about the National Health Service.***  Right.  Um.

            Peter had told me while he was still in hospital that I was welcome to blog about it, and he mentioned it again as we were fighting our way out of Zhar and Lloigor's tentacles† . . . I mean the car park.  Just don't abuse the ...

View full post on Robin McKinley's website »

 

I brought Peter home from hospital today.  We're having scrambled eggs for supper.  Well, the eggs are duck eggs, so it's not just any old scrambled eggs.  And sausages.*  And kale with garlic and soy.  This last is compliments of Alastair, who is here to help wrestle Peter into submission.  Peter is not one of your amenable, mild-mannered, let-other-people-cope patients.  When I first brought him home this afternoon he was sitting down having a cup of (tepid**) tea and instructing me how...

View full post on Robin McKinley's website »

GEMMA

During my childhood our family never had a dog. We had finches and guinea pigs^.

Upon finishing High School I headed off to Agricultural College and home became a relative's farm. College kept me busy for several years before I started my job as Alpaca Stud Farm Manager.

I've always loved dogs. The farm dogs were great – and they responded well to me – but they weren't mine. So once I had a job I decided that a dog was next on the list. The list of breeds to choose from of course is...

View full post on Robin McKinley's website »

 

It's raining.  Get used to it, McKinley, it's clearly the wave of the future.*  It took me over forty-five minutes to get home from my voice lesson today**, a journey that usually takes fifteen, thanks to—mostly—the weather.  It was also what passes for rush hour gridlock in a small southern city and as I groped my way hand over hand to Wolfgang from Blondel's front door and the wind gave me friction burns, I had thought about going home the back way, but the problem with little kinky...

View full post on Robin McKinley's website »

 

I got up this morning possibly a little later than I meant to*.  The fact that once or twice I opened my eyes long enough to look out the window which was a solid grey blur** was not encouraging and with a pillow over my head I don't have to hear the rain.  Finally had to get out of bed because I started thinking which is fatal to sleep.

            It was still raining.

            I washed all the dishes.***

            It was still raining.

            I swept the floor.

            It was...

View full post on Robin McKinley's website »

 

I spent yesterday going to a birthday party in Gloucestershire.  No, really.  Peter's next-younger brother's 80th birthday party.  Long-term readers will remember Peter's 80th birthday party two years ago next month*—chiefly memorable to me, unfortunately, because Chaos was scarily ill and I almost didn't make it to the party at all.**

            I thought I wasn't going to make it to this one.  PEGASUS has rendered most of my life null and void the last few months*** and from past...

View full post on Robin McKinley's website »

Easy Ways to Make Your Head Explode– or, Thoughts on Common Pitfalls of Learning to Sing 

Singers hear the occasional comment about how voice lessons seem very touchy-feely compared to the average music lesson. A violin teacher may say, "Use more vibrato from your wrist!" and even if an observing student has no idea what vibrato is, at least one's wrist is pretty well identifiable. But in a voice lesson, one is much more apt to hear something like "Feel your inner yawn." In layman's terms...

View full post on Robin McKinley's website »

 

One of the minor bureaucratic buttbiters about living in Britain is that they check the register of voters EVERY year.  You get these red-stamped robot letters in the post threatening you with diabolical tortures if you don't return the form or if you return it WRONG.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been saying . . . for quite a while.  I have a novel to finish.  Catch me later.  This may have been going on a couple of months.  I have kind of a lot of letters.  They keep sending them, and there...

View full post on Robin McKinley's website »

 

 Squeeeeee. 

           I have a mad friend.  Well, I have several mad friends.*  This particular mad friend is a major goer to concerts of folk and Celtic music, and we bonded a while ago over the fact that Steeleye Span rules.**  I think it was last year that I missed dragging Peter to a relatively local Steeleye concert by not finding out about it till something like three days after it happened.***  Major ratbags.  Major bulging purulent ratbags.

            So this year Fiona rang me up ...

View full post on Robin McKinley's website »

Blogmom suggested a spiffy new way of dealing with Wordpress' bad attitude toward photos, which bad attitude sometimes results in making potential guest posters crazy which from my perspective is seriously counterproductive.

So here's the new system.  When Wordpress pitches a hissy fit, you get a teaser, like the following, and a pdf.  I would rather have it all here on the blog, which is what we'll continue to do when possible.  But when it isn't possible, a pdf means you can still have the g...

View full post on Robin McKinley's website »