Robin McKinley's Blog, page 162

Yet Another of Those Days

 

Yet another.  Other people have lots of Those Days too, right?  It's not just me?*

            So, for those of you too sensible to waste your time reading other people's maniacal screams on Twitter, yesterday . . . I ordered my iPhone 4.  And no, Orange never did email me to say they were in stock.  I'd been thinking I ought to go check their site again, in case they were being ungleblargers, which they were, and then I got an email from Computer Men wanting to come argue with the Nightmare ...

Bird ringing: Guest post by Chris Laning

 

Bird ringing is nothing like bell ringing: it's what in the USA we call bird banding. Banding birds provides an inexpensive way of tracking large numbers of individual birds, especially those that migrate long distance. A small, lightweight aluminum band is clamped around one leg of the bird: it's stamped with a serial number and an address. Anyone who finds a dead bird with a band is encouraged to report it to the address given, with a note of when and where it was found. Because so many...

Moan* Or, Possibly, Lament

 

My second to last voice lesson with Blondel today.  Moan.  Now he's gone for a fortnight, the ratbag, moonlighting at the three choirs festival**, and then he's back just long enough to give a few valedictory*** lessons and for him and his wife to throw everything they own in boxes . . . and then they're gone.  GONE.

            Moan.  I've been tweeting about this with @emoontx and @violinknitter on Twitter:  that's it's more than a little absurd that it matters that my voice teacher is...

SUNSHINE Ask Robins

  

Blast and curdle it, how did it get this late?  I only got home from bell ringing . . . uh . . . well, four hours ago, now that you mention it.  The wretched days are drawing in so frelling fast—you can only hurtle hellhounds after tower practise in daylight for a few weeks in high summer, and that's already over.*  The sun sets fabulously across a field from the South Desuetude church, which means (as I said to Niall as we strolled toward the bell tower this evening) that you can see it...

A SUNSHINE tangent suitable to the occasion

 [Sorry, I never know which way around to post double posts.  The WINNERS are in the FIRST of tonight's entries, which is to say UNDERNEATH this one.:]

Clearly this calls for a sticky, gooey, mmmmm, baaaaad for you recipe.  Or an Ask Robin.  Or both.

Let's start with the sticky.

I can't remember the last time I made these, and I found a great rush of longing flooding over me when, leafing through one of my notebooks, this recipe caught my eye.  I don't make them because Peter doesn't like...

And the winners are…. (post by Black Bear*)

 

Thanks to everyone who participated in the SUNSHINE give-away contest!  I'm thrilled to announce our winners, selected by random draw from all our fantastically creative and delicious entries.

Our Twitter winner is @TheDragonGirl, who posts: For a new copy of Sunshine I'd bake blueberry scones with sweet cream.

Facebook winner is Rachel Ganz:  For a copy of Sunshine I'd bake Montana's Mom's Dynamite cheesecake from the Moosewood cookbook – devoured by anyone who's ever met it.

And our forum...

A Musical-Historical-Genealogical Adventure*: Guest Post by Diane in MN

 

My grandmother had a cousin who was a concert singer.  He was known to my mother's generation as "Uncle Paul," and even though my mother was the youngest of her family, she probably met him a few times and she knew a few stories about him.**  My mother was not the only one in her family who loved classical vocal music, but somehow she ended up with a number of Uncle Paul's recordings, 78 rpm discs made early in the last century.  After my parents died, I brought the recordings home with me w...

R.M.T.M.A.A.G.S.G.O.B.T.M.G.R.T. Y.H.O.O.D.L.G.Y.V.B.G.I.F.C.D.F.G.G. C.S.W.T.E.P.H.A.D.*

So…Saturday I was waiting for my new book by Charlaine Harris, the 4th in the Harper Connelly series, to come in and I needed a book because this one was taking so long.  So on the internet I looked up books you would like if you like Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Series…..I found you in this list and the book Sunshine which my library had in stock and was a mile away….I went down Saturday morning to get it…..I started reading Saturday afternoon and COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN!!!!!  I was...

R.M.T.M.A.A.G.S.G.O.B.T.M.G.R.T.Y.H.O.O.D.L.G.Y.V.B.G.I.F.C.D.F.G.G.C.S.W.T.E.P.H.A.D.*

 

So…Saturday I was waiting for my new book by Charlaine Harris, the 4th in the Harper Connelly series, to come in and I needed a book because this one was taking so long.  So on the internet I looked up books you would like if you like Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Series…..I found you in this list and the book Sunshine which my library had in stock and was a mile away….I went down Saturday morning to get it…..I started reading Saturday afternoon and COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN!!!!!  I was...

Things That Aren't Roses

 

 I was deadheading petunias*, repotting camellias**, and cutting down my last delphiniums*** this afternoon and thinking, actually, I grow a lot of stuff that isn't roses.  Meanwhile, it's been a long, rather emotional† day and Daniel's funeral is tomorrow morning.  Which means I have to get out of bed in time to go.

            So let's have some photos of things that aren't roses.  And since frelling Wordpress is a frelling frelled-up freller, I'm just going to line the text up here and...