Robin McKinley's Blog, page 180

Guest post by Southdowner and AJLR

Training Tails, or, An evening out with two mods

(Narrative by AJLR, Footnotes and Photos by Southdowner)

Back last autumn, in one of the journeys round parts of England that are required by my work, I knew in advance that I would have an overnight stop in Southdowner's home city. During a conversation with her about this the week before, I was delighted to be invited to go with her to a puppy class she would be running that evening at a local vet's premises. The idea was that we would then go ...

How do I . . .

 

. . . get myself into these things.*    Or at least if I have to get into things, couldn't I get into ones that aren't going to cause other aspects of my personality to stab me repeatedly with sharp pointed panic?  I really should have taken up knitting.**  Nobody watches you while you knit.***

            I told you that Blondel gave me Purcell's Evening Hymn for next week.  He played and sang it through for me before I took it away and while I was entirely riveted by the eighty-seven bar...

Wet Thursday

 

Okay, we are not coming from the best place I've ever been in terms of morale and achievement.  It took me FOUR HOURS to write two paragraphs of PEG II today.  Mind you, they were pretty interesting paragraphs, once I got them nailed to the page so they couldn't escape.*  But it was not a happy four hours and this has cast a pall.

            Also it's been tipping down rain most of the day, to hellhounds' and my lasting unjoy and antidelight.  At least the garden(s) got watered;  I have...

Guest post by Black Bear

Ceramics Part II: Glazing Over

When last we left my budding ceramics hobby, I had just barely managed to get a few lumps of clay properly centered on the wheel and turned into vessels with both an inside and an outside, which didn't immediately fall over or lose their shape the moment I tried to transport them to the drying area. This is saying a lot, frankly.  Getting a completed piece off the wheel is almost as challenging as getting it on there in the first place when you're a beginner. ...

Singing, Handbells, and Undesirable Lateness

 

How did it get this late?  Arrgh.  This is why I try to have only ONE extracurricular per day—Fridays, with piano lesson and home tower practise, remind me every week what a good idea this is.  But somehow or other I got roped into handbells tonight*—the lure of bob major is very strong**—and about once a month Niall has a handbell party for some of his fancy ringers and the only way I ever am going to ring bob major, which is eight bells, is if I come along to Niall's Tuesdays.  Unless...

Announcement

 

 Jodi has an agent. 

http://jmeadows.livejournal.com/ 745925.html 

Our very own Jodi Meadows, Days in the Life mod, ferret wrangler, extreme knitter*, flautist, eater-of-chocolate and, lately, shoveller-of-snow . . . and writer of stories, has just accepted the offer of representation from a literary agent. 

            YAAAAAAY.

            Back in my day it wasn't absolutely required to have an agent, although it was generally considered a good idea.  In my case Harper & Row, as it then was...

In which life trifles with me

 

In that way that life has.  The day did not get off to a good start.  I paid bills.  Ewww.  So then I had all these things to post.  My all-Hampshire-weather-purposes hurtling coat has stupid pockets that you can't quite get a normal sized envelope into, let alone several.  But since I don't walk anywhere without hellhounds if I can help it—that two-hour minimum daily hurtling requirement significantly curtails my desire to go out for any additional strolls—this means I take them with me...

Valentine's Day

 

Peter met me at the bell tower door this morning with five yellow roses.*   Not quite, perhaps, as in the picture that this statement is creating in your minds.  Peter and five yellow roses met me at the tower door.  The roses, unfortunately, were in Peter's knapsack** and in the process of getting them out he busted the heads off two of them.

            Sigh.

            But we are resourceful.  I bought two more yellow roses at the florist's—and some tulips—and I now have seven yellow...

Guest post (mostly) by Jeanne Marie

 

My First Fruitcakes 

B-Twin's post on her luscious wedding fruitcakes, and some of the subsequent forum remarks on wedding cakes* in particular and fruitcakes in general, took me back to my first year living in Memphis, Tennessee.  It was my first year living on my own post-college, and I was big into fancy experimental cooking.  In that vein, I decided around August that I wanted to make some fancy brandied fruitcakes for the coming Christmas.** 

I looked up a few recipes for fruitcakes, and ...

In which learning is not a curve

 

It's a zigzag, a squiggle, a wriggle, a looping of the loop (and a biting of one's own tail).

            Last Wednesday—last Wednesday week, not two days ago—I told you I managed to call a really vicious ratbag of a pattern of call changes, thank you Wild Robert, thank you very much—I mean I succeeded in calling it.  And at Sunday service I got through (and on no sleep) a touch of Grandsire triples ringing inside which was a bit like winning the Grand Prix formula one in my 14-year-old VW...