Robin McKinley's Blog, page 190

A Story of How, If You Are Going to Be a Lazy, Careless Slut, It Is a Good Thing to Be THOROUGH about It.

 

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...

Fangirl

 

 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 ...

Photos and Guest Posts

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...

Guest Post by Susan in Melbourne, Australia

Strelitzia

A Southern Hemisphere Garden

I have enjoyed reading guest blogs about other people's gardens in the northern hemisphere, and thought that you may be interested in the story of a garden down here in the south.

It's a very ordinary garden, on an ordinary sized suburban block in Melbourne, which is the capital city of Victoria. The motto on the car license plates used to be 'Victoria: the garden state', but as the drought that has been with us now for over 10 years tightened its grip...

The Day After the Night Before

 

First a few leftovers from last night.*

            First:  cutest birthday present.**   The music stand is obviously

more crucial to my development as an artist*** but a girl also needs cute.

 

 

 

 

 

Second:  Dog Sculpture.  You cannot, even if you look at it in close up, see how very peculiar Chaos' posture is in the first photo of all of us on the sofa.  This is his what I call Dog Sculpture because of the way he glues his head to his shoulder, like those graceful but anatomically incorrect...

Ploughed *

 

Happy Birthday to meeeeeee.  Yes, PEGASUS went off this morning.**  Well, this afternoon.  I started my birthday by going to bed late and getting up later, and then discovering there wasn't enough petrol to get me to my voice lesson tomorrow, so hellhounds and I went farther afield than planned today to buy Wolfgang some fossil fuel.  Then down to the mews for presents.

            Given how cranky Wordpress is about photos, I may have to have two entries tonight.  If your monitor explodes...

Ploughed, cont

 

Champagne and roses.  Do you need anything else?  (I already have the music stand.)

 

 

 

 

 

He says he's plotting.  Uh huuuuunh.

           Actually we were plotting.  We were plotting AIR ELEMENTALS.  (Again.)  I should be able to get a trilogy out of this at least.

 

 

 

 

Really excellent truffles.  Disappearing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good dress.  Good flowers.  Good waistcoat.  Good tie, except it doesn't go with the waistcoat.*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good shoes.  Didn't want you to miss the shoes.

 

 

 

 

 

Really good roses, huh.  ...

Eve of Doom*

 

PEGASUS goes back to my editor tomorrow.  And this is the real moment of decision.  Not that the terrifying swoop to the 8th of October deadline was unreal**, but now is when we find out for sure if PEG I is going to be on the autumn '10 list or not.  Last time it was 'are we going to make a run for it?', and the answer being yes, we have spent the last five weeks running for it.  I don't like working this way;  hurtling is for hellhounds, not for cantankerous old bats.***  And—I was this...

Guest Post by Jeanne Marie

 

Proud Teacher, Part 1 – Train Your Own Replacement 

When I was in high school, my high school choir director singled me out during my freshman year, and started giving me weekly voice lessons after school.  I was grateful, but didn't think too much more about it – she was my teacher, she gave lessons to a few others on occasion, I liked her, and I liked the lessons.  What was there to think about?  This went on the entirety of my high school years, and she never charged me anything for the...

Not the Best Friday That Ever Was

 

It's raining again.  Still.  Forever.  It is raining, in the glorious British metaphor, stair-rods.*  I was out last night . . . er . . . this morning at about one a.m. tipping out the saucers that most of my outdoor potted plants sit in (again), this time turning them over, and setting the pots on the resulting tiny daises.  There's a pond in front of the steps to the front door of the mews.  There's a lake at the bottom of the valley where the main street meets the old park avenue that...