Can I post photos, though?

This is a test post, my dears. I have this iPad, you see, and it has ever so many photos on it, but so far it hasn't let me actually post them to my blogspot. This app promises it will help. So, with luck, I will be able to post a few photos of, oh, how about Christmas baking?

Or the bird that crashed into our window?

Okay, allegedly I have two photos, which are sitting at the bottom of the screen. How do I get them into the actual blog? I may have to hit Publish and see what happens.

ETA: On another computer, and not using the blogger app, I have moved the pics from the bottom of the post to the correct places within the text.

pigeon post

Back from Hemingford Grey Manor, the original of Green Knowe, and that deserves a long and thoughtful and amazed post. Which I'm not quite up to at the moment, after two half-pints of cider. So instead I provide a sampling of the pigeons of England. Honestly, pigeons everywhere, in flocks like starlings, inside train stations, all over churches as if they were auditioning for a John Woo film, pecking around the street markets, everywhere.
This is at Dane John tower, part of the walls of Canterbury. An arrow slit, the perfect size for a pigeon hole.


This is part of the overhang of the roof at the Peterborough train station. There's a whole series of spaces on the inside, with a walkway--pigeon size--along the interior. Thoughtful of British Rail, isn't it?


Cambridge, a statue on the outside of one of the colleges. When I first noticed the pigeon, it was roosting on the statue's wrist, pretending to be a hawk. By the time I had the camera out, it was wandering around the wig and had met a friend.

Just for a change--gulls! And can you guess why the first pic is on here?

last Monday I had twins

visiting for the day. 6 1/2 years old, boy and girl.
So it has not all been drudgery the past two weeks, no. Things that we did:

• picked blackberries
• pried broken bricks out of the front garden
• built inukshuks with the broken bricks, also a house for a mouse
• picked blueberries (all 3 of them!)
• gathered poppyseed (I didn't know how to do this)
• found things in Tess's things-to-find-in-Fairyland book
• ran through sheets on the clothesline
• ate apples from the tree
• watched the deer eat apples from the tree
• played with the cat from next door
• combed our cat
• dug holes for new plants
• dug the top half of an action figure out from the back garden
• swung in the hanging chair
• built a brick wall across the front walk
• ate sandwiches

We had planned to walk or drive to Willows Beach, but it came on to rain just after lunch, so I mixed up some bubble stuff and we blew bubbles on the porch, then on the walk, then on the bricks, then inside, on the awful linoleum that needs washing anyways.
It was fun, as well as a reminder of just how much attention child-minding requires. If only child-raising could be done in one-day-a-week instalments, I'm sure we'd all do a better job.

The encroachment of wildlife continues. Besides the deer, which pops by most days to see if the broccoli or tomatoes have any new shoots, there's a raccoon somewhere about, but fortunately not under the house. Yesterday morning I watched a grey squirrel chase a black squirrel up and down one of the power-poles, with a surprising clattery noise that must have been their claws. The downed cherry tree across the street, overwhelmed by ivy, is a prime spot for a flock of small birds that like to swoop up and down from street to ivy and back, on the basis of stimuli I can't determine.
As I was digging compost out of the bin for the blueberry and roses that I planted, I noticed two heaps of compost earth outside the bin. Odd, I thought, I wonder if next-door's dog has been in here, digging? Suddenly a ginger-fawn furry shape bolted out of the heap on the other side of the treetrunk, zipped around the outside of the bin, and was gone. Rat? Rabbit? I couldn't tell.
On Sunday, I went to pick up windfall apples from that same tree, and as I stood looking for the pale yellow shapes, I saw from the corner of my eye, something on the compost bin wall, about 7 feet from me. A hawk, 5-6 inches in body, tail another 3, pale brown flecked with dark brown over body and head, tail black and grey bars. At first it ignored me, there being a thin screen of apple-leaves between us, then it stared at me from those alien yellow eyes (is it the eye or the unreadable face around it?) for several seconds while I tried to memorise it. Then it flapped up into the oak tree next door.
I went inside and found the bird book, and my best guess is either a fairly large female sharp-shinned hawk, or a smallish Cooper's hawk. At any rate, it can roost on my compost bin any time it likes.

Celebration! There are no more than 8 Transparent apples left on the tree, not enough for a dehydrator load. Made it through with absolute minimal waste!

more links, more Lincoln (Ha. Ha.)

I think it was Doyle, at VPX, who talked about economics in worldbuilding. That artefacts exist because somebody made them, and somebody paid for them, and somebody transported them to the place they appear. And that you have to consider these factors. Not explain them on the page, as you know, Bob, but that you could explain them if you had to, and it wouldn't contradict what was written.

One of my gripes, when reading fantasy, particularly fantasy set in a pre-industrial world, is orphan artefacts. In Shannon Hale's book, The Goose Girl, set in a kingdom that I'd say approximates 15th-16th c. Europe, one character refers to another kicking a bucket into a crumpled lump of tin. So, there's sheet-metal technology here? Available to peasants living in the woods, but not to anyone else. Another peasant woman knits endless sweaters with metal knitting needles. Yep. Not wood, or bone. Steel. Wire-drawing is not elsewhere referred to. I must suppose that the peasant women are secretly running foundries and rolling mills in those deep forests, cunning vixens that they are.
I should admit that I enjoyed The Goose Girl (the original's about 3d on my list of favourite fairy tales, mostly for the oracular horse's head and the talismanic blood-spotted napkin), and I'm looking forward to reading Hale's Book of a Thousand Days.
But she also gives me the opportunity to gripe about another issue in worldbuilding: work. Not that life was unremitting toil in the pre-industrial world--read the complaints about how the number of church holidays in medieval Europe meant the peasantry weren't getting enough done for their masters--but that people, including children, worked hard and worked long hours. Hale has her goose-girl let off from herding the geese out to the fields because ... because it's raining. So she stays inside with the other servants, none of whom are doing anything much, because it's raining.
My mother used to say, "You're not made of sugar, you won't melt." I imagine the overseer of castle servants might say something a bit harsher. Certainly the geese won't mind the rain.

This is by way of preface to linking you to two excellent essays about getting things right (if historical) or believable (if fantasy):
Writing Backwards: Modern Models in Historical Fiction, an essay by Anne Scott MacLeod in The Horn Book (a source of excellent essays). This one addresses the pernicious 'character with 20th c. worldview dropped into historical setting', discussed elsewhere (I'll add other links if I find them--I know they exist).
Competency and work, one of the Fantasy Rants by the wonderful Limyaael, on how the people who do the work can be just as / more interesting as the Designated Heroes.



UK 08 Lincoln, continued. Lucia and I stayed at the Orchard Guest House, which I can recommend as being comfortable and clean, with a fine view over the town (Lincolnshire is flat fens. There's one hill, so they built the castle and the cathedral on it, presumably to avoid sinking and to keep the population fit.) and easy walking distance to the Castle and Cathedral, and not too far from the Strait and Steep Hill.
We had a wander around, and I tried to take photos of the ecclesiastical architecture but it was difficult to keep my hands steady. I also took pictures of trees, because England! Trees!

On the drive down I'd noticed a number of trees with tangly clumps of nests in them, and my brain had said, smugly, 'rookeries'.
Shut up, brain, I replied, what do you know about rooks? Have you even seen one for sure?
"What are those clumpy nests?" I asked at lunch.
"Rookeries," said everyone.
'Ha, told you,' said my brain, even smugger.

We had supper at Brown's Pie Shop, though we weren't able to get a table in the haunted basement, it being booked for some family do. We were able to nip downstairs as we left, and to call gently for the ghost, "Humphrey, Humphrey?" but there was no response. The food was luscious. I had steak & kidney pie, Lucia had cheese pie. Food in UK restaurants has improved immeasurably since our dreadful experiences 20 years ago.

A couple of pictures that warn of what is to come:

A tree that I think is cool. Possibly a plane tree.

A bit of stonework that I think is cool, from the gate by the cathedral.

There I was, holding this hummingbird

I was biking in to work this morning when an iridescent flash on the road caught my eye. Something small and shiny, a couple of feet from the curb. Then it moved, and I saw it was a hummingbird. I pulled over and laid my bike down. The hummingbird didn't move away, just sat quietly. Figuring that the roadway was a poor choice of habitat, I crouched down and scooped him up. He didn't look injured, but I'm not a vet. I guessed he was stunned, though I didn't know what he might have run into that would only stun and not break him.
That part of the street has a side-road that makes a small half-circle, leaving a treed boulevard. I considered leaving the bird on one of the stumps or in the grass, but when shown the enticing green leaves etc. he made no move to leave my hand. He shifted his feet and stuck his wings out - what small wings! - so I had some hope he wasn't broken.
His throat was a brilliant red with purplish lights, and his back and tail were leaf-green. Beak long and narrow, about half the length of his body, I think, with a glint of purple at the tip. Tiny soft down feathers on my palm, and scratchy legs. Eyes round and black, when he opened them. The little wings were the dullest part, like one long grey feather with white down underneath. They didn't seem enough to lift him, let alone hover.
Yeah, so, I have a bike and a small injured bird. Next step?
An older fellow, tall and with thick white hair, came along and told me that it was a rufous hummingbird, and that he hoped it wasn't the one that fed in his backyard. He seemed confident that it would recover, and told me about a Coopers hawk he'd seen fly into a window, lie like one dead for a half hour, then fly to a tree and sit there for six hours (probably wondering what the hell happened and vowing never to go there again). He suggested that I continue with my first idea, of walking to the Biology building on campus, where he promised they had a hummingbird feeder. He also offered me a handkerchief to cover my hand, but since I was guessing that the warmth of my hand was good for the bird, and I planned to wash my hands anyways (bird-lice, bird-poop, etc.) I didn't bother.
It takes much longer to walk that little last stretch to Ring Road than it does to bike it. At last I got my bike locked up and was able to walk without leaning. Lovely.
Biology has moved to a different building. Which one? How long would I like to wander the campus with a hummingbird? I considered going into the library and getting someone with a window cubicle to take charge of the bird, but he was holding up its head and looking around, and I didn't want to risk him taking off inside the building.
While I was asking a cyclist which building Biology had fled to, (her toddler, in a bike-trailer, was totally unimpressed by the hummingbird) the bird took off from my hand and flew a few yards, landing under a tree.
His second hop attracted the two groundskeepers working nearby, one of whom was a birder and had rescued birds before. Yay! He promised to keep an eye on the hummingbird, and told us a few birding anecdotes.

Hm. Google Images pic of rufous hummingbird doesn't look like the one I found. He looked a lot more like a ruby-throated hummingbird, because his back was all iridescent green.
But I am not a birder, so what do I know?
Hah! I'm pretty sure he was an Anna's hummingbird, which do reach the southern end of Vancouver Island.

My history with birds: I've rescued three birds while at work, but this was the first hummingbird. The others were small brown and grey sparrow-like things (have I mentioned I'm not a birder?).
One had stunned itself flying into a window on a miserable rainy day. I thought it was a small pile of sodden leaves until it moved (giving me that ick! feeling of discovering something alive where you didn't expect it). That's when I learned that one of the best things you can do for a stunned bird is to keep it warm, because birds have such a high body-temp they can't stand much chill. I carried that one around until it lifted up its head and sat up in my hand. Then we moved it into a box-lid padded with paper towels and took it over to Biology, where they put the box on a window-sill until the bird flew away.
Another had trapped itself by flying through the first set of the double doors in the library entrance, and was hopping disconsolately about. I tried to shoo it towards the door to the outside, but it hopped onto my hand instead. I carried it outside, but it took a considerable time to decide that it would fly away.
When a third bird somehow got inside Tech Services, and was fluttering about in a corner, I was reasonably confident that I'd be able to scoop it up without terrifying it into heart failure, and so it proved. That one was so calm in my hands that I think I stood by the trees outside (yes, I walked from the secret backrooms of the library, through the old card catalogue and the double doors, outside, around the corner of the building and over to the trees, while the bird sat there like a baby in a pram, surveying the landscape) for fifteen to twenty minutes before it decided that it would have to use its own wings if it wanted to get any further.

I have no idea why this happens to me. I'm not a birder, and I've always had a cat. Birds should be alarmed. Mind you, I don't know how strong their sense of smell is.
When I was six years old, a crow flew into our house one evening, perched on my head, and flew out again, but that doesn't seem particularly related, any more than my once having owned a budgie because someone left it behind when she moved out.

It's a bird, it's an ocelot, it's a spider

I'm not a Philip Pullman fan particularly, but this is amusing. You can go to the website for the Golden Compass film and find your own daemon, based on a rather muddled questionnaire.
Mine is presently a crow (or raven, I'm not sure) named Callum.
You can look at it here, and answer another muddled questionnaire about how you see me, to change my crow into some other beastie, though still named Callum.
The graphics are quite nice.