Sidra

people, I have heard many things about growing old: that it sucks, that it's not for the weak, that it sneaks up on you, but never have I heard it turns you English.

and yet, here am I: a lifelong coffee drinker and lover of the brew, yet recently I've started to crave...tea?

I know! yet slowly but surely, I more often reach for a tea bag than my trusty beans. it's a pure mystery!

so, having long since found my favorite coffee, I'm now on the hunt for the perfect decaf tea.

hit me with it, my fine tea friends!


GIF by happycabbage

What *is* it with Americans and mashed potato? I read this morning about THREE weddings that had "a mashed potato bar". One of them involved three different colours of potato (white, sweet, and purple) served in martini glasses, with a choice of toppings. It's mashed potato. I mean... what is the allure?

I fear that if I turned up at a wedding reception and discovered a mashed potato bar, I would be baffled rather than impressed, and if there were 'cocktails' of mashed potato I would assume somebody was demented.

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BIL's birthday yesterday, we had a guided tour around the city, and by 'we' I mean Beast, BIL, Boy, Bun and Bun's Chap, plus six of Beast/BIL's cousins who'd come over to Norwich for the weekend. Today they are all coming here for lunch. I shall be peeling things in a very few minutes.

The tour was very interesting, although it would have been good to see a few more Interesting Bits and have the talking in smaller lumps, as it did mean standing in place for a while every time we stopped. Still, there is a lot of history in Norwich, and our guide told his stories well. I have now felt the nipple in the flint wall (for good luck)(it's a thing, apparently), and learned about how Sir Thomas Erpingham got away with murder, or at least manslaughter, and how a sixteen-year-old girl held off an army with only forty-two men-at-arms. What a hyphen-heavy clause that was. And many other things besides, which I shall no doubt forget.

Afterwards we went to Biddy's Tea Rooms for cuppas and cakes/scones, and had a jolly good chat.

I have often referred to the Middle of Nowhere, Norfolk. There's a lot of it, hereabouts.

I now know exactly where that is. I drove along Nowhere Lane today. There is a property there called The Middle of Nowhere. https://www.staythemiddleofnowhere.co.uk/about You can stay there, if you like.

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I went to Nowhere Lane in order to visit the Bug Parc, and to meet up with nopseud and her family. We had a very agreeable visit, chat interspersed with bugs large and small. The big, leaf-sized katydids were particularly impressive, there were giant (gigantic!) snails, a butterfly house that felt like walking into soup, which probably explains why one of the butterflies spent quite a while trying to drink from me, there were millipedes, beetles, all sorts. Cockroaches do look quite a lot like Priuses. And there were two wonderfully twined ropes with ants marching along them in both directions—carrying large pieces of leaf to the giant pot, and coming back to the plants for more leaf pieces.

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Very enjoyable evening at chorus, practising Christmas songs while our regular MD is away.

Hostess Donettes claim to be "America's #1 Mini-donut" but I don't remember there being a nationwide referendum. Just another example of the rampant corruption going on right before our very eyes.

You know, I have composed so many DW posts in my head, and totally failed to follow through by posting here. I actually fell off DW for a few hours as I didn't manage to renew in a timely fashion. But I am still here!

Things are very busy at the moment. Beast and I spent a week travelling south and west, first to see my sister in Devon, then to Convention in Bournemouth, then to Oxford to see my bro, then home. My cat was greatly relieved to have the Imposter Humans gone—our housesitters. Ungrateful cat.

The visit south comes with a Public Service Warning: if you drive an electric car, it may have 'acoustic foam' in the tyres, and this foam may come loose and make you feel as though the car will shake itself into oblivion, or the axles will come off, or something. We had a very long day, is all I will say about it!

But Devon is very pretty, sister's house is lovely, and we visited a honey farm which was a lovely way to spend a reasonably sunny afternoon.

Convention had its moments, including my chorus winning the award for best in division—which we had sorta anticipated, being as how we were the only ones in the division. But our score was disappointing, as it went down quite a lot. I was honestly expecting an improvement. Oh well.

I was trying to think how long it is since I've seen my brother, and it might well be ten years, absurd as he really doesn't live that far away, but somehow... Well, he is in fine form, and even cooked lunch for us on Monday.

And now I'm back and looking to the next thing, which is my BIL's birthday event (this coming weekend), which will involve me cooking a mighty meal for about a dozen people, and us also doing a walking tour of the city. I hope the rain lets up for that, though I am glad it has been raining a bit. There are beans and peas growing in the garden. And kale! And cauliflowers! And courgettes! So far, anyway. I'm sure they were glad of the sprinkle.

You guyssssss I felt a profound sense of satisfaction for completing the Three Weeks challenge and very much enjoyed my long weekend after an exasperating work week only to discover I had one post left! Oh noes!

Fortunately, runpunkrun and mific gave me something to post about! They did an awesome mcshep collab while I was away and what a treat! So awesome to have terrific art and podfic and story as one. Like the fandom days of old *sobs in old-timey*

It was a marvelous distraction from my usual hobby of staring in blank horror at the news. Speaking of which...

I beg everyone to please contact your senators about the Big PoS Bill! For too many reasons, but also because I just found out it includes sneaky provisions that completely undermine the judiciary, including *retroactively* making previous rulings and court orders unenforceable! Such as, oh, orders to return US Citizens and illegally deported immigrants from overseas gulags. The administration is angry at the lower courts for ruling against them, so they are trying to use Congress to render the judiciary impotent. See Section 70302 of One Big Beautiful Bill Act 119th Congress (2025-2026). Not to mention, of course, the bill raises taxes on the poorest, adds trillions to the deficit, drops the tax on gun silencers (what?), chops SNAP, medicare, and medicaid, and lines the pockets of the already wealthy with more and more tax cuts. I want to puke.

If you live the US, please CONTACT YOUR SENATORS and tell them you are so very against this Big Ugly Bill for more reasons than can be counted. Tell them to kill it or they will smell your vengeance come midterms.

Thanks, my friends.

Today I had a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast, my first in a long time, and I realized I slice up my banana the exact same way my pops did: diagonal cuts so the slices fall off the knife instead of sticking to it. I don't remember deciding to adopt his method. But there you go.

How do you slice your banana? Are there other tricks you picked up from parents or friends unconsciously?