Alys Wilfred Earl

Gods, this is depressing.

Just the flagrant, deliberate targeting of some of the most ostracised and vulnerable teens out there.

That is good to know! I’ll stick with the smaller rush, in which case. I was tempted by the forget-me-nots, but I’d already ordered some kingcups for the marshy bit behind the shed.

They are at that!

Two spires of electric blue/purple star-like Hyacinth flowers edged with pale blue stripes.

Hyacinths doing their fabulously fragrant flowery thing... just before they topple over #GardensHour 🌱

That’s very true. I’ll see how it does this summer and maybe put one in next year.

And, well, at least our hellebores and pulmonaria are always happy!

#GardensHour

Also - do you find the reed mace struggles in the space? I was tempted by one, but didn’t want it to take over.

Oh, excellent! It’s looking really good already.

I’m planning on brooklime, swordleaf rush, and kingcups? Maybe waterlily, but I worry we don’t get the sun.

Early insect heaven. Reaching peak primrose. #Gardenshour #Mygarden #Gardening

But I’ve planted out some cowslip and foxglove plugs, done a touch of rockery repair, and got my first lot of seeds in the propagator. It’s all coming along - really want to get stuck in to the weeding, but the mornings are still too cold. #GardensHour

I’ve been building a barrel pond (just waiting on the oxygenating plants to be ready before I fill it), and buying too many plants online…

Today, these babies turned up, and I’m hoping they’ll survive until I plant them because I’ve got a busy week! #GardensHour

A rectangular light blue fabric background with a black fabric branch silhouette. Perched in different positions across the branch are four hand embroidered Coal Tits.

"Coal Tits"
Hand embroidery thread painting artwork

#BlueSkyMonday #embroidery #birds #WildlifeArt

“We are all humble disciples, and we do not need glory brought to our individual names!”
Me, sobbing: Just tell me who the translator was.

Drone footage captures the devastating destruction to the building right next to Glasgow's historic Central Station. Part of it has collapsed after a fire started in a vape shop and ripped through the whole structure.

The institutionalised contempt for trans people is breathtaking in its devastation. This is not about politicians’ “legitimate concerns” regarding medicine. It’s fundamentally about a desire to stop trans people existing. We must continue to challenge such transphobic politics unapologetically.

Is there anything as perfect and delicious as rose and violet creams? Proper ones - not the shitty Hotel Chocolat ones.

Plus, I’m also a parent? So… “some parents” would have really loved it if you’d done that, and are really disgusted that you haven’t?

But we never seem to count, do we?

Also ‘some parents’ - yeah, see some parents are terrible, homophobic people.

Like, dude, grow a spine.

I'm too bored of this to try and be clever about it anymore.

If you think that two men kissing, or two women kissing, requires any more explanation than a man kissing a woman, that is homophobia.

I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.

Doing The Circle of Magic again and my gods, Briar is fully transmasc coded.

“You can pick a name, one that’s yours alone. You can choose how you will be seen from now on.”

What a beautiful audience today at the "Lightning Strikes Twice" Flash Editors panel today. We had such a good time.

“I feel bad, though, because the protagonist is a queer woman of colour.”
“I can see why you feel awkward about that, but you have to remember…”
“… it’s only a story.”
“Exactly, you’re not rejecting a real person and, if you give it to the charity…”
“… someone might be very glad to find it.”

Sprog1 having their first serious bookshelf clear-out since we moved. They are now old enough to anticipate my responses around these things, which is quite sweet.

JAMIE never seems to get recced for @trreadathon.bsky.social, and I’m not sure why! It’s out in the UK, US & Canada, the Netherlands and Sweden, was nominated for the Carnegie and was a Kirkus best book of 2024. And it’s a middle grade trans book by a trans author. 💛🤍💜🖤 #TransRightsReadathon

I just never want to leave the garden at this time of year, especially when the weather’s nice.

“Fred there’s a heavy frost.”

There’s also a yellow thing in the sky so my point stands.

For me, it’s somewhere in the Look to Windward/Matter/Surface Detail area - exactly which depends on mood (and what you want from a book). YMMV, of course.

But if you want chronological, Player of Games is where I’d start.

Chronologically the starting point, unfortunately … not the best of them. The learning curve was steep with these books. (I feel like, with the first three, it’s exponential.)

Mattie and I staying up late and doing an academic defence of ‘Desperado’, just as we have been doing for twenty three years…

Or about to eat. (Hopefully never all three at once.)

We’re utterly delighted to introduce the long-awaited new translation (by Diego Jourdan Pereira) of groundbreaking Uruguayan author Horacio Quiroga’s first short-story collection, Tales of Love, Madness and Death, first published in 1917.

renardpress.com/books/tales-...