hawkida

About three or four years ago I planted a few raspberry canes.

This afternoon I picked about a million raspberries from the garden, and that was just the ripe half. They've colonised the entire length of the garden and are going for the width as well but the mower is mighty.

I hope the new home owner likes raspberries. I wonder if I can grow new ones in pots or troughs given that my next garden is bricked over.

Does anyone know the approximate costs of removals companies?

Specifically I'm going to be moving stuff from a reasonably full mid-size 3 bedroom house approximately 100 miles. Like with storage firms, websites are bloody useless. They want to give me exact quotes, or send people out to asess my needs. All I want at this stage is a ballpark figure - I want to know if I'm talking about 250 quid or 2000 quid for this sort of thing in order to consider alternatives such as friends, family and van hire.

I'm buying a new house! Offer accepted, appointment with the bank tomorrow at midday.

I'm not shy. I just rarely have anything to say to people I don't already know and know how awkward that can make the atmosphere as everyone feels like *someone* should be saying something. So I avoid such situations for the most part, largely avoiding strangers. Manners also preclude some interaction.

One of the most fun things about my larp character is she has barely any understanding of social graces and will walk up to anybody and ask direct questions like "Who are you and what do you want?". The sort of stuff you have to sugar coat to a degree in real life. She'll tell people their hat looks stupid and that she's BORED and get away with it. It's somewhat liberating.

I also like to offer signal rather than noise. So while I don't have heroes I have people I admire massively - Neil Gaiman, Mitch Benn, Gunther Von Haagen and so on. But stick me in a room with them, where all I have to offer as an opening gambit is "I really like your work" and I'm just not going to say it, I'm going to keep a respectful distance and appear too shy to talk to them. Similarly, if everyone else seems really informed on a subject, I'm just going to listen and see where the conversation goes.

But actually shy? Nah...

Someone else got a sale agreed on the house I was after. Bah.

Four people I know lost their mothers yesterday (three deaths, two of those are siblings).

Another friend lost hers around a month ago.

Getting older has some really nasty consequences and I guess I'm going to be seeing more of this from here onwards.

I wish there was something more practical I could say or do for the grieving.

I cycled past this earlier today, and while still grinning at the image of a sofa beside the river I turned back to grab a photo of it.

My "lifetime" membership of the Red Dwarf fan club has expired. They finally put together a new fanzine after a ridiculous amount of time - over a year I believe, and I didn't get one. I chased to see if it had gone astray or there had been some database error or similar, but no:

"We have had a revision of complimentary members list.
[...]
So in affect any previous complimentary magazines are no
longer available. And this would require you to become a
member again, if you so wish."

I'm not going to pay, and I don't think I actually want written material from people who write that badly.

So does that mean I'm dead?

... so incredibly exhausted...

Spoof movie trailer: