© Fred Espenak

This is an astronomically exciting week! Not only do we have a Supermoon sneaking up on us on Thursday (it’s a New Moon, so won’t be visible), but it’s all set to blot out (most of) the Sun on Friday in a partial eclipse as well. As if that wasn’t enough, it’s also the Vernal Equinox, which means that, despite the vagaries of the weather, Spring has sprung. Yay!

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The Death of Rats

I was incredibly saddened to hear of the grim reaping of Terry Pratchett yesterday and in acknowledgement of his work, which has given me great pleasure over the years, I’d like to share with you my 10 favourite things about the Discworld:

1. The Discworld.
The idea that the world is flat, circular and carried on the back of four giant elephants, which are standing on the back of an enormous space turtle is, quite simply, pure genius.

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No, the resolutions to-dos I made in January haven’t fallen by the wayside…yet 😀 Admittedly, I’m a bit late with the monthly progress report though, so here’s a brief update on how I’ve done over the last few weeks 😀

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Many years ago, (no, that’s not a picture of me!), I became quite interested in photography. I got my first SLR when I was 18 and in the pursuit of this hobby, I eventually acquired quite an impressive array of photographic kit, mostly Pentax, who were, IMO, by far and away the best of breed when it came to optics and pleasingly compact SLR cameras.

I took a lot of pictures.

I had fun taking a lot of pictures.

Some of them were even passably good.

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There is much excitement here at Ania M HQ. Not only is birthday season coming up, (we each have our own month month, starting with DH in March and ending with me in June), but LOTS of projects are starting to come together and creative ideas are flying around like a cloud of bats. (Yes, that is the collective term.)

This year is a big one for myself and DH as we’re both *cough*-ty. The difficulty when you get to this advanced and doddering age is that you have acquired most of what you need and it becomes harder to think of something you might want that you don’t already have.

I have managed to come up with something! 😀

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I haven’t blogged about food for a while and woke up this morning moved to rectify this situation and decided to write about Dill. As herbs go, Dill is not widely used in English cuisine, which is a shame since it has a really nice flavour.

You may be familiar with the taste, since you will probably have come across in Gripe water, given to small children to cure hiccups. I loved the stuff as a child and attribute my subsequently high tolerance of alcohol to it (though these days it is alcohol-free). You may also be notionally familiar with pickled dill gherkins, usually imported from Poland. Nom! Nothing like one to go with a real ham (not that reformed, water-filled muck) and mustard open sandwich.

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I’ve been working my crafty mojo hard lately and have finished several projects, some twice 😀

You may recall my Renaissance Blanky, which I finished in October ready for use as a throw for keeping my tootsies warm on the sofa over the winter months. It did get used for that purpose for a whole but then migrated to the (unheated) bedroom where it covered approximately half the bed. I still had some of the red yarn left, though not enough to do anything significant, since I really needed enough for 32 more squares to get it up to 8 x 10. So, I bought another ball of yarn in Tudor Rose (I fancied a bit of contrast and 32 squares in the same colour is really boring) and this is the result:

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I’m not in the habit of blogging about politics or religion*. People are entitled to support or believe in whomever/whatever they choose, however irrational that may seem to me, and as long as they don’t try to shove their beliefs down my throat, I will refrain from pointing out their obvious stupidity.

So what has brought me out of the woodwork today, you might ask. Nothing less than Labour’s absurd attempt to win over female voters with a pink bus. FFS!!!! Really? I mean, this is their best shot?

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Welcome to the latest edition of the Tarot Blog Hop. This month, Karen, our wrangler has given us this brief:

I’m interested in hearing about encounters with cards that for some reason or another stuck out like a sore thumb, deviated from expectations or challenged your usual way of thinking. Cards that have twisted your brain in a similar way to the phrase ‘Oracular anomalies’ twists the tongue. 

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I picked up a copy of Clarissa Dickson Wright’s A History of English Food recently. I’ve always had a lot of time for Clarissa, having come across her first as one of the Fat Ladies and subsequently on other food programmes. She struck me as very knowledgeable about animal husbandry and history, as well as food preparation. She was also refreshingly unpretentious, unlike so many TV cooks, and totally devoid of fluffiness, always a plus point as far as I am concerned.

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