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By Rhiannon This year, for the first time, the Christmas cards you receive from us will have printed labels.
Up till now I’ve always written the addresses out by hand (I have much neater handwriting than Robin does, possibly because I was actually taught handwriting at school). A few years ago we spent a couple of quid on a stamp kit and assembled a return address stamp, which cut down on the workload considerably (though I’m not sure how readable it actually is). But the main addresses carried on being hand-written.
This year, prompted by some experiments I’d been doing at work, and having found some address labels to print on, I started looking into ways of getting the addresses printed directly from the Address Book. I keep my contacts in there and have a list of people who should be sent Christmas cards by post. (There’s a separate list of people who get Christmas cards but whose addresses I’m not sure of; they get a pretty email sometime round about Christmas Eve or Day. People whom we see over Christmas don’t get a Christmas card at all – it’s an inferior substitute for personal contact, not a requirement in itself.)
Continue reading Christmas cards and Apple Address Book
By Rhiannon 
For some time now the only thing left to do on our extension has been a new pair of curtains for the bay window in the dining room (with new French doors out to the patio where the conservatory used to be). We had quite specific ideas about what sort of fabric we wanted, so we went round pretty much every fabric shop we could find. To no avail. Hence only managing to do this several months after everything else was finished.
Eventually we gave up on the idea of being able to see the fabric in person before we bought it. It still took some hunting, but we found something on ebay. It wasn’t quite what we had had in mind, but it looked utterly gorgeous: goldy peacock feathers on a blue-green background. And it was the first fabric we’d found that we could remotely contemplate hanging round our window.
So then we started looking for someone to make the curtains up for us. We found a nice-looking website for someone just up the road from us, but they never answered their emails. Eventually we gave up and found someone else, Olivia McNichol, listed on Google and Yell –
Continue reading Curtains!
By Rhiannon Yesterday was Faith’s birthday. She would have been four.
We took some flowers to her grave. Someone else had been before us and left a tiny Christmas tree and some little pottery animals. It’s good to know that other people are remembering her too.
By Rhiannon This week we had a little competition at work: a bottle of wine for the best answer to the question posed by an article in Intelligent Life magazine: what was the best time and place to be alive? The article clarified the question in the standfirst: if you could travel back in time, what would be your destination? It also presented a sample answer by one Patrick Dillon, historian.
I didn’t win. But that’s because, though I wrote a response (which forms the basis of this post), I didn’t really answer the question, at least not in the spirit in which it was intended. Short answer: I give nostalgia very short shrift.
Continue reading The best time and place in history
By Rhiannon I was surprised at how disappointed (and disturbed) I was to discover that the title character in The Sword of Rhiannon was, in fact, male. And not only male, but a male evil god accidentally released from his prison. (This isn’t a spoiler: you find out who he is by page 4, and he’s out by page 15. This is not a book for hanging around.)
I feel rather better about him now, having finished the book and realised he was the only actual character (rather than plot device) in the story. But it made me think about how our identities are tied up with our names and our genders. I was much more bothered by a male Rhiannon than an evil god Rhiannon.
Continue reading Names, gender and identity
By Rhiannon 
I can’t now remember why Robin and I decided to run an egosearch on Google Images. I think it might have been something to do with a discussion on the relative popularity of our names. In any case, Robin doesn’t seem to have very much of a net presence. A search on his name reveals primarily photos of a woman (apparently a US television chef) followed by a bearded man whose middle name is Robin.
A picture of me is among the top hits for my name. There’s a different one further down, along with a bunch of other people who share at least part of my name.
Scroll down far enough, however, and you come across this:
I had to find out more about a book called The Sword of Rhiannon. The blurb looked as if it might even be a decent story, Amazon was selling it for a few quid, and my birthday was coming up…
Continue reading The Sword of Me
By Rhiannon 
In an attempt to expand our repertoire of dairy-free cakey things (which also includes carrot cake, banana cake and, erm, that’s it) Robin found a recipe for cinnamon biscuits in The Silver Spoon and persuaded me to try it. The ingredients: plain flour, sugar, lemon rind, and cinnamon to sprinkle on top. And olive oil.
Continue reading Cinnamon biscuits
By Rhiannon 
Strange mushroom: stem and gills
Can anyone help me identify this mushroom?
Strange mushroom: cap and stem
It appeared under my lawnmower yesterday as I was mowing the edge of the lawn. It might have been growing in the lawn or under the heather beside the lawn – I don’t know which as it appeared already uprooted. It has a very blue cap and pale pink gills.
Cap of mushroom, with hand for scale
(Don’t worry, I’m not eating it, whatever anyone says!)
By Rhiannon I’ve managed to pick my cello up and do some regular practice for the first time in ages. I’ve joined the orchestra and we’re going to be performing Pictures at an Exhibition, Carnival of the Animals and the Sorceror’s Apprentice in November. Rehearsals are on Wednesdays.
Meanwhile I’m still going to Chansons (in fact they’ve made me treasurer) and we also have a concert in November, singing Copeland’s In The Beginning and a new piece by Jonathan Dove. Rehearsals are on Mondays.
I’ve also rejoined the church choir. The poor things were desperate as they had no sopranos at all (though no shortage of men). Rehearsals are on Thursdays.
By Friday evening I’m usually quite shattered. So that leaves Tuesday evenings for any other activities, like committee meetings or church meetings. And since there are quite a few of those, my Tuesdays are pretty much booked up too.
Weekends are for housework and garden work, and general recuperation. Sometimes this can involve visiting friends or having friends round. So if you do want to meet up with us, don’t feel offended if we have to set a date quite a long way into the future!
By Rhiannon A few days ago we received in the post the voting information for the AGM of the Nationwide, with whom we have a mortgage and of whom we are therefore members. The resolutions we are asked to vote on are very simple: we are asked to approve the accounts, approve the directors’ remuneration, and approve the appointment of the auditors. Then we are asked to elect or re-elect a whole bunch of people as directors.
I can only go on the information they’ve given about the accounts, but I have no reason to believe there’s anything wrong with them, so I’m happy to approve them. And I’m fine with the auditor, and (apart from the fact that there’s a woeful shortage of people who aren’t white males on the list) ok with the directors too. But I have a real problem with the directors’ remuneration.
Continue reading Directors’ remuneration
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