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Funeral
Jan. 30th, 2026 01:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmc28I managed to be awake to watch the livestream, and I'm very glad I did. My uncle and cousins spoke movingly, there was the most wonderful collection of photographs (some of which I recognised, many of which I did not), and a gratifyingly large number of people in attendance. Apparently they had to print extra service sheets and still ran out.
Helen was a creator: of quilts and crafts, of food, of community. I am sorry not to be there and see her needlecraft on the walls and hear the stories in the community centre where she ran playgroup, but I am so glad to have had this glimpse from afar of how she was valued in the place where she lived.
[healthwork, diarish] ... they... lost my blood again?
Jan. 29th, 2026 11:40 pmkaberettOr at least I assume that's what the call I missed because [reasons this margin is too small to contain] was about, based on (i) the voicemail that said They'll Call Back Tomorrow, and (ii) the continued absence of the relevant test results in the NHS app.
I... think I am going to suggest that they ask my GP to issue a bloods request form, for me to pick up from the surgery and take up the hill to phlebotomy. Because! this is ridiculous! blood loss remains my job!!!
Other things today has contained include: TOKEN RIDICULOUS PUZZLE; Very Picturesque Bread; the Child assigning us all Pronouns and Genders and Sexualities more-or-less at random (from an LGBTQIA+ sticker book); PAKIDGES many and various Including another book on pain and box sets for the last two seasons of Elementary; lots of ridiculous windows in the general vicinity of Bank. I am very tired.
some good things
Jan. 28th, 2026 10:34 pmkaberett- The second attempt at a present for my mother has arrived Several Whole Days before I am next going to see her! Hurrah! (About ten days after I'd received a notification that the previous attempt was ready to ship, and I'd be hearing more from the courier Drekly, I... realised I had heard nothing more from the courier. Apparently the parcel evaporated, but the company sent the order back to the workshop as a priority job...)
- I successfully exchanged blood for a bowel prep kit! The blood results have not yet shown up in the NHS app, but fingers crossed for them coming through... drekly.
- Allotment! Post-bloods I took myself to the plot to empty the compost pail, and accidentally did a whole pile of weeding, thereby establishing that the garlic chives have overwintered successfully (thus far) even if they're looking a bit bedraggled; that I do in fact have a lot of garlic I failed to harvest last year that's coming up merrily now (which I am contemplating redistributing in aid of maybe getting bigger bulbs out of it...); and that there are going to be So Many Beetroot. (Largely self-seeded.) (I did accidentally eat some of the garlic chives, Contra Bowel Prep Instructions, because apparently I Ought Not Be Trusted At The Allotment when I'm on a low-residue diet, BUT I successfully did NOT eat ANY of the spinach or rocket or lamb's lettuce.)
- I consolidated enough of my Book Piles to unearth the coffee table! AND THUS we have begun a puzzle, which I am greatly enjoying.
- Tinned pears. Tinned pears are always a Treat that is a Small Luxury, and they are especially so this week. ...it is possible that I am going to go through my entire stash.
Civ VII reactions
Jan. 28th, 2026 05:02 pmjack* Having three ages with only some things carried over between them actually works really well. If you do well on the victory tracks on one age it helps in the next age, but it's not impossible to catch up. And it's meaningful to pivot from science one age to conquering in another age to economics in another.
* Adding hexes to cities is simpler and meaningful, but confusing to people used to earlier Civ games. Each tile has a natural yield. When you grow the city (when you get a new pop) into that tile, it gets the appropriate improvement. Hexes adjacent to city tiles (within 3 of the centre) don't produce any yield but count as controlled by the city. (That's where you can expand into) Placing buildings also grows the city. Building count as urban hexes, they all need to be contiguous with the centre.
* Gaining influence spent for diplomatic actions works really well. It makes investing in diplomacy meaningful, for warlike civs as well as friendly ones. It makes a difference which civs you butter up, but you can't infinitely butter up a civ that doesn't like you. And influence is used during war to influence war exhaustion, so a more/less popular war makes a real difference.
* There is a soft cap on the number of settlements which I like. It's less runaway victory/failure than how many settlers you can build. But it's less dramatic when building a settler isn't A Big Deal.
* Independent powers make a bit more sense. There are villages which can be hostile (like barbarians) or can be befriended (when they become city states). Late in the age you get auto-hostile ones who act like barbarians. It feels more organic.
* I like mixing and matching leaders and civs, and mixing and matching different civs appropriate to the region between ages.
* They got rid of rock-paper-scissors units. But overall the balance of military seems fairly good. I really enjoy it when I have good unique milirary units, like horse archers (just always OP), or elephants with machine gun mounts (Siam FTW) 🙂
* Some of the victory tracks are really fun. In modern age, economic requires connecting a rail network and processing factory resources. In exploration age, military/expansion track rewards settlements in foreign lands, extra if conquered, extra if your religion, so it can reward a variety of play. But some feel more unfinished, just "do X amount of Y".
( Read more... )
Helen Burke, 5 June 1950 — 24 January 2026
Jan. 28th, 2026 09:39 amrmc28My aunt died on Saturday. The funeral will be in Australia, and streamed online. I am so grateful that technology allows this. It will be at midnight my time; I'm going to aim to be awake for it, but apparently there will be a recording if I don't manage to.
Donations are encouraged in her memory:
https://donate.strokefoundation.org.au/stroke-appeals
https://donate.stroke.org.uk/
And now is probably as good a time as any to remind you of the signs of a stroke and the importance of reacting FAST
Face weakness
Arm weakness
Speech problems
Time to call 999
Terminology [curr ev]
Jan. 28th, 2026 03:33 amsidereaSorry, Nazis are from Germany under Adolf Hitler, what we have here is Sparkling Fascists.
vital functions
Jan. 25th, 2026 09:59 pmkaberettReading. ( Scalzi, Tufte, Duncan )
Writing. Introduction continues to take shape. Word count hasn't gone up much, but that's partly because I am doing a reasonable job of Whacking Down A Bunch Of Words and then reassessing and deleting...
Listening. More of The Hidden Almanac. I continue to fret about not keeping super great track of it, which is in part because I seem to be extremely prone to going to sleep if it winds up on in the car...
Playing. We are finding an Exploders Inkulinati run alarmingly straightforward. Learning Continues.
Sudoku also continues to eat my brain. :|
Cooking. Dinner tonight included: another attempt at the Roti King cabbage poriyal, this time with more coconut, which I think has worked v well; a... loose attempt at a generous interpretation of Dishoom's gunpowder potatoes (no lime, no spring onion yet, no leaf coriander, not new potatoes...); and some pomegranate molasses-tamarind-yoghurt-chaat masala goop to sit some paneer in.
Earlier in the week I ticked a couple more things off the Cook (Almost) All Of East project (kung pao cauliflower; mushroom bao); this evening I have also had a first stab at recreating the Leon spiced tahini hot chocolate, which was Very Acceptable.
Eating. Finally managed to get a meal at the Viewpoint restaurant at Whipsnade (we keep not going at a time when it's open); mildly disappointed by the sourdough pizza, probably because I have a vague memory of a previous incarnation having aspirations to Fancy Restaurant, which I think the current set-up doesn't. Still v pleasant to eat food I didn't cook sat looking out over the Downs, though.
Exploring. ZOO.
Growing. I do not understand where the sciarid flies keep coming from but I am so, so, so over them. I am SO over them. WHY is the lithops container SUDDENLY FULL OF THEM.
That issue aside: lemongrass continues to have Leafs! If (if!) it keeps going like this I'm going to wind up needing to dispose of a bunch of plants via Freecycle/Freegle, goodness. Physalis still not doing anything visible. Ancho chillis almost but not quite All The Way Ripe.
It is almost certainly time to start sowing More Things but I think perhaps I will hold off until after I've had a chance to apply some nematodes...