Yes but, in our defence we have had wizard hats, Ukraine flags, rainbow flags, cones on cones on cones and the horse with a cone.
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I must admit I love when the horse gets a cone too. So he/she (I haven’t looked that close yet) doesn’t feel left out
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That is a beautiful clock!
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Yes, but surprisingly tricky to work out what time the photo was taken.
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Good point i retract my statement the beauty is but a facade to the madness.
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Looks like either 10:05 or 12:50 by my reckoning.
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It was 7 o’clock on the sun, the moon was due west, and for Aries it was Thursday, but for Geminis it’s last Tuesday.
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For the first time since covid, we managed to get out of the house for anything but groceries or doctor’s appointments.
It is also the last days of October and my partner wanted to take out his “fun” car (a British car actually: a Lotus Evora) for one last drive (the registration is only valid March through October to save money on insurance)
So we went to our favorite winery—which is just half an hour away and not that much of a “fun” drive (rather boring highways with not enough curves). We had a lovely “Pfälzer” lunch there in the “wine garden” (similar to beer garden except you get drunk on Schorle instead of beer) and tasted the current vintages of our favorite wines—and then obviously bought 2 cases. Only 2 b/c the trunk is not that big on the “fun” car 
We also watched tons of motorcycles and cabriolets and other fun cars drive by. The place was packed. They open at 12 on Sundays and by 12:20 when we arrived we had trouble finding a place at a table for the two of us. 
The weather has been so incredibly mild here, it is almost November and we have 20°C outside. When I was a child, we would have the first snow flurries of the year around this time. It is unseasonably warm even considering that 40 years have passed since my childhood snow memories. I doubt we’ll turn on the heating in the next week or two.
And because my partner is lucky, just opposite the winery, they had a small vegetable sales stand and for some reason they also sold these. I have actually never seen these outside of Germany. They are filled with a white soft sugary filling (imagine sugary egg-white just heated up enough to pasteurize), there is a waffle at the bottom and a thin chocolate layer. (Schokokuss: Sweet Drops of Heaven - I like Germany).
These are from a specific locally famous company (almost all the ones you can buy in supermarkets are from 1 or 2 other company’s that control probably 90% of the market). This company is well-known here and finding these today, was just perfect. It is one of my partner’s favorite treats
These ones are so specific and well-known everyone instantly recognizes them. The brand is so small the “best by” date is stamped by hand on the packaging. It’s a lovely bit of local flavor that tends to vanish so often these days and it is all the more appreciated when it still exists
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Sounds a little like a Tunnock’s teacake: marshmallow on top of biscuit, coated in chocolate, about 5cm across and 24g.
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Similar, yes.
Oh and I forgot they definitely exist in Switzerland. The chocolate cover is thicker and the filling a bit less fluffy usually. Those are very good as well.
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Thats exactly what I was thinking!
On Bake Off. a while ago, they had to make some of these. I might give it a go myself.
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I’ve had an amazing day in Providence, visiting sites of importance to HP Lovecraft. It was fascinating to see the serenity and calm of the neighbourhood he grew up in. I can see why moving to New York was something of a culture shock for him (it doesn’t excuse his racist or other deeply offensive views, of course, but perhaps helps in part explain them, to me at least). A fascinating place, full of character.
Here’s two of his houses, the latter of which he wrote The Call of Cthulhu in, amongst others (the first house has, amazingly, been moved from its original location next to Brown University).
Speaking of Brown, it’s what Lovecraft used as inspiration for Miskatonic University. I managed to spot the actual bench he sat on!
Also visited the Aetheneum, a beautiful library where Lovecraft did much of his research (as did Poe).
The Fleur de Lys building, which he despised (from The Call of Cthulhu: ’Wilcox still lived alone in the Fleur-de-Lys Building in Thomas Street, a hideous Victorian imitation of seventeenth-century Breton architecture which flaunts its stuccoed front amidst the lovely colonial houses on the ancient hill, and under the very shadow of the finest Georgian steeple in America.’
I can see his point.
Speaking of the Georgian steeple, here it is, the meeting house of the First Baptist Church of America, I think mentioned in The Haunter of the Dark.
As is this building, the Industrial Trust, featuring heavily in it.
It’s been a very interesting day following in the footsteps of this greatly imaginative writer, who I must once again acknowledge was also a total racist asshat (if you’re in any doubt about this, here’s a useful reminder - the blog site Hitler, or Lovecraft?, where you have to try to differentiate depressingly similar quotes from them).
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And then there is his treatment of his wife….
I don’t systematically avoid or deride art by bad people, but trying to read Lovecraft I get a cramp in my sneering-muscles.
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Around here, we often get a pretty good glimpse of a giant rock floating in the night sky. Tonight, my daughter and I took a picture of it with her new telescope.
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