Worst time of winter and and a long way to go yet. Brits and their snowdrops can buzz off.

Surprising how many people were out taking a walk last night at -15C. All of us grimly nodding as we passed one another.

Pressing tofu. Yes I still have a dictionary. Sometimes I even read it, not that you'd know by my spelling.

I am sad that this is so personally familiar.

Oh well.

Bloody Teams notifications are an ice pick to my brain. God it was nice to have a break from the peck peck peck peck peck...

Just finished processing new purchases for the parish library. (I tend to emphasize accessible books the public library likely won't have.) I miss working with books. They're so mellow compared to archival records which resist corralling at every turn.

Still recovering from a horrible realistic dream in which the US carpet-bombed Toronto. That kind of dream where you're thinking "this has to be a dream but it isn't."

Hot tip: my elderly, very skittish cat was really calmed in the car on the way to the vet by the Hilliard Ensemble’s ECM recording of ‘The Lamentations of Jeremiah.’

Not embarrassed that some of these were mine.

A somber motet for tonight. Apt for the times.

My Hudson's Bay biscuit tin from just a few years ago. Too nice to throw out.

We don't get many manicules in this archive. Small Christmas present.

The bank phone has the same on-hold musak that my old veterinarian used and it's reminding me of sad times.

The night is far gone; the day is near.

Why is it so all-fired hard for me to get back to the UK given I am already a blasted citizen?

I'm not used to seeing actual books in a clinical context anymore.

Overhearing a conversation at the hospital where a women talking to a nurse was blind for 10 years and regained her sight after two pregnancies in quick succession. They think it's due to a surge in stem cells. The blindness was neurological in some way, it sounds like.

Random church shot. Embroidered chasuble draped on the altar rail during preparation. Beautiful work, almost always by women.

"Please do not use Yamaha recorders for any other purposes besides musical performance."

Got an ALTO Yamaha recorder at a thrift store for $2. Not a professional grade instrument but all Yamahas are good. It can be dunked in the sink to clean it. Now I just need time and energy to learn the wretched F fingerings. Tenor was easier for an ex-flutist.

Chinese-Canadian anesthesiologists ways treat with deadly seriousness my concern for protecting the vocal tract during intubation. "She is a singer" at the top of my chart. Might have something to do with every Chinese-Canadian doctor I know being an accomplished musician.

Monkey!

At Oxford County (Ontario) for regional archivists' meeting and ran into some great folklore. The old county building (ca. 1890) sports random monkey grotesques. Legend has it they represent ten councillors the builders disliked or are the result of a curse.

Lovely little stone walking bridge near Hamilton, Ontario. My city would have this down in a hot second.

I am looking forward to general anesthesia on Thursday because I won't have to be in traffic or think about traffic. Blessed oblivion.

??

First encore at the Ronn McFarlane-Paul O'Dette lute duo recital today: John Dowland's "My Lord Chamberlain, His Galliard" - for two people to play on a single lute. And I thought playing piano, four hands, was tricky to coordinate!

This is terrific. A great profile of Great Lakes shipping (and mandatory reminiscence on the Edmund Fitzgerald) featuring my all time favorite freighter, one I’ve seen dozens of times, the still hardworking “antique” steamship Wilfred Sykes. Gift article.

Oral Transmission of Folk Songs - View from the organ stool! karenmcaulaymusicologist.blog/2025/10/12/o... #FolkSongs

Anglican church cupboard is 50% carbs.

Something that's so hard with reading history second-hand is to remember that no one knew what was going to come next. Which is archives magic. Nobody at *this exact moment* knows that Nurse Cavell will become a tragedy and a cause celebre. They just know what she has done, and her family.

When I was young, we had green cars.

Ah that autumnal smell of burning dust as the electric heating is turned on for the first time.

The fact that I have survived for 11 years in a particularly corporate-y corporation is nothing short of a miracle.

How has paperwork served as a tool of empowerment for people who often find power elusive? In our latest podcast, a group of historians, archivists, and activists met at the Raphael Samuel History Centre (@rshc.bsky.social) to discuss the hidden history of paperwork 🗃️🎙️

Unexpected and moving art installation in the rock garden pools at Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens, presumably for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Fall raspberry leaves.

Did anyone else's grandparents pass around the boiled sweets on any car trip over 30 minutes? My dentist would hate my daily commute for the last decade...

Two bridges.

The Toronto Parking Authority’s 2026 budget submission includes some AI-generated art that appears to depict some sort of dystopian future in which Green P takes over the entire city and rules with an iron fist. secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...

Autumn

Happy birthday to Gustav Holst and me. I'd never looked at the score for the planets until I found it via @archive.org. Even if you don't read music you might be able to tell this is the beginning of "Mars." Music has a look as well as a sound. Inspiration for John Williams' Star Wars themes imo.

Okay, I laughed.

Why does Bluesky keep showing me kinky anime which I find misogynistic and which I keep blocking? I'm starting to be repulsed by the whole genre.

That tree is growing Chicken of the Woods again. It skipped last year. Going to pick it younger this time. Maybe cook it for my birthday.

Doesn't have quite the same ring.

Do people who buy McMansions know they're McMansions?

When flying was a Big Deal.

The wounded surgeon plies the steel... Hic Spiritus Est, a sculpture of nails by David Partridge in the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Toronto. Holy Cross Day.