We’re down in the desert & it’s just as well that I packed the mince pies, ginger parkin, cheese scones, sourdough, & embarrassing Xmas-themed beer… …because a neighbour just warned us to expect we’ll be cut off for the next couple of days or so by the flash floods incoming.

Some things I saw from the American highway today: Watercolour clouds in huge skies Three golden-brown coyotes in an emerald green field Fog hanging over vast, dormant orchards with their military rows & tracing thickly the passage of the ubiquitous aqueduct snaking down the spine of California.

P.S. mince pies!!

I’ve been indulging in the audiobook of The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe (read by the dreamy Michael York) & I just adore this papier-mâché Aslan that I walked past earlier on someone’s front lawn. Delightful.

My 14 year old son Luca took me here after cricket training today. He said there is hope in that sky Mum, I’ve never seen anything like it, the locals said there are half a million starlings here. Keep your families close, hug your children, help those who need us, do a 1000 piece puzzle, enjoy!

Fence for #MetalMonday. Feeling pretty metal up here in the wind & rain myself 🤘🏼 (As a bonus, this is on land owned by a certain well-known heavy metal rancher)

Sure it’s windy, raining, & dead claggy underfoot but I’ve got the whole place to myself & I am still partly British.

Took my very last-minute Xmas packages out to one of the tiny rural POs in West Marin & I could not recommend more highly. A gorgeous countryside drive followed by the kindest, warmest service (no queue!) from racially diverse staff. Must remember this. USPS ftw! 🎄

All the ephemeral waterfalls have appeared & I am expecting hobbits to manifest at any minute.

Just wrapping this lovely book from @blairbraverman.bsky.social & @oliviawhen.com for my great-nibbling & OF COURSE I had to read it first — & there is our dear old wonky Grinch with his goofball snout 😭🥹💔 #uglydogs

No, major retailer, you have not piqued my interest. In fact, I’m now having a little fit of pique.

Wot still no mince pies

I'd honestly wondered from time to time what became of Station Jim. I've looked out for him & said a silent hello many times.

Went for a walk in the rain with spouse, if only to come back to the earned pleasures of more coffee & still-warm bread slathered in butter*. All quite Christmassy outside, including this bold neighbour with the tiniest nubs of antlers on his noggin. *or why bake?

New bandname: Rainy Day Baking Binge

For the Solstice, my favourite Stonehenge photo. From a different season back in the days when you could clamber all over the place, Health & Safety/Historic Preservation be damned. The photo is itself a historic artefact, on a personal scale. (short 🧵)

You’re doing Bluesky right when you accidentally get back-to-back Withnail allusions.

THE SOLSTICE OCCURRED @ 20251221 10:03 AM UR ASTRONOMICAL WINTER HAS JUST BEGUN THO UR METEOROLOGICAL WINTER BEGAN 12/1 BUT UR DAYS WILL NOW BEGIN 2 GET LONGER CONGRATS U MADE IT

Well we may not have unprecedented snow today (tbf, any snow would be more or less unprecedented here) but we’ve got unrelenting rain, a gale warning & a flood alert.

This night will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond imagining. Friends, the Dark is rising.

Car pulled up next to mine at the trailhead. The squeaks of canine excitement coming from it were audible all the way down the road as they approached, & only intensified. It cleaned out all my sadness for a bit.

HUGE coyote just loped/leapt silently across the trail ahead. The size & heft of a large German Shepherd, with a thick golden winter coat. (Huge by West Coast standards.)

Something makes me think there’s been a mouse in my glove compartment. 🤔 🐭

I seem to have managed to place myself at the right moment in the one place in the whole county where sunlight will make an appearance, today or for the coming week. This makes me deeply happy & I’m treasuring it. (Now off to get virtuously soaked on the trail.)

As a Quaker I’m not always comfortable signing on to the community, “people of faith.” This time I’m in.

My plans once I finish work today.

Every time I drive past our neighbours’ goats, I am required to say “hello goats” in a ridiculous voice. I don’t know what might befall me if I didn’t.

Tfw you glance up from eating your breakfast to see a bloody great vulture poised on your balcony like the Angel of Death. That’s a 3-4’ wingspan.

Friday sky. Time for me to stop complaining for a bit.

FINALLY SOME GOOD NEWS 🧀🧀🧀 cc @npitchford.bsky.social

The Nature Cure is toxic snake oil, a weaponised Romantic myth marketed to undermine our legitimate protests & illness. Also, for me, an hour in the woods works every damn time. I’m renewed & ready to take up the whole bloody fiasco again.

Christmasberry (toyon) in the fog-hung woods. Fungi like great goggling eyes (or nipples!) & skulls half-buried in the grass. Even in the short hike to the creek, I can feel my lungs filling with that magical, fecund, cleansing air.

Somewhere out there above the fog, the sky is trying quite beautifully to make one December sunrise. I respect that.

love is good hate is bad it's not complicated

Tomorrow I’m finally going to have time to bake mince pies! Since I too am having an exceptionally shite & unhappy lead-up to the festive period this year, let me also affirm the things I love about it. I love mince pies. (Also love First Dog on the Moon, but dogs aren’t just for Christmas.)

I miss @jordanjaunts.bsky.social here, their adventures & acerbic humanity. I hope all is well.

We have a brief reminder of sunlight & I found a loquat tree blooming. The scent is like a surprising December miracle; & the flowers, a reminder there will be sweet fruit in season again as soon as March or April.

Apparently I’m in an aggressive mood this morning.

Well the good news is that my phone’s autocorrect now defaults to a word that’s similar to duck but is not duck.

Have you entered The Nature Chronicles Prize yet? Details in the post below! 🍃 #NatureWriting #Booksky #NatureWritingPrize 📚💙

Let me say for we who care deeply even if we don't literally have trans family members: legislative moves to criminalise life-sustaining healthcare for trans kids or adults are hateful, terrifying, & murderous. I care because, simply, trans people ❤️. If you need another reason, it won't end here.

A torrent of poetry somehow in my inbox & on my timeline this morning. It’s reminding me of all the world’s actual possibilities.

Just finished listening to BBC radio dramatisations of J L Carr’s ‘A Month in the Country’ & ‘The Harpole Report’ (from my public library) & my life is better for it. Also how did I not know about baby Colin Firth in the movie version?? 👀 Reasons to live….

Before dawn on another drear December Monday—tree-gathered fog dripping on the kitchen roof—& I am eating with my 2nd coffee a chocolate treat from Katherine Anne Confections in Chicago, whose owners received death threats after standing up for local immigrants. The verdict: woke tastes fabulous. ❤️

Newt season! Newt season! Hooray!

I’ve been for a run in the woods, the sun has broken through, vultures & a redtailed hawk are circling effortlessly together on the thermals. Honestly after these really, really dark last weeks it feels as though I’ve just remembered who I am. And what I need.

Someone has made a little Narnia — a diorama — atop a rotting wooden post in the middle of the state park. An absolute delight!

Oh no

Really loved this conversation. Like a thoughtful continuation of so many thoughts my mum & I shared during our many walks & explorations (in some of these places & others). “When you go into an old church, what you feel really—if you’re open to it—is that accumulated ache of human experience.”

Once on the street in Manhattan, a (troubled) stranger pulled back her fist as we drew level & punched me full-on in the chest. She wasn’t even looking in my direction. Delayed grief feels like that.