Birthday cheers! All-inclusive cheers! #ConfinedCocktails

Cheers to putting some fizz into your week #ConfinedCocktails

Loud cheers to getting a break from the tough stuff #ConfinedCocktails

Delightfully Saturday evening cheers #ConfinedCocktails

Cheers to the German Gymnasium (a fave) and to all the meatball eaters #ConfinedCocktails

Cheers to a lovely evening with telly and cat, after a busy week settling in #ConfinedCocktails

Life in the shoe: An AJ cocktail. Because I had a grapefruit that needed squeezing. 🍸🧚🏼‍♂️ #confinedcocktails

Cheers to successful repurposing, and to anyone still with pancake leftovers! #ConfinedCocktails

Cheers to the blues! #ConfinedCocktails

Cheers to feeling more human, heartily #ConfinedCocktails

More soup cheers - and also to the YACs and an exciting morning! #ConfinedCocktails

Cheers to all the Sydenhams #ConfinedCocktails

Cheers to harmless addictions (and pina coladas) #ConfinedCocktails

Cheers to recuperation and (of course) big soup #ConfinedCocktails

Cheers to those at the coastal dancing weekend, and anyone else having a lovely time with their enthusiasms. #ConfinedCocktails

Oooh, experimental #ConfinedCocktails cheers!

Cheers to companionable bookshopping in defiance of any damp #ConfinedCocktails

Cheers to excellent commissary work (and to bitters for presents, which are an outstanding idea and are how I got these) #ConfinedCocktails

Evening all. I'm accompanying chicken cookery with a Martini l'autentico, and lashings of liquorice bitters hurrah. How are your evenings treating you? #ConfinedCocktails

Been reading the newish Richard Osman which I bought in hard copy to support a local bookshop that needed its website testing. Now watching Small Prophets while a chicken pretty much roasts itself. I've had worse Saturdays.

Friday scamper #UnconfinedWalks in the sunny morning, today en route to mum (who is okay).

In 2025 a grant from FNL enabled Nairn Museum to acquire medieval & early modern manuscripts created by Clan Rose of Kilravock Castle. In this film, Curator Annie MacDonald talks about one of the indentures. A great addition to Nairn's collections! vimeo.com/1166667400?f...

I've been at Jermyn St Theatre for Dear Liar, a play wholly drawn from the letters of George Bernard Shaw and Mrs Patrick Campbell. Which survived intact after her relatively poverty-stricken death, before which Shaw had returned all her letters to him (in a nice way). Both sides correspondence!

If you’re interested in open government data, please read (and repost) www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blogs/digita...

You: thrifty and delightfully made your own pancake batter for the appropriate Tuesday. And away till 2027. Me: snagged a precooked packet, aimlessly ate one after a long day on Tuesday, remembered again last night. But now, now I can have quick pancakes before theatre tonight. I win!

Fancy a holiday to Europe by train in 2026? (1) Discount code SEAT61OFF gets £61 off a Byway rail holiday booked before 31 March, travel any time. www.byway.travel?utm_source=s.... (2) Free 1st class upgrade on some trips if booked by 26 March - panel at the top of Byway home page has the details.

A fantastic post from the Museum fo English Rural Life about one of our early writers. We're so pleased to see E.M. Barraud getting this recognition! Do give the article a read!

Just overheard: '...and you know what they say, if it ain't broke, don't break it'. Which isn't quite the original phrase, but I suppose is still decent advice to live by.

So many news outlets demanding our views. So few offering the all-important "I don't give a shit about this topic" option. Or the always-unpopular "You know, I don't really know enough about the detail and/or technical side to give a valid opinion". These two cover about 90% of all news for me

Egg and chips* for dinner, followed by cheese and wine. My arteries. (I don't care, it's been nothing but beans, mushrooms and broccoli for days.) *TECHNICALLY batata w beyd, says Boustany, but also admits it's basically egg n chips.

Important news! I am delighted to announce the launch of my new podcast: The Untitled History Podcast. It's me, and guests, falling down all the history rabbitholes you can imagine. Please, please spread the word, subscribe and listen. Because... SHIPS CATS!! cms.megaphone.fm/channel/the-...

TRAITORS CONTESTANTS GET TWO BREAKFASTS!

#UnconfinedWalks, what should be the Nivose series. Wall by mum's/anon validation visit rock. (I daresay a geologist might deduce where I was yesterday from this slab, but otherwise it is relatively stealth.)

Oh lads I'm so tired. Mum things today have been tumble dryer door, garden waste and Parkinsons nurse, in escalating order of mattering but decreasing level of hassle. I really think I need to investigate the Suspiciously Wet Bit of her garden but how, how, how?

Delighted to see @ermerlindaj.bsky.social on Our Hospital Through Time tonight. Marvellous job Kate. I made D watch it too.

It was optimistic to schedule a dissertation supervision for this evening given I've been out of town, but I might make it. Quite damply, I admit.

Adrift in a very February landscape. The Fens are not unexpectedly damp at the mo.

When I bought my emergency Kindle I went for the one with ads, because one without could not be procured until weeks after Christmas. So now it ads at me on its lock screen. Because I don't care about them, I keep misreading. Currently urging me to buy THE DARK ELBOW.*

So much of this use case seems to be predicated on the idea we're here for content, not connection. Like students doing AI essays, as if learning-by-writing is not the point and tutors are actually desperate to read 17 new takes on "are archives and RM one profession or two". Posting is PEOPLE.

Office commute today. Camellia opening. #UnconfinedWalks. And now I must sleep because tomorrow is non-office longer commute. Think 💤

LRT am now googling LOW WATER BALTIC WHY?? just in case it's the apocalypse. (It isn't, it's a weather conditions thing, the Baltic is getting shoved into the North Sea. Which doesn't sound at all apocalypsey.)

This weekend Chris went to see a historical site in central Stockholm that's temporarily more visible than usual, due to some strange weather conditions! The ship is a wreck from the 1600s and you can find out more by watching the video. #kastellholmen

In other ah bother news, no this broccoli and labneh and garlic dip will not travel with me tomorrow. Not as I'd feared because the garlic is too pungent, but because it's very sloppy and eating it on a train would be an act of war.

Ah, bother, I took my eye off the ball with Sandra Oh, who I would have very much liked to see at the NT. But not at £120 for a Moliere I don't love, and that's mostly what's left. Curse the February sniffles.

A vaguely Olympics-related fun fact is that in Czech you can say something expensive 'stojí majlant' ('costs a fortune'). This unusual word "majlant" comes from German Mailand – the city of Milan! It seems to have come via Czechs fighting in 19th-century Italy, clearly impressed by the rich city.

Oh god I am out of practice with the sadmin. Just tried to sort the addressee for EDF bills at mum's house (still being sent to Dad's estate) and after I submitted the power of attorney they asked me for evidence of her ill health. Which is bonkers, but I should have expected some idiocy.

Mum today, fighting sleep: and how are you? No, really how? Me: well, okayish. Bit sniffly. Mum: because I'd hate to think all this (*disdainful gesture at her OT recliner*) lying around was causing you any problems. Or boredom. She doesn't have such moments all that often now, but I do love her.

What a lovely day for #UnconfinedWalks. Quite the weather effects though.

#OTD 55 years ago the UK switched to decimal currency: here's an article on how this shows up in the Britten-Pears archive, with Britten buying himself ready-reckoners, shop bills swapping currencies mid-month, and charities seeing publicity opportunities. www.brittenpearsarts.org/news/archive...

Finally had the cup of tea catch up with the very old friend I cried on at new year. This time with NT scones and less sobbing, though my god middle age sucks for infodump chats. Still good to see her. #TeaUp