“That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang….” (SON 73) #ShakespeareSunday #Autumn #Trees Photo mine.

Left my iPhone on a seat in Selfridges. Went back to get it. An assistant had found it and handed it to me straight away. ‘I’m so absent-minded,’ I said in a flustered voice. ‘I’d lose my own head if it wasn’t switched on.’ He gave me an odd, sympathetic look. Earth, please swallow …

😍

Fix draughts and check your energy tariff: five steps to getting a home ready for winter

As he rode into battle, Sir Volelgehirn began to wonder if strapping a large, screeching peacock to the top of his helmet had been a good idea - 14th century, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 3003, f. 50r

Most disappointed I wasn’t sucked up to Heaven today. I’m going to give the Rapture a dreadful review on Tripadvisor.

The canal at the end of the street

They shouldn't eat a lot of it because of its high sugar content, but most rabbits looooooove banana. I give mine about half a banana once a week (Sundays).

Christopher Nevinson's view of London was painted early one morning in 1943 from the rooftop of the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane, and looks south-east towards the Palace of Westminster.

It’s bad enough ploughing with foxes, but what about the ridiculous pointy shoes?

Autumn arch. Excited for the colours to change!

So cute. I had no idea until now that bunnies liked bananas.

Important: there is a pub in Holborn where a cat wears a ruff. His name is The General

I've broken down my dishwasher's cycle into 6 distinct stages: 1. Vrrrrrrrr 2. Bllblbbblblbllbb 3. Swssshswshhswsh 4. (Eerie silence, laden with sinister foreboding) 5. Mrrrrrrrrp 6. Done

Photo

Sunset in the Blue Ridge Mountains last night

The models for Grant Wood's 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘎𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘤 (1930) in front of the iconic painting, 1942.

In other news Michael Fabricant has a very promising entry in the Harrogate Autumn Flower Show

The autumn logs have arrived.

'Cupboard Love.' (1886) There is real living quality to this picture by Walter Osborne of a farmer's boy with his cat at breakfast; everyday scenes depicting people from small rural communities is a thread which runs throughout his work as a painter.

The Grim Reaper is a lot more stylish these days...

British people:

Someone needs to put a new light-bulb in Melania.

this doesn't look like a normal distribution

I must confess that it took me a while to pick him out! 🤣

This man brushes a crow and stops, but the bird gives the brush back as it wanted more... 😊 #bluesky #animals #nature

This is my cateract removal problem, doing a lot of dusting today! But the tree leaves and such and bright colours are also nice

I have new glasses, which is great because I could barely see through my cloudy old ones. But the problem is … everything looks dusty and everyone looks wrinkled. The world is no longer airbrushed.

Melania's sent 3 small children in a trench coat on the state visit rather than coming herself

Our bird feeder ran empty while we were away for the weekend and I came back to it’s camera roll full of disappointed looking birds

Well, if it’s 15 September, it must be – yes, of course! The 412th anniversary of Sir Thomas Overbury dying in the Tower of London after being poisoned by his ex-boyfriend’s wife because he’d written a poem she didn’t like

Crocodile. ‘the Rochester Bestiary’, England 13th century. British Library, Royal 12 F XIII, fol. 24r. #medieval #medievalart

I went to the pharmacists today. They used to be called chemists. I’m sorely tempted to start calling them apothecaries. The head pharmacist is terribly nice. He wears a bow tie and resembles Hercule Poirot.

Covfefe to all that. I bigly like that term. It hints at the Zeitgeist of our age.

I'd like to think they did it on purpose. It gives me hope.

Yet more fabulous proofreading by BBC News online

More great proofreading from BBC News in this story about another defection to Reform from the ‘Conservatioves’.

My wife just told me about a thing where people are colouring in England flags to make them look like slices of Battenberg cake, how marvellous

Two adorable Egyptian figurines: a roaring hippo and a baby hippo, dating ca 1,800 BC. Hippos were associated with life and rebirth. On display at Neues Museum Berlin. 📷 me 🏺 AncientEgyptBluesky

Pet parrots which typically live alone (whilst those in the wild live in large flocks) were given the technology to call each other. They would use it for up to three hours a day, and developed favourite friends 💔 on.ft.com/3K05vhS

Autumn’s nostalgia. #woodland #woodlandphotography #fuji

Remember, as we enter Giant Spider season, that when people say 'they are more scared of us than we are of them' this remains unproven and is spider propaganda.

Thinking of the size of the oven in which this baguette was baked. French woman with her baguette and six bottles of wine, Paris, France, 1945. (Photo by Branson Decou).

Apparently in German "du kleine Lese-Ratte" (you little reading-rat) is the way you call someone a bookworm (which is, in itself, a very weird expression)! What's the equivalent expression for a reading animal in your language?

My 100,000 honeybee lodgers have been ethically rehoused and are now living with a nice Turkish man on the edge of a forest. I’ll miss them. They were always very well behaved and didn’t sting me or Eddie once 🐝🐝🐝

Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday Arvo Pärt Happy Birthday to you

Well, if it’s 11 September, it’s clearly the 317th anniversary of the New York Assembly submitting its list of grievances against the city’s governor, Lord Cornbury: he was corrupt, incompetent, and forever putting on his wife’s clothes

Mother, why. Photo from my collection, no date/info.