Samosa is a chronic tea-stealer. This was Deckchair Dreaming from @birdandblendtea (a gift from @jpseabright!). Chamomile, apple, rosehip, linden blossom, hibiscus and orange peel, it's very chicken friendly! #chickens #resucechickens #hens #bhwt #chickentea #birdandblendtea

Happy Pride Month from the garden. #pride #PrideMonth #LoveIsLove #LGBTQ #rainbow

Rose p*rn. #roses #garden #rose #maygarden #mayflowers

Was totally swept away by this book. So compelling and lush, sweeping through this year of Italian cinema history, focused on the surreality of set design while the history, politics and the world keep creeping in.

I basically inhaled this. So good. An examination of the unreality of creating art, the real work that goes into creating fiction, the impossibility of living in reality while doing this real work. If you liked Solvej Balle's On the Calculation of Volume & May We Feed The King.

The wildflower meadow in the back part of the garden is turning into a fun daisy jungle for the chickens. 🥰 #wildflowers #wildflowermeadow #bhwt #rescuehens #chickens #rescuechickens

Just when I think London is a horrible, grotty place with no redeeming features other than my therapist's office, the LRB bookshop, and all the art and theatres (OK, that list turned out to be longer than I was expecting...), I turn a corner and it throws this at me. Anyone know what it is?

Was rather taken with the whole thing from the start: the dream-like quality of the landscape, the descriptions of shanking. You can feel the protagonist aching for a different life while still loyal to the people who've given him the one he's got. And the dialogue is just great.

I was very sad to lose Pakora a few weeks ago. She was a pretty easy-going chicken, loved a bit of wellie-pecking, loved to come upstairs and get treats, and was often seen giving Perseus's face a good clean. ❤️ #resucechickens #bhwt #ilovemychickens #rescuehens

This was very funny and enjoyable even if it was a bit silly. Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash #lostlambs #madelinecash #bookreview

This book literally gave me nightmares. It was really very good, the prose is beautiful, but it's also so disturbing. Relentless, really, in the way it portrays what it is and has been to live in the world as a woman, the violence of it. It just did not let up, there were no moments of relief.

Chicken sandwich. #chickens #rescuechickens #bhwt #dustbathing

April garden photo dump. Enjoy! #aprilgarden #tulips #bluebells #springblossom #iris

I don't like wind, wet, cold, or dark. So I struggle a bit in the UK from like late October to April. But it's all totally worth it when this time of year arrives. And I'm not talking about spring or cherry blossom or the sun.

This is the second time I've read this and it was just as utterly delightful as the first. That tension she holds between relishing isolation but being agitated by desire is just exquisite. My journal from that week reads:

It's not clear who came up with this line (Pablo Neruda? Che Guevara? Octavia Paz?) but I was feeling a little hopeful for hope.

It was great to hear Vigdis Hjorth speak with @katyataylor29 last month at the @lrbbookshop about this book. She's so funny, and her reading was hilarious but touching, and I loved what she had to say about the interplay between reality & fiction, of using your memories in fictional forms.

This book very quietly took hold of me and did not let go. It was first published in 1995 in French, but the edition I read has a brilliant introduction by Sophie Mackintosh who describes the narrator as

On a train back from London recently I sat next to a woman who was reading the latest Catherine Newman book and, I kid you not, she laughed all the way from King's Cross to Cambridge. And I thought: I need to read more Catherine Newman.

This was freaking hilarious. And rather relevant. I laughed even more when I read the reviews about some of the less sympathetic (male) characters being 1-dimensional. They've clearly not met my postman.

This book is just beautiful. I was completely taken from the first page and read it in a day. The descriptions of food (even when it's not real food!) are just glorious, and what it says about what we do and do not know about the past obviously very much appeals to me as I tackle a novel set in 1845

'I live my life forward and backward.' This is a story about a woman trying to repair familial relationships after four years in prison, finding out she has to face the truth of the past in order to have a present.

My review: - I liked the prose in Peter's sections. Enviable. I wish I could write this well. - I identified with a lot of Ivan's neurodivergent traits and liked his portrayal. - I wish Sally Rooney would learn a synonym for wet.

I am back! I have been in full hermit mode for the last week to finish the latest draft of the novel (although one can hardly complain when the view from my office looks like this!). Completely turned my phone off, told everyone I was unavailable, and just wrote.

April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. The Waste Land BY T. S. ELIOT www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/...

My very dear friend @litepaint sent me this book as a gift. She and I are both have Taurus Moons and she thought that it might speak to me. And it does.

Caught these two unlikely friends on the cherry tree hanging out. 😍 #robin #pigeon #woodpigeon #gardenbird #birds #bird #gardenbirds #nature #birdsofinstagram #wildlife #birdphotography #gardenbirdsuk #wildlifephotography #naturephotography #rspb #birdwatching #birdlovers

The chicken voting is in! Bananas: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ #rescuechickens #chickensofinstagram #chickens #backyardchickens #petchickens #rescuehens #hensofinstagram #exbatteryhens #freerangechickens #chickensaspets #friendsnotfood #lovemychickens #happychickens #hens #bhwt #ilovechickens #ilovemychickens

I planted these wild daffodils* in the orchard years ago but they never came up and I thought they'd been eaten by squirrels or rotted. But turns out sometimes things just need a bit of rest and patience to do things on their own terms. Very 4 of Swords and Hermit of them.

Big congrats to @kinnesonlalor.bsky.social's #story Clean Sheet on @galleybeggars.bsky.social longlist. I THINK I was the 1st to read it - awe-struck, admiring & answering the question: should I read it at the conference? with MAYBE!? or no - YES. www.galleybeggar.co.uk/07-ssp-clean...

Galley Beggar's short list! 'Clean Sheet' by @kinnesonlalor.bsky.social per Sebastian Godwin: "... taut, brilliantly written... brutally honest account of the visceral pain that accompanies the loss of familiarity & the intensity, frustration, & radicalism of novelty... disconcerting & revelatory."

This book is brilliant. And will turn everything you think you know about our bodies and behaviour completely on its head. The manosphere should read it. Everyone should read it.

Love this book. Love Emma Donaghue. Such a touching exploration of young love and how it stays with us, haunts us. It is so hard to write historical fiction and make it breathe the same air we do.

I have no words. What an honour. OK, maybe I had those ^ words. And these emojis. 😱 😳 🥺 🤯

I had been really looking forward to reading this ever since @kieranc1313 told me about it in one of our 'but have you read this?' late-night pub discussions at the Claire Keegan workshop last summer and it did not disappoint.

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." -from Bluebeard’s Egg by Margaret Atwood #spring #margaretatwood #writersofinstagram #quotes #writer #writing #quoteoftheday #thoughts #quote #writerscommunity #writersofig #writingcommunity #quotestagram #inspirationalquotes

Beyond thrilled to be longlisted for the @galley_beggar_press Short Story Prize. You can read my and the other longlisted stories here: www.galleybeggar.co.uk/prize

I'm trying not to have a complete panic that we are having 15C+ days in February. But it does mean that the bees are flying the queen is laying and so early next nectar and pollen sources are really important. Crocuses, snowdrops, and hellebores are very pretty and great for bees.

I sort of knew going into it that this was not my sort of book, but so many men I knew who read it (rare fiction reading creatures that they are) loved it and I wanted to understand why. I'm still not sure I do, and maybe that's OK.

Dear March—Come in— How glad I am— I hoped for you before— Emily Dickinson #emilydickinson #dickinson #march #poetry #poetrycommunity #writersofinstagram #poem #quotes #poet #writer #poems #poetsofinstagram #writing #poetrylovers #quoteoftheday #thoughts #quote #writerscommunity #writersofig

The bad thing about @amor_coffee_co being right next to @amortraining is that one does wonder if I wouldn't need to go to the latter so much if I ate less at the former. Sharing with chickens definitely helps. 🥰 Watch to the end to see Bhaji's rockstar exit.

A short, but really delightful collection of vignettes of childhood summers spent on a Finnish island. Full of strange but wonderful characters and occurrences, this is really the story of the relationship between granddaughter and grandmother...

I cannot overstate enough how much I love this book. An astronomer falls in love with a woman who is in love with someone else and 30 years of pining and love letters ensue.

Another novel of a girl on the cusp of womanhood, this time a story of a relationship between father and daughter, that slips and slides between tenses and PoV. A slim but beautiful and powerful book. Thanks @mayatalih for the recommendation. Proleterka by Fleur Jaeggy

This was the most heart-warming read until the end when it utterly broke my heart. This was the most heart-warming read until it utterly broke my heart.

This was nothing like what I expected but so great. I have a real soft spot for books about mother-daughter relationships and queer books and this was both.

The very talented @lauramulkerne of @lauramulkernephotography snapped these of me at Wat Chedi Luang in Chiang Mai on my visit. She was only slightly horrified that instead of looking at the 14th century Buddhist temple, I took photos of orchids and birds.

Just because there's not been much chicken content lately... Me with the chickens back in the autumn 2025, trying to get kisses from Perseus and getting his tail feathers instead. My life goals are pretty much reading in my garden surrounded by chickens.

Mrs S by K. Patrick (@k_.patrick) is probably my favourite read of the year so far. It's so engrossing and very sexy and the prose is just beautiful. Not to mention how much I identified with the protagonist: an Australian out of water in a very sloshy England and in a very English school.

I've been in love with Isabel Allende ever since I read House of Spirits. In the Midst of Winter is rather different, set in the US but exploring the plight of two women from Guatemala and Chile.