Ok WTF is going on today, I haven’t had any spam calls in weeks/months, but I’ve had four already from four different numbers…why?? Why the coordinated attack on my mobile this particular Tuesday?!?

Okay I’m starting to think this year might turn out okay. My missing kombucha crates (one lot anyway – don’t ask…) has been found by a lovely local man and brought to my door! So I now have plenty of fruity CBD kombucha to get me through the final phase of the PhD. Fuck yeah, let’s go 2026 🤘

It’s a new year, and time for a new game of “Will I Give Myself Food Poisoning: Homemade Kimchi Edition!” After the success of last autumn’s edible mushroom foraging, decided to find some new and exciting ways to (possibly) destroy my gastrointestinal system. It smells incredible, but I’m scared 😹

And we’re done. I hope…I had to send the thesis PDF as a google drive link coz it was too big to email direct, but it should be fine….?? I’m off for a windy walk, hopefully at some point my left eye will stop twitching and I can recover from this frantic final fortnight of thesis-writing!

Oh thank fuck. I have permission to hand in my thesis on Thursday instead of the actual deadline, today. This extra day or two is going to make all the difference. Fingers crossed this storm doesn’t knock out the power though else I’m proper screwed!!

Hmm. Thesis is due tomorrow, and I feel a bit shit today. This is not great.

Praying that the full British Library manuscripts catalogue is back up tomorrow, so I can at least find information about all the MSS I’ve been writing about in this thesis. I just need some provenance info guys! Just let me know some dates!

Fukujyu Friday! So I kicked off today really well, did some high-brain work adding some paragraphs to my Introduction and fixed a few footnotes. Now I’ve crashed a bit, so time for another cup of Fukujyu Sencha tea and some low-brain work on the bibliography before I give up for the day…

Thursday is another Ti Kuan Yin day In brain-fail news, I just realised that the Descriptio Mappe Mundi and the Expositio Mappe Mundi are two different texts. I don’t have a “real” edition of the EMM that I can cite properly, and now it’s too late. How did this happen?! I really hate my brain 😹

It’s Wednesday, so today’s tea is Lung Ching Dragonwell, which is particularly delicious. Had a zoom call w/my supervisor, who said there’s “nothing atrocious” (lol!!) he could see in my thesis, so I should crack on with polishing and finishing it. Went for a micro walk in the sun. All is well.

Love how my version of Word just occasionally randomly decides that important documents can’t be accessed right now. Yeh reckon you must have deleted it mate, it says. Can’t find it anywhere. So I have to find them in my email outbox and re-download to read. Great use of my dwindling time.

Today we are fixing some of the problems I found in the Maps chapter yesterday, and we are now exactly a week out from the thesis resubmission date. Fuck. It is Tuesday, so today’s tasty tea is Ti Kuan Yin Oolong.

Probably too late for me to move away from medieval history to mycology proper, but I'm def gonna be trying to influence my niece and nephew to study fungi when they grow up... Fucking fascinating things, fungi...hope for the future! #MushroomMonday #mycology www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Just over a week until my thesis resubmission deadline, and I’m back on the massive maps chapter edits. Turns out that in the big restructuring, I skipped over f.119 of the Getty miscellany, which is why a big chunk doesn’t make sense! Anyway, here’s today’s tea, Genmai Cha aka popcorn tea

My sister is currently editing my bibliography from Brisbane, and I threw some notes in the document for extra texts to add in. But they were more “notes to self” than actual useful biblio info… She managed to identify the “world map, 1400-thingy” because I put the author in (Evelyn Edson, obvs)

Was absolutely convinced it was Wednesday when I woke up this morning, no idea why. Apologies to my cat, who should not have had her meds today because she had them yesterday. (Partly writing this to remind me not to give her meds on her usual day tomorrow as well!!)

Orangina was Very Brave last night as various people nearby decided to let off ALL their fireworks over several hours. She only hid under the bed for a little bit, after trying to sleep through the noise on the windowsill. She even ate some snacks and had some playtime whilst the bangs went off!

I actually had quite a productive day today, added lots of relevant info and references to the maps chapter. I’m crediting this breakthrough to these skeets about my brain’s obsession with Puppet Band Planning, and which by externalising it managed to get it out of my head (a bit, enough anyway :)

Me: okay, we only have a month to finish the thesis, we’re apparently binning an entire chapter, have tonnes of work to do and really need to fully focus on writing and editing, can we crack on please? My brain: okay so here’s how I think we could make a puppet band performance work on stage…

My blog post with the ADAM network has now been published. It's about precarity, the future of small subjects, and communal approaches to academic work. I hope it will resonate with some. #IchBinHanna #KleineFaecher #SkandiRetten difficultmedieval.com/2025/10/23/h...

Anywho, as usual, everything is awful but there are cute stripy Scottish Wildcat kittens thriving in the wild, and you can see a short video of them here: www.wildcathaven.com/news/eve-and...

Okay, I’m starting to get really sick of writing this thesis. 8 years into the PhD, c.10 years since I came up with the topic, and with only a few weeks until I resubmit my massively revised version, and it feels like I’ve hit a huge wall. I can’t possibly give up at this point, but it’s tempting…

It did, in fact, topple over again.

Yeh I can think of a few options, but they might get you fired...

Okay so this is on me for not realising I was using the 'library books search' bar when I was trying to find out the library address for me to post a late book back to, but this single result had me in absolute hysterics, top tier trolling from the library!!

Another early wake up call from my rascal cat today. No mice involved, just her yelling in the hall at 5am. When she does this it seems she’s had a nightmare or scary garden encounter and needs me to tell her she’s safe. I miaow back, give her a cuddle and fall asleep again. The light stays off.

Three guesses who brought a mouse into the house c.11pm, lost it in the kitchen, then tracked it down at 4am and woke me up with the unmistakable scuffling sounds of a cat chasing a mouse on laminate flooring. Today’s Gladiator Mouse was incredibly lively, and lives to fight another day.

My spellchecker is having a crisis in my footnote, and is trying to spellcheck in Italian, I think?? That’s kinda funny, but also WTF and why and please stop, I don’t have time for you being belligerently bilingual today

Don Leisure killed my iPod 😹 Bought his WMP-winning album, put it on my iPod and listened during my usual walk in the meadows. Last track ended with Dafydd Iwan and then…nothing. Screen black. Tried to charge it when I got home, no luck, still Very Off. We’ll see if it EVER turns on again…

#Medievalsky At some point I remember having a handlist of early English / general European medical manuscripts and editions - but I cannot remember for the life of me if I found it somewhere or compiled it myself. (It was c.2022 - so my memory is a bit vague due to PhD stress) Any ideas? #medicine

I had my first contact with Pretty for ages yesterday, the first time in years! We’ve been friends for a while (she’s on my usual daily walk route) but she’s been a bit scared to come out to see me. Had to trespass a bit to stroke her, but totally worth it. Lovely puss. @thecatreviewer.bsky.social

Can’t entirely believe that Adwaith didn’t win with Solas this year, but huge congrats to Don Leisure! That album sounds right up my street so will be buying and listening soon :)

SFA OK!! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Another fun thing for post-PhD life lined up, can’t wait to see them again, back where I saw them play the very first time a lifetime ago 😺

Cooked a few of these various foraged mushrooms up with a tonne of garlic last night, made a delicious meal and didn’t die! I was pretty sure they were all fully fine to eat, but I nearly never pick and eat edible mushrooms so this was a bit out of my comfort zone. Will do it all again tonight…

Quite enjoyed the bodge-fix garden task with my dad yesterday that involved the weirdest list of tools and materials: A bucket A spade A small bowsaw A pair of pliers A short length of wire Two kettles full of hot water A granite paving slab A large wooden beam/plank And one small piece of slate!

If you’ve got a bit of cash you can spare for a good cause, SUN food bank could really use some help. Seems I’m currently one of only two donors so far, which is worryingly low engagement, so boosting in case anyone else can help out.

Yes so everything IS awful, but there are Scottish wildcat families thriving in the wild so life on this planet isn’t all bad… Short video featuring a mother wildcat and two kittens from last month 😻 www.wildcathaven.com/news/and-the...

Welp. Great start from Cymru, then a disastrous final 30min of the half. Can’t come back from this, so looks like our World Cup will be done in the group stage. I mean, I have tonnes of work to do so it’s kinda good I won’t be as engaged with the rest of the tournament, but it’s still shit 😿

Interrupting my work to stop for (late) lunch so I can line my stomach so I can take the second of my thrice-daily antibiotics 👍 A ten-day course is really going to test my patience…the twice-daily MS meds are tough enough, adding a third meds-stop each day is 😩

I haven’t had a professional haircut for twenty-three years now. 23!! If you know me IRL you may say “yes, we can tell!”, but honestly I’ve saved so much money and time. No-one knows how to deal with my weird, super-fine hair anyway. It won’t do what you want, so I just tie it in plaits and go.

Perfectly innocent little cat. No crimes here. Just a snoozy little kitty on my bed, being perfect and pretty. No don’t look at the alt-text, no you don’t need to read the alt-text, there’s no crimes against birds documented in there. (CW bird stress, but not bird death. Happy ending alt-text)

Alright then, so what novel health problem can I come down with to ruin another attempt at finishing my goddamn PhD? **Spins the Wheel** A Breast Infection!! Amazing, what are the chances, how does that even happen?? Like seriously, WTF is happening here…

Found a vole on the road didn’t I. Possibly a youngster? Squeaky lil boi he was, he seemed okay and ran off fairly energetically after a quick pause to recover from being (very gently) manhandled by a giant. Dunno why he was just crouched by the road, hope he finds his way home okay. #SqueakyBoi

Guess what I’m working on today… #MedievalSky #RoseWindow #ThatsNotScorpioThatsCancer #YesItDoesLookMoreLikeALobsterThanACrabButCloseEnoughYeh

Guess who brought a Very Lively Mouse inside at 5am, repeatedly dropping and losing it, in various rooms of the house?? I’m a bit out of practice with Mouse Gladiators, but eventually managed to construct a sort of barrier system that sent it safely out the front door. Well played, contender mouse.

2,300 words in a word document. Tried to save it, prompted the Endless Spinning Rainbow Wheel of Death and a completely unresponsive MS Word. Will force quitting lose me the entire document, the first bit of Actual Work™️ I’ve managed to do in ages?? Tune in to find out!!

Read some parts of this new book today. Loads of interesting stuff so far, and I have another cameo in a medieval maps book bibliography! But I’m gonna have to email Asa and ask wtf is going on with the Psalter Map monstrous men he’s listed. Coz they’re not my VM ones, and I don’t understand why…

Alright kids, have almost finished the slides for my paper tomorrow. Do come along if you want to hear me excitedly chat crap about monstrous men, again, with lots of pictures! Session #1227, Political Exegesis c.1100-1300 Parkinson B.10, 14:15 slot #IMC2025 #MonstrousMen #WhatAgain #YesStillOnIt