Delighted to let you know I’ll be at the excellent Left For Dead bookshop in Shrewsbury with the brilliant Sasha Butler on Sunday 19th October at 4pm. We’ll be chatting about writing novels and getting published. Please join us ☺️ @saltpublishing.com

I had Wenlock Priory all to myself for an hour. The fog had just lifted as I got there adding to the quiet solitude of the ruins of the church, chapter house, cloister & adjacent infirmary . Rare lavabo washing basin in the cloister garden & fab 12th c. carved stone detail in the chapter house 🤩

Timeline cleanser 🐈

Book Cover of the Day:

Morning Bluesky. Musk’s name appears in a new release of Epstein files.

Lychee has to be one of my favourite fruits. It's interesting that the fruits we grew up eating as toddlers still have such a profound impact on our taste buds, even now.

Today I joined Market Drayton Councillor Jeremy Blandford for a look around the annual Ginger and Spice festival. Another great festival, this year featuring a parade in the afternoon. Of course I’ve come home with some Belton cheese and Billington’s gingerbread too!

Took some nuns mudlarking, then watched as they wandered around, hands filled with vertebrae and shards of bone, showing people their finds. I'm a good influence.

Morville Church, Shropshire - some lovely bits of late Norman architecture in here including a 12th c. door with wrought iron fittings, the font I posted yesterday and some medieval stained glass - more pics 👇

#Caturday erupted with a massive fight between two of our cats. Yes, there is at least one war wound. Thankfully we're very used to dealing with animal war wounds in this household, and have a small animal Vet as a friend we can call upon. Wound cleaned and treated. Cone of shame on standby. 🙄🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

1/ How’s this for a view - sunrise from the summit of the Wrekin, with a sea of mist stretching as far as the eye can see. If you look carefully you can pick out the church at Wrockwardine in the foreground, with its tower glowing a warm red in the early-morning sunshine. #Shropshire

NI Numbers don't stop illegal working Passports don't stop illegal working Residence cards don't stop illegal working Driving Licenses don't stop illegal working Bank statements don't stop illegal working its almost as if you can't stop illegal working

#FridayThoughts ~ Gaia is looking towards the village gates possibly wondering if there will be chicken today 😸 #inthecompanyofcats #villagecats #seniorcats #happycats #cat #cats

Option 1: Stop selling arms to a genocidal regime, impose sanctions, and empower Palestinian self-rule. Option 2: Wheel out Tony (we can't believe we're writing this) Blair to govern the Gaza strip. Which one will the government go for do you think?

Any MPs can view this dossier *right now* Email your MP using our template letter here: docs.google.com/document/d/1... Please share this post far and wide, and encourage others to do the same. Thank you for all your help. Together, let’s get writing! /2

Here's the press release for digital ID and it is quite the shopping list of features. My first concern here is for the team who need to deliver quickly against the mix of a general purpose "do everything" app and a fairly specific set of features set out here www.gov.uk/government/n...

Well, this is a hot mess of dog whistles and utter nonsense. For a speech claiming to tackle "toxic" and "poisonous" rhetoric Starmer leans heavily into pandering to the usual misinformation about migrants and portraying anti-immigration ideals as "patriotic" www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09...

Five cases of bluetongue identified in county #Shropshire 🔗: https://www.bbc.com/news/arti...

I'm sure there's someone in No.10 somewhere who is absolutely chuffed with getting the piece in the Telegraph, partying like it's 1998. They're not even fighting the last war. They're fighting the war before that.

Or at least I think that's what it says. Obviously I can't read it. If you are going to announce something like ID cards, perhaps you could at least do it somewhere people can read it?

Yep, that's great. Just fantastic. We were told that Starmer would lay out the patriotic case for diversity today. What we got was an article in the Telegraph, behind a paywall, about how the left failed to tackle immigration and now we all have to have ID cards www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09...

I wonder if those humans required a 'Brit card?!'

The government wants to bring back private finance in our NHS. 🤬 This would harm patients by siphoning off hundreds of millions of pounds in profits from our NHS. 🤑 Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting, you can still drop these disastrous and unpopular plans. Share if you agree.

Migrants are being scapegoated. It is a distraction from the real problems people are facing: homelessness, hunger and discrimination. Poverty is a political choice, founded in inequality. Instead of anti-migrant hate and blame, we need real action.

If we're going to reheat Blair-era policies, can we please focus on lifting children out of poverty? Instead of this divisive, authoritarian nonsense.

A glorious, gnarled old Hawthorn on Titterstone Clee, supporting various lichens, Misteltoe and a couple of old Crows' nests. #Shropshire

Hey Bluepals! More #buyastrangerabook day fun! @humanaqvi.bsky.social is offering to buy one lucky person the book of their choice, up to £15. ANY BOOK, not just the stuff on my dreamy website. So, if there's something you'd like, get in touch! UK only.

I’ve written to Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper demanding urgent action to ensure the safety of the Global Sumud Flotilla. 52 boats carrying aid and peace activists to Gaza. The UK must act to assure their safety. Israel is committing a genocide. All eyes are on this flotilla.

The British media will have to reckon with how it reports Trump (and indeed, Farage) in the coming months. Giving false claims endless airtime will not work. Nor will clickbait “is Tylenol linked to autism?” headlines. There is a way to hold account without publicising him. We’ve not found it yet.

I'm Polish and I've eaten carp. But it was brought over from Poland, because literally noone would eat fish caught in shit-filled, filthy UK rivers. I've never heard of a culture that eats swans, so he needs to provide proof. Without proof, it never happened and is a lie.

No shit, Sherlock.

In support of my trans family and friends. I refer to my pinned post. Trans people are more likely to be victims themselves than perpetrators. Sending love and hugs to you all. 🏳️‍⚧️❤️🫂❤️🏳️‍⚧️

Interesting thread. Christina is quite right about the MHRA, which is in law simply an agency of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with no separate legal personality.

Penned by known anti-trans writer Jesse Singal, who wilfully and deliberately misinterpreted the results of the quoted study. Fuck. Off.

This is NOT just america. This is happening here. Local coverage of it, if you can bear the pop up ads.... www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/2548259... #UKKidlit #Edusky

A story in three diary entries...

Good ❄️⛅️ morning #Shrewsbury ⚡️📦🚲 #ActiveTravel #Commute

The 3,000-year-old gold Shropshire sun pendant was dicovered in 2018. Crafted with incredible skill and decorated with intricate geometric patterns, it symbolizes the importance of the sun in Bronze Age society. As scientific analysis has indicated, the pendant...🧵1/2 📷 me #archaeology 🏺

Morning The Bluesky. Sorry, false alarm. It's actually The Raptor, not The Rapture. Bit of crossed wires cock up there. Still, be careful with the giant birds of prey out there this morning.

West Mercia Police are taking part in ‘Operation Spotlight,’ a national campaign aimed at tackling dangerous driving and improving road safety across Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

All the bits from this afternoon. Pleased with all of them, but quite happy to find a coin with a new mint to me. Medieval silver cut Farthing of Henry III. Minted by Lorenz of Shrewsbury 🤗

When the Rapture fails to materialise, they'll blame each other ... and outside forces ... and keep insisting that the prophecy was right all along, but other people's failure to believe delayed it. If you've lived through Brexit over the last nine years, then you'll know the score.

It's a bit like waiting for a transport for Wales train to Machynlleth from Shrewsbury.

The Shrewsbury Railway Heritage Trust is hosting a special two-day exhibition to commemorate the 110th anniversary of Sentinel Waggon Works, a renowned engineering firm once located in the town.

#GivingTuesday ~ Morris is so happy that he has lots of sponsors & everyone knows how handsome he is. There are various #sponsorshippackages For more info contact Sam [email protected] or shropshirecatrescue.org.uk/sponsor-a-cat #inthecompanyofcats #freerangers #cat

Fact: Refugees are teachers, gamers, parents, students, artists and dreamers. Just like you. What sets refugees apart from most people in the UK is being forced to leave home in search of safety. #MythVsFact #WithRefugees

I am going to watch carefully as we see the (rightful) pushback against the grift from the US linking paracetamol to autism. I am watching to see how many of the arseholes who accepted the equally shady grift of Hillary Cass are now awake to 'scientific evidence' It's all from the same playbook

A month ago, the famine in Gaza, deliberately created by the Israeli government, was officially confirmed by UN agencies. Since then, there has been an eerie silence in the media here, with far fewer reports than there were before. But it hasn't ended. On the contrary, it has intensified.