Just stumbled across this view of Chepstow Castle in Google maps - the shadow cast over the River Wye is magnificent! Originally known as Castle Striguil, seat of the Lordship of Striguil, it might sound like the name of a vampire`s lair, but the word likely comes from the Welsh for a river bend.

The gulls are wheeling above the house again and we had a very brief respite from the rain

Happiness is a cwtch with your relaxed collie snoozing on your lap 🙂

Always great when a new @garethlpowell.bsky.social novel slides through the letterbox. I will be buckling up for an adventure with the Jitterbug crew shortly 🚀

NEW MUSIC FRIDAY: 'Micrographia' by Bug Teeth The PJ Johnson-led Leeds-based group's 2025 debut comes to vinyl. Expect ethereal dream pop meeting electronic production, ambient synths, distant melodic vocals, and effects heavy psych-shoegaze guitars. www.normanrecords.com/features/bes...

JUST IN! 'The Patterns Lost to Air' by Marielle V Jakobsons First solo album in a decade from the ambient-electronic composer and Date Palms, Portraits, and myrmyr member. @thrilljockey.bsky.social www.normanrecords.com/records/2129...

RELEASED TODAY: 'OTONOMA' by Midori Hirano The ambient and electroacoustic musician follows several collaborative releases with their first solo album since 2021’s ‘Soniscope’. On coloured vinyl and CD via @thrilljockey.bsky.social. www.normanrecords.com/records/2128...

Gorgeous debut album Micrographia by Bug Teeth bugteeth.bandcamp.com/album/microg..

A sneak preview, and not necessarily the final cover. But a fantastic project to work on over the last year or so. Coming soon!

Published on 03.03.2026 by @titanbooks.bsky.social. Order now from your favourite bookshop.

Have you caught a glimpse of our fabulous new volume (174) of Archaeologia Cambrensis yet? This focus of this volume is on hillfort research in Wales 🙌 Info 🤓: cambrians.org.uk/archaeologia... Join 🤝: cambrians.org.uk/join-us/

We are delighted to announce that we have awarded a record £44,500 to eight castle research projects from all parts of the UK and one from Ireland. To find out what we funded please go here: castlestudiestrust.org/blog/2026/02...

Blimey, nothing is safe these days is it! Used headphones a lot in late teens-20s, but very little after that thankfully….. Hazardous substances found in all headphones tested by ToxFREE project www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Half way through the second novel of Conn Iggulden’s trilogy following the life of Nero & I just got to the alternative end story of Caratacus. He is one of supposedly 19,000 prisoners forced to fight to the death in a huge mock sea battle on the Fucine Lake in 52 CE. He survives & wins his freedom🙂

My Introduction to Hadrian's Wall is available as an ebook and as a dead-tree booklet, but you can also indulge in a clickathon and work your way through it online ... for free! perlineamvalli.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/a...

Well that was thrilling watching the mixed skeleton race on the Winter Olympics - well done Britain another two golds 🥇🙂👏

Looks like it’s back to the grey stuff then

Enjoyed this series, lots of gentle humour in there and observations of people. Fun stop-motion critters too. Good to see there will be a second series.

New fiction reading for the month ahead. A thriller set in the 18th century Canadian sub-arctic wilderness and a gothic horror set on the west coast of Ireland. I usually get through 3 novels a month in winter but less through summer when there is more to do outside.

Making the most of the sunshine ☀️ 🙂

It sounds like the seaside round here with all of the gulls down feeding on the saturated fields

Evidence of Hannibal passing through and potentially besieging an Iberian oppida ? An elephant bone and catapult ammunition suggest so… www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

Interesting news about a new 8th c. CE manuscript known as the Maronite Chronicle of 713 found in St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, Egypt. It provides historical information about the early rise of Islam, early Arab conquests and the Byzantine-Sassanian War www.oeaw.ac.at/en/news/1300...

Moonbuilding Weekly Issue 94 is out now, starring @confluxcoldwell.bsky.social @haikusalut.bsky.social @vokagentle.bsky.social and much more! moonbuilding.substack.com/p/issue-95-1...

Well that was a weird one

About 4600 years ago, the population of Britain was replaced by a people who brought Bell Beaker pottery with them. Now, ancient DNA has uncovered the murky story of where these people came from

Very pleased to share #OpenAccess paper, which we think is important to understand woodland bird declines and impact of forestry on native ancient woodland in Britain. nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #ornithology @ukceh.bsky.social @rspb.bsky.social @mizpas.bsky.social 🧵1/n

Blimey, just watched the Hamnet film and it’s a real tear jerker isn’t it 🥲 Need to sort myself out with a coffee, too much grief.

I'm very excited about this beautiful new book, to be launched in February! Thank you @blackcatpress.bsky.social and my collaborator @richardnskinner.bsky.social (whose bright idea this was in the first place).

JUST IN! 'Spacehop Chronicles 2' by Bluetech Laika-themed ambient-electronic concept work which plays like a single track, split into ten seamlessly flowing tunes. www.normanrecords.com/records/2114...

Excellent album, as is anything produced by Portland Vows 👇

“Lichens of Britain & Ireland” by Rebecca Yahr and Frances Stoakley is finally available for purchase. This has been a much needed ID guide for beginners to intermediates and the publication is finally here!! www.bloomsbury.com/uk/lichens-o... #bloomsbury #lichens

Our #Bookofthemonth for January: Lichens of Britain and Ireland: An Introductory Guide by Frances Stoakley and Dr Rebecca Yahr. Filling a desired niche, it's a really useable and accessible guide for beginners and a faithful field guide for all! www.summerfieldbooks.com/product/lich...

Just a little taster of our January newsletter! Read more: tr.ee/5ZzBoji4ea Sign up for future newsletters: tr.ee/QH4U0c8BJx @pelagic.bsky.social @oxfordunipress.bsky.social @speciesrecovery.bsky.social

Reed Bunting watching me on the canal before sundown

Nice out the back

Probably our most played CD over the last 16 years. Bluetech’s 2010 Love Songs to the Source album. A hugely collaborative album blending languorous dub/reggae rhythms, electronics, superb guest vocals, trumpet, saxophone and more. One of the greatest albums to chill out with & great on the road too

Good to have a bit more of the Game of Thrones world on the screen. I read the hedge knight stories back in 2014.

Enjoying a read of the Winchelsea novel by Alex Preston. A really pacy swashbuckler set on the south coast around Winchelsea and Rye in the 1740’s.

On what would have been Gills birthday happy memories of 30 years exploring together. Missing you always 💔

It’s so wet in the fields around us that it’s attracting Little Egrets down to feed on the worms surfacing due to the saturated soil. Nice to be able to watch them from the house 🙂

Great to receive the companion volume to the earlier Hadrian’s Wall in our time book. As someone who has walked, driven and even excavated along the wall on many occasions you do get attached to the superb archaeology and surrounding landscape here and you certainly notice the trees along the way.

Update on our archaeological excavations on St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall and the first direct evidence linking the island to the Bronze Age tin trade. www.cambridge.org/core/blog/20...

I have never read a novel set in the Black Country before but found this one in a review. Set around the Pelsall & Brownhills collieries & canals in the 1870’s. It uses the Black Country dialect in conversations which you pick up after a while. A good read and beautifully evocative writing.

Help Save the House that Rose Re-Built www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-save-...

All that quality topsoil washing off the fields into the canal as a brown silt. The farmer ploughs right up to the edge of the canal here so anything that goes onto the field surface (cow slurry, fertiliser, sprayed treatments) also washes into the canal.

I’m glad to be a contributor to this, and it is indeed a lovely book!

Donation page to help secure the Ellastone Bronze Age gold fastener for The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Staffordshire and prevent it being bought by a private collector….. www.stokemuseums.org.uk/pmag/help-sa...

I always check out which species of Gulls have landed in the fields around us. Most people don’t give them a second look & they just get dismissed as generic ‘seagulls’, but I like to know what is passing through. In this case about 100 Lesser black-backed & some smaller juvenile Black-headed Gulls

This solitary Cyclamen is always the first ground colour along the canal, well ahead of the carpet of Primroses lining the towpath this year