Abby
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yabbya.bsky.social
Abby
@yabbya.bsky.social
110 followers 190 following 95 posts
Loitering with good intent in Aotearoa NZ. I like big books and I cannot lie (actually, any kind is fine). I say very little here. Pics are mine & not AI. Hope you're well.
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yabbya.bsky.social
#SecretSantaAoNZ Calling all Santas, secret or otherwise: Blackwell's DO send w/ free shipping, lickety-split! And in AoNZ, Unity send The Cat Operator's Manual with similar urgency. Delighted! Thanks @QueenOliviaiii.com and @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social and also Tom's Mum for the wonderful linocuts.
A brilliant qeek for parcels. The image shows Tom Cox's book Everything will Swallow You (and it's signed!) which Blackwell's shipped for free to NZ, and Queen Olivia III's Cat Operator's Manual, along with some very cute cat linocuts made by Tom's clever mum. An orange cat called Morrie, who isn't supposed to be on that mantlepiece at all, imitates Tom's Mum's linocut (linocat?).
November 27, 2025 at 5:38 AM
yabbya.bsky.social
Santa, remember when I was 3 or 4 & Mum made me dictate a wishlist, & I sounded like a small, materialistic psychopath? Well, thanks for that carpentry set. Soz for so few hints recently. Wd still go a Machine Man. (See alt text for historic List of Demands.) #SecretSantaAoNZ #NotapsychopathIpromise
A picture of a note that reads "Dear Santa, Could I please have a carpentry set, and a Mr Fruity and a Machine Man. I do not know if they will all fit in my father's sock. I will think what else I do want by the way. If they all don't just fit in the sock, you may put some in the beanbag or the wardrobe. Love, Abby ...PTO... ...Don't forget the magnet that you will find at Gourley's and the shovel and the goggles." Like, I don't know what I was planning, but it sounds sinister and my brother should have been very worried.
November 24, 2025 at 6:59 AM
yabbya.bsky.social
Yes. All. Esp birds (assorted), frogs, reptiles, lesser-known mammals, elephants. BEES!. Dogs, obvs. Favourite mythical creatures: my cats who don't need a bikkie top-up (this version of them doesn't exist). Or any Muppet esp Sam or Rolf, if they count. (Oh & The Count too, I guess.) SecretSantaAoNZ
witchnwords.bsky.social ☽✮..Jaide Dee ..✮☾ @witchnwords.bsky.social · 5d
A new question for #SecretSantaAoNZ
Are you a cat or dog person? Pandas? Hippos? Dolphins?Dragons? Chimera? Nessie?
Getting to Know ya What is your favourite animal? Favourite mystical creature? #SecretSantaAoNZ Red background with pohutukawa like holly across the top of the square. Text in white. Across the bottom are 6 cartoon versions of the Secret Santa team and the hashtag @SecretSantaAoNZ
November 24, 2025 at 5:47 AM
yabbya.bsky.social
He does! It's on my list of faves along with usual suspects (Bowie, Young, Nina Simone, Beatles, Radiohead, PJ Harvey, Cave et al) + Dunedin Sound, Low, Feist, Mark Lanegan, From Scratch, lately Khruangbin...too many to mention. Soz to be a tragic but love this:
mikekay.bandcamp.com/album/waimarie
November 22, 2025 at 2:41 AM
yabbya.bsky.social
Not saying I was avoidant of organised activities (before Secret Santa), but this was my approach to piano practise as a kid.
November 21, 2025 at 6:50 AM
yabbya.bsky.social
There are worse things, on a grey Dunedin day, than buying NZ music for a library while listening to Shayne P Carter / Dimmer. Far farrrr worse things. dimmer-new-zealand.bandcamp.com/album/live-a...
Live At The Hollywood, by Dimmer
14 track album
dimmer-new-zealand.bandcamp.com
November 21, 2025 at 2:53 AM
yabbya.bsky.social
#SecretSantaAoNZ Jewellery: I only wear a silver ring and a glass pendant, and have no piercings. Clothes: women's small (eg UK 5.5 feet). I wear (opshop) t-shirts and like wool (incl on my small noggin). Back to books: love non-fiction (history, science, language) as well as funny/quirky.
A silver ring, and a glass pendant depicting sun rays, mountains and a body of water.
November 20, 2025 at 11:47 PM
yabbya.bsky.social
#SecretSantaAoNZ Dear Santa: no stress, anything will be great. I like snacks (must avoid the Tyranny of Gluten, but like everything else), love 2nd hand or vintage, funny books (Douglas Adams, Tom Robbins sorta styles), things with birds or trees on them, or donate to a charity - all good.
This is normal. (Max the long haired dryland water kitty in his happy place: lying on his back on the lawn, in company.) This is normal. (Morrie the shorthaired rabbit kitty sits in a grocery bag. Of course, he also like to hide in boxes. Santa, I don't need any more cats, thanks.)
November 19, 2025 at 6:41 PM
yabbya.bsky.social
Colours? Working towards wearing less Ōtepoti black (but hate clothes shopping. Opshopping, can do). House is getting more orange/yellow/red these days. My brain...I struggle with the concept of 'favourites'. But ok blue.
I love the blues in this very much, I love this painting very much, and I loved my granny, who made it, very much, too. (Full credit to her: Elizabeth Stevens. She made things like that AND the best after-school sandwiches you can imagine.)
November 19, 2025 at 8:34 AM
yabbya.bsky.social
I play music, garden (ok, I weed the garden to make space for new weeds, & just vacuumed whitefly off a houseplant). I cycle, potter, collect dust, stones, and (shamefully, but getting there) unread library books. I dabble in printing & love local, handmade art, esp nature-based. #SecretSantaAoNZ
An etching plate made by my grandmother, of a gullied, rolling, or folding-into-itself Otago landscape.
November 19, 2025 at 7:59 AM
yabbya.bsky.social
Am unfashionably (as ever) late to the #SecretSantaAoNZ party: please brace for incoming me-spam. I work in a library so yes, I have cats and like tea (and coffee...and am not afraid to have 3 beverages on the go, 2 of which will get cold and be consumed hours later).
Pets: Max and Morrie, brothers. No malice in either, although Morrie can be cheeky and has a whiteboard in the basement with physics equations on it. I'm afraid to ask. Normal librarian stuff. (A woman in motorcycle gear with a red cat on her back. We don't really go for rides like this but only because we haven't yet found the right goggles for Max.)
November 19, 2025 at 6:45 AM
Reposted by Abby
reforest-kelley.bsky.social
Happy birthday, Mr. Vonnegut
A sticker with an illustration of Kurt Vonnegut holding a cigarette. There is text around him in an arch styled after the original cover of Slaughterhouse 5. It says "We are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different," punctuated by Vonnegut's drawing of an anus.
November 11, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Reposted by Abby
dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social
What I want is a TV documentary channel entirely devoted to documentaries with no quick-cut montages of everything about to happen, which don't give a fuck about keeping my attention, presented by extremely knowledgeable people in a terrible mood who have no interest in trying to make me like them.
November 9, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Reposted by Abby
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
#Onthisday in 1918, just days before end of #WW1, French poet Apollinaire (weakened by a shrapnel wound) died in the Spanish flu epidemic. Later that year Calligrammes: Poems of Peace & War was published, a collection of his concrete/visual poems publicdomainreview.org/collection/a... #OTD
November 9, 2025 at 12:46 PM
yabbya.bsky.social
Post you from a different era.

Here I'm four and about to enter my miserable phase of actively avoiding having my photo taken. Forty something years later, I still dress like this but need to get back into stripes.
A little kid with a satchel and stripey hoodie sits in tussock on a sunny day Central Otago day in the early '80s, all smiles.
November 8, 2025 at 3:42 AM
Reposted by Abby
oaaustralasia.bsky.social
🗞️ October Newsletter
Includes:
💻 OA Week webinars (recordings now available)
📰 Recent regional updates
🆕 What’s new in OA & scholarly publishing globally
🗓️ Upcoming events and conferences
🎙️ What we're reading, watching and listening too
... and all things #OpenAccess
mailchi.mp/19cdcfa9bca1...
📢 Latest OA news from Open Access Australasia
mailchi.mp
November 6, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Reposted by Abby
dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social
www.tom-cox.com/the-magic-ro...
THE MAGIC ROOM
Subscribe now I'm reposting this piece I wrote a little while ago about my mum and dad's art, which some you might have seen, but many of you won't, since I also wanted to let you know about a few bi...
www.tom-cox.com
November 6, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Reposted by Abby
paullecomtephoto.nz
A bit about each month: Feb Tawharekiri Lakes, Haast Highway, South Westland.

This ancient sand dune landscape is pure West Coast rainforest lagoon. The area receives 4300mm / 169in of rain a year.

Stunning but a nightmare to find a composition in. I made friends with a Kea bird (I speak bird)
The Feb page from my 2026 Calendar: A lagoon in a coastal rainforest A lagoon in a coastal rainforest with trees, black water from nutrient rich leaching & raindrops on the water.
November 6, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Reposted by Abby
dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social
I have two - TWO - of these gorgeous original A4 meadow hare linoprints by my mum, Jo, to give away to a couple of lucky people here on Bluesky today.

Rules are simple: to be in with a chance to win, you just have to repost this piece I wrote about Jo and her art: www.tom-cox.com/the-magic-ro...
A somewhat psychedelic linocut of a hare
November 5, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Abby
mooseallain.bsky.social
Speak up, mate

www.worldofmoose.com/collections/...
Cartoon of two horses standing in a field. A man is smiling to himself as he walks away from them. One horse says to the other "What did he say?" and the other replies "No idea". Caption: The Horse Whisperer
November 3, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Reposted by Abby
mooseallain.bsky.social
My wife said what’s the date today and I said, Remember, remember….it’s the 8th of July, because I wrote this joke a few months ago.
November 5, 2025 at 6:19 PM
yabbya.bsky.social
Nephew's (10) 1 min minimalist epic on the futility of war (well, that's what I see in it, anyway)...Not much audio but sound up is funny: youtu.be/makN7HjpN3U?...
Plastic army war (part 1)
YouTube video by Igotbored
youtu.be
November 6, 2025 at 7:57 AM
yabbya.bsky.social
Darkly hilarious. youtu.be/hgVbo7d9_Hc?...
Meet blu tack man
YouTube video by Igotbored
youtu.be
November 5, 2025 at 9:36 PM
yabbya.bsky.social
My nephew (10) has started making stop-animation and other vids and I'm a proud aunty. Kids these days (rule). youtube.com/shorts/Zn2Vg...
#memes 😰😰😨😨🫣🫣
YouTube video by Igotbored
youtube.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Reposted by Abby
thewritertype.bsky.social
A human face can be hideous, but nothing is as scary as facelessness. It’s the same with pumpkins. That’s why I’m displaying a totally intact pumpkin in my window to terrify the kids. No, you’re lazy.
October 29, 2025 at 6:25 PM