Gwenllian Saer
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gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Gwenllian Saer
@gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
17 followers 49 following 19 posts
Focussed on: Libraries / Steampunk / Gothic / Recording and transcribing cemeteries / Hopepunk novels / History / Bibliographies / Family history
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gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Painted image captioned "I am a bookaholic and I regret nothing". Depicts front view of a person from approximately knees upwards, with light skin tone, wearing red top with three-quarter length sleeves, and yellow wide and long skirt with widely-spaced small brown dots. She has mid to long brown hair held in a tie on her right. The person is carrying a stack of books held in their arms at waist level. The stack of books extends upwards to their forehead, obscuring their face completely. The books have a variety of coloured spines facing the viewer, except for one which is reversed and shows its fore-edge. No words are depicted on the books. The person stands against a plain buff coloured background.
May 25, 2025 at 12:07 AM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/rigg...
rigg.lgbt 🦇🤘 Jennie Rigg 🔶️🏳️‍🌈 @rigg.lgbt · May 4
I'm here to tell you that there is NO more attractive man than a fella who has adorable puppyish enthusiasm for his autistic special interests when clothed and is a demonic depraved kinkster when not clothed, and who absolutely worships YOU whatever his state of dress
Post by cutestgoth on threads reads: “Dudes always want a goth gf but put zero effort into their Gomez game”
May 4, 2025 at 9:10 PM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Photo showing a cemetery memorial laid flat in grass, at the conclusion of removing encroaching turf to reveal the inscription and carved decoration which was previously completely obscured. The grey-brown stone memorial is rectangular with an arched top (on the left in photo) and is set within long, tussocky bright green grass. The upper two thirds of the memorial comprise a sunk panel within a border. Most of the suck panel is occupied by the inscription but there is some loss to the lettering due to the surface of the stone having spalled. At the top (left in photo) is a small blank shield set within carved foliage. At the bottom (right in photo) is the blank lower third of the memorial which originally was set into the ground; this part is rougher and has dark green moss adhering to the surface in places. On the grass around the memorial are: a garden kneeling pad in a plastic bag (to keep it dry), a pair of stout grey gardening gloves with green palms and red cuffs, a large scrubbing brush with a brown wood handle, and a worn hand brush with a brown wood handle. The edge of a battered black plastic bucket is just with the photo at the lower left. This is conclusion of cutting and removing encroaching turf and then brushing loose earth and vegetation from the memorial, using the stiff scrubbing brush to remove earth and moss from the incised inscription, and the hand brush to sweep all the debris to an edge of the stone from where they can be lifted into a bucket using the garden trowel. The memorial is now fully visible, enabling transcription and surveying. Rate of progress will depend on how thick and coarse the turf is: I can clean two to three dozen memorials in a six to seven hour period if the turf is thick and coarse, as in these photos. I transcribe and survey in two separate subsequent visits. If the turf is very thick and coarse, it can be necessary to use a border spade to cut around edges of memorials.
May 3, 2025 at 12:54 PM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Photo chowing encroaching turf being peeled back from the edges of a cemetery memorial laid flat in grass. The corners of the grey-brown stone memorial have been marked by steel pins painted red with loop tops painted yellow. The turf can be peeled back like a piece of carpet after a serrated knife has been used to cut along the edges of the memorial, using the pins as a guide. The result shown in the image is a square edged flat stone set within coarse tussocky bright green grass, with the rolled back turf looking yellowy-brown on its underside. On top of the memorial are a large coarse scrubbing brush with a brown wood handle, a very worn coarse hand brush with a wood handle, and a coarsely serrated kitchen knife with a brown wood handle. In the left foreground is a curved garden trowel with a grey blade and a black plastic handle, with its blade partly inserted beneath the rolled-back turf. There is no inscription visible on the portion of memorial exposed because this is the bottom of the memorial. Gently curved striations can be seen in the surface of the stone: these are an artefact of of a rotating stone saw having been used to cut the stone blank from which memorial was carved - these marks were allowed to remain on the lower part of the memorial which was inserted into the ground. Rolling back turf to expose an otherwise unreadable memorial can be very satisfying!
May 3, 2025 at 12:36 PM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Photo showing cleaning encroaching turf from the edges of cemetery memorials laid flat in grass. In the foreground is a grey-brown stone memorial mostly obscured by grass and moss, with a gardening kneeling pad in a plastic bag on top of it. One edge of the memorial, in the centre of the image, has had the turf trimmed using a coarsely serrated old kitchen knife with a brown wooden handle, assisted by use of curved gardening trowel with a grey blads and a black plastic handle, both of which are laid on the memorial. A pair of stout dirty gardening gloves are on the right; they are grey with green insets on the palms, and red cuffs. At each end of the cut line of turf is a long steel peg with a loop-top, panted red on their straight sections, and yellow on their tops (to make them easier to see / more difficult to lose in the grass). These pegs are used to probe through the turf to locate the edges of the memorial: they provide a guide for where to cut the turf, using the serrated in a vertical sawing motion. The gardening trowel is then pushed beneath the cut turf and used to lever it off the memorial. In the background is a battered black plastic bucket partly filled with cut grass, sitting on bright green long tussocky grass. Establishing the edges and corners of a memorial by using steel pegs (e.g. tent pegs or kitchen skewers - the ones in the photo are surveyors' 'arrows' which are longer and stouter) provides a good guide to the line along which to run the knife whilst minimising blunting the knife against the edge of the memorial. The coarser the serrations on the knife, the better it will cut thick turf and tangled weed roots. A non-serrated knife is much inferior, though useable on thin turf if it is very sharp (it will require fairly frequent re-sharpening). A knife used for this task will blunt badly over the course of a few days' work; at present I am experimenting using a very coarse wide hacksaw blade to see if that may work out less expensive.
May 3, 2025 at 12:24 PM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Photo of a row of four cemetery memorials laid flat and encroached upon by long tussocky grass; two similar memorials laid flat are in the background. All the memorials are grey-brown stone. The memorial closest to the camera has had the encroaching grass trimmed back to expose the inscription which occupies most of the memorial. The three memorials further away in the same row are mostly obscured by encroaching grass. The grass is bright green except for areas which have been cleared, which are more yellow in tone. The two memorials in the background have had the encroaching grass cleared from them. All the memorials are rectangular with pointed and arched tops. An untidy green shrub and a low brown stone wall are in the background. Between the two memorials closest to the viewer are two battered black plastic buckets, one with gardening hand-tools in it, the other with grass cuttings in it. Alongside the buckets is gardening kneeling pad in a plastic sack (to keep it dry). The image seeks to show the considerable contrast achieved by cleaning encroaching turf from the edges of memorials laid flat in grass.
May 3, 2025 at 12:05 PM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
A series of four photos on cleaning encroaching turf from memorials laid flat, to re-expose inscriptions and enable transcriptions to be made. Detailed comments and observations on cleaning techniques are in ALT TEXT - click on the 'Alt' box lower right on each photo to display text.
May 3, 2025 at 11:55 AM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Late 19th century painting of a young woman sitting in a basketwork chair looking up from reading a modest-sized and moderately thin hardcover book in a red binding; the book is open to a page around a quarter of the way through. The chair has integral arms and she rests both elbows on the chair arms to support the book. She wears a high-necked white dress with lacy sleeves and purple bows at the wrists, and a slight ruffle at the neck. The fabric of the dress is figured with an indistinct pattern; the dress has a row of small white buttons up the front. The woman has a pale skin tone, brown hair and brown eyes. She wears an indistinctly painted flat-shaped white hat with a narrow brim. The background behind her is indistinctly painted green foliage. Her expression suggests that she may have been disturbed from her reading and she looks directly at the viewer. A modern text printed in a white serifed font over the upper part of the image reads: "One of the worst parts of growing up is how sitting peacefully reading a new book went from 'Well behaved quiet child' to 'rude and antisocial adult'.
March 1, 2025 at 11:13 PM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Fascinating and superbly referenced account of the inter-denominational friction and local authorities' financial caution which created a half century legal wrangle to settle legal ownership of church graveyards in Wales following disestablishment. Useful for anyone interested in Welsh cemeteries.
Photo of title page of book comprising black serifed letters on a plain white page "Cymdeithas Hanes Cyfraith Cymru. The Welsh Legal History Society. Cyfrol XV : Volume XV. The churchyards of the Church in Wales. A legal history. Stephen R. G. White sometime Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Wales, Cardiff. Bangor : Cymdeithas Hanes Cyfraith Cymru. The Welsh Legal History Society, 2015"
February 28, 2025 at 5:03 PM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Rationally I know I am not immortal. Emotionally I keep buying books as though I was.
Painting, likely of later 17th century date, of a pale-skinned woman with light brown hair, sitting at a table, fallen asleep over a very large thick book. In the open book a large engraved initial letter 'D' is visible; the pages are printed in two-columns and there appears to be marginal notes in a smaller typeface. She is wearing a light green-grey dress, a lace-edged apron, and a lace edged coif. She rests her head on her right forearm; her left arm dangles by her side. The book is on a table covered with a carpet or similar textile, light-blue-grey in colour with repeating stripes of brown and lines of brown and white decoration. Part of a deep frame of a painting or mirror is visible in the background, hanging on a wall with swirling white and light brown patterns. On the table behind the book is a candle, apparently unlit. The back of the chair on which she sits is upholstered in a fabric with green foliage on a white background. Superimposed on the painting is a social media post under the username 'Icona' and '@iconawrites', and a small photo of the face and upper torso a pale skinned woman with brown hair, wearing a garment, likely a sweater, in brown, black and white stripes, over a white collared blouse or shirt. The social media post reads: 'Rationally I know I am not immortal. Emotionally I keep buying books as though I was.'
February 18, 2025 at 12:37 AM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Useable pockets in women's clothes remain sufficiently non-standard to feel like an unexpected bonus...
Still waiting for pocket-equality to arrive!
Three panels from a cartoon about college-age young people showing a young man and a young woman smooching. Both dressed very casually: the woman in a green sweater over a white and pink collared shirt, and blue-grey trousers; the man in a red and grey hoodie and blue-grey trousers. The man has slightly shaggy black hair and a fawn coloured complexion; the woman has very light brown hair in a short style between a pixie cut and a short bob; she is wearing glasses; she has a pale complexion. They are standing on a path or sidewalk flanked by short grass. The background comprises indistinct trees and a short flight of steps flanked by low walls. The man is standing behind the woman with his hands in the front pockets of her trousers as they smooch. The man exclaims "Wait - your pockets only go down two inches?" The woman replies "Well, they're girl-pants." The man exclaims more loudly, "Girls don't get real pockets?!?!" and the woman replies "That's a civil rights battle we haven't yet won."
February 2, 2025 at 9:53 PM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Gwen Aubrey, "Tracing family history in Wales: how to read the inscriptions on Welsh gravestones" (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, Llanrwst, 2011) contains translations of a wide range of commonplace Welsh words and phrases used on memorials. An immensely useful resource when transcribing Welsh memorials.
Cover of book "Tracing family history in Wales: how to read the inscriptions on Welsh gravestones", shows three memorials set in short grass, in front of the gable end of a whitewashed stone-built church.
February 1, 2025 at 12:23 AM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Toilet labels I'm pleased to accept:
Two open toilet doors with the words 'Triceratops' and 'Allosaurus' above them, and sculptures of heads of these dinosaurs above the words.
January 22, 2025 at 11:42 PM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
Instant recognition of 'The Chair' in my bedroom... lol !
Cartoon of chair piled high with clothes; woman walking away from it with hands in pockets while whistling. Captioned: "Clothes too dirty for the cupboard, too clean for the laundry basket: welcome to 'The Chair'."
January 18, 2025 at 6:28 PM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
For anyone interested in UK cemeteries and considering transcribing inscriptions on a systematic basis and/or recording the designs and symbolism of memorials, this book is by far the most thorough guide. Although out of print, its usually available second-hand from places like abe books dot UK
Alt text: image of cover of book titled "Recording and analysing graveyards" by Harold Mytum. Cover shows a UK Anglican church built of light brown stone set in a graveyard with numerous memorials; the memorials in foreground have flowers on them.
January 16, 2025 at 10:29 PM
gwenlliansaer.bsky.social
My winter sports

Alt Text: heading 'Triathlete', above three drawings of squirrels labelled 'eating', 'reading' and 'sleeping'.
January 14, 2025 at 9:38 PM