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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 33m

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to photograph it as Dad & I drove past, but there was a lot of laughter in that car that day.

J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 33m

It’s funnier when you know what else is making me want to do so. The local museum, before it moved to its present spot, was displaying a really large mining scoop from somewhere up the Hunter Valley. Someone wrote on it with spray paint: “Bill Steamshovel is that you?”

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 1h

See what you mean, says the person who is going to buy Bill Steamshovel stickers later.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 2h

Also, the last photo in the article seems to think he’s Snape in mufti, there’s a young woman who has either travelled forward from the 1980s or is aping the MAGA woman look, and there’s another bloke claiming to be 20 but looks like he’s lying about his age.

J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 2h

Probably meant to emphasise young fogeyness, in wearing a garment in a pattern worn by Doctor Who before he was born. Also the alarming face fungus on the bloke in the first photo.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 6h

It may be time to put me in safekeeping: I just said thank you to a tree. A tree with a low-growing branch that looked like it was going to block my way. But the branch moved, just as I got close. Now, it’s blowing quite strongly, so it’s going to be wind direction, but I still said thank you.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 2d

I do hope no one used Blackboard's signature phrase at you while you sketched.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 2d

Bailey likes oven chips. Not fully cooked & out of the oven, but still frozen. He’ll take fully cooked ones if you’re silly enough to drop them on the floor, but still cold & hard?

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 3d

Endless Screaming strikes again in my timeline, immediately below your post.

Screencapture of a post by Camestros Felapton as to having forgotten about former Australian P M Scott Morrison until an article by The Guardian acted as a rude reminder. It is immediately followed by a post from @ infinitescream, which this poster finds horribly appropriate.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 4d

I suspect the OP doesn’t trust our hosts to know the difference.

J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 4d

One trouble with daylight saving, as it is now in New South Wales, is that it goes back to darkness at 5 am, instead of being light enough to see colours. Yesterday, I could see the orange of the bird of paradise flower in the backyard. Today, faint signs of dawn but nothing more.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 4d

This wobbly-brained asterisk just wants to mention that cakey-things fix everything, whatever they are. If you have brownies, they’ll do nicely. If you have chocolate muffins, so will they. Add your own personal favourite & it’ll be a great fix for today’s everything.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 8d

The water level must be low, but there seems to be enough water still in the bird bath for a couple of Indian mynas to have a bit of a splash. And ‘splash’ is the word: I can see the droplets on the shed’s roller door.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 8d

And when you close the pop-up, the same screed appears on the front page. They may think we need to read that codswallop a second time, but it’s no more sane the second time than it is on first reading.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 8d

So it is, yes.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 9d

Last of Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher novels, alas, to be released 4 November (in Australia, possibly elsewhere too). Have pre-ordered.

J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 9d

It makes me wonder what we did to be in the index, let alone the text of your book. But consider that a selling point: this Australian will just have to buy the book & find out by reading it.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 11d

Bailey’s getting anxious that he can’t catch the flydys. Doesn’t like flydys. They have to be jumped on, so why won’t they stop to let him do it?

Bailey, who had a haircut a couple of weeks ago, so isn’t quite as barrel-like a dog to look at as he was.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 12d

Counterpoint: Morris dancer thwarted by librarian.

Silversprite @silversprite.bsky.social · Oct 23

Tense atmosphere in here; a librarian just angrily silenced a Morris dancer. "No more jangling in the quiet zone or you will have to leave!"

The Morris dancer is now sitting completely still, possibly too afraid to move. This feels like a spaghetti western standoff, but in Worcestershire. #bells

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 14d

Haven’t heard anything more from brother & family directly, but brother’s Facebook page photo header has changed to show the five of them posing in the gaps of the letters at the Titanic museum in Belfast. So they’ve been there. Don’t know if they’ve got to Galway yet.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 14d

Low-stakes, you say? Are you sure @eldritchgirl.bsky.social wants to watch anything described that way? ;-)

J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 14d

@tanaudel.bsky.social, just noting the arrival of one of your Redbubble items. Lovely pattern on the material, just as it is on a screen.

Picture of part of a large tote bag, of a design by Kathleen Jennings, in lines involving a castle, a row of flowers, a row of trees, & then a a colonnade.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 15d

True. Years ago, my mother was a casual recovery ward nurse for a surgical dental clinic. She had the Mantoux test for exposure done. I think they were looking for recent TB exposure, but Mum was an RN who had nursed TB cases, & her immune system still remembered. Huge lump. Went down again soon.

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J MacQueen @jomacmouse.bsky.social · 15d

Yes, it’s more how it gets phrased. In Australia, it’s ‘bring a plate’, with the unspoken assumption that the plate will be full of something shareable.

Reposted by J MacQueen

Camestros Felapton @camestrosf.bsky.social · 16d

A little song to help me keep track of the names

tylenol, tylenol
really is
para-ceto-mol
stupid name
but then again
better than
aceta-mino-phen
watch out here comes some tylenol

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