Carpe Solis!

Which Is Latin -
 - for "Seize the sun!" which we have to do at every opportunity here in the Allotment of Eden, since we never know when we'll see it again.  Not literally, of course: the Sun's outer corona would vapourise you, were you daft enough to try and touch it.

Our local fusion furnace

     That's quite beside the possibility of a Coronal Mass Ejection or a Solar Prominence reaching out from the solar surface into space and vapourising you long before you reached it -
     - sorry, we've gotten a bit off-topic.  Occupational hazard.  Where were we?  Just about to administer the blood test, because that's pretty much guaranteed to distinguish humans from sinister shape-shifting - oh, that's "The Thing", isn't it?  Sorry.

From the world's scariest documentary

     What I meant to say was, here's a picture of me hard at work, being a human-shaped cushion.  Art?

Hard at work, like I said

     You can see Degsy's efforts in clearing all the weeds from between the flags, but obviously - obviously! - I have the far harder job here.  It's not just everyone who can sit on a chair and be a dog bed, you know.

Still Carping The Solis
Today we have been graced with the presence of Darling Daughter and Quiet Tom, her partner - Art?

You can guess whom is whom

     Both took turns telling of their hideously unpleasant excursion to a Live Action Role Play event, which, to your humble scribe, consisted of: driving onto a muddy field, camping in a muddy field, wading around a muddy field in costume, getting perpetually rained on whilst in said muddy field, and finally leaving early in order to avoid hypothermia and/or death by mud-inhalation.*
     Then we have cake.  Specifically, Blueberry and Sour Cream Loaf.  Art?

     The baking of this cake - and it is a cake, despite the Hummingbird Bakery insisting on 'loaf' because it's done in a 2-pound loaf tin - is not unconnected with DD's presence, nor with Wonder Wifey's gentle persuasion/insistent nagging** of the night before.  Gluten-free, of course, and well-risen thanks once again to Xanthan Gum.  Note the well-distributed blueberries, despite the recipe warning that they will all sink to the bottom of the lo - cake once baked.  Ha!  <snaps fingers at recipe book>.

Xanthan gum in the raw state

"Silent Spring" By Rachel Carlson
If only it were!  Art?

Blessed peace

     One thing Conrad detests (amongst many, many others) is having to stand at the bus stop of a morning, listening to the birds in the trees being all cheerful and upbeat, when he faces a possible ninety minute bus journey, then an eight hour day in the office, and another possibly one hundred and twenty bus journey home.***  I don't see what the feathered blighters have to be so cheerful about, unless they're gloasting about not having to work an eight hour day, the pikers.
     Bah!

Meet The "Bob Semple", An Armoured Temple
Back in the early years of the First Unpleasantness, New Zealand worried about being invaded by the Japanese, and worried especially about their own lack of tanks, because they didn't have any, they weren't going to get any and they couldn't make any.
     Or could they?
     Bob Semple, the Polite Australian's Minister of Public Works, drew up a design on the back of a fag packet and the Bob Semple Tank was born.  Er - perhaps "created" is a better noun. Art?

No, they couldn't

     The thing was created by welding corrugated iron sheeting together and putting it on an agricultural tractor, with ball mountings for machine guns and a rotating turret.  Art?

Still couldn't

     Apart from looking ridiculous, it was extremely slow, couldn't cross wide obstacles and had to stop to change gears.  It would have been horrifyingly effective against the Japanese, though, because they's have died laughing if it appeared on the battlefield.  The Polite Australian general public weren't impressed at Bob's military or technical skills and it never saw action.
     However.
     There is nothing stranger than people, and I should know, I'm one of them.  There is an unbelievable level of interest in the BST amongst modellers and wargamers, because who could fail to love a farrago like this?  Art!



     And there we shall leave you for today

*  Is this a thing?  Well it is now!
**  Delete where applicable
***  The discrepancy = First Bus.