Arkessian

The garden has been disastrous this summer: very poor tomato, pepper, aubergine and even courgette crops. I shan't bother with aubergines and peppers next year -- I think the micro-climate is too marginal here for them to be reliable -- and I'll pick my tomato varieties more carefully. The courgettes clearly need to be grown on the more sheltered side of the patio, so I'll try something else on the windy side... I don't know what, yet.

In compensation, a neighbour has had a bumper crop of cooking apples, so I've spent the last few weeks making: apple pies, apple cakes and apple chutney. I just cored, peeled and sliced 3 lbs (6 kilos) to put in the freezer for future use and there's another 2lbs still to deal with. Luckily, I like apples.

Have I really not done one of these this year?

( Ratio of female to male authors: 15 to 6 (by author) or 29 to 6 (by book, counting a female joint author as wholly female) )

The astute among you will recognise that I had fun reading/re-reading some generation starship books. Also, owning an ereader has increased the rate at which I'm reading.

( Bolded if I read it, underlined if I read part of it: )

By which I conclude that (a) I'm reasonably widely read in the field (68 out of 100) but not exhaustively so; and (b) my tastes differ widely from the other people who voted. No LeGuin? No Cherryh? to mention two glaring names missing off this list...

I appear to be an SF Mistress! There's a very generous review at SF Mistressworks (which originally came from Performative Utterance).

And Jo Walton has nice things to say for the second time at www.tor.com.

Odd, to be getting more reviews now than when the book first came out...

Usual rules for women writers who got their start in 1992... Again a poor performance away from all my previous sources.


( Read more... )

From james_nicoll again... Specifically women writers who got a start in 1990. It's alphabetical by first name. Otherwise, usual rules apply: Italicize the authors you've heard of before reading this list of authors, bold the ones you've read at least one work by, underline the ones of whose work you own at least one example of. Come up with improvements to flavour your versions.

What this highlights is how I left London, specialist SF bookstores and oursin 's book lending range about now... Also, I suspect, that I'm not a short story reader as a rule.

( Read more... )

I finally got the last veg plants off the kitchen windowsill and into a planter outside -- albeit later than I intended because of the chest infection and then vertigo.

So this year I have planted: 4 cordon tomatoes (1 plum, 1 black russian, 1 striped and 1 I can't remember); 2 bush cherry tomatoes; 2 aubergine; 2 peppers; 2 chillis; 2 courgettes; a planter full of pak choi; 2 rows of cut-and-come-again salad leaves; coriander; parsley; sage; tarragon; basil; and several bay plants All this in addition to the rosemary, chives, thyme, purple sage and mint that are year long residents.

The oregano didn't survive the cold winter, nor did the previous bay plants. I have however acquired a couple of volunteer fennel plants in the flower border, survivors from when I grew fennel there some seven years ago...

The over-wintered onions and shallots weren't worth the effort and I shan't be repeating them; ditto for potatoes this year. I still need to find somewhere to sow some spinach and some stir-fry leaves (perhaps on the kitchen window sill).

I think I may be a little over-committed. I don't know why I imagined this would not be a problem when I retired, given:

• my track history when employed
• my inability to allow myself to do anything less well than the best anyone can (there is no adequate)
• my inability to suffer things done badly by others
• my demonstrated ability over hmmph years to attempt All The Things

Hence this attempt at a list of All The Things... Perhaps it will convince me I need to strike some things off the list (surely not); perhaps it will enable me to cross things off as I do them (hollow laugh). At least it will fulfil my self-imposed quota for a blog-post this week.

( All the Things )

* And if we don't, at least we'll know which far-flung corners have been left to their own devices.

High spots so far? Wiscon, and a week shortly after in Southwold (Seaside!)

Latest low spot? Combined ear infection, sinusitis and chest infection.  [This is penned from my bed of pain...]

2011? Any time now, you can start behaving yourself.

oursin gave me an H

Here are the rules: Comment with a request, and I'll give you a letter. You go and post five favorite songs/music videos that start with that letter.

Only five?

In no particular order:

Hard Love, sung by June Tabor
Hi Rim Bo, sung by Capercaillie
Hold On, sung by Sarah McLachlan
Here Comes the Sun, sung by Nina Simone
How Can I be Sure, sung by Dusty Springfield

No, can't stop at five...

Human, by the Killers -- who can resist such a naff video?
Here I Go Again, by Whitesnake
Harvest Moon, by Neil Young
Here Comes My Baby -- not sung by the Tremoloes on this curiously endearing video, which I found by accident.
Handle with Care, by the Traveling Wilburys