iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Love the postie response, so common it seems. I read @russincheshire.bsky.social great book ‘The wolf that chews rocks’ about dog behaviour and this about the postie stuck in my mind (Baxter is his dog)

Screenshot of a footnote that says: Think about it from Baxter’s point of view. Every morning an intruder comes to the door and attempts to gain access. Every morning Baxter barks. Every morning the postman retreats. As far as Baxter is concerned, the system has a 100% success rate.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

👍 It was east of Trendine though, would Zennor hill have been hidden by Trendrine? But the distance makes more sense. given the order of my images and that the next one is the one you identified at Trendrine, I think it could be one in the red ring.

Extract of OS map with red ring on a public footpath crossing three boundaries

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

It was rather special, next section up was

Over a dozen branches of an old oak tree springing from a similar height, about two metres up the trunk, but with no sign of pollarding, so maybe natural growth from a specific environment a couple of centuries ago.
Scraps of blue sky and puffs of white cloud in sunlight but the branches fill most of the frame with a few twigs of green leaves.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

That bit of dendro shows a sad lack of faith in a granite gridder. But then, it seems there is precedent … #StileSunday

A granite stile on a wet day, four stone steps in a row peering from verdant varied vegetation with a mass of bracken beyond rising to grey sky. A single tapering block, like a huge dog tooth is propped across the gap in the hedge, to deter the cattle and increase the challenge for the humans.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I noticed this comment (wholeheartedly agree!) and the panel but not location, so imagine my shock when I came face to face with her today!

Interpretive panel about hill fort and its people featuring a woman holding a spear

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Spotted for @lakesstiles.bsky.social I wonder why churchyards often have excellent path entry methods 🤔

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

It works well as a wallpaper design

Random part moon shapes of light on an internal wall, they’re patches of sunlight shining through a hedge with the sun in the final 1/3 of eclipse.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I enjoyed the natural effect from the gaps in adjacent hedge/trees.

Overlapping random new moon shapes in bright light blue on darker blue background, natural projections of the eclipse through gaps between leaves of a hedge onto shiny painted metal.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

The riverside or north-south?

Extract of OS map showing public footpaths in Danesfield grounds

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I’ve been thinking that this week, moored opposite harvested fields and watching bales of various forms be carted. How many to build my house I ponder …

Green water in foreground, lightly rippled by wind, reflecting blue sky with puffy white clouds. A line of reeds and other green plants line the edge of the water with shorn wheat fields rising slightly behind to meet the sky, the horizon dotted with young trees from a hedge, the top of which is just visible in places. Zooming in shows the pleasing curved lines in the stubble of sowing and harvesting.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Reminded me of this chunksome piece of granite, not far away, they breed ‘em good down there #SundayStiles

Stone stile between black and white banded marker posts, big natural smoothish rock in the foreground is the first step to big blocks of granite, resting on a gap through a hedge (hedge in Cornwall but it’s a dry stone wall with earth core and vegetation), a clump of deep green rushes to the right, long grass and trees beyond

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

For @mostlyrambling.bsky.social Now listening to Alla Dolce Ombra, Royal Wind Music. My all time favourite on here: Palestrina’s Viri Galilaei

The Royal Wind Music’s album cover for Alla Dolce Ombra with a painting in shades of ochre of a man on a path on the bank of a small river with big trees and lots of verdant plants

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Mmm yes. And I may have a new addiction, courtesy of you 😋

Empty wrapper of Tunnock’s dark chocolate caramel wafer

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

😂 Saving this for the colleagues who dare to doubt me

Screenshot with score of 0.0076 and text Better than most. You can see differences that half the population would swear don’t exist. Your opinions about colour palettes are now legally binding.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Oh yes that’s right. Hopefully he’ll grace us with lots of lovely chunkies, gridders and steppers later

Cornish granite gridder stile with chunks of stone set in the ground across tye path with deep gaps between. This one is set between a stone house wall and garden wall with a variety of plants in each crevice

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

Any landscape historians able to point me to a source that will help learn what mediaeval-nineteenth century terms mean, please? e.g. derrings #LandscapeHistory

25” OS map 1892-1914 showing fields and an area label of Tholthorpe Derrings

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

What a great book! I wish I’d known about it when I lived there. I often asked why boots and shoes, and no one could tell me, but I’m glad my supposition was right: pasture for cattle and water for tanning. Good for EH for documenting the buildings. Spotted your drawings.

Labelled pen and ink drawings of a boot and bootmaking machinery

Cut away watercolour drawing of home workshop

Cutaway watercolour drawing of shoe factory in red brick with big windows

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

There *should* be a level board like this one ⬇️ but with low highway budgets, it may have fallen and not been replaced, or on a road like Mill Beck, which is so low in status it’s way off the scale of priorities, maybe never had one, in expectation of local traffic only.

Narrow tarmac lane between high wooded banks and a white post with black level markers to the side. It used to be a track with a stream, which in winter could be half a metre deep. Now the stream is piped below the surface and only the road becomes a long shallow ford in winter, except in brief extreme conditions.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Interesting perspective informationisbeautiful.net/visualizatio...

Graphic of circle with coloured polygon shapes in it relative to country populations, showing how India and China dwarf the other geographical areas.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

The floating cruck … 🥺 This is a fascinating house, probably C16 origin, multiple extensions. #BuildingsArchaeology #OldHouses

A section of oak cruck beam inside a house from sloping from ceiling of first floor top left to bottom right, where it’s cut off at ground floor ceiling height. White plaster walls.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

Good article on the breakdown of farming, loss of small farms and loss of variety to agribusiness and development while losing food security to imports from low standard production. At the same time we’re losing allotments so no independence. #Farming #Food theconversation.com/family-farme...

The first crop of wheat I grew, I got £120 a tonne for it – when I was 18 and beer was 50p a pint. So I got 240 pints for every tonne going off the farm. Last year, I got £65 a tonne and beer has come up to £3. So now, I’m getting 20 pints a tonne.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

I was, too briefly, but snagged a series of their fantastic stiles and a bonus trig point with benchmark. What a place!

Short concrete pillar set on a cliff top, blue sky and blue sea beyond, grass in the foreground round the square base on the pillar, an Ordnance Survey trig point with a benchmark for surveying levels of the land.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

Cornwall between Zennor and St Ives but I understand they’re fairly widespread in the county. A variation has a ‘lintel’ above

Cornish granite stile comprising blocks set parallel across the width of the path supported above a hollow with another block set across at hip height between stone walls. Lots of moss, ferns, and other plants on a drizzly day

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

Specially for @lakesstiles.bsky.social 😆. It’s beyond my camera skills to capture the size and depth of these granite stiles, even with a hound attempting scale

Cornish ‘cattle grid’ stile comprising four weathered and worn chunky blocks of granite each about a foot high, three feet wide and ten inches deep, set across the path one after the other, with an equivalent gap between each; a dry stone wall to each side. Lots of moss and lichen and a general air of ancient character.
A short legged white Jack Russell terrier is standing on its hind legs in one gap with front paws on the foremost block. There’s a depth of several inches below the blocks, the terrier can walk beneath them.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Aww, finished it … and enjoyed every word. Thanks @levparikian.bsky.social for the pleasure. Lovely book about rediscovering bird-watching, that’s birding not twitching, an important difference you understand.

Front cover of a white book entitled Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? by Lev Parikian

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

“The most hazardous building in the UK” from the Public Accounts Committee on decommissioning nuclear Sellafield. Delays to infrastructure build, failure to invest, unsafe, environmental hazard, escalating costs — familiar? committees.parliament.uk/committee/12... #Nuclear #Energy #Sellafield

Screenshot from the report. Text says:
One building, the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS), has been leaking radioactive water into the ground since 2018 – the PAC calculates, at current rates, enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool roughly every three years. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) accepts this leak is its "single biggest environmental issue", but that the radioactive particles are "contained" in the soil and do not pose a risk to the public.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

My last garden was on a sixties estate, bigger gardens than today. 15 yrs ago there were street trees, garden trees and almost every house had a garden front and back. Satellite view now shows ~60% concrete 😔. Mine went from 1 to 2 with a big increase in insects and birds

Town garden, mostly concrete slabs, gravel, crazy paving and ‘lollipop’ thuja trees

Town garden with a lot of self-seeded vegetation , soft edges and gravel giving way to plants

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Anyone looking for a narrowboat? 44’ thoughtful design to make the most of space, good quality build and well maintained, 5 years old and very lightly used, 250 engine hours. Perfect go anywhere leisure boat for one or two. www.abnb.co.uk/boat?BoatID=... #UKCanals #BoatsForSale #Narrowboat

Smart shiny dark blue narrowboat facing the camera on rural canal with wide grassy towpath, trees behind and overcast sky

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Excellent article on composting, including that the hardest items to home-compost are those labelled as 100% biodegradable. Don’t be misled by that greenwash! And that weed-killer survives composting 😱 www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Extract from article saying : Hay or animal manure can contain aminopyralid residue. This commercial weedkiller, introduced to the UK in 2005, adheres to plant material so effectively that not even the digestion of ruminants or microbes will disable it. The first sign that a batch of compost is affected is that young plants grow pale and distorted. It’s unsettling to realise that homemade compost can be actively damaging to plants.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

#ThickTrunkTuesday a sweet chestnut just starting to break leaf.

Large tree trunk in sunshine with grass and past-it daffodils at foot. It has a wide scar down the trunk and missing its big limbs but still sprouting new leaf on younger branches.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Britain: “the toxic poster child of Europe” exposing wildlife (and people!) to an increasingly “toxic soup of chemicals” wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk/news/nationa...

Screenshot from article saying:
September 2023 analysis showing that 36 pesticides not allowed for use in the EU are still permitted in the UK: 30 of those have been banned in the EU since Brexit but not here, while the remaining six have been approved for use in the UK since Brexit but not in the EU.
More worrying is the fact that the chemicals under scrutiny include 12 that are classified as carcinogens, meaning they are capable of causing cancer; nine hormone disrupting chemicals (EDCs) which may interfere with the normal functioning of the hormone system; and eight chemicals that are toxic to development or reproduction. Thirteen of them are also considered to be ‘highly hazardous’ by the United Nations due to their toxicity to bees, aquatic organisms, or their ability to contaminate water.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

No mention of the more obvious millions too ill to work, due to failure to fund healthcare fully for fifteen years, or to respond to changing medical needs of an ageing population, or vaccinate all against covid and flu. www.ft.com/content/1c2e...

Screenshot of text saying: Most policy specialists agree that the rise in claims for incapacity and disability benefit can be attributed to three main causes: financial incentives pushing people to seek higher levels of benefits payments, a rise in the number of people with mental health conditions since the pandemic, and inadequate support and incentives to get people who are able to work into employment.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Illuminating from Harry Lambert, England’s jewels for sale, no matter the cost to culture or society, they’re just assets to strip somethingdistilled.substack.com/p/this-land-...

The sale of County Hall has always struck me as the moment when 20th century Britain died and 21st century Britain began. It captured our direction of travel: in future we would be an asset to be bought. We would have plenty of things worth buying, but from now on we would be downstream of global capital. Prey for vultures.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Yay, the man who might answer a question from the map that’s intrigued me: what are the vegetated rectangular enclosures along Figham Bank? (Red arrow)

Extract of ordnance survey map of flat land with drains and river

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

There’s a useful setting to remind you 😉

Screenshot of settings page with Require alt text positive

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Yay! Important day: sunrise before 8 and set after 4.30, even if the effect is obscured by gloomy murk, I know it’s there ☀️.

Screenshot of weather app with details of the day (wet, gloomy, cold) and an important bottom line of sunrise and sunset times 7:59 and 16:33

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Modest would be exaggeration for my local ‘murmuration’, I grieve for them being so few, valiantly following their instincts, and still giving pleasure

Small close group of dark birds against grey dusk sky with silhouettes of shrubs below

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

Happy solstice. Margaret Atwood’s poem captures the importance of this day for me

Photo of snowy ground and a line of bare trees with upward sweeping branches against a winter sunset sky of peachy-pink.
And text: Solstice poem by Margaret Atwood

This is the solstice, the still point
of the sun, its cusp and midnight,
the year’s threshold
and unlocking, where the past
lets go of and becomes the future;
the place of caught breath, the door
of a vanished house left ajar.

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Psst, there’s a setting to help with that … 😉 😘

Screenshot of BlueSky settings showing ‘Require alt text before posting’ enabled

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Ana McKellar @anamca.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

If you need a reminder to add alt text, your settings can help!

Screenshot of BlueSky settings with Require alt text before posting set to On

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