iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

V related: when I bought a porch goose for my friend Di and the only way to get it home was for it to sit in the front seat while my husband endured me singing THE GOOSE IS IN THE CAR to the same tune

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Big news from the landlocked retriever: today she spent 20 minutes up to her elbows happily fetching her ball in the sea. Look at her proud little face and flappy little ears!

A white golden retriever wades through millpond smooth sea proudly holding her latest disgusting tennis ball in her mouth

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“Oh absolutely not, no thank you, this one has text and I can’t read.”

Four photographs of a dog quickly working off the elastic of a novelty paper hat

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It is my husband’s birthday which means Sybil’s annual The Wearing of A Hat. Much like Buckaroo or an actual rodeo, this lasts for two seconds at most.

A golden retriever sulkily wearing a blue birthday hat.

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From the government’s welfare breakdown: Spending on disability is £77.1bn. Pensions is over £144bn alone (more than half of pensioners also have a private pension). But mention pensions as being part of welfare and all you get is “well that’s NOT the same!” www.gov.uk/government/p...

Social security spending in Great Britain

In 2025 to 2026 the government is forecast to spend £322.6 billion on the social security system in Great Britain. Total GB welfare spending is forecast to be 10.6% of GDP and 23.6% of the total amount the government spends in 2025 to 2026.

Around 55% of social security expenditure goes to pensioners; in 2025-26 we will spend £177.7 billion on benefits for pensioners in GB. This includes spending on the State Pension which is forecast to be £146.1 billion in 2025 to 2026.

In 2025 to 2026 we will spend £145.0 billion on working age and children welfare. This includes spending on Universal Credit and its predecessors, and non-DWP welfare spending.

In 2025 to 2026 we will spend £77.1 billion on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions, and £37.3 billion on housing benefits.

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“Hello! It looks like you’re trying to eat a bacon and egg sandwich. Would you like help with that?”

A white golden retriever lies under a table at an angle, her head raised hopefully from the floor. Her underbite is very prominent, her ears are pricked, and her eyes are soft and totally blank, much like her brain.

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Also v enjoyed this crow giving his best “I haven’t been fed in ever such a long time” spiel, but sadly he gave up too early and flew off to sit on a hedge before the potatoes arrived.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 20/09/2026

Please enjoy this sight of nature at its most beautiful: two gulls inhaling the remnants of a jacket potato and crisps with all the decorum of my dog discovering bread in the wild.

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I nudged us over to where a flock of other golden retrievers were merrily enjoying the sea to see if that might encourage her. It did not encourage her.

Two golden retrievers fresh from the sea look slightly confused, ears pricked and tails half wagging, as Sybil has scuttled back up the beach with her tennis ball and is now contentedly shewing it a very safe distance away from the water.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 20/09/2026

The literal turning point for this dog who will quite happily swim laps in eg a totally illegal pond but who requires a kiddy rock pool if she is to enjoy sea water in any form.

The same golden retriever nervously turning on her heels at the water’s edge. She is approximately 3mm deep in sea water.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 20/09/2026

Year six of trying to get my landlocked dog to enjoy the sea. As you can see it’s going very well.

A golden retriever smiling beatifically while lying some 30 metres away from the shoreline.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 19/09/2026

No way!! It’s absolutely amazing, you will all become obsessed! Just the biggest treat. Plus, now they’ve taken over, the food at the Point doesn’t taste solely of seaweed like the last lot’s did 🫠

A beautiful corner of the Old Point looking out onto the sea because I am an Instagram pervert

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 19/09/2026

I go to Paternoster Farm in Pembrokeshire every year for my husband’s birthday and it continues to be absolutely *staggeringly* delicious food at its new home (The Old Point House in Angle). As ever, I am so glad I wore my most flexible trousers so we could order most of the puddings.

The beautiful atmospheric Old Point House, decorated in trademark Paternoster Farm dark colours and beautiful found fittings, showing a burnt caramel pannacotta, strawberry sorbet and a fennel seed affogato. West Wales’s best cooking? I wouldn’t remotely know enough for that but it’s definitely my favourite.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 19/09/2026

The first step of the annual Holiday With Loads of Driving In It is to choose the car-only audiobook - The Grapples of Wrath by @abeewords.bsky.social. Husband and I *love* this series and alternate with SJ Bennett’s HM The Queen Investigates and Dungeon Crawler Carl depending on what’s out when.

Starting the book an hour and a half ago. I swear I plugged in my phone shortly after this and it is no longer at 15%

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 18/09/2026

Me getting an email from my accountant saying I’m due an incredibly hefty tax refund, then seeing that they’ve attached someone else’s tax return to the email.

A dog looking totally thrilled, happy, bathed in sunlight

The same dog, soaking wet, sulking, very cross about everything

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 17/09/2026

Well, she was absolutely livid about the whole thing but she didn’t look it on her walk this afternoon

A divine and newly-groomed golden retriever grins beatifically while bathed in sunlight

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 17/09/2026

Yes, absolutely this. I joined in with an Archers tweetalong last night to try and recoup some of the previous enjoyment of posting which has eluded me for ages, and actually, snark about nothing important has really helped! (Also I utterly adore @dinahrose.bsky.social’s Ozzy for feed cheer!)

A screengrab of a BlueSky post from Dinah Rose, president of Magdalen College Oxford, showing her absolutely vast and cuddlesome cat Ozzy

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 16/09/2026

It’s 10pm in 2026 and I’m about to do a radio interview reiterating that ADHD is not a bloody trend

Me trying desperately not to look like it’s 10pm and I’m wearing this morning’s makeup while waving a copy of my lovely book about AFHD diagnosis in adults and understanding . I am wearing a fabulous sweater my friend Helen got me which features the embroidered, furious face of my late cat.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 16/09/2026

Sleep well, sweet Sybil, for neither you or your cuddly custard cream know that you are off to the groomers at 9am tomorrow.

Just a tiny, very small white golden retriever stretched out in bed with her toy next to her foreleg ready to be comfortably chewed on when she next wakes up. I groom her (dog) every day but every three months she goes to the groomers for an in-depth tidy up.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 16/09/2026

It’s a great day to be a dog

A white golden retriever rolls ecstatically on the grass on the common under a blue sky and sunshine

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 14/09/2026

Bonus pic of her Ted talking suitor, Captain Beefcheeks x

A very round faced tabby Tom looks incredibly surprised to see me in bed. I mean, I was surprised to given that he doesn’t live here and just strolled in.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 14/09/2026

This video, taken about six months after Genevieve came to stay and never left, never fails to make me howl. They never fought physically but it was like living with feline Bette and Joan.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 14/09/2026

Here’s Genevieve listening to #TheArchers like she’s propping up the bar at The Bull. Ironically, Ambridge could take or leave it, probably because she knew that the most important thing was her and she wasn’t actually in it except by name.

A calico cat thoughtfully listens to Harrison destroying his sanity over the course of 13 minutes with some truly wild decision making in Ambridge

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 13/09/2026

Just taken my husband to be blessed by the twin miracles of Titanique and Myra DuBois at the Criterion Theatre and the thing I keep forgetting for a show so superbly silly is how so so so phenomenal the singing is (singing not shown for copyright reasons)

Beloved husband clapping and singing to My Heart Will Go On during the curtain call

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 13/09/2026

Sorry Reka makers, no, this is unacceptable, my two weeks off begin *this Friday*

An update saying that Reka, a lovely witch cottage game that I played the sandbox of a few years ago and REALLY want to play the completed version of when I go on my “summer” holiday this week, will now come out on October 26. OH WELL, ANOTHER HOLIDAY TO BE BOOKED I GUESS

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 13/09/2026

They’ve also replaced RuPaul on the iPlayer homepage with Glow Up which has big “can’t get mad, we’ve still got gays on TV” energy.

The bbc iplayer homepage which used to have a big pic of RuPaul alongside Claudia, Bluey, Alan Carr and Amandaland, and now has a group shot of Glow Up.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 11/09/2026

This gravestone in Bunhill Row caught my eye - a family roster of lives and deaths, and showed to me again how how shocking infant death is in 2026. God bless science, vaccines, advances.

A family tree in one grave: Youngs, Dents, Mallinsoms, Willises, Phillipses.Some died with years behind them, others with only months.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 10/09/2026

Already rattling through @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social’s thrilling The Great Dictator before I store it in my great dictotebag for the BL event and suspect I will be doing little else but absorbing Barbara Cartland and planning a visit to Camfield for the next while.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 10/09/2026

All becomes clear once you realise who wrote the story #localanglelocalnews

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 10/09/2026

For reference this horse is four inches taller than me at that point where his neck meets his back and I AM SIX FOOT ONE! Can we get him some carrots though, can we?

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Sybil thanks you (reluctantly)

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Sybil has very strong opinions about photo shoots for “exposure” rather than “biscuits”.

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We’ll be chatting all things Discworld at York Waterstones on Thursday 15 October and Waterstones Piccadilly on Friday 16 October. See you then - and Sybil will be delighted not to be used as a book prop!

Sybil, a neat white golden retriever, looks into the camera looking decidedly pissed off, her lower lip jutting forward

A blurry dog on my sofa going “Oh absolutely not, no thank you!”

Further deep suspicion at why she is being asked to sit next to this BOOK thing when she isn’t even IN IT

Moments later, I caught this lovely new copy of the Discworld Bestiary before it plonked onto the floor

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