iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

I was expecting to miss out on a #coffeeneuring ride this weekend as my bike was at the shop. But then it was ready to pick up on Saturday so I took a wild and windy spin by the sea and then had a recovery hot chocolate before getting the train home. So I got a […] [Original post on social.lol]

My bike with a Millennium Milepost signpost on NCN route 56 that points the way to New Brighton.

The sea being very wild on the Wirral coast, the waves were coming all the way up to the cycle path.

A view of the wild sea at New Brighton with a lighthouse. The red cranes of Liverpool docks are visible on the horizon.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

#3GoodThings 🔌The problem with my bike was diagnosed to be the charger and now I have a new one. 🚲The kids who shouted out "Wheelie?" as I rode past them. That's beyond my capabilities but I was glad not to be dismissed out of hand. 🌬️I picked the right direction to ride in, when I tried to […]

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Original post on social.lol

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

#3GoodThings 🧑🏻‍🔧The bike shop mechanic was very friendly. 🔌 And he thought the problem with my bike was most likely cable or charger related (cheap-ish) rather than battery related (expensive). 🛍️Impromptu shopping trip where we both got what we wanted (and cheap).

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

#3GoodThings 👁️ Got my eyes tested and all was well and my prescription hasn't changed much. 📕 Went to the coffee shop and ignored the world and read for a bit. 🌀Walked up the winding spiral paths through the park rather than the steps straight up the middle, it was oddly soothing.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

September #reading was a bit of a comedown after a great summer of #books but I still got four finished which is fine by me. I'm happy not to have ground to a halt. I only got two books finished last September so I guess this is double that even if it's dropping a […] [Original post on social.lol]

Graphic calendar showing all the reading I did in September. Bits of six books read and four finished. Most pages read was on the 1st though.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

I'd been looking out for a book by the "queen of spy writers" for a while and picked up _The Venetian Affair_ by Helen MacInnes in a second hand bookshop. It had the worst cover art. It also has a list of characters so long that I really struggled to keep them […] [Original post on social.lol]

A battered 1960s paperback of the Venetian Affair featuring a woman reaching into a gondola from the dock. There's an unconscious gondolier tied up in the bottom of the boat. This scene doesn't feature in the book. There's a tatty £4.95 price label in the corner but I paid the £2.50 from the newer label on the back cover that you can't see in the picture.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

#3GoodThings 🫖 Finding an emergency tea bag supply in the back of the cupboard just when I thought the day was going to be an irretrievable loss. 🥛 I remembered to buy milk on the way home so there can be more tea. 🌅 Watching the super pink sunset reflected in every window down the street.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

#3GoodThings 🌞 It's been a perfect sunny day. 👑The sheriff came with us on our Critical Mass bike ride. (Here that's a ceremonial mayor-ish kind of role, not the police.) 📖 I spent ages reading outside by the cathedral, then finished my book in the library.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

I finally got around to #sewing up some of the fabric I bought at the Festival of Quilts at the end of July and I'm super pleased with how this t-shirt came out. I was trying to emulate a shop bought t-shirt that I really like and this turned out better than I […] [Original post on social.lol]

close up of a blue/beige stripy t-shirt under construction with really well matched stripes on a seam

me, leaning on a tree wearing a nice beige/blue stripy t-shirt I just made

close up of the hem of a blue/beige stripy t-shirt showing the pale blue bias binding hem

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

September has been the second biggest month of the year for #BoardGames for me. I think the offspring suddenly wanting to play games in the few days before heading back to uni made the difference. Our double Calico morning seems a long time ago now. Quick notes […] [Original post on social.lol]

BG Stats 6 x 5.
Play count:
3: Trio;
2: Calico;
2: Green City;
2: Bottle Imp;
1: Ark Nova;
1: Power Grid;
1: Covenant;
1: Black Forest;
1: Orléans;
1: Apiary;
1: Emberheart;
1: Yonder;
1: Ahoy;
1: Bohemians;
1: Skara Brae;
1: Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition;
1: Dewan;
1: 6 nimmt!;
1: Cities;
1: Legendary: A DC Deck Building Game;
1: New York Zoo;
1: Cartographers;
1: Firm with Brownies;
1: Flippers;
1: Pandemic: The Cure;
1: Space Park;
1: Splendor: Marvel;
1: Eternal Sevens;
1: Codex Naturalis;
1: Omens.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

#3GoodThings 😎The slant of afternoon sunlight in the sky after a rain shower. 🍫 The secondhand book I'm reading somehow smells chocolatey and nice. It's of an age where you brace yourself for the smell of smoke so it's quite a pleasant surprise! 🧀 Crispy bits of melted cheese.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 27/09/2026

#3GoodThings 🪡 Made 5.5m of bias binding tape which is about four times the amount I need, but better than not enough and I can find other uses for it. 🎽The gadget thingy that folds the tape for you is a very neat design and very useful. 🌧️ I got soaked through riding my bike (mostly a bad […]

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Original post on social.lol

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

We stayed out later than we intended to having fun, 🍺 🍷 🍕 🍛 in the city. My partner realised his front bike light wasn’t charged so we decided to ride home together carefully along the pavements. Obviously we’re courteous and stop and give way to pedestrians when they appear. The biggest problem […]

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Original post on social.lol

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

#3GoodThings 🦆Watching the river birds take off and pretty much walk across the water. 🧼Cleaned the kitchen floor. 🏊🏻‍♀️ I was the only person in the pool for a bit. I did apologise to the lifeguard for making him work.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

This is the weirdest phishing attempt I've ever seen: Visited a website on my mac and a captcha style popover appeared asking me to press "command-space" to open Spotlight, type in "Terminal" then press "command-v" before pressing the "verified" button. So I get […] [Original post on social.lol]

A dodgy shell command that echoes "I am not a robot" to the command line then decodes a long base64 string and executes it.

The decoded dodgy shell script that seems to be wanting to send off my command history.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026

#3GoodThings 🐰 Finding some Peter Rabbit stickers in Aldi. 🎲 Have finally got the offspring hooked on BoardGameArena. 🛝Made some progress towards doing a thing that needs doing. Feels like a mental obstacle course. Posting this mostly to encourage myself to climb the next bit tomorrow.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

#3GoodThings 🍁A mild and sunny but autumnal kind of an afternoon. 📖Sat reading in the Roman Gardens for a bit, and a Roman came by and started telling me all about latrines very loudly, which rather put me off my book. (It was a walking tour I just happened to get an earful of, but quite funny […]

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Original post on social.lol

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

I hadn't heard of _The Safekeep_ by Yael van der Wouden until my partner recommended it to me as he finished reading it. I guess I haven't been paying attention since it won the Women's Prize last year and was also Booker shortlisted. But I prefer a personal […] [Original post on social.lol]

A paperback copy of The Safekeep lying on a chair.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

#3GoodThings 🚊Boarded the train with seconds to spare. (There'd be another in 15 mins but it's nice to have a smooth journey.) 🚲Joined a couple of hundred other cyclists for a protest against the Merseyrail ebike ban. A good turnout. 🧺Coming home to a basket of freshly laundered clothes.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

I was expecting _The Lifeline_ by Libby Page to be a pretty lightweight feel good read; and it was but it was also unexpectedly good at dealing with how tedious new motherhood can be and the darker side of mental health problems. The characters came alive when […] [Original post on social.lol]

Hardback copy of The Lifeline on a wooden table. The cover is dark blue water coloured with an illustration of a couple of swimmers with a red and white life ring.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026

#3GoodThings @3goodthings 🌊Spent a fab few days with the offspring returning them (more or less) to their uni life. 🏖️It's still nice enough to work in the garden, I even had to retrieve the parasol from the shed. 🍓 I ate what was probably the last home grown strawberry of the summer and it […]

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Original post on social.lol

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026

And that's filled up the pages I set aside for my #SummerReadingChallenge and I'm impressed with myself for getting that done while the weather's still decently summery. Last year I finished two books in July, one in August and one in September; eventually […] [Original post on social.lol]

Hand drawn journal pages. A double page spread with Summer Reading Challenge 2026 written in big bright letters in the middle and fourteen books laid out and coloured in around the outside. Each book has a sticker attached to it too.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026

I picked up _Saoirse_ by Charleen Hurtubise after reading @alicemcalicepants's review of it, and it was great! It was a really captivating and human story about a teenager fleeing to Ireland on a stolen passport and then building up a life that threatens to come […] [Original post on social.lol]

A hardcover copy of Saoirse lying on a table. The tagline is "Can a great love survive a great deception?" which would have put me off by itself I think.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 06/09/2026

#3GoodThings 👩🏻‍💻Learning by reading other people's code. (Emphasis on the 'people'.) 💷 Got a cheap deal on some last minute outdoor theatre tickets yesterday and we had a nice evening out. 🍕I'd worried we'd miss out on interval pizzas because the last minuteness made it too late to pre-order […]

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Original post on social.lol

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 05/09/2026

I finally got around to finishing this project I started in April. It was actually no more than 5 or 6 very relaxed hours of work to put together this #BookNook of a florist's shop to live on my bookshelf, it just got tidied away and forgotten about for a while […] [Original post on social.lol]

A lit up book nook between books on a bookshelf. It is a 3D model of a florists shop in an alleyway made of little pieces of wood.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 04/09/2026

I'm really pleased that I read a ton in August! Going away on a proper holiday for the first time in a while very much assisted me with getting seven books finished during the month. Last year I only got one finished in August and I feel much more like myself when […] [Original post on social.lol]

A graphic calendar showing the books I read in August and how many pages I read each day. The day I read the most was the 16th with 228 pages read that day.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 04/09/2026

I picked up _The Lie of the Land_ by Amanda Craig mostly because it had a puff from Alison Lurie on the back. I found it a frustratingly inconsistent look at modern Britain through the eyes of a divorcing couple who leave London for Devon. Written in 2017 it's […] [Original post on social.lol]

Hardback copy of The Lie of the Land lying on a wooden windowsill. The title is written on old roadsigns and nestled in overgrown plants.

Journal pages with Summer Reading Challenge in bright letters in the middle and thirteen hand drawn book covers around it. There are also stickers.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2026

#3GoodThings 😻We played back to back games of Calico to the sound of the cat snoring. 📖 Sat reading in the park for a while. ✂️ Got the fabric for a top cut out today.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

#3GoodThings 👩🏻‍💻Realised I could generalise the thing I was building to make it more useful. ✂️ Cut out a sewing pattern for a t-shirt. 🫖 Being brought a cup of tea.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

I’m quite impressed with getting the same number of #BoardGames plays in August as I did in July. During my holiday I missed my regular monthly day of big games but the offspring being home meant I got a few extras in. I bought expansions for both the two top […] [Original post on social.lol]

BG Stats 5 x 5.
Play count:
3: Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor;
2: Wyrmspan;
1: Tigris & Euphrates;
1: Civolution;
1: Puerto Rico;
1: Nucleum;
1: Distilled;
1: El Grande;
1: Path of Civilization;
1: Yonder;
1: Viticulture Essential Edition;
1: Dewan;
1: Tokaido;
1: The White Castle;
1: Cartographers;
1: Fromage;
1: Billabong Race;
1: So Clover!;
1: Splendor: Marvel;
1: Tax the Rich;
1: The Gang;
1: Hot Streak;
1: Mountain Goats;
1: Castle Combo;
1: Hummingbirds.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 01/09/2026

#3GoodThings 🚿 Cleaned both the shower heads out, and got them screwed back on ok as well. It was definitely procrasti-cleaning but it needed doing. 🌳 Sitting outside to work again after a few rainy days. 👩🏻‍🍳I did lots of baking yesterday so there was good low effort eating today.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 29/08/2026

Two nice bike rides from my holiday: One hilly one from Port Isaac to Polzeath. I enjoyed getting some downhill coasting in for a change. nocto.com/photoposts/ride-to-polzea… And one nice flat one along the Camel trail that I persuaded my partner to […] [Original post on social.lol]

Welcome to Polzeath roadsign with pots of flowers in front of it. My bike is lurking against the wall behind it as the road was so steep I couldn't get it to rest against the sign.

My bike next to a green Camel Trail sign

My bike on an old railway bridge with a view of Padstow beyond

My bike in front of a sign post labelled Roscarrock, It's 1 1/4 miles to Portquin, and a mile to either St Endellion or Port Isaac

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2026

Thanks for the recommendation! I’ve been wanting to read Bowen too so I’ll seek her out.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2026

_Dangerous Ages_ by Rose Macaulay was a good read! It was written (and set) in 1920 and jumps around between various female members of the same family, the youngest is late teens, the eldest is 84 and looks at their lives and opinions. Not a great deal of plot but […] [Original post on social.lol]

Paperback copy of Dangerous Ages on the edge of a picnic blanket on a sandy beach.

Hand drawn journal page that's nearly full of illustrations of book covers. There are 12 different books drawn in with reading dates between 4th July and 24th August. In the middle of the page is a brightly coloured "Summer Reading Challenge" in big letters.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2026

The second book with a Cornish setting that I read on holiday in Cornwall was _Light Over Liskeard_ by Louis de Bernières. I went into it blind and wasn't expecting it to be a near future dystopia story about a guy preparing for the end of the world by restoring a […] [Original post on social.lol]

Hardback copy of Light Over Liskeard lying on the edge of a picnic blanket on a sandy beach.

Pages of a dot grid journal with hand drawn graphics. In the middle it says Summer Reading Challenge 2026 in big bright letters and around the edges are the hand drawn covers of the 11 books I've read so far and some summery stickers.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 24/08/2026

#3GoodThings 📨Cleared my inbox out. 🌳The sunlight through the trees was really nice this morning. 🧶Figured out where I was in the knitting project that I unintentionally put on hiatus a few months ago.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 24/08/2026

@tomgauld.bsky.social our holiday cottage had only two books in it when we arrived! We were obliged to leave a paperback behind when we left to help it get back to standard. We’d have left more but everything else we read while we were there belonged to the library.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 24/08/2026

I searched the library catalogue for books set in Cornwall and _The Sea Gate_ by Jane Johnson was one of the books I found. It was just what I wanted for holiday reading. A two handed narrative switching between the modern day and the second world war in Cornwall […] [Original post on social.lol]

A hardback copy of The Sea Gate book featuring a green painted wooden gate lying on a wooden picnic bench of about the same colour.

Hand drawn journal pages with Summer Reading Challenge in large brightly coloured letters. There are now ten hand drawn book covers added to the pages as well as stickers.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 23/08/2026

#3GoodThings 🎲 Long day of board games. 🐕 I was given promo cards for Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor. (Hound of the Baskervilles!) 🍕Impromptu Sunday night pizza & wine since the week is all out of whack with holidays.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 22/08/2026

I finished _Love and Other Crimes_ by Sara Paretsky just before I went on holiday. Happy to have it out of the way! I'm just not a short story person even when one of my favourite authors is (mostly) writing about one of my favourite characters. #BookReview #Bookstodon #Books

A hardback library copy of Love and Other Crimes - a black cover picturing a gold heart shaped padlock and key.

my hand drawn summer reading challenge journal pages with a handdrawn cover of Love and Other Crimes added to it.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 22/08/2026

#3GoodThings catchup: 📴 Did a pretty good job of switching off and relaxing on my holiday. 🌧️I was quite happy to have a cooler holiday and for it to be raining at home as well. 📳 The work I needed to do when I got back was minimal and easily sorted out.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 14/08/2026

#3GoodThings 🍰 Gloucester motorway services have good buns, we bought some to take away and ate them at our next stop. 🌊 Got to our holiday cottage eventually. 🛜 Got the holiday cottage WiFi working eventually.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2026

#3GoodThings 📚 Partner tidied up bookshelves while I was out. ☕️Tried a new cafe I've been meaning to visit for ages and it was great. 🌒 Projected the partial eclipse onto the garden fence.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 10/08/2026

#3GoodThings 🌧️ It was raining when I went outside to look for the cat in the night (the cat was already inside...). 📚 Actually took all the remaining books we cleared out to Oxfam (rather than leaving them in a pile for months). 🫜 Beetroot made a nice sandwich.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 10/08/2026

I picked up _The Millstone_ by Margaret Drabble in a second hand bookshop last week. I've read three of her books before and enjoyed the later ones more. This is an early one, and quite celebrated, and I did enjoy it a lot. Published in 1965, it's the story of a […] [Original post on social.lol]

Paperback Penguin books cover of The Millstone with a pop art cover painted by Allen Jones - my brain can make no sense of the image, which is probably the idea, there are brightly coloured strokes and the vagues suggestion of figures including a couple of legs and a tie.

Hand drawn journal page with Summer Reading Challenge in big bright letters in the centre and numerous hand drawn books around it. The latest is a bad copy of the millstone cover and has a flower sticker next to it.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 08/08/2026

#3GoodThings 🧹 Got the house hoovered up. 🍞 Baked biscuits & bread. 🎲 Impromptu invitation to an afternoon board game.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 08/08/2026

I felt like I was probably on board with the ideas in _Inside the Box_ by David Epstein - before I began. That given infinite time and resources we just engage in endless scope creep and do much better and more creative things with a few limits. The first half of […] [Original post on social.lol]

Bright orange hardback book of Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better by David Epstein lying on brick paving.

Handdrawn journal pages with Summer Reading Challenge in big bright letters in the centre. There are handdrawn book covers on the first page and an orange hand drawn copy of Inside the Box on the second page, accompanied by a sticker of a cat in a pink glass.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 07/08/2026

#3GoodThings 🛌 A bit of extra sleep this morning. 🥗 Meals eaten outside. 🪴Enjoying the ritual of watering the plants and tidying up outside in the evening.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 07/08/2026

I’ve been out #foraging blackberries again. I’ve picked these since childhood so I know exactly what I’m looking for. I noticed the clusters of berries in the photo and I’m pretty certain they are elderberries? Would appreciate it if someone could confirm for me […] [Original post on social.lol]

Small black berries in clusters on a tree. I think they are elderberries.

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Kirsty Darbyshire @nocto.social.lol.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2026

#3GoodThings 📓 Delivery of a new notebook and pens. 🖊️ Enjoying using the above! 📚 Overheard the Oxfam bookshop volunteer saying they needed stock which gave me the impetus to sort some overloaded bookshelves out when I got home.

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