iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 53m

Just reread this. And realised that in text-only-format, without the emphasis that's actually only in my head, it could read as if I meant "that's kinda wrong" rather than.. mm.. "yes, and.." which was what I meant.

000

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 1h

... I just hadn't realised this until recently when someone told me and I think it's such a good Interesting Fact I can't help sharing at any excuse and none.

020

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 1h

.. kinda, no? Lady Day is 25th March (same date as ever, 9 months before Christmas), but the tax year didn't move when they had the big date-shuffling and skipped 12 days (was it 12 days?) in the 18th (I think?) century? Or something?

240

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Uh... Mm. Sometimes I wonder how the world gets into the fixes it gets into. And then.. I remember that at any given time it contains non-negligible numbers of people whose relationship to reality allows them not only to think that but also to share that thought with the world.

020

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

When I did a third birthday for my daughter I gave every guest a ziplock bag of homemade playdough and a cookie cutter from a multipack from Hobbycraft. That got good reviews from the parents (and according to them from the kids)...

251

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

A couple of parties our kids have been to recently (8 and 6) have gone for a party present of a book (from, eg, the "Rainbow Fairy Magic" series).

241

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

My son had Where's Bear and Each Peach Pear Plum at about 1 and loved them. Kiss Goodnight Sam he must have been more like 2. For really tinies, we had a book of pictures of babies faces, which my daughter chuckled over at great length from.. I forget.. really little.

050

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I am nothing like 92, and I had to work out my age by subtraction on the day before my birthday earlier this month...

101

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Now that you have mentioned train station announcers, I have to shout "Hope for Castleton" in my head before carrying on with my day..

110

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I have lost all sense of time and place because it's the school summer holidays. I am probably past the point of noticing if they were broadcasting Start The Week on a Thursday just at the moment.

010

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Apparently all my science communicator friends who have done big bubble stuff in a professional context use veterinary lubricant (and fairy). But you don't need much per batch and obtaining it in non-veterinary quantities is tricky (and looking for it leads to Surprisingly Adult Websites).

000

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Seems like a good day to remark that as a medium-tall woman I feel a lot safer in any context with trans women minding their own business than with TERFs of any persuasion wanting to get their disgusting noses into what I keep in my knickers.

010

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I love Karine Polwart's Rivers Run... About love, but for a child not a romantic partner (also Come Away In..).

000

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Electromagnetic field, when I was there 2 years ago, had *amazing* electrical hook ups and almost no fire-based cooking etc that I noticed. I'm not sure if the electricity was from the mains or if there were some big generators somewhere, maybe, but not dozens of tiny crappy ones in the usual way.

110

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Doesn't solar work more efficiently rather than less where it's not too hot? I've an idea more thermal energy in the electrons in the panels reduces the efficiency of the conversion of photons into voltage. Or something. IANAPhysicsist etc.

110

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

In our area, they claim to have made you an appointment at the urgent treatment centre.. and then you get there and it turns out there is no appointment system and into the triage system you go. I've seen some people confused by that system while waiting there to get my kids glued back together.

000

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Heinz tomato soup heated on an ancient and slightly suspicious looking camping gaz stove looking at the North Sea from the tailgate of dad's car between Christmas and New Year. Turkey sandwiches optional.

010

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

I think.. people's brains may have got stuck on that one sentence. Possibly because of the heat...

020

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Good grief. I'm all for reducing waste, but school catering apps just make me want to tear my hair out (the school caterer at my kids' school has just changed apps.. which I thought would be a good thing until I saw the new one..). The abject cluelessness of offering *ham* of all things as backup!

021

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Don't know about where you are, but we had a rain shower this morning so we're being not so much fried as poached, or possibly steamed. I grant that doesn't work for the joke...

000

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

I'm on a surprise school visit in Harrow today (someone had to cancel and I got asked to do it at short notice). The amount of surface water on the roads on the way down was quite a surprise. Fingers crossed for the roof..

100

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

They're pretty cheap online (about £1-£1.50 for 2x1.3 m), so most of the cost is postage. They also tend to tear so you don't necessarily get 10s of uses out of them. But tougher than tin foil for putting up and down l.

010

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

If you're taping on and leaving, I think I'd go with foil, but if you've got an opening and don't want to live in the dark all summer/take the tin foil on and off repeatedly it might be worth considering.

120

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

The other useful material is 'space blanket' (the silver things you get for first aid kits). For opening windows you can just trap it around the edges of the frame and put it on/take it off as the weather changes. I suspect it's not *quite* as effective as tin foil, but probably better than card..

120

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

I've also taken to actually trying to remember to enjoy the pleasant weather when we have it..

001

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

I've taken to saying things like "ugh, too hot for me.. if I wanted it like this I'd have moved to the south of France 20 years ago" and in the spring, when it really is lovely but also Wrong for the season "yeah, I'm trying to enjoy it now.. the summers are getting too hot for me".

122

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

The count for Cambridge is in the university's sports hall. The stage has to be assembled for the event (I don't know if the staging used belongs to the sports hall and is used for other events, or whether it belongs to the city council).

000

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I did know: I think because I'd heard it mentioned in the context of "section 28.. you'd think he'd get it, and yet..".

010

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

"Il y a un hibou vert énorme hors de la bibliotheque." I think. I'm not sure how multiple adjectives order themselves in French. And I haven't checked the gender of hibou. I think if I wasn't doing a direct translation I'd say "devant la bibliotheque"... because it just sounds better to me..

120

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Ah, yes. Because of course you're paying the tax (and NI) on the income, which is the point. Not enough sleep this weekend!

000

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

I wonder: if you are a UK tax payer can you, legally, send them a *real* invoice and then donate an equivalent sum plus gift aid? So that they get the donated service plus a cash top up?

110

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Dave does some very part time work for the university. Last I heard, several years in, he was still refusing to do the cyber security course until they sent it to him in a form that didn't look like a phishing attack.

010

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Come to think about it, given what I've heard about bits of the HoC culture at various points since then I should maybe be clear we were asking for Coca-Cola..

120

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

* Six of us, maybe, in the 6th form. No teacher in tow. ** Don't know what it was, but it did that spirits thing of making a pattern up the side of the glass. And there was quite a lot of it. Neat gin, possibly. He died (I think of cirrhosis) a couple of years later. It was all very depressing.

100

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

As a teen, in 2000, my local MP was banned for drink driving. When my kid sister got him to give a group from our school* an HoC tour the first thing he did was take us to the strangers bar. And then express surprise at our all asking for coke while the bar staff poured his 'usual'**. Only I was 18.

110

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

My first thought for 'as if your life depends on it' is actually big pocket combat pants with first aid kit, rations, torch etc..

030

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Would depend what I knew of the sender. I think in the case of the limited array of people likely to invite me to a wedding usually the latter, but it's ambiguous.

000

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

.. and one of those times when they asked could I be pregnant the answer I gave them was "Well, yes, 36+5, give or take"... I was, admittedly, wearing a very big jumper at the time, but still. The triage nurse looked a bit startled.

010

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I was just thinking "Goodness, really? They never tried to get me to do that.." when I realised that I've been to A&E on my own account exactly twice since leaving school, on both occasions, 10 years apart, I'd broken my elbow falling off my bike and needed an x-ray..

100

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

All my knowledge of things that aren't Christchurch mansion (or my folks' place) are 20+ years out of date.. the waterfront has reputedly got some nice cafes these days (unless they've shut again). Wolsey Gate is of mild interest if you're near the docks anyway, but not a destination.

en.wikipedia

100

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Hah! Well, it is a Cool Thing.. ah, yes, I had known about the tax year thing, once. The 11 days is separate in all but the legislation to do both, yes? Because if you're going to confuse people you might as well confuse them in one mighty leap and get it over with!

100

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

In 1752 the date of the start of the new year moved from Lady Day to January 1st. So if that monument was erected a few years after Dutton died it might be because it was in 1742 by the old calendar but 1743 by the new? Tho I'm not sure where that leaves it compared to the 11 days skipped..

210

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

I found the hat. It fits. He is wearing it.

A smallish boy (8) is reading a book on a carpeted floor, propped up on one elbow, in his pyjamas. There are odd bits of Duplo around him and a scruffy sofa in the background. He is wearing a white knitted beanie type hat in stone kind of slightly wafflish stitch, with a dark blue band near the bottom and the letters NY embroidered in navy blue thread on the front.

120

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Well, there is that... Anyway, they look particularly excellent. In my youth (11ish to 20 or so, maybe) I used to make hot cross buns with live yeast from the bakers... the recipe asserted it matters. Then one year I didn't have time and discovered the recipe was entirely wrong (or out of date..).

100

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Did you try some in a glass first, or just go for it?

101

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Schools are now very twitchy about malware and often won't let you plug in a usb device under any circumstances.

010

rarh3.bsky.social @rarh3.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

I'd say also (and this certainly applies to going in to schools, but there are probably other examples, especially in a community engagement/outreach context).. have a copy in an email you can send to someone with local user network access at the drop of a hat.

110