iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Honestly some days, I just want to stare into a hole in the ground too.

A pigeon standing in the street, facing left with its tail in the air as it leans forward and stares into a little hole between the cobbles. The pigeon is a mix of dark grey (on its head), a muddy pale russet (body and wings), and white (tail). The cobbles are grey and sandy colours.

Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Nepal-Tibet flash flood: Two workers pulled alive from hydropower tunnel nine days after disaster: www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...

In the centre of the image is a mud-covered man, wrapped in an orange flexible stretcher, which is carried by a host of rescue workers (wearing orange hi-vis vests and red, yellow, or orange helmets). The man in the stretcher has his hands raised in a gesture of prayer.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Ugh. We have it here too… Rosie’s boyfriend sent her this yesterday 🧐

A stack of supermarket shelves, loaded with mince pies, Christmas puddings, and other Xmas-themed goodies.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Even with an exposure time of 1/4000th of a second, less than 8% of the sun’s light is still too much for my camera – only the lens flare gives it away! #OctoEclipse @OctopusEnergy

In the far bottom-right corner is the silhouette of a treetop. in the lower-right-centre is the sun, much overexposed and looking a bit ragged and uneven, with star bursts radiating from it, but no other detail. Top centre is a lens flare, showing just how thin a crescent the sun was showing at the time. The background is actually a weird sepia colour (a light yellow/brown), getting darker towards the edges away from the sun.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

I’m fine, thank you! Was pulling through a parking space and (incredibly gently) kissed a gnarly curb. I’m guessing the tyre was pinched; it was much too slow to have been just the impact 😕 The silver lining was the guy in the recovery truck, who was absolutely lovely ☺️

A sharp curb corner (centre right) protruding into the parking spaces at a 45° angle. Tarmac on the left, with the stub of the dividing white line going from centre to centre-left.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Toyota: “No one needs a spare tyre these days. We’ve given you a reinflation kit!” My car:

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Check out my breakfast spot ☕️ 😍

I’m sitting at a table of a French street cafe. In front of me (bottom) is my breakfast – pain au chocolate, orange juice, and an espresso, together with the sports news about yesterday’s Tour de France. Ahead (centre) are more tables and chairs, and a little further is another cafe (with large umbrellas) in this cobbled square, and beyond that (top centre) are medieval buildings (I’m in Carcassonne). Top left is blue sky, and top right is the foliage of a tree.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Do I win the prize for best reading spot ever?

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Just realised the photo didn’t post! Here it is. Might make more sense now 😁

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Yep, this is worth being awake for. Morning all 😃

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

I found a lithographic museum!! 😍 #Cadiz

A block of white-ish stone, very smooth on top, and engraved with a map of the southern part of Spain.

A museum display, showing various tools used to engrave lithographic plates (none of which I can name or explain, sorry!)

A huge litho press, probably made of iron, 2-3m long, which various cogs and wheels and a path for the paper to follow through the process.

A litho-stone (tautological, I know), which some Spanish words and logos engraved and inked on its super-smooth top surface.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

My view right now… sailing into Cadiz 😍

A sunrise at sea. In the foreground is dark sea, with gentle waves just visible. In the middle is a line of black mountains, with the sun (yellow) about to rise over in the centre. The sky along the horizon is deep orange, with a mix of light and dark stratus clouds and blue sky above, fading to grey/blue at the very top

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

I’ve discovered so many beautiful flowers in Portugal. I think this one is my favourite. INaturalist tells me it’s a Fern-leaved Beggarticks (bidens aurea). I understand they’re invasive, but this was the only one I saw. #flowers

A green grassy background (with a darker green hairbrush, top left), mostly out-of focus). In the foreground is a tall stem with widows, longish leaves. At the top is a single flower is six rounded and slight overlapping petals that are white to the edges and bright yellow in the central 60%. Very striking!

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

I’m in Porto, and I’m reading Proto. It’s confusing.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Even on holiday, I’m training for the @alzheimerssoc.bsky.social Trek26! It’s a 26-mile hike with nearly 5,000’ climbing 😬 in Wales in June. Please see my story here (2-minute read): www.justgiving.com/fundraising/...

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I am half way through Project Hail Mary. Despite rarely reading fiction, and not having read sci-fi since my teens, this is already one of my favourite books of the *century*!

A book cover: a white sand-serif don’t top and bottom gives the author’s name (Andy Weir) and the book title (Project Hail Mary) in the middle a 30-something white man with short dirty-blond hair and a white t-shirt, floats mostly upside down, with spaceship-type multicoloured lighting panels in the background. We can only really see his head and torso, cut off at an angle from his right shoulder to left midriff. He looks a little anxious.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

I see your celandine, and raise you a wood anemone

Grassy background. In the foreground are two white 7-petalled flowers with yellow centres.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

I see your blackthorn blossom, and raise you a cowslip

Background is scrubby grass, in front of which is a cowslip, with five broad green leaves spread out at ground level, one is hiding a tall stalk, then at the top of a the stalk half a dozen or so trumpet-like yellow flowers are pointing in various directions.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

I’m setting a French book at the moment, which gave me the excuse to buy this 😍 #BookPost

A white paperback with the title « Lexique des Règles typographiques en usage à l’imprimerie nationale ». The text is in black and multiple typefaces (sans-serif, serif, funky,etc

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

I have wonderful friends! Week 3 of training for the Bannau Brycheiniog Trek26 in June, in aid of @alzheimerssoc.bsky.social and, basically, each Sunday I’m being dragged the long way* to a different pub, then being bought beer 🥰 (*long way = 8 to 12 miles)

A view along the South Downs Way in Sussex: wispy clouds in blue sky at the top; trees centre left (no leaves yet), some scrub in the middle foreground left and right of a wide chalky path that leads down a hill and snakes away into the distance up the next hill. Short green grass everywhere else. On the path ahead of me, three men are walking away down the hill.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Into the Tangled Bank by Lev Parikian. Interesting, educational, accessible, and very funny. #nature

The front cover of “Into the Tangled Bank” with the title centred in white sans serif font. The subtitle (in smaller white italics) reads “In which the author ventures outdoors to consider the British in nature.”
The background is of a roughly painted undergrowth, mostly greens, but featuring various wildflowers (including pink foxglove bottom right, pink campion maybe, top left), a small tortoiseshell butterfly (orange, top centre), and a song thrush (very bottom right).

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Last week, my local indie-bookshop was devastated by fire (info in alt-text). They’re hoping to reopen in temporary (much smaller) premises nearby, but to help tide them over, please consider buying a book from their page at uk.bookshop.org/shop/onetree.... Thank you! @bigbeardedbookseller.com

The image shows an angled view of a row of four shops (stretching from the left of the image and away to the right), taken from across the road. The three storey terrace is built of stone, with a white-painted gable end (left). Flames, which started in the property next door, have spread to the roof of One Tree Books (the left-most frontage just before centre), and can clearly be seen against the cloudy/blue sky above. In the end, the whole block (at least six businesses and a number of residential flats) were gutted.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Narrating audiobooks can be "tricky" sometimes, but my sound booth has nice soft foamy walls, and banging my head against them has no effect on frustration levels. So instead, I might have got into the habit of head-butting the mic... 👀 #AudioBooks #Recording

Screenshot of a recording software interface, showing a 1h 30m soundwave (which, at this resolution, looks like a long horizontal bar of very tightly packed vertical lines – like thousands of very skinny people standing in a long tine – pale green against a dark green background). In half a dozen places, the lines spike sharply up and down (like super tall people with long legs sticking out at the bottom too), showing where a sudden loud noise has occurred.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Massive storms in France just now 😳

The background is a map of the Pays de là Loire (mid western France), on which is superimposed a mass of dots (representing lightning strikes). Red dots are the oldest, through orange and yellow, to white, which show the currently active zone, which stretches approximately 80 miles from Rennes to the north east. There is also a smaller (but still huge) storm over the southern coast of Brittany).

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

PSA: don’t do this! This guy is taking *multiple* calls on speakerphone. And because the (nice) music in here is loudish, he has the volume turned up. So basically he’s shouting at his table, and his table is shouting back.

The location is the interior of a quirky cafe. High ceilings, large globe lamps hanging from the ceiling, the walls crammed with framed paintings (over strongly patterned wallpaper).
Left of centre, at the far end of the room from where I’m sitting, is a man at a table. He is marked with a large yellow arrow!

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

When you spot a hornet creeping into a crevice right by your front door.. 😍😳😍😳😍😳😍😳

The background is a Virginia creeper growing on a brick wall (the side of my garage).Top centre, on a leaf in the shadow, is a (European) hornet. Moments later it slunk into a hole the eaves, top left.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

I am confused. How did my cat get on your desk?

A view from above, looking down on the back of a (brown and black) tortoiseshell cat (lower centre-left) who is peering into a large cardboard box (top right) that’s lying on its side. The floor around is light brown too (sorry!)

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Happy Easter everyone. Late (chocolate) breakfast for me after TWELVE HOURS sleep 🥳

A close-up of the silver foil that my Easter egg came in. It’s quite rumpled, hence lots of random light and dark areas. In the middle are a few last crumbs of chocolate (the egg is no more).

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

After 8h birding at the RSPB this morning, I skipped the nap and spent the afternoon helping with lambing instead. What a great day!

Me facing the camera, wearing a grey hoodie and black leggings, sitting in a barn surrounded by pallet-pens and straw. There’s a small white milk-drunk lamb on my lap, and I’m wearing a “well, what-can-you-do” expression.

The background is a pen with straw on the floor (centre left) and a blue water bucket (top right). At the top left and centre, there are two very small white lambs facing right, sniffing at my boots (I’m sitting on the floor with my legs stretched out in front of me). On the right, all you can see is the right ear and eye of a very small, and very close black lamb sniffing my phone as I take the picture

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Aurora visible from southern England this evening. I can see the green glow, but my camera can see more 😃 (handheld 2” shot through window)

On the right is the silhouette of an oak tree and on the left is the silhouette of the corner of my neighbour’s roof. In the middle, the night sky is glowing green low down, with a vertical band of faint red in the centre. The sky is dark above, and a few stars are visible too.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

I am STILL reading "The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done" by Piers Steel (it's been 5mo now 🙄 ). It feels more geared towards work and the workplace (I need it for domestic stuff!), but it's still interesting and useful. #AmReading #BookSky

The cover image of "The Procrastination Equation": the background is white, with a bright orange border. The text is all in sans-serif typeface, with the main title in a bold display font ("The" and "Equation" are black; "Procrastination" is orange). The subtitle, "How to stop putting things off and start getting things done") is underneath and smaller (the word "stop" is in red", and "start" is in green". Below that is a green button with the white letters "GO" on it (with a silver surround). The author's name is below that ,in orange, and at the very bottom, in much small black text, it says "The world's leading authority on the science of motivation and procrastination.

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Leigh Forbes @writeleighso.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Another example of appalling typesetting – in *vitally* important text: • unnecessarily small font size 😕 • sans-serif typeface 🙁 • atrociously tracked ☹️ and to cap it all... • badly printed! 😤 #TypographyMatters #BookSky

The image shows the ingredients' list of a "Mushroom, Leek & Stilton Pie". The words are tiny, very cramped, and pixellated. Its only redeeming feature is that known allergens (milk, wheat, egg, etc.) are in bold.

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