Watching Light Change
Jan. 6th, 2026 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo Lying on the bed, looking out the window, watching the light change.
We are on ground that is ever so slightly higher that the rest of town- and have an unobstructed view over the trees and houses to the Downs.
The sun comes up- no clouds to speak of- and everything in its path turns orange. I could say gold but that would be fancier and less accurate. A window about a mile away reflects the sun's light right at me. it is beyond orange, beyond colour. Directly above the shining window hangs the moon, now a few days past the full.
The shining window fades, the sunshine goes from orange to white. My eye is caught by a red spot on a street close to where the shining window was. I think it must be a traffic light but it doesn't change- so just a small, unidentified red thing......
All the while the birds- chiefly gulls and pigeons- criss cross the space between here and the hills
We are on ground that is ever so slightly higher that the rest of town- and have an unobstructed view over the trees and houses to the Downs.
The sun comes up- no clouds to speak of- and everything in its path turns orange. I could say gold but that would be fancier and less accurate. A window about a mile away reflects the sun's light right at me. it is beyond orange, beyond colour. Directly above the shining window hangs the moon, now a few days past the full.
The shining window fades, the sunshine goes from orange to white. My eye is caught by a red spot on a street close to where the shining window was. I think it must be a traffic light but it doesn't change- so just a small, unidentified red thing......
All the while the birds- chiefly gulls and pigeons- criss cross the space between here and the hills
One Thing Leading To Another
Jan. 5th, 2026 01:31 pmpoliphilo The window cleaner was admiring my hat- this one as it happens-
He's from Kosovo- where they wear something similar. He's been in this country since 2001, escaping the troubles which, he says, still go on even if the world is no longer looking
From there it was easy leap to world politics and from there to the evils of US imperialism.
And in connection with that I was researching Venezuela this morning (by which I mean skimming the wikipedia entry)- and its history is lamentable- a chronicle ofcolonisation, wars, coups, revolutions, corruption. The name of the country means Little Venice- and the story goes that Amerigo Vespucci came up with it after visiting a lake village built on stilts....
He's from Kosovo- where they wear something similar. He's been in this country since 2001, escaping the troubles which, he says, still go on even if the world is no longer looking
From there it was easy leap to world politics and from there to the evils of US imperialism.
And in connection with that I was researching Venezuela this morning (by which I mean skimming the wikipedia entry)- and its history is lamentable- a chronicle ofcolonisation, wars, coups, revolutions, corruption. The name of the country means Little Venice- and the story goes that Amerigo Vespucci came up with it after visiting a lake village built on stilts....
Taking A Bit Of An Interest
Jan. 4th, 2026 10:29 ampoliphilo Everyone seems to be catching a cold or having a cold or recovering from a cold- including me. I'm not sure which stage I'm at but I feel better than I did last night and more willing to take an interest in things in general.
Among them the US takeover of Venezuala and the kidnapping of its president: I'm not going to venture an opinion on the rightness or wrongness of this except to remark, mildly, that it's irregular- and likely to end the way all the USA's imperial adventures have done since then end of WWII- that is to say- in humiliation. Also to suggest that it looks very much like an exercise in presdigitation- designed to make us shift our attention from over here (where the Epstein material keeps coming into view) to over there (where our armed forces are covering themselves in glory).
The weather is sunny, the temperature below freezing- and I need to feed the birds......
Among them the US takeover of Venezuala and the kidnapping of its president: I'm not going to venture an opinion on the rightness or wrongness of this except to remark, mildly, that it's irregular- and likely to end the way all the USA's imperial adventures have done since then end of WWII- that is to say- in humiliation. Also to suggest that it looks very much like an exercise in presdigitation- designed to make us shift our attention from over here (where the Epstein material keeps coming into view) to over there (where our armed forces are covering themselves in glory).
The weather is sunny, the temperature below freezing- and I need to feed the birds......
As The New Year Gets Underway
Jan. 2nd, 2026 12:26 pmpoliphilo I told myself I'd try and finish A La Recherche de Temps Perdus by the end of 2025. As it is I'm nearing the end of volume 2 with 5 more to go.....
I've thought of doing a retrospective of the past year, but I can never remember when things happened and can't be bothered to find out. I would have written that the most significant event of the year was the release of the podcast, The Telepathy Tapes- but I checked and found this actually happened in 2024.....
I have sometimes made New Year resolutions, but I never keep them so this year I shan't....
Two things I've had enough of and will do my best to avoid in future:
1. Political commentary/satire that is nothing but insults and name-calling. It's just so playground.
2. Fictions that maintain the fallacy that problems can be solved by killing people
I've thought of doing a retrospective of the past year, but I can never remember when things happened and can't be bothered to find out. I would have written that the most significant event of the year was the release of the podcast, The Telepathy Tapes- but I checked and found this actually happened in 2024.....
I have sometimes made New Year resolutions, but I never keep them so this year I shan't....
Two things I've had enough of and will do my best to avoid in future:
1. Political commentary/satire that is nothing but insults and name-calling. It's just so playground.
2. Fictions that maintain the fallacy that problems can be solved by killing people
First snow of Winter
Jan. 2nd, 2026 10:01 amcmcmckThere was snow overnight. Just a couple of inches which wasn't forecast.
It is forecast for the next few days, however.
It clearly caught the council out as no gritting has been done.
A few pics from the house first thing:
And from the back:
I notice a few new people from LJ have asked me to friend. Can I please ask that you read my intro post at the top of my blog and if you're cool with what you find there, I'll open up for you. I keep things f-locked apart from my photos for privacy reasons but am always happy to meet new people and I do have good translation software if you aren't happy in English.
It is forecast for the next few days, however.
It clearly caught the council out as no gritting has been done.
A few pics from the house first thing:
And from the back:
I notice a few new people from LJ have asked me to friend. Can I please ask that you read my intro post at the top of my blog and if you're cool with what you find there, I'll open up for you. I keep things f-locked apart from my photos for privacy reasons but am always happy to meet new people and I do have good translation software if you aren't happy in English.
Timey-Wimey
Jan. 2nd, 2026 08:04 ampoliphilo Judy just wrote a short play about 9/11. I was thinking about this and it hit me that in another nine months 9/11 will be distanced from us by 25 years- that is to say a whole quarter century.
There was a conversation going on yesterday that I was hanging at the edge of. One guy was saying how the Millennium was ages ago but the 1970s were yesterday.
And then someone else, I think it was Ailz, said how people were increasingly using the phrase "the late nineteen hundreds" as if the days of our (comparative) youth were some remote historical era.
But then there are millions and millions of actual, fully responsible adults walking around for whom that's exactly what they are.
Finally Ailz capped things off by saying, "Do you realise that the baby who plays the sun in the Teletubbies is now a mother?"
There was a conversation going on yesterday that I was hanging at the edge of. One guy was saying how the Millennium was ages ago but the 1970s were yesterday.
And then someone else, I think it was Ailz, said how people were increasingly using the phrase "the late nineteen hundreds" as if the days of our (comparative) youth were some remote historical era.
But then there are millions and millions of actual, fully responsible adults walking around for whom that's exactly what they are.
Finally Ailz capped things off by saying, "Do you realise that the baby who plays the sun in the Teletubbies is now a mother?"
Ring Out The Old, Ring In The New
Jan. 1st, 2026 07:49 ampoliphilo I dreamed I threw my cap in the air- "Hooray"- and it went over the fence and landed on top of a tall stake in the garden next door. I was wondering how to get it back when our real life neighbour (the one we've had problems with)- who was working in a garden on the far side of the of the one where my cap had landed- fetched it down with his rake and returned it to me. "Thank you, thank you" I said.
I woke and found it had just turned midnight- which means that I was going "hooray" in my dream just as 2025 was giving way to 2026.
2026 dawns in great slanted bands of pink and orange cloud. All the astrologers, channellers and seers I follow are saying it will be a year of profound and radical change......
I woke and found it had just turned midnight- which means that I was going "hooray" in my dream just as 2025 was giving way to 2026.
2026 dawns in great slanted bands of pink and orange cloud. All the astrologers, channellers and seers I follow are saying it will be a year of profound and radical change......
Привет! LiveJournal imports may be slow
Dec. 31st, 2025 08:24 pm![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
denise posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenanceПривет and welcome to our new Russian friends from LiveJournal! We are happy to offer you a new home. We will not require identification for you to post or comment. We also do not cooperate with Russian government requests for any information about your account unless they go through a United States court first. (And it hasn't happened in 16 years!)
Importing your journal from ЖЖ may be slow. There are a lot of you, with many posts and comments, and we have to limit how fast we download your information from ЖЖ so they don't block us. Please be patient! We have been watching and fixing errors, and we will go back to doing that after the holiday is over.
I am very sorry that we can't translate the site into Russian or offer support in Russian. We are a much, much smaller company than LiveJournal is, and my high school Russian classes were a very long time ago :) But at least we aren't owned by Sberbank!
С Новым Годом, and welcome home!
EDIT: Большое спасибо всем за помощь друг другу в комментариях! Я ценю каждого, кто предоставляет нашим новым соседям информацию, понятную им без необходимости искать её в Google. :) И спасибо вам за терпение к моему русскому переводу с помощью Google Translate! Прошло уже много-много лет со школьных времен!
Thank you also to everyone who's been giving our new neighbors a warm welcome. I love you all ❤️
Picture Diary 114
Dec. 31st, 2025 04:54 pmpoliphilo Picture Diary 114
1. Pierrot
2. Miss Pompeii
3. Coming storm
4. Bluegrass country
5. Leap of faith
6. Perfection
1. Pierrot
2. Miss Pompeii
3. Coming storm
4. Bluegrass country
5. Leap of faith
6. Perfection