Marguerite

@marguerites

Soprano, tech person, fan conrunner. Not usually in that order.

208 Folgt1.026 Follower1.574 Posts

Bluesky

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Marguerite@marguerites· 1d

The noble house seal has a long and storied history.

A brown tabby cat is lumped up on a wooden floor, basking in a sunbeam. Her body is extended but very solid, she has her front paws tucked in, and her rear paws are sticking out rather like a tail. All in all, a fine seal impression.

Marguerite@marguerites· 7d

I knew I’d heard that before.

A political poster with the slogan “make crime illegal”.

Marguerite@marguerites· 11d

There is just a bit of drizzle this morning, but 1) hopefully it will cool things a tad and 2) it was enough for a rainbow to appear.

A blue sky over redbrick Georgian buildings is smattered with misty clouds. It is quiet, with little traffic. A stately tree makes its presence known on the left and a rainbow arcs across the centre.

Marguerite@marguerites· 11d

Even accounting for the humidity, I sometimes find myself thinking things like “27? That’s not that hot.” Then I reframe it as 159% of the average temperature on this day, and I don’t feel so bad for feeling too warm.

A weather app screenshot showing today’s high of 27C (80.6F) compared to the average temperature of 17C (62.6F)

Marguerite@marguerites· 12d

Same!

Using a colander as makeshift pinhole camera shows a radial pattern of eclipsed suns in its shadow. Only little crescents are visible.

Actual pinhole camera attempt - the tiniest baby’s fingernail sized crescent of light is visible on the wall.

Marguerite@marguerites· 12d

My pinhole cameras only did so well - sometimes nature’s pinholes are the best. Even technology failed me, though the lens flare shows the extent of the eclipse.

Leaves have cast shadows on a wall, but instead of the usual round sparkles, everything is tiny crescents because the sun is ~94% eclipsed at the moment.

Direct shot not showing the true extent of the eclipse but the lens flare displays the moon coverage.

Marguerite@marguerites· 16d

Delighted to be at Dublin Comic Con this weekend giving away free books on the Wicklow level (2nd floor) on behalf of @dublin2029.bsky.social. Come get a book or two, hear about our plans to bring the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) back to Dublin in 2029, and maybe sign up to help!

A table groaning with boxes and boxes of books, atop, below, and underneath. Books range from Scalzi to Weber to Weis and Hickman to Maas, and beyond. Please. Please save me from repacking and moving these books again by giving them good new homes!

Marguerite@marguerites· Jul 4

Millie sometimes does not understand physical or personal space, but Marlene and I love her anyway.

A tabby cat is failing spectacularly at curling up in a cat cave. She is somehow forming a prawn curl while also face-down in the fuzz while her legs also stick out while she has also half-collapsed the top.

Two cats cuddle side-by-side in a fuzzy pink cat bed. They are each stretched out long, lying belly to belly. The black and white tuxedo cat has her head hanging off the edge of the bed, with one front arm stretched out fully. The tabby has put her head in the tuxedo’s “armpit”, and has her own front paw out to give the tuxedo a hug.

Marguerite@marguerites· Jun 18

Cats are weird. Great, but weird.

A brown tabby cat is slumped inelegantly across her cat bed. She is more rugby ball than feline, with one rear leg hanging over the edge, front legs curled up to show her fuzzy white belly, and her head tilted back in such a way as to look like she has no neck.

A black and white tuxedo cat has been snapped mid-energy burst. She was clearly playing on the platform of a cat tree - she is flopped on her side, with a stare at the camera that is somehow both vacant and intent, as though she’d surprised anyone else was here. Her shoulders are behind the central sisal post, with two legs lying on the platform and the other two braced on the post itself. In a slightly more curled pose she’d be putting her rear top leg behind her ear. One paw has pink-and-black speckled toe beans on view.

Marguerite@marguerites· Jun 3

@cemurphy.bsky.social Just for you, looking down from Mountjoy Square.

The spire of Findlater’s Church is a warm cream rising into a cloudy grey summer sky. Not a single sign of any scaffolding, which is unusual.

Marguerite@marguerites· Jun 2

Headed into a meeting tonight but was rewarded with this view before we started.

A double rainbow is visible against a cloudy sky, arching over rows of rooves and chimneys and trees.

Marguerite@marguerites· May 27

Swapsies as a thank you. #BloomScrolling

Magical mystery tour peony - deep blush with hints of a creamy centre to each petal. It’s as though you took a beautifully-ripe peach and turned it into a flower.

Sarah Bernhardt peonies - like their namesake, entirely dramatic and famous for being so. These are a pale pink, but each bloom is bigger than an average fist and absolutely jammed with layers of ruffled petals.

Marguerite@marguerites· May 19

Gonna be honest, this Rorschach test slogan is not rebuilding any trust here. Enough *what*? I could read it as “time to tackle derelict housing, chronic public underspending, and the rise of vocal hatred”, while someone else will read it as “too many taxes, too much immigration, too much ‘woke’”.

A Sinn Féin party campaign poster (no particular candidate) with the slogan “Enough is enough” in bold caps.

Marguerite@marguerites· May 12

There is always something so soothing about well-balanced … typography? Lithography, since it’s stone? Lettering. I should drop down to Arbour Hill and check it out. I am also a fan of the displays inside the GPO, though that’s a slightly more dynamic approach.

A Seanchló (literally “old script”) sign using the pre-reform Irish spellings. Black stone has been carved and the grooves filled with gold, so the words glow. In comparison to the quoted post, based on Uncial lettering, where the letters are very round and even and lined up, this example uses the same rough shapes for the letters but they are thinner, with a varying, almost dancing layout. Each lines’s base is consistently straight, but sometimes the lower curve of a C provides a base for the left leg of an A, or two Ls in a row are nearly stacked. Kerning breathes and flexes, making sure each word and each phrase is a coherent design element.

Marguerite@marguerites· May 10

A little Sunday #BloomScrolling, and Marlene plays the worst game of “There is no cat in this image”.

A garden running riot. A sprawling rose covers a cement fence with big red blooms, and a glossy peony plant at its base blazes with bright pink flowers the size of someone’s hand.

A low peony bush displays a couple of variegated blooms, cream and a dark pink.

Spherical peony buds of a white / pale pink look practically ready to burst in the bright sunlight.

A small urban garden has grass full of dandelions in the puffball stage, ragwort plants a couple of feet tall, cleaver vines. More roses and peonies are visible in the background.

A small tuxedo cat is hiding in the ragwort, with basically just her chin and whiskers visible, but one moonstone eye looks out warily.

Marguerite@marguerites· May 9

Belfast’s putting on a bit of a show this weekend. It’s a good thing Norncon’s programming is top-notch, or the city would be tough competition.

Sunset view of Samson and Goliath, two massive yellow shipyard cranes. The serene river Lagan flows across the scene, reflecting the grey-ish sky above. A small city park is in the foreground, and a single train trestle bridge runs past the park, over the river, and off toward the shipbuilding district.

The Albert Clock An ornate, Victorian stone clocktower stands proudly against a bright blue summer sky, with modern traffic and lights and pedestrians flowing around it.

Marguerite@marguerites· May 6

THOOOOOOOOON

Spherical pink buds contrasting against glossy long green leaves. The largest is maybe the size of a golf ball, and the smallest the size of a pea.
This plant hasn’t bloomed before, so I’m not sure what colour the flowers themselves will be! (I forgot what I planted where.)

Several tawny buds in that almond-like / rosebud shape have sprouted throughout a glossy green bush a couple of feet tall.

Pretty sure these are Magical Mystery Tour. I got one bloom last year, so I know it is a blush pinky peach flower when fully open.

Close up of two deep pink spherical bulbs against green leaves limbed in red. This is another plant that hasn’t bloomed yet, so your guess is sis as good as mine as to how it will turn out!

Marguerite@marguerites· Apr 30

I have passed it now but I will see if I can get pictures tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy this old shot from the last time they were (temporarily) done with works.

Warm grey and cream stone of a compact mid-19th century Gothic church, with a spire soaring nearly 55m into a blue sky with the puffiest of clouds.

Marguerite@marguerites· Apr 22

I had a peacock in my garden the other day! Not the bird, the butterfly. Was a delightful addition for as long as it was around.

A rust-coloured butterfly with white and black concentric rings in the corner of each wing suns itself among grass and jagged green dandelion leaves.

Marguerite@marguerites· Apr 19

Was out in the garden and it is absolutely wild at the minute with dandelions and ragwort and bluebells, which means I also got to see bees and spiders and snails and all sorts of native creatures enjoying it even more than I get to. The peonies are waiting for their moment to shine, too.

A peony bush with vibrant green leaves blushed with red supports at least five flower buds bursting with the promise of spring. It is surrounded by other plants and flowers playing host to bumblebees.

Marguerite@marguerites· Mar 1

Same on the met.ie stats. www.met.ie/climate/avai... Feb’s solar radiation measure is less than 60% of the long-term average.

A chart showing solar radiation measurements in Joules/cm^2 at Dublin Airport.
February 2026 is 7,640 and the long-term average figure for Feb is 13,263.
Jan 26 was also dull, but was 6,588/7,240. Dull numbers for dull days of dull weather.

Marguerite@marguerites· Feb 13

It really has been a dark start to the year. I pulled this off of met.ie this morning. Long term average solar radiation in January is approx 7200 J/cm^2. This January was 6588, well below average. We’re also only at 2100 halfway through Feb - monthly LTA is 13k+. And then there’s the rain.

A chart showing solar radiation (which I’m using as a substitute for “sunshine”) at Dublin airport’s meteorological station. This January’s total was 6588 Joules per square centimeter, which is 80% of last year’s value (sunnier than average) and 90% of the long-term average.

It really was a dark and bleak month!

Marguerite@marguerites· Feb 13

Two humans standing in a sunny field, absolutely dwarfed by about 5 very tall sequoia trees to their left. More trees of a variety of species continue to ring the field.

Marguerite@marguerites· Jan 20

Adventures in buttons, week 1. Marlene has identified the “treat” button, and taps it gently but rarely puts enough weight down to trigger the button. We’re working on that. Millie…. Millie just thinks the tiles are a great place to lie down and (bonus) sometimes she gets scritches for it.

Three pressure buttons are arranged on the floor, so the cats can step on them and trigger a specific word and an action.

A large tabby cat has decided that sprawling directly on top of one button is the best place to be.

Marguerite@marguerites· Dec 11

The sky was putting on a bit of a show this morning.

A blue dawn sky covered in dramatic sweeps of clouds reflecting sunlight in oranges and pinks and purples. The city buildings are almost black in contrast, from the backlight.

Marguerite@marguerites· Dec 9

You will be visited by three spirits.

A promotional shot for “Twelfth Night” by Shakespeare (2009, Shakespeare in the Park production at the Delacorte).
On the left, a Black woman dressed in white linen and with flowers in her curling hair has her eyes closed and is cupping the jaw of the middle figure, bringing herself forward for an open mouthed kiss.
On the right, a Hispanic man with a lovesick expression on his face has his eyes closed and his head resting on the shoulder of the central figure.
In the middle, a pale white woman with short, very dark hair appears both constrained by and pulled between the other two. She is dressed in what appears to be a navy military-style uniform, and her expression is both longing and unsure.

All three are ridiculously attractive, of course.

Audra McDonald as Olivia
Anne Hathaway as Viola / Cesario
Raúl Esparza as Orsino

Marguerite@marguerites· Nov 28

Ha, and looking at the full thread, the author is @hugobookclub.bsky.social. Good job, Olav. (Also adding a repost for alt text. More people should get to enjoy this.)

A slide on a large screen behind a speaker’s table, clearly set up for a talk/lecture.

Why do the Nazis of today love Alternate History?
• Because fascism is premised on nostalgia for an idealized past, and AH is a sandbox to play with alternate pasts.
• Many AH stories are about the Second World War, and brain-rotted fascists stupidly miss the point of those stories.
• Asshole losers like to imagine a world where they aren’t losers.

Marguerite@marguerites· Oct 31

The #nytxword with a cryptic clue! And it’s one of @brainmage.bsky.social ‘s go-to examples! (It’s in the archive and is 25 years old, lest anyone think I’m spoiling a recent crossword.)

The clue is “A little lower”, 4 letters long.
The answer is CALF.

Lower as in “one who moos”, not lower as in altitude.

Marguerite@marguerites· Oct 27

I’ll be fair to the driver and say that the car parked on the footpath next to the shelter blocked his view of me just as it blocked mine of him, but if I jump up and the people turning the corner start running, maybe a belatedly-signaled stop would still be appreciated.

A car is fully on the footpath and blocking visibility of oncoming traffic and the crossing just behind.

Marguerite@marguerites· Oct 25

I hadn’t binned it.