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I am informed, via the Internet, that Science has Concluded that lotion with 6% catnip essential oil compares favourably with 15% DEET as a mosquito repellent. (I have also been able to find a summary at the Graun.)

I no longer have any idea where on earth I encountered these Facts (apologies if you are the person I am forgetting!) but once I hit post here I am... probably going to go buy some catnip essential oil. (Free shipping from the place I am looking at gets me 100ml, so I am probably also willing to defray my costs by supplying decants...)

the England men's football semi-final, during a heatwave, is a terrible time to have a migraine that you refused to medicate until rather later on in proceedings than Might Have Been Wise.

nevertheless SOME GOOD THINGS:

• finished sorting through all the redcurrants, and also, fridges are Magic actually
• quantifiable Gym Progress, and also I am pretty sure the hair tie I found at the bike racks is the one I lost at the bike racks on my way out on Monday
• tinned pears and almond butter; strawberries
• temperatures finally starting to properly come down
• found the hairbrush that has been missing since last event! ... at the bottom of the backpack I apparently never fully unpacked.

Reading. Bookwise: finished Polysecure (Jessica Fern), which I am continuing to chew on (and looking forward to getting to discuss it with my therapist); two pages of The Genius of Trees (Harriet Rix), which annoyed me sufficient that I have Put It Down Again, Thanks. Will I give it another chance? Maybe!

The cause of my ire: ( an excerpt... )

Two articles I have particularly enjoyed this week: An interactive introduction to the terrific experience of rendering Arabic typography and its technical debt and, from Susanna Clarke, ‘I had been ill for 11 years. I felt like I was about to fall off the world’.

Listening. It has been an Admin: the LRP prep weekend, so we have listened to the next tranche of Hidden Almanac! I could have done without the audio for the District Court Judge debate, but otherwise I continue to enjoy myself.

Cooking. Experimented with incorporating silken tofu in the okonomiyaki (actually with pointed cabbage and carrot rather than broccoli and red cabbage, but same basic recipe) and it... wasn't terrible but it also wasn't a thing I will repeat, probably, absent a need to use up a silken tofu stockpile.

Making & mending. We have WINDOW COVERS. The bedroom experienced <1°C of solar gain over the course of the day!!! That is an Extremely Significant Reduction. I am provisionally declaring plywood + foiled bubblewrap + aluminium foil tape + ratchet straps A Success. (Would I still rather shutters? Yeah, for lots of reasons. Are they worth the sheer amount of hassle? Not at this point they're not.)

Growing. The poblano is really enjoying its corner of the patio; I think the sad small orchid is becoming a little less sad; I have harvested A Goodly Quantity of broad beans for sowing a much larger number of plants next year; the jostaberries are extremely tasty; I have achieved Yet More Raspberries, and I am pleased also with the artichokes. So. Have been managing things.

Observing. Horrid insomnia last night (I have a checklist; I did not run through my checklist; I was dehydrated!!!) did have the upside that I got to watch the adolescent foxes scrapping, instead of just hearing the Enthusiastic Yipping!

And! Several Jersey Tigers!

Today in Social Anxiety: I approached a human and asked about filming myself in the gym, got the go ahead, proceeded to do so for deadlifts, spotted three things wrong myself, shared a video with some folk for a form check, and got some useful pointers and MANY contradictory opinions on what, exactly, my butt should be doing.

There were diagrams.

Also today I had the most comfortable experience lugging watering cans around of my life (not hanging off joints!!! it's a thing you can do when you have muscle!!! it turns out!!!), several plants are not dead, I didn't eat any more jostaberries but I really need to, and we had A Fantastic Time taking all the various sections of The Puzzle that we'd done and sliding them around the coffee table sadly. This was complicated by the fact that the coffee table is juuust wide enough for the thing to fit, with space at one end for the box to sit neatly once you're finished. Eventually we resorted to The Giant Puzzle-Doing Cardboard! There was Much Swearing, it is now sat happily on the table and I am grinning at it every time I look over, and yesterday she released another in the series.

Also: strawberries. That is all.

(by which I mean, A very bravely ventured back to B&Q again, this time DID get The Goods, aaaaaaaand then discovered that even cut down they didn't fit in the car so they still needed to be attached to the roof rack with ratchet straps--)

we have achieved PROOF that the windows CLOSE when they have ratchet straps slung around both TOP and BOTTOM

we have a house at 26.7°C and an outside world at 26.1°C and it's time to go to bed

[Gru's plan goes here]

-- but hey, maybe at least we'll manage to discourage it from getting significantly warmer in here? and maybe I'll wake up early enough to open the house up usefully while we're still below 20°C tomorrow morning?

Reading. I have... restarted... Polysecure (Jessica Fern), this time having set up some space in my notebook to Take Notes, because oof. I am still at Baby's First Introduction To Attachment Theory, and I am having Thoughts.

(I am Noticing that I procrastinated on actually picking it up until it was in the final days of the loan, with enough of a hold queue that if I don't finish it in the next 36 hours I will either be buying my own copy or sulking a bunch. This is definitely a reversion to employing Deadline Panic to get a thing done.)

Playing. Puzzle! We have COMPLETED the pond and the various rivers are beginning to coalesce. I am definitely having Thoughts about design, on which more soon/later maybe.

Cooking. We wound up with a paucity of broad beans and an excess of broccoli, so I dumped a bunch of broccol in the broad bean kuku and that worked pretty well.

I have managed to process Some of the redcurrants. There are So Many redcurrants. I really need to go and harvest more raspberries so I can make the jam, and am gently cursing myself for not having achieved this before the next round of heat wave arrived...

Eating. So many strawberries. Also we had an excellent date night dinner sat outside at Wagamama, where it turns out I do in fact really enjoy the gochujang tamarind corn ribs.

Making & mending. ALAS FOR US we have not Made The Window Covers, because our local B&Q had the appropriate plywood but a broken industrial saw for cutting it to size, and the next closest B&Q, which we called to confirm did have a working saw, despite its inventory claims did not have the appropriate plywood. Ergo this week we will be once again resorting to the space blankets.

Growing. I... repotted the pineapple thereby discovering that despite Remaining Alive it was NOT Happily Growing Roots in the medium it was in? So. We will see if it survives the relocation.

Observing. A Jersey Tiger!

Yesterday we wandered down via the bakery to the river (dropping off a bike with the local nice bikes autistic en route) and spent a while watching the various waterfowl: a gaggle of awkward teenage ducks; a separate gaggle of awkward teenage coots, still all trying to pile onto the one nest; a bundle of tiny flufflings all following mama duck, one of whom was consistently making a noise exactly like the PLIMK of a water drop in a space that amplifies the sound; and Six Quiet Orbs on the nest down the river, still with one (1) teenage coot tucked into the side of it. It was a very good walk for waterfowl.