I gave up small talk and replaced it with the smallest talk I could possibly think of.

Sounds like she's learnt to focus small talk on things she's interested in rather than giving it up. Astrology though? I'd run a mile! I might start with What's Your Favourite Frog?, although maybe that's too much like What's Your Favourite Child?

Up there with the John Clare car park in Peterborough in the list of Most Fitting Tributes to Great Poets.

The Drunken Man's Praise of Sobriety could have been so different if only he'd had still Irish water.

On reflection, that may be my most grumpy perimenopausal literary opinion. For now. Grumpy perimenopausal opinions are a whole genre of their own and I expect I'll come up with something much grumpier soon.

I have lots of literary opinions but I don't think any of them are particularly unhinged. To be fair, I don't think I'd be the best judge of that anyway. One of my current, very well hinged, opinions, is that declaring unhinged opinions doesn't make people more interesting...

Well! Since you ask me to talk like a pilot, here is a quote you might find... anapaestic...

We hope you're enjoying the flight.
On your left, we're just coming in sight
Of Swindon or Stroud,
All covered in cloud,
And it's much the same thing on the right.

We also have examples of all three endemic whitebeams, together with rowan and rock whitebeam, planted outside Great Glen House, @naturescot.bsky.social's office in Inverness!

New normal? This has been the American normal for years. Your primary school children have active shooter drill the same way other countries have fire practice. Every country has its problems, and one of the USA's is that people really like shooting each other.

I see no heron

And absolutely excellent it is too!

Thagomizer? Absolute genius!

"Pull out, Betty! Pull out!...You've hit an artery!".

And the chewing louse Strigiphilus garylarsoni.

Lovely! Although I have to admit to some shock at discovering that your surname isn't actually Muttering. Mind you, I still call zitting cisticolas fan-tailed warblers, so I expect I will still think of you as Muttering.

Superb photos too - I do love a starling. All the starlings.

To be fair, I'm not sure how many of Heath Robinson's contraptions survived the testing process...

Well I got one wrong because I forgot Woodland Trust (and rainforest) exists outside of Scotland... hopefully I can keep my job though...