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jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Dr Jennie 🐝 (she/her)
@jenruthbailey.bsky.social
220 followers 660 following 110 posts
#HEinFE library lass, writer, wanderer, benign menace to society... Refuse to outsource my intellect to gen AI.
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jenruthbailey.bsky.social
The annual thinning of the veil and this year's "I probably should have done GCSE art" offering: Derpkin the Pumpkin lit up by camping torch!
A carved Halloween pumpkin lit up with red camping light.
October 31, 2025 at 5:54 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Dementia Action week in the library. Our library team & knitting and crochet club have been busy in my absence! 💙 #oldham
A display in a library foyer with a mannequin wearing a blue dress decorated with crocheted forget-me-nots. A display including twiddle muffs and free knitting patterns. Literature about dementia and dementia action week.
May 21, 2025 at 7:13 AM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Bee bum in the Rosa rugosa 'Roseraie de l'Haÿ'! Happy #worldbeeday (Am bit burned out after caning it / "girlbossing too close to the sun" last week, have a chunk of this week booked off work & feel like I'm crawling towards it - not unlike a bumblebee crawling into a blousy bloom for pollen...) 🐝🐝🐝
Bee in our back garden rosa rogusa bush
May 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
(ad)venturing to the #lithicgathering @manmetuni.bsky.social Bringing a pocketful of Rochdale stones to the symposium party. Excited but nervous! #placewriting
Detail from a slide. Text equals "Introduction: Northern grit(stone)" image of slide note order for author to show. Small detail from the talk "Hello! Apart from a lifelong penchant for collecting rocks and being drawn to stone..."
May 16, 2025 at 8:12 AM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
And with a shriek, the swifts are back in Todmorden! (Pictured: a bird that stops for long enough to get a picture of. Thank you, pigeon.)
Pigeon on a wall. There are daisies growing out of the wall.
May 11, 2025 at 2:36 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Rochdale's Seven Sisters from Rooley Moor Road / Catley Lane / The Cotton Famine Road. Loads of sky larks making their raspy high-pitched multi-noted presence known. #Rochdale
View towards Rochdale town centre from off Rooley Moor Road and what we think may have been a settlement but not sure.
May 10, 2025 at 4:56 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Good thing I don't need a #nhs doctor mega urgently... #todmorden 🫠
May 3, 2025 at 8:27 AM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Curse of a sunny day/hurtling towards the end of the academic year. Prepped a creative writing session &, alas, no students have appeared. Shame, as I have sweets! Anyone else having similar attendance issues even though you've planned a session that YOU'D love to do?! #academicsky #HEsky
Intro session to a poetry session. Witha short piece of research. Papers on a desk.
April 30, 2025 at 11:37 AM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Beautiful day for a wander and to find more stones. You'll have to imagine the skylark surround sound though #Rochdale #Littleborough
The Aiggin Stone, waymarker (poss medieval) along what is now the Pennine way.
April 20, 2025 at 3:05 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Happy to share that I'll be presenting a creative/critical paper at this! "The Stones of Rochdale" :-) This is Healey Stone Circle, a 21st century creation perhaps signalling a (re)turn to neolithic spiritual or calendrical practice? Or just a lovely, ludic gesture? #rochdale
Picture of the Healey stone circle. A contemporary build out of what looks like local grit stone.
April 14, 2025 at 1:05 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Spring library display on International Children's Book Day #librarylife
A display of books, crocheted chicks, a tree with crocheted leaves and trellis with small paper flowers on it. There are origami butterflies around the display. Sign text: Spring Into Reading.
April 2, 2025 at 11:05 AM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Goodbye NaNoWriMo, the embrace of GenAI & taking an age to sort out fora issues wasn't brilliant. Still, I will always be grateful for it existing while I was grieving. Drafting a daft comic fantasy - which will likely never leave the laptop - kept me from falling into a deeper pit of depression.
A screenshot of my NaNoWriMo participant page. There is a picture of me (white woman, middle aged, wearing glasses, pinkish hair) holding a large tabby cat. The screenshot depicts the project "Ley'd" with the "Write 50,000 words progress bar full. A screenshot of the 2011 NaNoWriMo "Ley'd" project description page. Project summary text" "A story of New Age tomfoolery, truth, friendship, aliens, werewolves and pasties."
April 1, 2025 at 9:06 AM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Toad crossing near Lumbutts, Todmorden (Toadmorden). Don't forget your green cross toad. 🐸
A sign on the road curving uphill to Lumbutts. The road sign is an image of a toad in a red warning triangle. There is a cone next to the sign.
March 30, 2025 at 8:02 AM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Fab creative & somewhat psychogeographical morning @folkloretodmorden.bsky.social brilliantly facilitated by artist David Chatton-Barker #mapmaking #creativecartographies
Maps of Whitworth and the South Pennines on a low dais. Various maps that have been used to create collages on a coffee table.
March 29, 2025 at 12:55 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Cinderhill garden allotments #folkhorror #Todmorden
Allotment scarecrow with a frightening pumpkin head.
March 28, 2025 at 7:21 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
An old pal is staying this weekend. I was doing a quick tidy & found this. The website lives even though it should be gone... I'm in a better place now then when I last updated it; I'm actually writing seriously again! Wondering if I should resurrect it as a project.. #writingwithnature #wildwrites
A flyer is placed on a pile of paper. From the top there is the logo of the Friends of Reddish Vale. Text reads Friends of Reddish Vale proudly presents... Wild Writes! Short stories. Storytelling. Poetry. Journalism. Nature inspires writing: from Wordsworth rambling and daffodils to Katniss everdeen fighting to survive in The Hunger Games. This summer, get inspired by nature. Wild Writes! is A series of free workshops for young people and their families. Every Saturday in August there will be games and the opportunity to write poetry and prose. Sessions run from 1:00 till 3:00 p.m. at reddishvale Country Park on a run by Jen Ruth Bailey, a stockport-based writer. Pens and paper provided. Bring waterproof clothing! ** Children under six must be accompanied by an adult ** There is an email address included on the flyer that no longer works and a website which shouldn't work but does www.wildwrites.org.uk
March 13, 2025 at 5:00 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Brief stop in Stockport this morning. Gentrification slowly happening. Very slowly. The lack of apostrophe irked me, but that's the grammar girl in me. (And before anyone comes at me, I was born here. Well, not literally born on the Underbanks, but you get what I mean.)
Blue signage against a building being refurbished near Stockport (Trafford) College. Text, with missing apostrophe, is: "The town has reinvented itself as a funky, family-friendly alternative to Manchesters Northern Quarter" Bottom of Lower Hillgate, polite street art with "Underbank" spray painted in cyan and pink bubble all caps. There's a scrawled tag next to this, two cycle parking bars, one a bit bent over.
March 10, 2025 at 5:36 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Happy #worldbookday2025! The Education & Early Years students have been busy bees making potato sculptures of scenes from children's picture books to display in our library. I think they're ace! #universitycampusoldham #readingisforeveryone
Close up of potato sculpture of Elmer the colourful elephant with a palm tree background and two of his pachyderm friends. Potato and seaside cardboard box display of an image from the book 'Lost and Found' by Oliver Jeffers. A potato penguin and a friendly potato wearing a hat ride in a red and white cardboard boat. There is a cardboard red and white lighthouse and a sign that reads "Welcome to the South Pole". Close up of potato sculpture. This is a scene from 'The Tiger who Came to Tea' by Judith Kerr. A potato painted as a tiger sits drinking little plastecine cups of tea with a potato child. Model of 'The Smeds and The Smoos' by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. The characters Bob, Janet and Baby are positioned next to a red rocket ship.
March 6, 2025 at 8:58 AM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
A short lunchtime walk at the pivot point of February. Oh, and a vinegar Valentine just for you #digitalart #verymuchabeginner
Midday landscape image. Rolling hills of Todmorden, Scouts Moor windfarm, and the town down below. The lemon light of late winter sun partly obscured by golden edged clouds. In the foreground bramble and hawthorn. A digital art piece of a bottle of vinegar. Label says "I am BATTS for you. Malt Vinegar." The bottle of vinegar is on a yellow and mustard background.
February 14, 2025 at 4:17 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
New book arrival! Tyne & Weird, Vol. 1 by Rob Kilburn. Inspiration for planning to return back NE once I'm more mobile again. Soon, soon. Willow (the tabby pillow) is helping me by propping up the book. #weirdhistoricalgeography #folklore
Close up of a book on blanketed knees called Tyne & Weird Vol 1. Image is an odd older man in a wingback chair reading. Text on front cover of the boom includes the title and 'History, Mystery and Weird'. Willow the tabby cat is asleep, not realising that she is being used as a soft book stand.
February 11, 2025 at 12:50 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Yes, the world is a hellscape at the moment so here I am, post-op with legs up, researching the Rhubarb Triangle for, shhh, a currently super secret project... #placewriting #rhubarb
Screenshot of Chrome browser which is focussed on the World of Books website page which features "Walks in the Rhubarb Triangle" by Richard L. Bell for £3.60. Other tabs open include Ex Libris Discovery, Dabble Writer, and the Royal Horticultural Society on How to Grow Rhubarb.
February 7, 2025 at 5:01 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
On this incredibly windy day - Oldham regeneration project opposite the main library. Art by Hammo.
Hammo street art, the word "Oldham" painted onto a barrier. In each of the words are notable Oldhammers such as Anne Kenney, Clint Boon, Cannon and Ball). The trees have been buffeted by the string wind.
January 24, 2025 at 3:51 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Really quite chuffed with our new life skills section in our library. It's a mixture of self-help, frugal recipes, & DIY. All ready for when the students return on 6th Jan. (Am on the late shift on the last day of term, so of course I'm sorting the shelves out.) #librarylife #goingtobealongevening
A library bookshelf with the books in Dewey Decimal order. The sign above text: Learn new skills for 2025! From mending to budgeting to cooking to supporting your mental health - there's something for everyone in UCO's new Life Skills collection. New Year Same You New Skills. The shelf to the left just out of shot is the "Read with Pride" queer books section with a pride progress flag on the shelf.
December 19, 2024 at 5:07 PM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Back to Middleton* this morning to run a session on human rights and festive felt decorations for Stand Up Sisters CIC and the Living Well group. Willow has been supervising prototypes. #creativity #creativemaking #festivefun

*in #Manchester or #Rochdale depending on which side you take.
An above image of a large tabby cat looking at two felt star decorations. One star is white with patches of linen and Calico sewn on to it, these patches are stamped with 'We Want Peace' and a star stamp next to it. Gold sequins are sewn onto four of the points and there is a felt patch with a plastic star button sewn onto the top point. The second felt star has 'All I want for Christmas is equality " stamped on in all caps. A fabric pen drawn holly sprig is towards the top of the star, fabric pen red dots decorate the right hand side of the star
November 26, 2024 at 9:59 AM
jenruthbailey.bsky.social
Second Sketch Club meeting in the library at our #HEinFE campus, theme is: cold (very apt!). Three drawings from staff and students for the annual festive display 🎄 #drawingforwellbeing
A table covered in arts materials: watercolours, biscuit tins of brushes, watercolour paper, pastels, felt tips, watercolour pencils, a jar of water, glue and a see through box of words cut from magazines. Three drawings from sketch club. Two are stylised snowflakes and a piece with three Christmas trees drawn on it - the first tree is green with a googly eye at the apex, the second consists of pink branches with the word 'Fairy' glued above it, the third is cloud shaped with a silver star sticker stick above it.
November 21, 2024 at 4:48 PM