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pandammonium.bsky.social
Pandammonium
@pandammonium.bsky.social
95 followers 50 following 360 posts
Rambling.
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pandammonium.bsky.social
The free electricity I get now and again from my supplier is bad for the waistline 😏

#baking #veganFood
Chocolate fudge cupcakes topped with glacé cherries and silver glitter on a cooling rack.
October 29, 2025 at 4:58 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I crocheted a pumpkin!

#crochet #pumpkin
A bright orange crocheted pumpkin with a cinnamon stick for a stalk, tied with string. The pumpkin is on a light-and-dark patterned surface with a grey background.
October 21, 2025 at 8:55 AM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I’m going to a crochet group at the weekend. I thought I should brush up on my crochet skills because it’s been a lifetime since I last crocheted. Wow, it’s hard.

I wonder if they’d mind if I knitted instead 😏

#crochet #crocheting #knitting
A very small piece of poorly crocheted purple fabric next to a crochet hook on a patterned background.
October 15, 2025 at 11:21 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I restarted my latest training plan today – starting with a blessed rest day 😅

Tomorrow is an easy run. I looked to see what ungodly hour I must get up to run in the morning before it gets too hot.

The Met Office’s overnight low is 20°C 🥵

#running #heatwaves #UKHeatwave
Screenshot of the Met Office’s weather forecast for 04:00–09:00 tomorrow: •04:00: 20°C (feels like 21°C). •05:00: 20°C (feels like 21°C). •06:00: 20°C (feels like 21°C). •07:00: 21°C (feels like 22°C). •08:00: 23°C (feels like 23°C). •09:00: 24°C (feels like 24°C).
June 30, 2025 at 9:04 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I bought a new houseplant today.

It’s a moss ball. Except it isn’t; it’s algae.

And it must live underwater.

I don’t know 🤷

#moss #algae #houseplants
A furry green ball in a glass jar with gravel and stones in the bottom, half filled with water. The green ball lives on top of the stones, submerged in the water. What have I done?!
June 28, 2025 at 9:52 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I took a picture of a caterpillar and used my phone to identify it. It got it bang on.

It’s the caterpillar of a toadflax moth on a toadflax plant that it has stripped most of the leaves off.

How satisfying.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calopha...

#toadflax #moths #caterpillars #toadflaxMoth
Photo of a toadflax moth caterpillar on the flower of an otherwise bare toadflax plant. The caterpillar is black with pale green bands across its back, with yellow stripes lengthways down its back. The plant is a spike stripped of leaves with a cluster of purple flowers at the top. The flowers look like they’ve been nibbled as well.
June 19, 2025 at 10:24 AM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I’m watching this dot along the Summer Spine Sprint South.

#SummerSpine #SpineSprint

live.opentracking.co.uk/ssss2025/
A smiling bloke wearing orange in front of a Spine Race backdrop, holding his race bin. He’s number 784.
June 14, 2025 at 1:53 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I did it! I got my parkrun PB and got sub-30!

Silver target achieved; I’m chuffed to bits, especially given how hot it was.

Official time 29:13.

Many thanks to my pacer, my running buddy, Coach Greg and the fantastic people at my home parkrun.

#running #PB #parkrun #GarminCoach #CoachGreg
Screenshot of Garmin run results: Parkrun 31 May @ 09:03 Average Heart Rate: 167 bpm Total Time: 29:19 Distance: 5.01 km Average Pace: 5:51 /km Total Calories: 357 GARMIN.
June 2, 2025 at 9:40 AM
pandammonium.bsky.social
Coach Greg has purple confidence in me again!

I messed up a few weeks ago, and it dropped into the green. But I’ve worked hard, and it’s back up in the purple.

All I have to do now is not mess up my last two training runs, then go for it at parkrun.

#running #parkrun #parkrunPB #Garmin #CoachGreg
Screenshot from Garmin Coach in Garmin Connect. Text: Run with a time goal: 29:00 A dial on the left shows week 12 of 12. A photo in the middle shows Coach Greg. His expression is ambiguous: sometimes, he looks pleased with me; other times, he looks disappointed. He’s looking pleased today. A dial on the right shows his confidence level from orange/red (bad) to yellow (mediocre) to green (good) to purple (super-duper). The marker indicates purple 😊
May 27, 2025 at 9:25 AM
pandammonium.bsky.social
This is the teeniest tiniest chestnut mushroom I have ever seen.

#mushrooms #fungus
A teeny tiny chestnut mushroom standing on a wooden chopping board in front of some quartered normal-sized chestnut mushrooms 🍄‍🟫
May 20, 2025 at 8:30 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
Got out of bed early to go running this morning to try to beat the heat.

It was still boiling.

#running #Garmin
Garmin-generated graphic showing rubbing stats as follows: Garmin coach: easy run. 13 May @ 08:03. 55:14 Total Time. 567 Total Calories. 7.91 km Distance. 141 bpm average Heart Rate. 6:59 min/km average Pace.
May 13, 2025 at 11:29 AM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I heard my bird of the day in Merlin Bird: a great tit!

#birds #birdsong #birdId
A screenshot from Merlin Bird showing a photo of a great tit overlaid with an announcement saying ‘You found your bird of the day! Come back tomorrow for another bird’.
May 12, 2025 at 12:28 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
Not sure why my Christmas cactus feels like it should be flowering in the spring.

#ChristmasCactus #plants #flowers
A close-up of a pointy, bright pink Christmas cactus flower bud with some its foliage in the background. Some parlour palm leaf fronds encroach on the cactus’s space.
March 30, 2025 at 9:57 AM
pandammonium.bsky.social
Misremembered the pace I was supposed to be running at this morning. I thought it was hard!

I alternated between running and walking for the cooldown, which Coach Greg allows 😅

At this point, he has more confidence in my ability than I do. I’ve said that before 😏

#running #Garmin
Garmin coach: steady state run 26 March at 08:34. Distance: 5.07 kilometres. Average Heart Rate: 141 beats per minute. Average Pace: 6:55 minutes per kilometre. Total Time: 35 minutes 2 seconds. Total Calories: 348.
March 26, 2025 at 3:03 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
Long easy run today.

#running #Strava #GarminCoach
Distance: 9.99 km. Pace: 6:45 minutes/km. Time: 1 hour 7 minutes. Running shoe icon. Strava.
March 23, 2025 at 9:52 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
Coach Greg had me train to do a half marathon in 2:40. Hah. But I did what he said, even when I didn’t want to.

Despite the heat and aching legs; because of the training and the crowds, I ran it in 2:38:40, my new PB (up from ~3:30)!

Thank you, Coach Greg!

#running #Garmin #CambridgeHalfMarathon
A photo of red-faced me beaming at the camera while holding up my shiny new Cambridge Half Marathon medal. I don’t think I could look any happier!
March 9, 2025 at 5:26 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I got to the end of Transylvania relatively unscathed – with only a few hairy moments 🧛🧛‍♀️🧛‍♂️

That’s 372 km done in far less time than I thought it would take!

#running #vampires #medals #medal #shiny
A photo of a shiny medal for completing the Conqueror Transylvania virtual challenge. There’s a back drop of Dracula’s castle with a hinged brass-coloured vampire face with swirling hair leading up to the hinge. A photo of the reverse of the big shiny medal. There’s an image of a traditional mask of Romania, worn at New Year to ward off negative energy. They have to bee ugly because ‘to scare off the ugly, you have to be uglier’. The mask is cartoonish, and features a bushy white beard, white hair and eyebrows, a green nose and large blue eyes. The face is dark red with yellow lips and pointy white teeth. The mask has a black hat with a yellow band; silver horns twirl out.
March 5, 2025 at 10:49 AM
pandammonium.bsky.social
Almost on the final straight now. Only a few more mountains to get through, then I can leave the vampires behind once and for all … assuming these last ones don’t get me first 🧛🧛‍♀️🧛‍♂️

#running #Transylvania
A screenshot of a Google map showing the terrain of the last 20% of my route. I’m at 83% percent; my location is marked by a map pin with my avatar on it. The finish is north east of my location. There’s a hilly bit guest, then more mountains – not as tall as those I’ve crossed already. But there might be even more vampires.
February 24, 2025 at 10:13 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I made some golden cupcakes for a 50th celebration tomorrow.

The recipe is the old faithful chocolate cupcake recipe in Freya-from-Bake-Off’s baking book 😋

#veganFood #baking #cupcakes
A photo of half a dozen golden cupcakes gleaming on a silver wire cooling rack on a silver metal surface. The cupcakes are chocolate, but they can barely be seen because of the golden cupcake cases and the golden glitter adorning the chocolate fudge icing. The silver metal surface reflects the light back onto the cupcake cases, making them glow. PS Have you ever noticed that lots of shiny words start with gl-?
February 21, 2025 at 9:56 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
Does a picture of a bicycle on a sign count as a bicycle in a Captcha?

I still don't know: by the time I'd took the screenshot and finished faffing about with it, the Captcha had timed out.

#Captcha #Captchas #bicycles #bikes
A screenshot of a Captcha that says to select all images with bicycles. There are nine squares, each containing a photo. Three squares are selected because they contain photos of bicycles. Other photos contain other modes of transport (a bus, cars) or no means of transport. One square contains a photo of a bike lane sign with a diagram of a bike on it. Does that count as a bicycle?
February 16, 2025 at 1:53 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
Not only do I have to contend with vampires 🧛🧛‍♀️🧛‍♂️ in the Southern Carpathian Mountains, I also have to watch out for brown bears 🐻, wolves 🐺 and lynxes 🐱.

I’m on edge – so many sharp teeth!

#running #vampires #bears #wolves #lynx
A screenshot of some of my path through the Southern Carpathians in Transylvania. A blue line indicates my route, and a pin shows my position. I’m travelling southwards. The terrain is tree-covered mountains. Who knows what’s lurking in there?!
February 14, 2025 at 9:35 AM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I’ve made the American version of muesli: granola.

#muesli #granola #beeFriendly
A photo of homemade granola on a baking tray as far as the eye can see. It’s made from an unmeasured mix of jumbo rolled oats, flax seeds, pumpkin seed, coconut flakes, flaked almonds, raisins, chopped cashews and chopped pecans combined with maple syrup and golden syrup.
February 11, 2025 at 6:37 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I’ve got past loads of vampires already, but I think there’ll be a lot more hiding in the upcoming mountains.

I need to stop off for some more wooden stakes. I’m getting through them like you wouldn’t believe 🏃‍♀️💨🧛🧛‍♀️🧛‍♂️

#running #vampires
A screenshot from The Conqueror app. At the top is a terrain map of part of Transylvania with mountain ranges in the south and flatlands in the north. I’m heading southwards, following a blue line marked on the map. My position is given by a pin with my avatar as its head. Under the map are statistics. I’ve gone 52% of the distance in 10% of the time. That’s 195.16 km completed in 27 days. I’ve still got 176.58 km to go in the remaining 232 days.
February 9, 2025 at 12:07 AM
pandammonium.bsky.social
Went to a talk on the authenticity of the Turin shroud.

The presenter said she’d let us make up our own minds, but became biased.

She said she had an epiphany when she saw the shroud in Turin. I’ve seen it too. I had no epiphany. Also, I haven’t seen it because it’s hidden in a box behind bars.
A photo of the current resting place of the Turin shroud. Inside Turin cathedral, there’s a chapel that contains the Turin shroud in a special, fancy container. There’s a big, black plinth with steps leading up on four sides. There’s a golden rail all around the plinth. In the middle of the plinth, there’s a decorated black block, too fancy to describe easily. Sorry. On top of that is a cage, with bars criss-crossing the faces. Above the cage is another black block. On the top of the topmost black block is a black pi-shaped sculpture thing (pi as in the Greek letter, not the pastry-based foodstuff). Through the crossbar of the pi, there’s a hole through which a load of golden rods pass; the rods hold a big golden sun-like gold circle, from which ensnare shorter golden rugs, like the sunbeams in a child’s picture. Inside the cage, there’s some sort of long box that’s hard to see; the shroud is in there, apparently. Behind this fancy construction in the photo, there’s a fancy golden archway, and above, some sort of vaulted ceiling. It’s all very grand, as you might expect.
February 6, 2025 at 1:42 PM
pandammonium.bsky.social
I’m glad one of us is confident.

#running #training
A screenshot from Garmin Coach with three images in a row. On the left is a graphic showing my progress through the training plan, which is 15 weeks out of 19. In the middle is a headshot of Coach Greg. On the right is a graphic showing that Coach Greg has purple confidence in me, where people is highest on a scale of red, yellow, green, purple (from lowest to highest confidence).
February 4, 2025 at 9:09 AM