Vagaries of Mine
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vagariesofmine.bsky.social
Vagaries of Mine
@vagariesofmine.bsky.social
720 followers 2K following 1.1K posts
Art, reading, writing, the thoughts from my head, folklore, folk horror, the macabre, the uncanny, the absurd. ADHD. Alt text enjoyer. Trans Rights Are Human Rights. They/them. Kate.
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vagariesofmine.bsky.social
There was also this fun passage at the start of one document, on disambiguating generations of William Beans.

All this to say, write down or otherwise record your scrappy, incomplete and artfully reconstructed family memories. Future generations will thank you.
5/5
A word of clarification for my ex wife: William Bean had a son called William Bean and another called James Bean. James Bean had a son called William Owen Bean who had a son called William Owen Bean who had a son called William in Australia who may well have a son and grandson named William. William Owen Bean who had a son called William Owen Bean had previously had an illegitimate son called William whose mother's parents refused to let them marry. She married a man called William and he insisted that his eldest son be called William so she had two sons called William. All these Williams are called Billy.
November 14, 2025 at 5:56 PM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
If you ever feel like you're living in your sibling's shadow, just think about Sophia Lane Poole who wrote a whole-ass book, only for her brother to be named and have his book plugged on the title oage, but she is only credited as "his sister" 💙📚
A photo of a title page on a book reads: The Englishwoman in Egypt: Letters from Cairo, Written during a residence there in 1842, 3, & 4. With E. W. Lane Esq., Author of 'The Modern Egyptians.' BY HIS SISTER ______ In two volumes - Vol I. ______ London: Charles Knight And Co., Ludgate Street. ______ 1844
October 3, 2025 at 6:56 PM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
understanding, trying, failing & small steps. It's not a cheery read, by any means, but not devoid of light. Not my usual, but if the themes above are your thing & you're ok with some gory horror elements then it's worth a go. The author included their own trigger warning 5/5

#booksky #reading
For my mum and my child, thank you for the love and courage. Note: In this book there is talk of self-harm and harm to others. Unsafe parenting and scared children. Suicide, trans phobia, birth trauma and post-natal depression. Broken families and absent fathers. I hope that is not all there is in this book or that this is all you will be left with if you choose to carry on reading. But I don't want your hurt and personal history ambushed or triggered without warning and I wish you strength and support with all you carry.
September 22, 2025 at 8:17 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
I read This is Where We Live by Kate Hardie yesterday. It was an impulse buy & based on the blurb. I thought it was going to be more of a distinct gory werewolf creature feature horror juxtaposed with the mundane struggles of parenthood with clear feminist allegory. I was hoping the wolf was 💙📚 1/5
The cover of This is Where We Live by Kate Hardie, published 2025 by 4th Estate. The cover is red with a rough style illustration of a naked woman stood with her arms by her side, looking vacantly off to the left. A large black wolf, maybe a wolf skin, is draped over her, it's large head resting on he's and it's front legs draped over her shoulders with the body behind her so it looks like it is hugging her from behind, but also could be a cloak. The title is in bold white all caps over the top of the illustration. At the bottom, the author's name is in pink. At the top right and left corners are two quotes: "A blistering roar against a society far too quick to judge mothers" Financial Times "The most gripping account of motherhood since Rachel Cusk's 'A Life's Work'" Independent From the back cover of This is Where We Live by Kate Hardie. A single mother is doing all she can for her child. But she wakes to dried blood under her fingernails, a severed toe on her doorstep and a local boy is missing. Her child calls out to ask if she's ok. She replies 'I'm ok, love.' But throughout the day her mind is racing, clutching at memories, desperate to find the truth. Is she a 'good enough' mother? Or is she the very thing her child needs protecting from? 'This taut, elliptical debut questions what makes a monster' Marie Claire
September 22, 2025 at 8:17 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
Can't tell if the woman at the hotel who made my tea just doesn't drink tea, or if I'm an accidental early adopter of some new trend, either way, I did not expect her to steam the milk.

Please enjoy this obligatory obvious pun as I delve into the mysterious world of the...

Lattea

You're welcome
A white mug of tea. With a layer of foamy, steamed milk on top. London never ceases to bemuse me.
June 3, 2025 at 7:31 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
I was just reviewing what I'd written, so far, for this short story; I last worked on it in bed.

Clearly, I was more tired than I realised.

#WritingCommunity #WriteSky
If you're using a text reader, the short description is that this is a screenshot of my writing. The last sentence ends half way, with the rest replaced by a very long string of 9s, 7s, 8s and Us (not sure if that will read as "us" , but I mean it to be the plural of the letter U). If you listen to the whole thing it will be incredibly boring. Probably best to save yourself and quit now The text reads: You looked a little bemused, but happy. “The best is yet to come.” You point ahead. We had only a little further to go. The rocks huddled together in long-established cliques, sharing blankets ofyyyy888888889909999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999u788888888888777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
May 25, 2025 at 4:42 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
Son cœur est un luth suspendu;
Sitôt qu’on le touche il résonne.
-De Béranger.

(His heart is a suspended lute; As soon as you touch it, it resonates.)

Two-for-one - this is the epigraph for Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher.

#BookWormSat
A black and white photograph of Edgar Allan Poe
May 24, 2025 at 9:19 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
“To you, only to you, my core of curdled cat bile. To you alone, so harken diligentiums. Are you harkening? Are you listening for this is how it goes. My song of a hundred years ago, my plaintively most melancholic song.”

#BookWormSat
Image of the cover from the first edition of Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan. The illustration shows a huge crown, chained to a mountain with smoke sort of hunched bird of prey, or maybe a carrion bird perched upon it.
May 24, 2025 at 9:06 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

Song, John Donne (pic explained in alt)

#BookWormSat
This is actually a three for one BookWormSat offering as Song connects two other classic works of literature- Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene, and Diana Wynne Jones's much-loved modern children's classic, Howl's Moving Castle. Although it doesn't come through in Miyazaki's film (and why would it? Centuries old English poetry isn't exactly culturally significant in Japan) John Donne's 'Song', sometimes known as 'Song:Go and Catch A Falling Star' provides the basis for the first of Diana Wynne Jones's Wizard Howl trilogy (she said in interview that she had ideas for a fourth, but, sadly, never managed to bring it to the page). Wynne-Jones took the first two stanzas of the poem and turned them into the curse that haunts Howl. I'm already a big fan of Donne, and loved Song anyway, despite it's assertion that "no where/ lives a woman true and fair." So I am, naturally, also a fan of the way Wynne-Jones took that and upended it, making Howl the one who cannot be "true and fair". As for The Faerie Queen connection- that gives us both my favourite lines from the poem and one of the most iconic images from the Howl book and film is a direct reference to the Knight in Spenser's epic: If thou be'st born to strange sights, Things invisible to see, Ride ten thousand days and nights, Till age snow white hairs on thee,
May 24, 2025 at 8:36 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
Best Star Trek Crew, Wrong Answers Only.
Cat, Lister, Rimmer, and Kryten from the British TV series Red Dwarf.
May 24, 2025 at 5:35 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
After the light disappointment of my last read I'm onto Thirteenth by @cmrosens.com

I impulse bought it for the cover design but now I'm one whole chapter in, I'm considering how bad it would be to stay home & read all day instead of going to buy groceries? Like, how essential is food, anyway? 💙📚
A photo of C. M. Rosens's book Thirteenth. The cover is black with a simple, silhouette illustration of a house in green it has two square windows and a door, a peaked roof with overhanging eaves and a chimney. It looks like a neater version of the sort of house a young child would draw. Except for the tentacles, obviously, although maybe some small children would happily draw a house with tentacles. I guess it really depends on the child. On this house, the tentacles fan out from the sides and foundations. There are nine of them. Nine that we can see, at least. What I'm saying is that this isn't a cute little octopus/house hybrid. I mean, it *is* cute, but more of a "what a darling little eldritch horror of an abode, I sure hope it doesn't devour my supposedly immortal soul" way, rather than a "we're off on a whimsical, magical adventure with our submarine Catbus, get me the Joe Hisaishi playlist stat!" way. One of the tentacles reaches down to coil around the first E in the title, which is printed in large, white block capitals that span the width of the book. Below the title is the author's name in the same green as the house. Above the house the tag line reads: You can't choose your family... But you can eat them. I showed my youngest the cover, and he agrees that the house is cute. He says it looks like it's smiling, and smiling houses are always welcoming... Right?
May 23, 2025 at 10:07 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
Unfortunately I read the first two linesntonthentine of Hallelujah and was compelled to do a little filking (sorry!)
Badly filked text reads: Your fusillade was quite intense; I had no hope of good defence, Your spitting guns and blades overthrew the Barricades, now trampled down- Your flag flies high, upon my brow A reforged crown; my willing hallelujah.
May 20, 2025 at 9:58 PM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
M is for Maud who was swept out to sea.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies, Edward Gorey

#BookWormSat
A black and white illustration from Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrumb Tinies. A girl with barely drawn facial features, her arms outstretched and her hair and dress pulled behind her by the wind, stands upon a plank in the middle of a dark sea. In the far, far distance there is a dark line of cliffs and a lighthouse.
May 17, 2025 at 8:14 PM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
On Thursday we played a city-wide game of hide & seek which lead to the youngest & me discovering this incredible piece of #QueerHistory at Osbaldwick Church (couldn't get a clearer pic but see alt text for transcript)
A photo of a headstone set flat into the path. The epitaph reads: Here lyeth the body of Mr Richard Wright who lived as Partner with William Hutchinson Gentleman, of the City of York In great Union for 35 years Remarkable for justice and fidelity Who died April the 5th A.D. 1747 Aged 60 years Here also lieth the body of William Hutchinson Esqr Who Departed this life January 5th 1772 Aged 89
May 17, 2025 at 12:35 PM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
A very, very expertly produced image of a sign that reads "Livingston twinned with Scarfolk" I seriously cannot emphasise how high the quality of the editing on this image is. It definitely doesn't look like someone with low digital art skills rushed to make it in medibang on their phone, when they should have been focussing on work.
May 17, 2025 at 12:14 PM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
The only certainty is that I was a foundling abandoned in the middle of the ocean. My earliest memory is of being afloat in rough seas, naked and alone in a walnut shell, for at first I was very, very small.

The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear, Walter Moers

#BookWormSat
A cartoonish illustration of Captain Bluebear as a baby, in a walnut shell, being carried along by a choppy sea.
May 17, 2025 at 11:45 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
"Flounder, Flounder in the sea,
Come, I pray thee, here to me;
For my wife, good Ilsabil,
Wills not as I'd have her will."

The Fisherman and His Wife, Grimm's Fairytales (1981, Routledge & Kegan Paul)

#BookwormSat
Pauline Ellison's illustration for The Fisherman and His Wife, as told in a 1981 edition published by Routeldge & Kegan Paul Ltd. In the foreground, a fisherman stands on the sands, arms outstretched, grey hair,beard and green cloak tugged about him by the wind. The sea is breaking upon the shore in great, overlapping waves, at the centre of which is the almost mosntrous face of a huge flounder. Beyond the fisherman are great, brown, rocky cliffs crowned with dull grass. Above them seemingly in the clouds, is a great palace, emitting a golden light that makes the clustered domes and spires shine much brighter than the surrounding natural landscape.
May 17, 2025 at 11:19 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
One of Gustav Doré's illustrative etchings for Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The image depicts a dark sea, strewn about with great boulders of ice. On the left, the bowsprit of a shop can be seen entering frame. In the centre there is an albatross with the fateful arrow flying towards it.
May 17, 2025 at 10:39 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

Sea-Fever, John Masefield
#BookwormSat
My photo of the North Sea. The slate grey sea is calm, almost flat with only the faintest ripples of waves marrying the surface. Above the sea, a cornflower blue sky just manages to peek through tiny gaps in the vast canopy of dappled white and grey cumulus clouds that stretch all the way out to the dark line of the horizon.
May 17, 2025 at 10:01 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
Finished Mother Naked by Glen James Brown last night. Thoroughly enjoyed. Dark & traumatic with well-balanced diversion & levity, full of intrigue & cleverly woven threads, all delivered in a unique voice that truly captures the character of a seasoned entertainer with one heck of a story to tell 💙📚
The paperback cover for Glen James Brown's Mother Naked. The background is a lurid acid green, with a medieval figure, wearing a similarly coloured tunic, seemingly dancing in the centre. The figure is bent backwards at an unnatural angle, their head tipped so it is half way down their back. One arm is raised above and one arm reaches in front. The word Mother appears above them in heavy, black type. The O is raised above the rest of type, as if thrown upwards by the dancer. It is dripping with orange flames. The word naked is below, in similar type, with the A lowered slightly from the dancer having stepped on it. The Author's name is in the same type, but smaller, behind the dancer's back
May 15, 2025 at 10:01 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
The trials and tribulations of developing an intolerance to lactose after 40+ years as a dedicated cheese fiend
A screen shot of a chat between my mum and me (Gary is my kids' dad). Me: Just ordered a load of fancy cheeses for Gary as his bday present from the boys. Little bit mad that I can't eat them all myself Mum: Living vicariously Me: Living bitterly and enviously
May 11, 2025 at 6:32 PM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
Superb evening with Mum. Had dinner at Skosh- small plates, every one an absolute banger, then on to see Gary Oldman in Krapp's Last Tape

Superb performance. Never thought watching someone eat 2 bananas in a row could be so riveting

They reckon he's up to 60 bananas so far

Night ended beautifully
My photo of the River Ouse from Lendal Bridge. The sun is casting its last blushing rays into the deepening gradient of a perfect blue sky. The darkened surface of the river blends the reflected light into a warm violet as it wends its way between the stark black silhouettes of the treeline
May 2, 2025 at 9:57 PM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with Mum & friends, craft sharing. We did some gel plate printing, made models from scrap/driftwood, and ate splendid food, including some biscuits made by yours truly.

The lighthouse is my creation, and I shamelessly love it. The house is Mum's

#art #lighthouse
A photo of two models - small cottage and a lighthouse - made our of scrapnwood, garden twine, rusty washers, old screws and bark. The cottage has a bark roof, washer windows and tiny climbing roses painted around the door. The lighthouse has curls of bark around its base, like crashing waves and rusted washer windows. Both are on bases of rough, lichen-mottled bark. A rear view of my scrap wood lighthouse from the back, so that you can see the seagull, made from a little V of wire painted white with black tips, perched on the crocheted twine railings that wrap around the lighthouse just under the light. A gel print I made of a moon-gacing hare. The hare and moon are gold, with the surrounding print a dark, almost midnight blue, dappled with bits of the gold pain coming through from behind. A plate of biscuits. There are rich, crisp, dark chocolate squares (everyone was surprised that they were so chocolatey but not too sweet), pistachio, orange, and cranberry shortbread, and chewy almond and lemon ricciarelli.
May 2, 2025 at 10:44 AM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
Reminds me of a writer I know (white, male, boomer gen) who complained that his book wasn't picked up by a significant publisher bcos the industry is biased against his demographic

Friends, I read 11 pages of his book, and exceeded my quota of misogyny, racism, and maudling self-insert for the year
Cook told The Bookseller: "There has never been an independent publisher that champions literary fiction by men. Which is not to say we won't publish fiction by women in the future - but the emphasis at first will be on male authors."
April 28, 2025 at 2:23 PM
vagariesofmine.bsky.social
I'm going to my parent's for lunch on Thursday. Not sure I want to now...
Screen shot of a WhatsApp convo between me and my mum. Mum: Can you bring some bread? 🙏🏻 Me: Was going to. Can't bear to disappoint dad twice in a row! Mum: well was thinking for our lady lunch actually 😂 Me: I'll bring plenty Mum: Don't go overboard Me: I won't! Mum: I'm going to make a spankings Me: Uhhhhh. Ok....
April 28, 2025 at 1:46 PM