@Funktious@mastodon.scot
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Funktious

@Funktious@mastodon.scot

Former Midlander, Londoner, East Anglian; currently Glaswegian. Librarian, feminist, knitter, beginner potter-er and Remainer / Rejoiner. Member of the Guardian reading, tofu eating, wokerati. Unbalanced duck fanatic.

Mostly post about books, birds, cats, #Glasgow and Scotland.

Love boosting the many beautiful photos I see here, but only those with alt text.

Just my toots: https://justmytoots.com/@funktious@mastodon.scot

#Knitting #Reading #Books #Bookstodon #Glasgow #Cats #Gaming #Pottery

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Funktious, to Bloomscrolling
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Finally, FINALLY some sun for my daily walk, so specifically aimed for this corner of the Botanics to see what was happening and voila, a carpet of magic!

#bloomscrolling

me, to fediverse
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I'm trying to convince the last friends I have left on Facebook, X, Threads, or BlueSky to join the Fediverse. Some have tried but felt a sense of loneliness. Nowadays, many people are so used to doing what algorithms suggest that they can no longer make independent choices.
My timeline here, on the other hand, is beautiful.
I see what I want, I follow people who post what I like, and no one tells me what I should do. Freedom may come with a "cost," but whatever it is, it's worth the effort. Always.

Funktious,
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@me Yeah, lots of the people I knew from Twitter who joined Mastodon fell away from it quickly, saying they just didn't 'get it'. I think they're now all on BlueSky. I blame the latter years of Twitter where everyone just passively absorbed everything.

It took me a while to find my feet here but I did it by actively boosting, liking and replying to posts, finding and following hashtags, then people. And now I have a really nice feed and lots of interesting people and photos and conversations!

Funktious, to books
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Albert is unhappy that the book situation has got to the point that he can't find any room for a kip.

(Do not feel sorry for him; he rarely goes up there, he has dozens of other comfy places to sleep, and my work space is just below these shelves so if he knocked one of those hardbacks off, he could kill me. We have to have some boundaries!!!!)

#books #CatsOfMastodon

Funktious, to random
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Can any #bird, #birdwatching folks in the UK recommend a pair of compact binoculars? I’m considering these as my other pair are also RSPB and have been fine, but I really don’t know what else might be out there for a similar price https://shopping.rspb.org.uk/binoculars-scopes/birdwatching-binoculars/compact-binoculars/rspb-avocet-compact-8-x-25-binoculars.html

Funktious, to books
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A fantastic read. Great world building (over and over again) and interestingly explores the tension between "doing" and "being".

I'm slowly making my way through all the Le Guin I can, having discovered her late but just happy to have found her at all.

#books #bookstodon #LeGuin

Funktious, to Bloomscrolling
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Carpets of bluebells all over Islay right now

A path through Bluebell woods
Bluebells against a stone wall

Funktious, to random
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Counting today as my #fediversary I created the account in April but started posting just here in November. I’m so glad I found this place; it’s much more chill; there’s more interaction and you have so much control over things. I love being able to follow hashtags and have conversations with strangers because of them. I like how you can filter out the things you're not interested in. I love how people boost and favourite posts and help them find their audience. Looking forward to another year.

Funktious, to random
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Funktious, to random
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Funktious, to Bloomscrolling
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whispers don't look too excited in case you scare it off, but I think spring might be here. But shhhhhhh! Don't startle it!

Funktious, to random
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#3goodthings for the start of the week.

  1. Finished up my first Year One program with a lovely library today; was nice to be able to show them how far they’ve come and what they’ve achieved.
  2. Made a delicious teriyaki chicken for dinner.
  3. Pub quiz tomorrow evening, breaks up the week nicely
Funktious, to Scotland
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On the whisky trail

Funktious, to random
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Did the tour and had three tasty drams, plus a delicious lunch in their cafe.

And old copper still in the grounds of the distillery
Working stills in the still room of the distillery
Exterior of the distillery with the traditional pagoda style roof and two artworks - a cartoon dog in the lower right and in the upper left, a painting of a window with a distillery worker leaning out of it

Funktious, to Scotland
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Enjoying a cup of tea and the view. Looks like another lovely day.

Funktious, to Scotland
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A beautiful end to a beautiful day at Loch Gruinart 😍

Funktious, to Scotland
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Came to Jura, did NOT climb the paps.

Funktious, to Scotland
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We have been so, so lucky with the weather this week.

Small waves crash on a sunny, sandy beach
A sunny, sandy beach with large green hills and cliffs rising beyond
A sunny, sandy beach with bright green grass on the dunes behind

Funktious, to random
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@RSPB Loch Gruinart Reserve

Funktious, to random
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I am Out Of Office

Funktious, to random
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Can anyone recommend a good pair of women’s walking trousers for warm weather? I normally live in my Craghopper Kiwis and while they were okay today (18ish C) they were just too warm last weekend (23C). Not cropped, because ticks. Ideally need to come in short lengths and go up to a size 18, and available in the UK. TIA for any suggestions!

Funktious, to random
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I have been to the seaside...

A Swan looks for food on the tide line of a beach
Wild garlic, trees and the sea
Culzean Castle on a cliff above the sea

Funktious,
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... and then we returned to a different seaside.

I love the scottish coast so damn much.

View out to sea along a derelict pier or groyne
View out to sea with Ailsa Craig on the horizon

Funktious,
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... and to a bluebell wood...

#bloomscrolling

Bluebells in a sunny woodland
A faint haze of bluebells beneath the trees
Close up of sunny bluebells

Funktious, to books
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Lazy New Year's Day = first book read of 2024!

I've been looking forward to this one and wasn't disappointed. It wasn't quite a five star read, but a solid four star bath read. Uplifting story, lovely characters, and of course, a fantastically snarky octopus who is the best part of the whole book; I loved him.

If only we all had smart, snarky octopi to solve our problems.

Funktious,
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Read this on the ferry crossing to Islay. Perfect little book, with not a word out of place, examining all the choices that are available to us if we let ourselves be aware of them.

Would be a lovely pre-Christmas read, which is probably when I'll go back to it.

Funktious,
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Pleasant, easy read about a beautiful part of the world.

Enjoyed the anecdotal style and the authors obvious love for his home in the descriptions of the seasons and wildlife.

The strongest parts were those about his relationships with his father and grandfather, recognising both the love and the competition between them.

A bit reticent in places (I'd have loved more on Oxford and the foot and mouth crisis) but understandable for a northern bloke! I'll read his next book.

Funktious,
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"The people in this book might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern California."

Less of a novel and more of an anthology of the lives and communities of these people, the Kesh. Virtually no plot, but a gentle, immersive read that will make you think about the human condition, where we are and where we're going.

This quote from Richard Powers at the back of my copy sums up the importance of this book better than I could in my own words.

Q. What does this novel have to offer for readers in ... the 21st century and beyond? A. The book is visionary in every sense of the word. It offers a profound glimpse into the shift in consciousness that our species will need to trigger if we want to stay around on this planet much longer. Le Guin was as attuned to humanity's great existential challenge as any novelist of that time, and it has required the passage of almost 40 years to appreciate the full extent of her vision. The Kesh are a people thoroughly committed to the project that Bruno Latour calls landing back on Planet Earth. When I read the book, I sometimes forgot whether I was reading ancient history or deep futurology. That's because Le Guin knew that the only way forward through the chief catastrophe of our time - the destruction of the planet by a pathological human culture - required the ability to look backwards and forwards at the same time. Human exceptionalism and commodity-mediated individualism have brought the living world to a precipice. To keep from plunging over, we'll need to foster a culture that finds meaning in love of local place and broad kinship with everything else alive. Le Guin saw in fine detail how our damnation lies in thinking of ourselves as self-creating and our salvation depends on cultivating a sense of interbeing. If we mean to survive as a species, we will have to learn how to become indigenous again. That is the incredible leap of imagination realized in Always Coming Home.

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