Definitely stuffing! Never heard it called dressing before. 'Dressing' is a kind of sauce to me!

Illustration from Brambly Hedge by author and illustrator Jill Barklem, featuring mice in clothes warming themselves and eating by a roaring, mouse-sized fireplace on a cold night. The scene is extremely cosy. #SpéirGorm #SpéirGhorm #BramblyHedge

Aiming for a Brambly Hedge-ish January

my wish for the new year is for stuff to stop happening so much

Happy to let you know that in the northern hemisphere we’ve now done the darkest two weeks in the year. All the other 50 weeks will be lighter than this.

Absolute Units podcast - The Museum of English Rural Life Come for the big sheep. Stay for the history of rural England and its people.

Our newest episode of Absolute Units is here!

Join us and special guests Prof Paddy Bullard (Uni of Reading) and Isabel Hughes (The MERL) as we explore Jane Austen, farming, breeding, and wrong'uns.

Also, not one but two poems get read in this episode!

merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/abso...

Alice is the gold standard of what Twitter was when it was great - how you could just find these brilliant, remarkable people with the kind of voices that rarely get platformed or taken seriously, and hear about their lives in their own words without intruding on them or demanding emotional labor

Solidarity to anyone else who experiences seasonal nosebleeds. Mine began today 🥲

I learned something new today

Did it not...hurt?

‘Death remains my intimate shadow partner. It has been with me since birth, always hovering close by. I understand one day we will finally waltz together into the ether. I hope when that time comes, I die with the satisfaction of a life well-lived, unapologetic, joyful, & full of love.’
—Alice Wong

The panic that kicks in at 2pm every day when I realize it gets dark in two hours

I have been confronted with an ad for Advent calendars and so it is time for the annual PSA:

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS BEGIN

ON

CHRISTMAS

THEY ARE NOT ANY OF THE DAYS LEADING UP TO CHRISTMAS

THAT IS ADVENT

WHICH BEGINS FOUR SUNDAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME

If it's just water, then depends on the dish. I like boiling the water for my pasta on the hob because I can set it going while I make the sauce. It means I can have everything ready for about the same time

I get what you're saying, but sometimes it's just about the little things we *can* do.

How many times did your parents have to make a similar choice because of budget reasons? Do you remember that? Or hold that against them?

I say this as someone who got rid of all their old HP stuff because I can't bear to look at it 🥲

Could you create a special HP themed day for them at home with HP stuff you find at a charity shop? She Who Must Not Be Named won't benefit financially, but the kids can still indulge

Oooh that's interesting!

I had a surprise hearing test this morning, and it made me wonder what a hearing tests sound like to those with perfect hearing. Like do you get a lil gap in between a set of beeps like I do? Or is that just the deafness lol

I was so nervous about being able to hear the examiner, but they wore hearing aids too and that put me completely at ease. We talked through communication strategies before the test and they were really understanding.

I passed my driving test today! It was my first time and I only had one driver fault! 🚘

Giant letters outside a building spelling out 'Sain Ffagan'

What a great few days. See you again soon, Cardiff 👋

Thank you!! I wish you were here too. I would love to say hi!

A black screen displaying "Museum of English or life it is a great job this is"

Shout out to the automatic captions absolutely fighting for their life @themerl.bsky.social

Madeline Odent is the subject of a slide of a presentation in a lecture theatre. Lots of people are watching the presentation, and the automatic captions from the presenter note that Madeline does "saving buildings from falling down I think"

All around me are familiar faces @oldenoughtosay.com...

Thanks for a great talk @adamkoszary.bsky.social👏📢

A hand holds a photo against a backdrop of a landscape garden with a stone bridge. The photo is a still from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film with Kiera Knightly playing Lizzie Bennett. She is running across the very bridge we can see in real life, but in the pouring rain.

A hand holds a photo against a backdrop of a folly in a landscape garden. The photo is a still from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film with Kiera Knightly playing Elizabeth Bennett.

A hand holds a photo against a backdrop of a landscape garden with a folly. The photo is a still from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film with Kiera Knightly playing Lizzie Bennett. She is standing on the raised walkway around the folly.

Twenty years since this...

📍Pride and Prejudice (2005), filmed at Stourhead, Wiltshire

once again profoundly exhausted by the framing of autism, and disability in general, as something to fight against, prevent, and scare people about. it is extremely objectifying

I can, thanks to ballet classes as a child 😅

We're 300 followers away from 70,000. 300 more would be really nice. But you know what would be even better? 300 plus 30,000.

Bluesky: help a museum out