miss_newham

Another dark and wet attempt at mudlarking! At least the tide was going out this time and it wasn't raining to start with.

I don't much like mudlarking in the dark but as I now only have a few months left, it seems like I should do it.

I found a bit more this time:

An ABC sherd - from the Aerated Bread Company.

A piece of a Maling jar, but this is smaller than the usual Maling Newcastle marmalade jars I find and looks like it says “rage” on it. Rage flavour jam, perhaps.

“Trent” - pottery made by Trent Reznor.

A curious piece that has “London” written on it, and some buildings that are either on a scroll or on the back of a swan. I can’t read what the other word says on it as a number is stamped over the top.

A sherd with 033 on it.

A sherd that looks like it says Cox on it.

Mann & Co, Staffs.

(You need a permit to search or mudlark on the Thames foreshore.)

cosmolinguist

At various points today while I was slaving away over a hot laptop, I heard various Bruce Springsteen songs floating down from upstairs.

He said on fedi: "I have often noted similarities between the musicians, but I desperately want to hear New Model Army covering Bruce Springsteen's 'Further On (Up the Road)'."

(It was when he first said that he wants them to cover "Badlands," and Springsteen to cover their song "Vagabonds," that I figured I'd probably made a proper fan of him, if he could see the overlap between Bruce and a band he likes as much as he does New Model Army.)

He also sent me a link to what Springsteen said after Renee Good was murdered and then a YouTube playlist centered around Springsteen being in the Kennedy Center Honors of 2009. Which I think must be where I heard those songs from.

My newest library book, has been acquired after I heard the author, Steven Hyden, speak briefly on a short podcast series about Springsteen that D found and recommended to me (and actually listened to, which is amazing because he normally can't/doesn't want to listen to podcasts!). I found his book, called There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The U.S.A” and the End of the Heartland, and honestly I can hardly imagine anything more Me.

cosmolinguist

I had really intense, involved dreams last night; the kind where you feel like you spent days or weeks in your dream world and wake up disoriented as hell.

There have been lots about pets or small children in my care -- this time, a clever adorable toddler I was joining on vacation with her family, looking after the kid at some kind of kid-focused theme park. I had a great time, and woke up with no idea where I was or what day it was.

Luckily, D snuggled up to me as the big spoon, wrapped his legs around mine, and promptly fell back asleep, snoring gently in my ear. It is very grounding. (Sunday is the one day I don't have to get up early and I love it when I can spend Sunday morning like this.)

Occasionally he woke up enough to give me a few little kisses on the back of my shoulder, and his soft beard gently tickled my skin, and it's the best thing ever.

squirmelia

It was dark and raining and low tide had already passed. I crossed Blackfriars bridge and hesitated about going down to the foreshore. I found just a piece of Staffordshire style combed Slipware before giving up.

(You need a permit to search or mudlark on the Thames foreshore.)

squirmelia

A lunchtime lark. “Have you found anything?” the tourists asked and I told them I hadn't.

I headed underneath the wharf, further from tourists.

I walked back up the steps and a man asked me what I was looking for and I told him anything, and that I'd found bits of pottery and glass. He sounded disappointed when I said I hadn't found any coins.

Finds including:

A piece of a bottle that is rounded on the end and is quite thick glass. Different design to the usual torpedo bottles, but presumably also designed to be stored on its side. Possibly 1880s? Seems like these ones: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/85594594/1800s-round-bottom-bottle-collection-set?show_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details

A few pieces of Westerwald salt glazed stoneware.

A sherd that says “FPC” on it, which stands for Fine Pottery Company. This could be from the 1980s. Perhaps it has this kind of print: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4351064965/vintage-fpc-england-stoneware-mugs?show_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details

A stone with a face.

Half a stone marble? It has a little green leaf pattern on the side and a zig-zag pattern on top.

A glass thing that looks like it has something metal inside it. Not sure what this has broken off of.

(You need a permit to search or mudlark on the Thames foreshore.)

cosmolinguist

I did not expect that being lucky enough to have stable housing in my 40s would mean that I would spend it helping other fortysomething neurospicy queers get out of marriages gone bad.

We have me the failed foster (successful adoption! angelofthenorth always insisted on correcting me when I call myself this, heh), then P, now her.

It's ridiculously heartwarming seeing them both flourish and become more comfortable and themselves. (I imagine I must have too, but I can't see that and I have the complication of transition too old photos of me now look weird for the same reason old photos of my dad do: no beard!).)

cosmolinguist

Website I found out about today.

Minnesotans are organized and activated to respond to this violence. But they need our help.

This directory of places to donate to all comes from activists on the ground, plugged into the situation. Everything is vetted, with the exception of individual GoFundMes (not everyone is in our networks, and we don’t want to pick and choose who is worthy of help.)

If you don’t have resources to give, please amplify what you are hearing and seeing about Minnesota, across social media, but also to your networks, friends, and family offline.

Read our testimonies and know what life is like in Minnesota right now.

squirmelia

I miscalculated and only gave myself just over an hour on the foreshore before I had to be elsewhere but perhaps that was just as well as it was cold.

This time I wore gloves underneath my plastic gloves and thicker socks under my wellies and that helped me to keep warmer.

There were plenty of tourists, both on the foreshore and staring down at me, which is why I prefer to avoid this bit at weekends, unless it's early.

I found my second glowstick, and also some sherds including:

Four pieces of Express Dairies Aster pattern
Brown piece of Dudson
Some delicious strawberries
Dunn Bennett & co
J & G Meakin

A mysterious piece that says “Drew” and “Circus”. Wondering if it could be from St Andrew St, Holborn Circus, but difficult to tell.

Also, what I think is a bobbin, possibly bone and possibly for lace.

(You need a permit to search or mudlark on the Thames foreshore.)

squirmelia

A brief lunchtime wander along the foreshore.

“Have you found anything?” I asked.
“Nothing much,” the mudlark replied.

I did find a leaf sherd though! It looked almost like it could be from Animal Crossing if it had a bite out of it.

(You need a permit to search or mudlark on the Thames foreshore.)

cosmolinguist

My counselor always starts with asking me how my week has been, since we last talked.

On every level, it has been A Lot.

But it was actually really good to talk about it all: on the macro level of course Minneapolis, my friends there and seeing fascism happen in places familiar to me, and then on the micro level angelofthenorth moving out, and just seeing her thriving after six months in our goofy lovely home.

I can't fix everything but I'm so glad to have the personal security needed to donate to mutual aid, to drag someone else out of a situation so similar to the one I needed saving from five years ago.

cosmolinguist

angelofthenorth's new flat is really nice! I can see why she's so excited about it.

Moving is happening gently: she and Mr. Smith are still here for a couple more days, which is good; it'd be weird to lose them all at once!

After sleeping like shit, making it to the first transgym lift club in a month, then helping her move in and eating a whole pizza that I usually get two or three meals out of, I have been ready for bed ever since I ate dinner; it's still not even eight o'clock.

cosmolinguist

So I'm 4000 miles away, working for a British organization full of British people.

It was really nice that at my team meeting this morning when me and someone else were first to arrive he brought up very gently how I must be feeling devastated and horrified. I thanked him, said I was trying to be supportive to my Minneapolis friends. As the team joined the meeting, everyone joined in with fierce kindness. There is support and kindness and black humor and solidarity, in so many places.

It made me feel really good.

I feel so powerless of course but I'm doing what I can, here's a couple links whwre people can donate to help communities affected by and resisting ICE:

Pay rent and buy groceries for the families of preschoolers whose relatives have been kidnapped or cannot leave the house to work or buy groceries.

ICE observers in the Twin Cities are in need of dash cams to prevent further intimidation and frivolous claims.

Also... While the GoFundMe to support Renée Good's family raised $1.5 million, a GoFundMe for the family of Keith Porter, Jr., a Black man shot by an ICE agent a week earlier, didn't meet its $35,000 goal until yesterday. A still-modest goal has been set; it's really important to support Black men as well as we do white women.

lathany

I met Liz W for dinner in Tas near Waterloo. It was good to catch-up (and drip-dry).

Current Mood: sleepy

cosmolinguist

angelofthenorth hadn't seen Glass Onion, so we're watching it tonight.

Turns out she hadn't thought of roasting cabbage until I served it -- along with roasted mushrooms and carrots and Christmasy things I'd stashed in the freezer: salmon wellington for those two and veggie pastry parcels for me -- tonight.

I am delighted to have been able to share such wonderful things.

cosmolinguist

This afternoon, while I was hiding from work and feeling sorry for myself because of a worsening headache, angelofthenorth asked me "So how was The Moonwalkers?"

I then talked for like fifteen minutes without stopping.

Oops.

I figured she'd have read D's entry about this from last night -- she's good like that -- so ( I started with the accessibility stuff: )

But this wasn't a huge problem, I was busy being excited about space.

"For 45 minutes I forgot about the world's problems," D said. I love that!

I...did not.

One of the Artemis II astronauts who was interviewed for this movie said something about Apollo being "ahead of its time" and immediately I was grumpily thinking no it's not! we're behind ours! JFK referencing the Wright Brothers made me ponder that it was about sixty years from them to the moonwalks, and it's been another sixty years since! What do we have to show for ourselves? (Lots of other things, I know, but no one's even left Earth orbit! Yes the ISS is cool but it's reaching the end of its lifetime, and it's still Soyuz ferrying people to and from! The splashdowns look beautiful and poetic at the end of a movie like this but where are our goddam spaceplanes?!)

Basically, everything I have to say about that I said in 2011 when the only thing more modern than Soyuz ceased operation and in 2012 when Neil Armstrong died.

But since I couldn't just link angelofthenorth to things in a real-life conversation, I had to attempt to re-create those thoughts and everything that links into them: my waning interest in "space" as the 2010s went on and SpaceX got increasingly dull (to me, I am not a rocket man) and -- even before it became so tainted by its association with Elon Musk -- depressing as a symbol of yet another thing being left to private whims which I believe is a public good. The only thing about these old entries that I wince to read tonight is my optimism and naïveté, but while I'm sad for my younger self I'm not ashamed of having those things.

Anyway. Like I said I probably talked for fifteen entire minutes without a break. I wasn't even self-conscious about it, until the end.

Luckily (?) angelofthenorth said it was cute, and endearing.

miss_newham posting in

tubewalks

The next Tube Walk will take place on Saturday 21st February. We will be walking from Upney to Barking. Come along for a short tour of whichever bits of Barking look nice! I may or may not sing you a medley of Billy Bragg songs along the way.

Meet at Upney station from 2pm. See you there!

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Reading

Mudlarking 83

Forty years burnin down the road

Sunday morning

Mudlarking 82

Mudlarking 81 - Half a leafy marble and a rounded bottle

A thought I'm struck by

Stand with Minnesota

Mudlarking 80 - a circus and a bobbin

Mudlarking 79 - leaf

Taking stock

Beefy grandad

Minneapolis

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Introductions

Moon age daydream

Tube Walk 160

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January 2025

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