Maintaining one's profile

Q.E.D.

Snow and shadows

Snow seems to do extraordinary things to humans -- cause projectile fights, close airports, that sort of thing, but I rather like it. There are new friends to play with:

old friends just back from hotter climes:

a refreshing lack of Saturday afternoon riffraff:

and ample opportinuty for absurdist signage.

Just to remind myself that autumn actually happened...

It's true that I really picked the wrong moment to hibernate -- here I am, getting back into things in order to complain about the winter, while the human was off doing his best to enjoy the great outdoors before coming home to let me out of my sleeping bag and turn the heating on.
Things I missed include:

An apple and sweet onion festival -- which also seems to have included red wine and chestnuts -- in company with some of the old friends who first set me on the path of chronicling the eccentricities of humans;

and a trip (via Westward Ho!, no less) to a notorious pirate lair, convenient for the observation of Shetland ponies employed by the National Trust for mowing and fertilisation purposes, and the sort of meta-signage that offers visitors the best means of dpriving visitors of the opportinuty of actually falling off the ends of the Earth.

Score one for heliocentrism, methinks.

Snow!

Here we go again -- it's officially cold, and the human is finding better and better excuses not to ride to work -- though paradoxically he seems less worried about doing so late at night on machines belonging to street furniture monopolies...
The more fashion-conscious amongs our four-legged friends may be feeling the need for one of these.
Not sure if that will be much help for this fine specimen, though I certainly wouldn't mess with it!

I'm back -- with pickled cabbage!

I've been resting for a little while, but as the weather gets colder it's time to emerge from hibernation to continue the production of jam and to expand my repertoire into the domain of preserved vegetables. As with all good plans at world domination, sauerkraut is only a start -- as with bicycles and as a general rule also with accordions, there's little sense in restraining oneself to one variety of pickled cabbage when others are being produced as we speak in the very same city...
Results soon.

The gentrification of dead philosophers

or greetings from Sydney!

It's official: yeast works faster in hot weather!

Unexpected late birthday presents, or why it's good to have larger friends with lights in their feet!

And you all know how much I like televised sport!

Stop Press: British Ukulele Impostors invade Austria and Germany!

Read all about it here...

On getting older

Birthdays, as humans call them, are curious occasions. Getting measurably older seems to be both a source of existential angst and an occasion for frivolous merrymaking, and these effects are compounded when an unusually large number of humans celebrate such events within the same somewhat nebulous time period. No doubt there will be more on this very subject in the next few days, but I feel that a brief account of my experiences is likely to be of public edification.

Birthdays, then, seem to be about:

meeting new friends in civilised settings;

old friends - from the days of inadvertent acquesextian mammary imitations, no less - and their new hairstyles;

taking gracefully to being scolded, since humans are allowed to be as unreasonable as they like once a year;

and just occasionally getting hot under the collar before crawling home to bed.

Soon, my friends, soon!

I'm still alive

Spring has sprung
and cherry blossoms keep falling on the bikepath!
More soon, I promise
Love to all,
Hugo

Post-festive-season-indulgence recovery

Though at least I'm not in the same boat as this poor blue comrade:

Those who live in glass cases...