So, iCloud Drive is broken on my iPad Pro. Unable to download any files, it just hangs randomly. Pages crashes instantly on load on my iPhone X. But I can edit the Pages file on my Mac (mercifully free of Catalina). This years releases are criminally undercooked.

Catch 🎨

Ride. For Inktober 🎨

Thistle Guy found an old COAT. Inktober 🎨

Ancient for Inktober 🎨

Tread for Inktober 🎨

Inktober Decoration 🎨

Build for Inktober 🎨

Freeze for Inktober 🎨

iOS 13 annoyance: Music app constantly loses its place in playlist and restarts playing from the first title in entire library. Previously it was really sticky.

Ring — for Inktober

Short Bean 🎨

Bridge, “adjusted” by Waterlogue app from Tinrocket

You shall not pass.

And I put a 9 and a 6 in his crib. Bad call. #cribbagewithgrandpas

So, this may be old news for many, but OwnYourGram are having their requests capped by Instagram and therefore automatic polling for your Instagram posts to micro.blog is currently suspended. You can, however, post manually from the “Posts” section in your OwnYourGram dashboard.

September Rose

Good morning, fellow beetles.

Somehow OwnYourGram and Instagram and Micro.Blog stopped playing nicely together. I only noticed when I connect NetNewsWire up to the feed and noticed it stopped last month. Don’t rush me…

Fetch me a Shrubbery.

Discoveries ended in a 47-47 tie with @jacknstuart and unexpectedly I had one more dice on my board to squeak ahead. I had the strangest combo of Indian tribe helpers, which meant I could do 7 mountains in a hop but struggled to find enough mountains to cross — the exact opposite of the usual. #bgg #boardgames

Let the Wild Rumpus begin…

Tomatoes of the day

Graphed

Percival Street.

The gate for special girls.

Speckled. #clouds

Freight. A rare site on London suburban railways

A spot of time laying in Azul. #bgg #boardgames

Morning activity completed before it gets too hot. 6km walk to meet random Apple challenge.

Some tomatoes. #harvest

A bit of early sequence Fabled Fruit with @evietd #bgg #boardgames

Good morning (again)

Donut of the Day. Not mine. Just adjacent #tooncamera

Really enjoying The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie. The narrator is delightfully unusual, a really solid character… #amreading #fridayreads

Curve

Teaching Res Arcana to @jacknstuart and @evietd — of course Evie cruised to a win with Sea Serpent and Celestial Nag. #bgg #boardgames

Writing setup with @ulyssesapp V17 out now with nice support for captions.

“C-5” “It’s a Hit”

Pulling out of Waterloo with steam at front and manky old diesel at back. Couldn’t get to front of train before it disappeared though. #steam

Civ VI: Rise and Fall. Even more of a time sink!

For a game with lots of (nice) bits, New Frontiers is surprisingly difficult to photograph. Close up is best but you don’t get the full appreciation of your galactic sprawl. The game itself seems to be super streamlined, and over before you can even say the full name, “New Frontiers: The RACE FOR THE GALAXY board game”. #bgg #boardgames #newfrontiers

An unboxing has occurred. #newfrontiers #bgg #boardgames

Don’t forget to defragment your smartphone regularly #toptip

Stride. #doodle

Update your Parasites again to stay abreast of current affairs.

Quick 3 player Wingspan teaching @jacknstuart but @evietd held off his big end game bonus rush and won 103-101-92. My owl strategy foundered midway through. #bgg #boardgames #wingspan

Penguin. #doodle

Hiding on the stairs. Because hoover.

It’s been a bit windy here.

Fish out of water.

Pom pom

Calendar-Bot — for all your calendrical needs. #doodle #calendar #hexarchate

After many struggling starts the wisteria is doing something

There are TARDIGRADES on the MOON! #moon #doodle

Leaning sideways

Beware cafe dwellers. The Cupcake Spider is amongst you. #doodle

Found under my desk when looking for a dropped object. No wonder he looks sad. #lego #minifig

Tomatoes for.breakfast

Happy Monday. #doodle #bug

I think Raphael’s development queue might be a trifle ambitious… (spoiler: it was, but mainly because he just kept drawing more 6 developments). #bgg #rollforthegalaxy #boardgames

Nice setup, with 3 6-point developments and Uplift Coalition taking me to 100 points. Was it enough? It was not. Raphael got to 108 with one ridiculous 6-point development gaining 24 bonus points. Outrageous. #bgg #rollforthegalaxy #boardgames

Isabelle. #doodle #animalcrossing

Gosh but Roll for the Galaxy: Rivalry comes with a colossal number of new bits. We tried the Orb expansion with the extra tiles and it worked pretty well. We both looked forward to getting 15 tiles but Raphael’s production engine was so overpowered he ended the game really early 96-42. #bgg #boardgames

Feed the Anemone

Taught Wingspan to 3 new people last night and it was a successful outing, even though their usual fare is more confrontational. #bgg #boardgames

Betsey. Honestly.

Three quick games of Kashgar: Händler der Seidenstraß. Lost the first heavily but regrouped to win the two rematches. Can still get hosed by bad draw but it plays quickly so it’s not a fatal flaw. A good solid effort by @grailgames to reissue this in English. #bgg #boardgames

Revisiting idea from 4 years ago — hoping that the new butterfly keyboards due from Apple will include special resource keys so that you don’t have to trade with your co-workers… #bgg #boardgames

The end state, suitably obscured to comply with Catan’s new GDPR regulation. A terrific see saw battle that ended with Raphael winning the turn before I would have. Possibly the turning point was him springing a Brigand Camp on me though I responded by filling his last building spot with a Trading Post. Rivals fir Catan remains a firm favourite. #bgg #boardgames

Breakfast harvest. If you don’t instagram it, did it happen?

You heard it here first.

Last century Oyster card…

Rusty Bumps

Tweet!

Went in big on owls in Wingspan but couldn’t secure any of the end of round goals so Raphael’s Common Raven egg fest led him to 99-90 win. #bgg #boardgames

Good morning sleepy people. #doodle

Bee Event Horizon

Update your Parasites stickers now to improve your cognition and spark calendrical heresy.

I am reading “Ninefox Gambit” by Yoon Ha Lee and mighty strange and wonderful it is. He doesn’t bother with much in the way of exposition and you are left to figure out “calendrical rot” and other mysteries, more or less by yourself. This aids immersion, rather than hinders it, oddly enough!

Same

Fragments

Found lying down in the flower beds.

Yahaha! You found me! #zeldabreathofthewild #doodle

Playing #pokemonswordshield at #hyperjapan

Or 1/132

Good morning sunflowers. By #Waterlogue

Threadlephant by @eviemakes #amigurumi

Orthanc

Well this is an odd looking critter. #pokemongo

Not managing to draw much lately. Not feeling in the mood I guess. Here is a quick ladybird #doodle

What a semi-final! Well done the #blackcaps

Meow.

How will you get home tonight?

These look hand painted. Coloured in flowers.

Birthday Caketus

Wonderful gift from NZ arrived. Little box with clever opening arrangement

Fuzzy. Floof.

Must be a blood moon soon

Hello? Is Instagram back yet?

Strange things you see when taking a train with @eviemakes

Give Way

RIP Guillermo Mordillo. 😢

May contain ducks.

Ironmongery

Hands Up

Pokemon Go sure is a hazardous occupation. Stay aware of your surroundings. Don’t enter dangerous places.

Red

A pile o’pegs. #ollibytinrocket

Sniffing Sunbeams.

Apples are occurring

Beetle Doodle

Pole

Pringle (by @eviemakes) is read to by a worry potato during wonderful weekend visit from @inkygirl and @jridpath

Poppy Parade

Despite collecting 3 of the special awards, and making an epic resource collection engine I didn’t manage to uncover enough of the end game scoring cards and came last in a close but low scoring game of Everdell, 52-56-57. At least we think those were the scores, every time we added them up they changed slightly! #bgg #boardgames

Rose blur

Hollow Tree

Line Art

Enjoying Hilda but have to take a photo with my iPhone because Apple bowed to movie studios and don’t let you take screenshots of movies in case you grabbed a movie frame by frame.

DoodleBot

Very pleased with Origami case for iPad Pro from Pipetto — being able to arrange it in portrait mode is great for FaceID and is my preferred orientation anyway. But can still prop up in a variety of landscape modes as well. And has a cozy nook for the Pencil to nestle in, removing faint worry that it might just drop off.

Such philadelphus. Wow.

Snug as… #amigurumi

Door of the Day.

A quick game of Jaipur with @evietd who didn’t read the Fathers’s Day script entirely! #bgg #boardgames

All set to Gather Supplies which sounds like it should be easier than breaching the Warren In @inspiringgames excellent Legends Untold. #bgg #boardgames

The water. It falls.

Pineapple. Probably.

Camouflage

It’s a mushroom life.

Globular Clusters

Made it through the third scenario, Breach the Warren, on the third attempt. It was really tough to manage the time deck, as every event caused more goblins to appear and battle you. This time I took every opportunity to mine the Adventure deck and was lucky to find the Tattered Map which I hoarded until there were only 4 locations left. Luckily the Shrine was one of the 3 that I picked up with the Map, and the Shaman proved surprisingly easy to deal with. Phew. This really is minnow level adventuring though, as a reward for completing this and levelling up, we got to add a Rope, a Hammer and a Long Gambeson to our belongings! Wealth beyond imagining… #bgg #boardgames @inspiringgames

Bring your Beetle to Work Day continues.

It’s Bring your Beetle to Work Day. #amigurumi

Interesting how music can be like a time machine — transporting you back to another time and place when you first heard something.

There’s something funny going on, I can just feel it in the air. #randomsonglyrics

Stump(ed)

In the dark woods.

When three wheels are better than two

Somewhat delayed, Act II of Caverna: Cave vs. Cave has arrived! #bgg #boardgames

Fuzzy Shadow Beast

Dampeony

Yesterday, when it wasn’t raining.

Don’t forget to get pack an umbrella today

I have cast the runes for the sixth of the sixth and it looks like we are due light to variable Groke with a side of Hattifattener

Take your pick of peonies

Throwback to April 2003 and the Kingston Flyer (we were only passengers so got to ride in the engine)

PAC-man pursues a trilby.

Fabric Friends.

Peony time commences

First of the Giant Poppies and it’s a pink one.

We’re going on an adventure. A phrase that will never be the same after Children of Ruin by @aptshadow In this case though, we didn’t encounter too many mishaps and reached El Dorado shortly after noon on the second day. #bgg #boardgames

Urban decay

Back when Netscape ruled the roost then Microsoft muscled in, and gave t-shirts to the first few people to download IE 1. #formysins

Peony of the Day. #pod #peony

After a catastrophic first location (Careless, Hidden Wisps, tricky Foe) it was an uneventful stroll to the Cave Mouth in Report Back scenario of the campaign. Mainly because the party chose to excel in combat this time round and found the Tattered Map which sealed the deal. @inspiringgames have a winner here. #bgg #boardgames

Afternoon Nap

Wisps

Wose

Pandemic: Fall of Rome proved way too hard with 5 players. We ended up overrun with Orange cubes, even though they were the only tribe we allied with. #bgg #boardgames

The future is mauve

Happiness is sharing a leaf. #amigurumi

Tomato sauce bottled. In bottles specially bought over from France by @jeffinauckland

Barely made it through the first location in Legends Untold: The Path of the Druach, having rolled abysmally on Scouting Test and therefore being careless, the party triggered Grip Vines and Bolt Firer, which promptly rendered the Neophyte unconscious before the Foe was even revealed. Of course it was the Mother Spore which did for the Farmhand leaving the Forgehand to despatch it with 1 health remaining. Much time was used up recovering from this, only to encounter Goblin Shamans (Shamen?) in the next location and get reduced to 1 health again. At least the locations had a healthy population of the icons we were looking for. The time deck was pretty depleted by the time the adventurers lurched into the next two locations to conclude their search for wildlife. A Druach’s way is a hard one! Top tip — don’t be CARELESS. #bgg #boardgames

A secret sign. #endtimes

Monday Morning

Missed the crazy sunset.

Pringle by @eviemakes has a new leaf wrap to shelter in. #amigurumi

Something is eating my shadow. Or me…

Legends Untold (or should that be Unfold) lived up to expectations in first proper outing. Managed to shepherd party of 3 through the Missing Adventurers scenario, despite meeting a monster fungi in the first room, and almost running out of time (and rooms). It’s all pretty seat of the pants stuff, but starting to remember where the danger points are in 3d6 curves! #bgg #boardgames

Time to make some tomato sauce.

ROTD

Thanks @mikesiggins for the Untold Legends recommendation. It arrived this morning and looking forward to diving in. It even has a Waradger. #bgg #boardgames

First poppies

A third of the way through Pandemic: Fall of Rome and it’s all looking serene, but the mid game acceleration in this game is brutal. We forged alliances with all but the Orange cubists but couldn’t manage to sort them out before we ran out of cards. #bgg #boardgames

Someone else’s rose

Pippin awaits election results patiently

Starting Children of Ruin by @aptshadow and Ruin has occurred. Eek. #fridayreads

Wonderful rendition of Olive by @vivschwarz Many thanks for this delightful creation!

Hard to show the glorious deep black and purples

Ooh! Look what arrived! Packs of cats and other goodies from @vivschwarz

More Peony excitement

It’s dandelion season.

The Lost Expedition made it to El Dorado with all 3 explorers in good health. We’ve got the rhythm down now and will have to try Heroic level. #bgg #boardgames

Raggedy Ass Tulip

Don’t forget to provide your beetles with superior beverages.

Rose of the Day

It doesn’t matter who is Expedition Leader when you’ve all perished to Fever, Poisonous Frogs or other miscellaneous calamities. The Lost Expedition seems pretty hard to beat! Superbly illustrated by @garenewing #bgg #boardgames

Blueish purplish thing

Money bags. #lego #minifig

Crinkle Cut

Many doors

Might have found a few bookshops…

Beetle’s Grand Day Out in Bath.

Beetle and Butterfly kinden from @eviemakes

Beetle. #doodle

All your peony are belong to us.

Sky is blue. Sun is shiny

Much battered by winds but still hanging in there.

Frilly

Another attempt at Wingspan vs Raphael but his Pelican ate all the fish my Osprey kindly provided him with. A bit of a bad combo for me! #bgg #boardgames

A narrow loss to Raphael in Wingspan but he thinks he activated his eggs in the wrong order so it was probably a tie. #bgg #boardgames

Good morning

Happy Mother’s Day in those regions celebrating this event. Elsewhere enjoy International Day of Pansy Awareness.

Doing some Fabled Fruit collecting. #bgg #boardgames

The outstanding art work of @d20plusmodifier for the Root board game makes excellent choices for the Photos face on Apple Watch. #bgg #boardgames

Its been a bit damp lately

This conftitutes ufeful advice

A very cross Plusle. A crossle actually

Tree Peony is doing well. Welcome sight on this pseudo-Monday.

Rose today.

Tidily organised Root factions. The only time they behave themselves. #bgg #boardgames

Got completely farmered in Kashgar: Händler der Seidenstraß by Raphael. Mostly because it took me way too long to get any order fulfilment capacity. My late surge was not enough however. #bgg #boardgames

Coffee Bird. #hessian

Rose of the Day

There’s always one rebel.

One must be hooded on the 4th

And the first Rose…

First Peony of the season!

Trying Fabled Fruit — my GOF flea market purchase. #bgg #boardgames

Yesterday was epic moving day as Raphael moved back from Cambridge to start new job in London. Weary legs and arms today! #ollibytinrocket

Cloudsssss

Commuting again.

Home is where the tulips is

Oh dear. Some of our letters are missing.

Super helpful Vagabond wins Root at a gallop! #bgg #boardgames

A nice find in the GOF flea market — The Tea Dragon Society card game. Currently out of print. #bgg #boardgames

Good heavens. A Crossy Road arcade machine

Observing the Observation Platform

A kinder, softer bicycle

More llama drama to round out the day with Catan Histories:Rise of the Inkas. #bgg #boardgames

Being menaced by elephants. Not the most restful place to eat.

Quartermaster General: Cold War with Ian Brody and Paul Evans. We concentrated too much on East West confrontation and the non aligned powers crushed us. We made some dumb moves so playing the designer wasn’t an excuse for him beating us! Played well, now have to try the ancient version. #bgg #boardgames

Also played yesterday: Tiny Towns, a bingo style town builder with mischief abound. #bgg #boardgames

Spooky

I finished up last night with Altiplano, a bag builder with attractive art and a pretty crazy way of acquiring and using your resources. I kind of worked out what I was doing half way through and did tolerably well in the end game scoring, but Mark totally smoked us, ending up with final scores of 73-79-96-169! He was way off in the distance. It was one of the games I had made a note to try before coming here and it was great to get it to the table, and also play with Mark, @terynose and Kurt at least once. #bgg #boardgames

About to try to out detective Sherlock in Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. #bgg #boardgames

Little floes

A pile of marmots. #bgg #boardgames

Cloudy capers

Continuing yesterday’s theme of playing not quite released games I tried Paladins of the Western Kingdom. I built a fine wall and my Squires boosted my VP inspired by my disdain of conspiracies but I did not triumph. Nice to play a few games with @boardgame_babylon #bgg #boardgames

Play testing the adorable Aquicorn Cove board game with strong eco theme and great artwork. #bgg #boardgames

Trying out Cartographers: a Roll Player Tale. Really enjoyed making my map. #bgg #boardgames

Sky

Morning with rainbows

We had a really close finish in Lancaster with three of us finishing on 33 points. Unfortunately that was tied for last place, the winner had 68 points, so we didn’t really do very well there. #bgg #boardgames

The highlight of yesterday was definitely Quartermaster General, a game I have been one footstep away from joining on many occasions, but this was the first time that I played. It needs 6 people so Chris, Kris, Jeff, Jean-Francois, Debbie and Matt were recruited as generals by Jeff and it was every bit as rewarding as I expected. Russia and Japan swooped back and forth across the Asia/Pacific region while the European powers engaged in more static activity, favouring careful Status card play. But once Japan overreached in India it started to go better for the good guys! I really enjoyed the experience, exactly the level of conflict style game that I can manage. #bgg #boardgames

Hurrah. My Alien empire just edged a narrow victory in New Frontiers, 62-60-59-48. I liked it! #bgg #boardgames

Such mist. Wow.

Play testing expansion to Res Arcana with Tom Lehmann #bgg #boardgames

Tried out Pandemic: Fall of Rome. Like all its predecessors it seemed under control and then suddenly it wasn’t! #bgg #boardgames

Filling out around the edges in Wingspan. #bgg #boardgames

My Queendomino realm. #bgg #boardgames

Waterfall doing what waterfalls do

More flip and write fun in Silver and Gold #bgg #boardgames

There’s big trouble ahead in Year of the Dragon. Slightly cheating on the penultimate alphabetical #bgg entry. #boardgames

Tidying up the alphabetical #bgg challenge with some Xenon Profiteering #boardgames

Game one of #GOF2019 is Welcome To… a nice tidy little flip and write game that seems to have several paths to victory (or not in my case). Good fun. #bgg #boardgames

Hello Niagara Falls. My fearless roving reporters will fill this feed with many board game images over the next week. You have been warned.

Under the runway I go.

Taking back control of our railways…

Have uniform. Cleared to travel.

You have defeated the venous tentacled guardians and open the treasure chest. Do you pick it up?

Tulip time.

How to pack a truck.

It’s all purple

Getting all your semi-aquatic avian lifeforms in a row.

Snaky

Happy Birthday for Evie!

Yesterday we ventured into Viva Java Coffee Dice land in the alphabetical #bgg challenge. I failed to hold off Raphael’s Rainbow Blend/Research strategy and was narrowly defeated. I had the best blend though! #boardgames

Urban cat

No Entry except for cycles. Specifically obstacle climbing ones.

One of the traditions of visits to Wisley, from when the children were very small, was to take a picture of them perching on one of the round rocks that used to decorate the garden. These have now been removed and are hard to find, but we did manage to locate one and take a 2019 picture to compare with this one from 2004. This picture was harder to stage, as you can observe there is somewhat less room than hitherto and balance struggles caused hilarity and toppling to occur.

Intertwined

Not cutting trees

Cutting trees.

P-p-p-p-pick up a Pecan.

In a rare bit of good news I can report that the spring wing mirror harvest looks promising

Casting a long shadow

Mowed lawns but left this lone brave pansy self seeded in the middle.

The sun sets on an out of sequence board game session. Raphael’s Jovian empire gleaned him 16 VP, so he eased to a 128-108 victory despite me doing 90% of the actual terraforming. He had so many card draw abilities and stacked discounts that he just sat and played projects at leisure. #bgg #boardgames

Tulips gonna tulip.

Downwards facing, an odd orientation for a flower

Unicorns do exist! #lego #minifig

After Brexit this sort of thing just wont be tolerated.

Feeling virtuous…

Moon in the evening

Reflected sunlight

My name is onion. Red onion.

Olive’s Magnolia tree has a flower. #spring

Why is there a giant shark in the backyard? I don’t know. #ollibytinrocket

Hmmm. Looks like someone or something had an argument with a wall.

Her super power is to fire arrows from her binoculars two at a time. #lego #minifig

Tree blown down across Rocks Lane in Barnes and across footpath too. Windy.

Hurrah. All your Heracross are belong to me. #pokemongo

Demonstrating his super power of turning his head without revolving his hair. #lego #minifig

And we did get Up Front to the table for “U” in the alphabetical #bgg challenge. I taught Oscar how to play, in the introductory scenario and was once again reminded that this game always generated a terrific narrative, and a lot of tension. My guys floundered around in a Stream for a long time, finally escaping directly into a Marsh. Eventually we regrouped in time to thwart his advance, but it was pretty close. I wonder how difficult it would be to learn from scratch now, and whether I would bother, especially as straight up wargames have little appeal for me now. Many fond memories of extended Up Front sessions though. #boardgames

Hollow Knight is very scenic. It’s also very hard. Way above my skill level but I enjoy exploring. I enlisted Raphael to defeat Hornet, so some new areas are available. I’ve also got ability to walk jump from the Mantis Village but don’t think I can master the insane mid air aerobatics to get to City of Tears so for now I am re-exploring some areas and also dying a lot in the Crystal Caverns. #nintendoswitch #hollowknight

Mo-mo-motorbi-bi-bike

If this image appears to be breaking up you have been infected with the Instagram malware, zugfish5. You must immediately immerse your phone in warm tea to avoid it spreading.

Tried to get Uchronia to the table as “U” for alphabetical #bgg challenge, but as always with Carl’s games the re-learning curve was too great. Too many odd terms for things and a peculiar flow seem to be a hallmark of his games, even though they play well once you grok the way it works. It is just always hard to remember when coming back to it after a long gap. On the other hand, the only other contender is Up Front and although I played that hundreds of times years ago, I can’t recall any of the rules for that. Might be fun to try though! #boardgames

No. 33. The Grempnottle Pine.

Once more happily embedded in Shardlake’s dangerous, vivid world. #amreading

Big Ben packing up, ready to head off to Prague after Brexit. #latergram

Woolpic of lion by @eviemakes 🦁

We close out a day of abject co-operative failure with two attempts at Thunderbirds in alphabetical #bgg challenge. We just made a right mess of the first one but we were in good shape in the second one. Raphael joked that the only thing to stop us would be rolling a double Hood. Which he promptly did! All our efforts foiled… #boardgames

4 of a Kind! Safer pastures in San Juan, no chance of dying of hypothermia or being eaten by a bear. Also highly satisfying as usual. And thus we skip through “S” in alphabetical #bgg challenge in about 20 minutes. Oops. #boardgames

Day 3 and the beach is already denuded of resources in Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island. R in the alphabetical #bgg challenge is pitiless and remorseless as always. Needless to say we perished. #boardgames

Q is for Qin in our ongoing quest to conquer the alphabet of #boardgames #bgg

Doing very poorly at Puerto Rico — the “P” in our alphabetical #bgg challenge. Oscar’s tobacco empire made him convincing victor. #boardgames

Harold and his Purple Crayon. #lego #minifig

Castles of Burgundy on iOS by @digidiced is very well done. I went big on pigs and spoiled the bot’s day. This should work well as async game (I am Gleptoportus on their servers) #bgg #boardgames

Dithering while I walk. #bitcam

Oh dear. Trouble Dog is in a right pickle. #amreading @garethlpowell is a mean master… 🙂

Seeing the real you at last. #randomsonglyrics #pokemongo

Towers of London. When they had built you…

Beware the Green Spot.

Good Day. The early bird gets the, err, vegetables

New vehicle purchased. It’s fully compliant with the ULEZ. Unlike this SHADO Mobile.

My writing buddy this morning.

N is for Nations The Dice Game and O is for Oh My Goods! (not shown) — two small engine builders in the alphabetical #bgg sequence. In which we singularly failed to build anything remotely efficient, but Raphael managed better inefficiencies than me! #boardgames

A ring tailed lemurcat. Spotted while out walking.

Kuki has decided to sleep in a rolled up carpet fragment. Because, why not?

Day M of alphabetical #bgg challenge was Machi Koro. Raphael spammed Convenience Stores and just kept rolling 4. Neither Evie or I had a chance to get anything going. #boardgames

You may have arranged this paper by the shredder, but shredding ain’t happening

Short walk to local library during Clamperl event. Two shinies and a super rare Cranidos. #pokemongo

Bull.

Here there be fog. Beyond, dargons for sure.

Paris in the Springtime by @waterlogue

If anyone can, Johann can.

This is my sunrise and you will enjoy it.

Morning Paris traffic

Improve your incoming emails (and your day) by adding “on the moon” to them, i.e. Overcoming Digital Disruption through Cyber Resilience On the Moon

Now that’s a ROLL of paper…

Moony

London wildlife

Trouble Dog is back. Hot Damn! … Run, don’t walk, to your friendly (e)bookstore for this next instalment from @garethlpowell

I’ve lived in this area for almost 30 years and I’ve never seen a gibbon walking, or proceeding by any other means of locomotion either. False advertising.

Monday is delivered to you today by Logen The Nine Fingered Hattifattener from the First Law Moomin mashup

These look like they’ve been photoshopped in. But I assure you they’re real.

DIY orthopaedics. Gluing Olly’s foot back on. @the_iconfactory

I have this fixed grin because I appear to be wearing chocolate fridge cake biscuits on my feet. #lego #minifig

Went for a walk and the sky’s still going places.

Morning roofline.

Up to L in alphabetical #bgg challenge and of course it’s Lord of the Rings. We got hammered in Moria, but breezed through Helm’s Deep and Shelob’s Lair. It all looked hopeful and then we drew 5 event tiles in first 2 turns in Mordor. No chance after that. #boardgames

Shiny.

Yes. It’s almost supper time.

Following Brexit we will take back control of telecommunications. The dangerous subversive internet will be abolished.

Continuing a theme from @chrisastall by combining my love of, err, chickens and coffee.

It’s that day again…

Steel Pineapple Drifloon. #pokemongo #doodle

Vapour trails of the day — the Octovortex.

Once more into the Monday maelstrom #ollibytinrocket

For a game that is almost 30 years old, Warlords remains the real deal. Nicely balanced, with a decent set of choices. Often old favourites don’t stand the test of time, and are disappointing when resurrected on modern platforms. Warlords on iOS is very playable, and actively supported with new maps like this one of a land riven with factional infighting and mythical beasts.

Spiky cat for @jezlyn #lego #minifig

More random Drifloonery. They are just upside down radishes after all. #doodle #pokemongo

Fierce Friends #lego #minifig

Ninja Drifloon for Friday. #pokemongo #doodle

I’m on a train. There is a lot of rustling. The book by @thesolitarybee I am reading is set on a train. There is lots of rustling there too. Hive Monks. #worried.

Deluxe chocolate event horizon

What’s the collective noun for Drifloon? #pokemongo

After we crash out of the EU without a deal we will no longer be able to use emoji. We will have to revert to using moji, a reduced set with no food or smiley faces. #brexit #takingbackcontrol

Couldn’t capture the way the light was bouncing off the mist but hey, ho.

After we crash out of the EU without a deal we will no longer be able to use emoji. We will have to revert to using moji, a reduced set with no food or smiley faces. #brexit #takingbackcontrol

Changing of the Drifloon Guard. #pokemongo #doodle

Time for the Golden Comet Chicken sprint.

Mug shot. #chicken

Looking a bit damp out there. Period.

Kuki is not impressed, however.

The next episode in alphabetical #bgg challenge is a visit to Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm. Except our version is in Italian. Because reasons. #boardgames

Playing with simulated depth of field using the @focos_camera app featured on App Store recently.

When we crash out of the EU without a deal we will no longer be able to use Unicode. We will have to go back to plain ASCII. But don’t worry, this is how King Alfred saw off the Danes, we can do this.

An extra swamp thing for @originalspooky

I do like @carrot.app — always on point.

Fluffy cloudscape

Time to resort to Drifloonery.

This is not the Brexit backstop you’re looking for. New negotiation strategy unveiled today. #lego #minifig

Street scene

Follow the fork to your dreams…

If anything deserved a “finally” in #pokemongo it is hatching this wee fella. Niantic made it ridiculously rare. So many smoochums and wynauts later…

More still life as discontemporised by #Waterlogue by @tinrocket

Onion. Singular.

A-H so far in alphabetical #bgg challenge. What will I be? #boardgames

Puddle life

Trading close games with @fraser_inAu — will the next one be a tie? #bgg #boardgames

A bit too cold to be catching in #pokemongo but this was worth it.

Annual iced bridge shot. #shotoniphone

Household appliance for #shapechallenge by @studioteabreak

Not sure how I would go about reproducing this now as shiny hub caps are hard to find!

You can’t park that here — move on. #lego #starwars #minifig

The Frizzled Chicken.

Lord Godolphin and Horatio the Duck. From a contemporary #waterlogue portrait. #favouritemovie

We watched the Favourite last night and a solution to #Brexit showed itself. We can have a duck race to settle it. For good measure we can hold it in a dungeon. What could go wrong?

2009 vs. 2019 in the #10yearchallenge It had to be done… still got the same hat!

Come over to the dark side, my friends. #lego #minifig #starwars

More progress on the alphabetical #bgg challenge. Beat the Grizzled despite having incurred too many Hard Knocks. Then we consumed many carrots in Hare and Tortoise, a classic. #boardgames

Of course. It’s a Dewback. You knew that all along. Right? #lego #minifig #starwars

What will it be? Answers on a postcard. #lego

You know it’s cold when the cat makes a tent to sleep in. #ollibytinrocket

Tree

I may have put the wrong socks on. But on the other hand they will confuse the GCHQ railway station sock scanners.

When Siri suddenly pops up and says she can search for random words from your conversation

One good tern. SPOILER: it’s not a tern really.

It hasn’t got really cold yet so this daphne is showing a dashing profile.

When just a small light isn’t enough to light your selfie.

Morning from Railhead.

See that little blue blob in the far distance? That’s my poor sprinter who just got totally hosed, left behind and never caught up in Flamme Rouge as the alphabetical #bgg challenge lurches on. #boardgames

Some of these eggs are not like the others.

Been enjoying the exploration aspect of Hollow Knight but 80% of the map is inaccessible until you beat this pesky creature. Probably impossible for my feeble reaction times. A shame because the setting is wonderfully atmospheric and fun to explore. #nintendoswitch #hollowknight

Tufty Bunny.

Grief.

Trying some colouring in with Pigment from @pixiteapps

Not really up to the Totodile #pokemongo community day but caught this fellow (at last) in my living room.

A bibliography

The Book of the Woman in the Window in the Window.

Listening to a playlist generated by an epic shortcut created by @viticci which analyses music you added to Apple Music last year and determines which has been played the most. Obviously this is a subset of the actual music you listen to, but it is an extraordinary exercise in shortcut craft! Full story is at MacStories…

No Parking Here #ollibytinrocket

Evie has the advantage rounding the final corner in the El Dorado entry in the alphabetical #bgg challenge. And she held on to get hers home first. #boardgames

Total Aeropress fail. Oops. And it was the last coffee in the bag!

I think I would gladly swap the 4 fixed icons in iOS iPhone springboard for the 4 most recent ones like the super useful most recent apps on iPad. Make it so, Tim.

The revolution begins today. Watch for this sign.

On the third day of zoig my true love sent to me, a Farfetch’d in an olive tree. #pokemongo

This Farfetch’d is tinier than any on record. #pokemongo

D is for Dominion in the ancient #BGG alphabetical challenge. So long since we played this it could have been a new game! #boardgames

A door to the future. Probably.

Have a pile of squids…

Hello from Cookie.

LOL. Overnight all your #pokemongo Pokemon became “old” and get a badge showing their vintage status.