Notices by Charlotte Walker (purplepadma@beige.party)

Your annual reminder this charity week in the UK that children in poverty getting a hot meal should not be dependent on the public sponsoring non-sporting celebrities to run ultra marathons. That is supposed to be the government’s job #ChildrenInNeed

Rest assured I will never create a free account just to keep reading

In the break in my deep work session I went out into the garden to capture the very last flowers from the summer. We haven’t had much of a cold snap yet so they’ve lasted well #bloomscrolling

@swisslet @BenCotterill @TheBreadmonkey it’s not worth me even trying to touch the dishwasher, Tom is absolutely anal about it and has rules about the angle of forks and the gap between plates. Just one of the reasons I sometimes wonder if he is on the spectrum

@hellomiakoda It was most definitely not a coding question

French politics as illustrated by Matt

I know it’s spooky season but please CW your spider pics!!

Astonishing! Someone on here suggested I entice tree frogs onto my pergola to eat the spiders that made all those webs this weekend. I explained that sadly we do not have tree frogs in the UK. Then what should I come across today, but a video from a group called Celtic Rewilding explaining that tree frogs are native to Britain but they became extinct at least in part due to their popularity in folk medicine.

And now they are being reintroduced! This makes me very happy 😃

So very tempted to sign up to be a PhD student course rep… but I’m already on the school of psychology DEI working group and I mustn’t overload myself. I have a bad habit of sticking my hand up for everything and that has led to some bad situations in the past

I have long been interested in experiences of menstruation in locked psychiatric wards. Here’s a first person account of managing periods in a US prison. The two institutions have similarities in their management of an issue which is often dismissed or seen as shameful - you have to beg for period products, unless you can get someone to send or bring them in for you. Women on mental health wards who come in with nothing, perhaps brought in by the police, can end up with disposable knickers and NHS hospital pyjamas, no match at all for a heavy period https://lnkd.in/eKivexQT

Annnnnd my application for ethical approval for my first PhD study has been submitted! That was a lot of work. Hopefully they can begin to look at it while I’m on holiday.

Time to run. My young learning disabled friend Maeve is doing Couch25k, she sent me a video of her in the park in her pink T-shirt and pink headphones, shouting, “Look at me run!” and it filled my heart with joy. “I’m inspired by the Lionesses, and I think more women should do sport,” she told me.

I have decided to take a different tack with my run today and go much slower but be on my feet much longer. That should still benefit me, without feeling under stress like I did yesterday. The sun is shining now. I’ll try and approach it in a spirit of positivity #running

Miss Cinnamon is not a fan of rainy weather. Disconsolate, she has retired to her boudoir #CatsOfMastodon #Mastocats

Just singing a little song to the cat, as you do. It goes, “Purry, purry girl” to the tune of “Starry, starry night”

@JessTheUnstill @adhdeanasl It felt really hopeless and doomed in the 80s. Ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation. People hadn’t really cottoned onto climate change yet but there were worries about acid rain, pollution, the ozone layer, species extinction. The emerging AIDS crisis. In the UK there was mass unemployment, endless strikes, ruthless cuts to public services. It was a grim time to grow up TBH

Meanwhile, over in England the flag shagging business is getting to the point where people are risking life and limb to prove how Not Foreign they are https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq58nl2846jo

Happy tenth wedding anniversary to us! For those who are newer friends, here’s the BBC story I wrote about it https://www.bbc.com/news/disability-34656718.amp

Morning. I’m up but I feel rubbish. I would still be in bed but I need to see my guests before they go. However my mouth does hurt less. I’m really nauseous but I have to eat with my meds.

The big question is: do we cancel our trip to Nice? We’re due to travel on Thursday. I’m seeing the dentist on Tuesday. The antibiotics finish on… Thursday. I cannot face the thought of needing a French doctor or dentist if the problem is not fully resolved.

All I remember from the health section of middle school French is, “C’est la grippe” and “C’est grave?”

I’m so glad it’s a bank holiday and I don’t have to work.

How are you all?

Morning! An immense struggle to wake/get up again. Mornings are really hard lately. But got to be up and washing my hair and packing my bag ready for a trip to campus. Hope I can stop yawning by the time my meeting starts!

How are you doing? How is your ability to get up? Better than mine, I hope

Obviously the police force attracts people who enjoy exercising brutal power over others, but seriously, who follows orders to bodily arrest frail octogenarian women for holding pieces of cardboard and doesn’t think, “OK, this is just stupid now, and I want no part of it”?