ENOUGH!!

Enough with this wretchedness! Blogger has beaten me and I am retreating back to WordPress! Let me leave this hovel on a lighter note with a pretty flower from the garden....

And some tomatoes...

There, I am done. My Blogger experience is done, I am outta here.

*Exits in a huff of scarlet slamming the door behind me*

Experiment No.3 Back to Compose Mode

Right, let's see how we get on with these three posts. There might be a fourth! But I am hungry and need lunch.

Experiment No.2 Code Mode

 

Oh what fun, I can go code crazy!! I will just shove in a Youtube, what shall we play? How about this....

 

Crikey - love this!

Experiment No 1 - Compose Mode

I know, and I apologise, I appear to be using this blog as an experimental post laboratory. I am trying to find a way around the hideous blog lag that we are all experiencing. It's driving most of us completely bonkers. With this post experiment I am using 'Compose' - the theory is that any code used whilst posting such as via YouTube, or via photos, clogs the feeding tubes up. Let's see what this post does with no code or formatting. It should shoot through the tubes and straight to the top of everyone's sideboards. 

Christ, there is now a 'Custom Robot tags' tick box option - I have ticked 'All'. What do they all mean? And what do they do??? Wow - Post Settings are confusing these days.

UPDATE: Ha! I published this post at 12:36 and it hasn't even shown up on my Feedly reader - I'm going to untick that Robot tag and republish.

TEST

Today's date: Weds 15th July 2026

Set post date to 14th July 2026 on post settings.

There is actually a new feature to set a date - maybe it's this that is buggering things up on Blogger. See the  post settings stuff on the right. Maybe don't use 'Automatic', or vice versa - who knows?!!

I will publish this and see what happens.

Sulking

 Apologies. I am sulking. I ran out of heating oil last Monday so my time has been taken by stoking the wood burning stove and glowering at news articles featuring the tangerine twat in the US. I am sure that oil prices are being manipulated and somebody, somewhere, is making a lot of money from the misery - probably someone with limited use of the English language and a satsuma skin tone.

Enough. It is Spring, let us look instead at something pretty, though also orange....

My enthusiasm to get to grips with my posh camera was short lived and this picture was taken with my iPhone. I did download the camera manual, but there were a lot of words and diagrams and my eyes glazed over in the effort to understand it all. I will try again because we will be having some cloudless nights, and that means lots and lots of stars.

Meanwhile, I hope we have a long warm summer so that I can save up for some heating oil for winter. Grrr. I mean, Brrr.

What?

 Has anyone tried Blogger's new beta features? Good heavens, why would I? To 'Create a more engaging reading experience with the help of Google', that's why! I think I'll give it a miss for the time being.

Anyhow, where was I? Stuck in December 2025, wishing it was over. As it's been over for several months I thought I'd post an update, after all I had a birthday yesterday! And Mr Devine published a glorious post in celebration of my passing years! He is correct, it has been very wet in Devon this winter, like living within a slime coated aquarium. It has been gloomy. So gloomy that I have been glued to the sofa watching crime dramas that I can't now recall; Taskmaster; and an entertainment programme with the nutritional value of a fried Mars bar [The Masked Singer]. I think I lost a lot of brain cells this winter.

BUT, in February there was a glimmer of hope when I made a collage! Yay! 

There, I hope this post is engaging enough? I will try to do better next time. Oh, one more thing, I am thinking of posting a daily photograph on my old WordPress blog as I already use it as a picture library for this blog. I bought a fancy camera a few years ago and never learnt to use it properly. I'm thinking that a commitment to a daily photo may force me to use it. I think I have had this idea before so don't hold your breath!!

The Daily Prompt - An Exciting New Series!!!!

 What am I looking forward to most in December?

It being over.

My Lost Va Va Voom, and Other Stories

As a child I was prone to verbal mishaps, mostly my mistakes were gently corrected, laughed at, or ignored. Denim became deminimum and aluminium became aluminiminimummmn. I avoided Birmingham and would often find myself steering the conversation towards Manchester. Like many children I had a problem with the Grand Prix, and with that well known car manufacturing firm...

It was a special occasion, friends and relatives were coming for Sunday tea; Mum had opened a fresh can of spam and had baked a Victoria sponge. She'd also done a salad and some other boring stuff featuring pineapple chunks, and half a grapefruit. As we sat around the dining table my Aunt began to tell us about her brand new car, she marvelled over its luxurious leather interior, and its faux wooden dashboard. I could see it through the window parked on our driveway - new, red and very shiny. I was most impressed. I sighed before asking loudly and enthusiastically, 'Dad, when are you going to get a big vulva like Auntie Pam's?'
Such a shame that my Uncle had just popped a pickled onion into his mouth, but at least his choking provided a welcome distraction.

Apologies! I have been poking around in the Scarlet Blue archives searching for my lost Va Va Voom! The above tale was originally from 2010.

Minimal Output

 I fear that I have become a minimalist. I am sparse with words; I am plain in my tastes; I like a simple existence. But I also like the occasional misplaced semi-colon to liven up my prose. 

On that note I now bring you a tiny minimal tale from my photo album featuring Mike, Heather, and Julia. I urge you to form your own narrative as I am far too lazy and minimal to do it for you.

I mean how pissed did they get to feel like they needed to apologise in a classified ad???? I will leave that with you.

Next Week: Surrealism via the medium of crayons.

It's Been Long Enough....

....since my last post for me to slap up something fresh and exciting. And, I have even redecorated for the occasion. I'd been wondering why I was so put off from using this Blogger blog and I think it was the theme; the colours; the vastness of it. I have now corrected all that bothers me about it.

So what have I been doing? Not a lot. Cleaning; reading; sorting through old family photographs; winning virtual garden competitions; finding ways to incorporate the semi-colon into my life, that sort of thing. And I have realised that I spend too much of my life planning and not doing, and I actually function better when I simply fling myself into something with no pre-planned direction. So here I am with a directionless post, but in the spirit of the 4fotos meme, invented by Mr Devine, I will share some of the most recent photos in my library, just to give you something to look at.

Firstly, a collage....

A garden pic....

Another collage...

And finally, my Auntie J. I don't think I asked enough questions about my Auntie J when I was child, and her image has left me pondering. She was a relative by marriage, and a much loved family member...I was sorting through the old photographs to see if I could use them for collage, so perhaps I was looking at these familiar pictures through a different lens. She was definitely a character!

Now, when I hit publish will my pictures go all blurry? Hope not.