Autumn leaves, crackling fires, quokkas and puffins at the Bluestocking.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

A new thread - with apologies to the gerbils for leaving them out of the title.

Ah, I see you figured it out.😁Cute cat.

😂 Thank you! I got there eventually. Kept trying to drag it straight over from the generator, then clicked that I needed to download it first. Anti-climactically bad image above. But cute, too.

Thank you! But, as I say, not a patch on yours. Baby steps...

Meant to say while we were discussing eclairs, I had an M&S custard choux bun topped with choccy recently. Bought them thinking they were cream but actually they were better, the custard was gorgeous! Highly recommended.

Meanwhile at chez beetle...

I'll be up for the whole shebang on Tuesday! Bonfire (checked out for hedgehogs before being lit), fireworks (I'll ooh and aah with the best of them), sparklers, everything. It's when it falls midweek and goes on for nine days potentially that I get annoyed.

I'm glad the cats chez Beetle are enjoying it though. Six normal cats and two or three stacked up pretending to be..is that corduroy?..a geography teacher?

That was the Safety Marshall identifying as a cat to do the training session! Alas little Rocky wasn't paying full attention and is currently nursing a very singed left paw and no whiskers

Loving all the cat pics. I think cats would make excellent geography teachers if it was all about the local environs.
" Here's the bins, Here's where the big dog lives, Here's the bit where there's a puddle when it rains..."

Not gonna lie. I have hated fireworks my whole life.

And found out upon moving to rural France, they don't have them here.

At all. Ever. It is bloody marvellous.

Quiet fireworks sound like a good idea, it's the banging which is annoying to humans and distressing to animals. I didn't see any just heard the noise after I'd gone to bed. It always used to be much earlier in the evening, for kids.

Our dogs were never worried by them, fortunately - we're rural enough they often had the sound of shotguns around so I guess they were habituated to bangs. IME a dachshund's response to loud noises is to try to outcompete them.

Best fireworks I ever saw were on Bastille Day!

and you could add... 'and here's the neighbour's garden you can poo right in the middle of, on a regular basis.'😠

I love the expression on the face of the little ginger cat, front left - it's such a lovely expression of surprise and delight, and the position of the paws... actually, coming to think of it, it's scary that AI has captured such human expressions so thoroughly, it's getting too good, I preferred it when it threw in an extra limb or something, and we could just laugh at it...

and you could add... 'and here's the neighbour's garden you can poo right in the middle of, on a regular basis.'😠

And, of course, "This is the neighbour who hates cats. So make sure you sit in his garden once a day, & if he comes out of his house, make a beeline for him."

Thankfully our current dogs and CatBastard don’t seem to be bothered by fireworks. The dogs aren’t entirely keen, but they don’t freak out or get upset. O e of our previous dogs used to hate fireworks and thunder - she would leap up onto the back of the couch and sit on my head, shaking with fear, until it stopped. She was a pointer-Labrador cross, so not a small dog.

I've become a little obsessed with the Joni Mitchell song 'Both Sides Now'. It seems to be one of those those tunes that anyone who called themselves a singer, especially if they're not also a songwriter, has had a crack at. I think I could fill an entire double album with miscellaneous versions of this song. I generally prefer the renditions that aren't too slow or warbly.

One of the first songs I sang in public. Happy memories of that one.

Ooh, impressed 😊

It truly is a classic.
Joni Mitchell's Blue is my favourite album. I never tire of listening to her.

Have you seen this:

] She also sang it at the Grammys this year. What a woman!

And then there's people like me who until clicking on the link in Marie's post had never heard this song, or any version of it to my knowledge!

Really? Wow. There was an earlier post-illness performance where she really struggled. I sobbed through that one, sobbed through this one - remember listening to an interview at the time she thought she'd never perform again. Such determination.

So, whaddaya think of it?

Isn't 'River' one of Joni Mitchell's? That might be my favourite Christmas song.

JM was 25 when she wrote Both Sides Now, Janis Ian was 23 when she wrote At Seventeen. I love that both of them have had long careers, too many brilliant young women have been chewed up by the system.

"At Seventeen"....one if my Desert Island Discs. It really resonated with me (at 18) and probably still does. For all of us who feel we never really fit.

Also Dory Previn " I have flown to starstained heights on bent and battered wing..."

Andersen banged on about ugly ducklings growing into swans as though it was a big deal - but one growing into a puffin!