Dr Rob

Folks with any reach on Bluesky, please consider reposting so I can find friends old and new: I'm Rob; I like fantasy books, maths and physics, ancient stuff and mythology, linguistics and music, British wildlife, and a whole bunch of other stuff. And I might occasionally mention Doctor Who

Rather chuffed that, in the last few weeks, my poetry has been longlisted for the Bournemouth Writing Prize and shortlisted in the Hastings Book Festival Poetry Competition

Detail from the 4th century ‘Charioteer Mosaic’ featuring a victorious charioteer and quadriga (four horse chariot). The mosaic decorated one of the rooms at Rudston Roman Villa in East Yorkshire; now part of the collections at Hull and East Riding Museum. 📸 My own. #MosaicMonday #RomanBritain

Me to the electricity company when the lights suddenly came back on:

Stone. Gouache on paper. 4th one for #septempera. There's a village near where I live where there's this tree that awkwardly hugs the last remnants of a stone wall. I've been wanting to paint it for a while. And I took the chance to put in a tiny homage to a favorite of mine, Rien Poortvliet.

Poems I wrote in September! • Distance / Time • Demeter • Perhaps We Should Ask the Bots to Write Our Poems

Bat, Albrecht Dürer, 1522.

Skies from the last evening of September

Another glorious bit of Gothic. This is Rheims Cathedral painted by David Roberts in the early 19th Century. Droolworthy. #Gothic #medieval #Rheims #church #architecture

Eight powercuts this evening. A couple were under a minute, but the last went on for long enough that (a) we thought it was set in for the night and we'd wake up to electricity in the morning, and (b) when the lights did unexpectedly turn back on, my eyes were seared away

A drop of dream fuel - The Chill of Autumn by John Atkinson Grimshaw

Today's date, 24/10/26 (or 10/24/26 to some), is the last time in our lives that those three numbers will make up a Pythagorean triple! In other words, 24²+10²=26², and that's the last such pattern of this century

Haunted by two ghosts.

Can a pear be callipygian?

May the happy bats bring you much joy this weekend. Oh and for those who’ve not seen it, there’s a post below with many more of our flying friends. 🦇 👇

A friend in the garden

Re-enchantment is often a remembering, a discovery a map already tattooed upon our bones.

"Powerful new technology" and it's just the potential dissolution and destruction of every system, structure, or cultural institution you've ever valued (alongside an endlessly proliferating infestation of turboslop)

Small finds from the wood in late October, with my illustrations next to them, from my book The Wild Remedy, about how contact with nature alters our brain chemistry to improve mental health🍒🌿

Search your camera roll for "boat" and post a photo you like! This one is also Bristol, incidentally, almost exactly a year ago this week. Possibly more of a ship than a boat, and the sunset is more the subject than the vessel either way, but I simply adored the view

Greetings from Armenia, where the Armenians are gracious enough to let me try some basic phrases in their language – which is thrilling for an Indo-Europeanist like me. I'm getting a kick out of ordering two things with երկու (yerku) 'two', the unbelievable Armenian cognate of two/deux/dos/dva/etc.

A commission piece I did of the White-throated Needletail that was on the east coast last year. A3 watercolour and graphite #UKbirding #birds #birdart #sciart

The Eye of September

FALL FASHION TIPPE - Disappear ynto the woodes of an eveninge, when the skye ys lavender and blue. Call unto the powers that dwell ther, and lo! thei appear yn their glamour and their panoplye, radiant. Aske of them what thei have seen and thei will tell thee: 'woe & hope' Accessorize wyth a scarf.

Every now and then I have a look at ClearSky to see what Bluesky lists people have added me to, and most of the time it's incredibly, incredibly sweet

For my fellow Britons: the National Trust has created a petition calling on the government to better protect our natural environment against the impacts of climate change. No pressure, but I've signed it and thought I'd share!

🖼️ Dick Twinney

The moon is watching me again

Northumberland serendipity. On a wave washed platform there are many scattered pebbles. For me there would be no joy at all in finding one and placing it. However there is huge pleasure in finding a pebble that already sits well where it has stopped. #capturewithconfidence #kingjoy #nikon

Another sunny Sunday, and I am now a good chunk into my reread of A Game of Thrones

This extraordinary helmet is a lavish example of a Celtic style worn primarily during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. Its dome and neck guard were forged from a single thin sheet of iron, then embellished with ornamental bronze bands worked into flowing vegetal motifs. Inlays of reddish ...🧵1/3 📷 me

The British English sense of 'prat' allows for a humorous reading of the caption underneath

Blackberries - Kittatinny, Deborah Griscom Passmore, 1904.

Look whom I met in the garden

The bird horse #joncarling #drawing #art

Red admiral on the pears

Any of my Bluesky pals looking for accommodation for Bangor University? Or does anyone know anyone who is?

The mesmerizing white horses of Camargue dancing in a golden light beautifully shaped by the dust in the air… #photography #wildlife #art #horse

Sunny Sunday, and I'm enjoying the third and (as yet) last of the Dunk & Egg novellas

Morning. 🖼️ Edith Holden

In all fairness, it is a very cool helmet

Surf the Sky #PhotographersUnited #EastCoastKin #ECK #WestCoastKin #PhotographersOfBluesky #seascape #nature #landscape #photography #landscapephotography #scape #PNW #OlympicPeninsula #Washington #birdphotography #birds #wildlife #BlueSkyArtShow #Summer #smallbirdsaturday

Goodnight from Frank Smith, worried he’s snagged something much bigger than an eel while night fishing the River Restal. Goodnight from Northmoor Camp, where the Special Escort Group is readying to protect a convoy carrying things that don’t officially exist. Goodnight from Hookland.

Once at uni some course friends were discussing their Myers-Briggs personality types (that four-letter crap like INTJ, ESFP, etc.) and when asked mine I mumbled something about it being nonsense. One of them said "omg, so salty" and without missing a beat I said "sorry, my personality is NaCl"

And somehow it’s time for the first page of ‘What to Look for in Autumn’. Artist: CF Tunnicliffe