#woodcote

[insidecroydon]

Friends of Woodcote Primary School Summer Fair, June 22

Continue reading Friends of Woodcote Primary School Summer Fair, June 22

[bs-electrical]

This lovely customer has hit the ground running with this beautiful property… Project managed to the wire! ⚡️ fast turnaround and to a very high standard! 👏🏻 doesn’t it look amazing! #BSElectrical #electrician #Woodcote #Goring #property #home #kitchen #kitchensofinstagram #downlights #led #lighting #lightingandpower #downlight #electriciannearme #electricians #RCBO #Consumerunit #velux #outsidelights #Defender #contactum #auroura www.BSElectrician.co.uk @auroralightingtrade @bselectrician @contactumltd @tlc_direct @att_gb (at Woodcote) https://www.instagram.com/p/CoqJOj9suOZ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[landosmclaren]

still haven’t fully processed going to the british gp. as a brit, seeing lewis win in front of my very eyes was magical

[in-elysium]

none of the grandstand ticket holders are here but they still won't let anyone up wtf

[billybob598]

Scary Crashes (Katie McCabe x Reader)

2 fics in 1 day I'm literally so awesome. Also, sorry for the shit title I couldn't think of anything else sooo, just ignore that bit. Remember, any feedback good or bad is welcomed! As always, have fun reading!

Word Count: 1K (Kinda short but who cares)

“This is gonna be so much fun!” Katie exclaims as she walks alongside you in the paddock. You chuckle at her excitement.

“Yeah, it’s going to be great babe,” you say before stopping to take some photos with fans. You were a driver with Ferrari and while it had been a tough season, you were confident heading into Silverstone this weekend. What made it even better is that Katie, your girlfriend, was attending. She had come to a couple of races, but it always made you feel better to have her there.

The weekend had been tough, free practice had been okay and you were out-qualified by your teammate, Charles. Katie watched excitedly from the garage as the race got underway. The race had been terrible, Ferrari in complete Ferrari style had fucked up your strategy,

“No! Guys, we can’t keep doing this. Fuck! Mate, this has gone from bad to an absolute shithole of a race,” you say over the radio.

As it gets closer and closer to the chequered flag, you try your very best to make some places back up. After your pit stop you came out P13, but you were able to crawl back up to P8. You tried multiple times to get past Pierre Gasly’s Alpine in P7 but to no avail. You were starting to get frustrated,

“He’s driving a bit dangerously, no? Did you see him do the double move on the straight?”

“Yep, we saw it. Just keep focused Y/N, you’ll get him,” your engineer says back to you.

On the next lap, you get a good exit out of Woodcote and use the slipstream to your advantage as you guys head into Copse. Gasly defends the inside so, you decide to try around the outside. Katie holds her breath as she watches on the TV. One second you’re thinking you’ve got him on the outside, the next you’re spinning around as gravel spills into the cockpit. At first, you think you’ve just span out and that you’re probably beached in the gravel trap. That is until you smash into the tyre barrier at over 200km/h. All the air gets pressed out of your lungs when you hit the wall with over 50G’s. Immediately after you hit, you black out.

Everyone inside the Ferrari garage is scrambling, trying to see if you’re okay or not. Your engineer is getting no response over the radio. All the cameras on the car had been broken. Katie was full-on panicking. As the team tried to see if you were okay, Katie couldn’t help but fear for the worst, especially when the ambulance had to come. 

You wake up when someone starts to shake your shoulders. Your eyes adjust to the light and when you look up you see a marshal standing over you asking if you’re okay. You give him a nod and thumbs up, before switching on the radio,

“You okay? Y/N, are you okay?” The engineer keeps repeating.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Ahhhhh fuck, everything kinda hurts though,” you answer.

“Yeah, just stay where you are, marshals are coming and so are some paramedics,”

“Okay, copy,”

It takes a couple of minutes for the marshals to get you out, but when they do you are met with thunderous applause from the crowds. Waving a hand to let them know you’re okay, Katie breathes a sigh of relief. She gets informed by your assistant that you are heading to the hospital for a check-up because it was quite the impact. Katie drives to the hospital as quickly as possible. She knows you’re more or less okay considering you were able to walk out of the car, but she needed to see you with her own eyes. The Irish woman asks the receptionist where you are quite urgently, maybe a little rudely, but she’s Katie McCabe what do you expect from her? When she’s shown to your room she’s informed that you are sleeping. So, she quietly tip-toes into the room and sees you laying there with a couple of machines hooked up to you. Deciding you should keep sleeping, she goes and asks the doctor about how you are. The doctor says that for the most part, you’re okay, your only injury being bruised ribs. He tells her that you're only going to be hooked up to the oxygen machine for a little bit, they just didn’t want to take any chances.

It’s a couple hours before you wake up and when you do you’re met with your girlfriend looking anxious. She has no idea you’re awake yet, so you slowly reach out for her hand and slip her fingers in between yours. Her head jerks up.

“Oh my God, Y/N. Jesus Christ you had me so scared there,” she says quickly. You point in the direction of the door, silently asking for her to go get the doctor so he could take the oxygen mask off. “Oh yeah, right of course. I’ll go get him.”

The doctor does a quick check-up on you before ultimately deciding that you were good to go. He releases you from the hospital, much to your happiness and Katie’s worry. When you guys get back to the hotel, Katie carries all your bags inside, even though you did offer multiple times. All night, Katie won’t let you do anything. Water? Brings multiple glasses of it. Hungry? Don’t worry, she’s got a plate stacked sky-high with food. In pain? She’ll force multiple painkillers down your throat. Some might find it overbearing, but you on the other hand found it endearing. Katie usually acted tough, but it was in moments like these that she shows just how caring and thoughtful she can be. 

“Are you good? Do you need anything else?” Katie asks.

“Nah, babe. I think I’m all good. Thank you for everything today,” you say gratefully.

“Of course, you scared me there Y/N,” she says the last part quietly. You drag her beside you on the bed.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” you say scratching the back of your neck.

“Never again Y/N, never again,” she says sternly. She grins at you before kissing you. 

As you fall asleep you can’t believe how lucky you are to have a girlfriend as awesome as yours.

[dogpapersnippets]

Captain Woodcote (bull terrier) 1903

[motocorsas]

im glad im not making the thing about the ducatis apexing early up!

while i was watching the onboard marc was getting up the inside of mav and just cutting his exit off so its pretty effective against the corner speed bikes as long as you get in the right place on entry but i rlly need to look at the other ducati onboards

the difference in turning was way more relevant when there were more il4s on the grid, which naturally take a wider corner-speed style turn as opposed to v4s, which decelerate and accelerate quickly. a great example of this is alex rins' last lap pass for the win at silverstone in 2019. rins is known for his sweeping riding style which suited the suzuki perfectly. he was essentially matching pace with marquez in front of him, but maintained much more momentum coming out of woodcote corner compared to the honda's sharp v4 turning style.

these days, with only one il4 machine on the grid, you don't see the same type of deep passes.

you also noted that the point-and-shoot turning style often generates wheelie. this is because hard acceleration out of low gear means that the engine torque shoots through the roof for a second. aero isn't the only way to mitigate wheelie; anti-wheelie devices also exist independently, and other ECU elements can help smoothen out torque. ducati's aero prioritizes downforce not only to prevent wheelie, but to ensure maximum grip at all times by keeping as much of the tire surface against the pavement as possible. and this doesn't just help keep the nose down when the bike is upright; certain aero can also help the bike turn more effectively. the current ducati model also has small wings that create ground effect, which essentially suction the side of the bike to the pavement when turning.

i read that aprilia is also trying to implement this tech, but can't find the article. realistically, aero development is probably going to take a backseat as the 2027 regulations close in. in fact, we might be looking at a return to the il4 and its wider corners.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

me: you know, sometimes I think my diagnoses are exaggerated. I'm fine. I'm on sick leave so maybe I won't take my meds today.

Also, me, unmedicated: one minute, I'm writing a cute, wholesome pupper fic based on a really cool colourized photo I found, and the next, I've got 223 tabs open. My laptop and my tablet are wheezing and looking at me to end their misery. I've tracked down every Samoyed owner in Sussex between 1935 and 1947. I've looked at 35 different buildings with the name Woodcote and Woodcock across the fucking region. Gotten tits deep in 16 different local papers. I downloaded three books about when Canadians blew up Spitsbergen, which somehow I've also written a whaling fic about. I find a police record from 1942. The Canadian War Museum has no idea what I'm talking about and said the records of any felonies related to mascots are in England. I am now prepared to email 6 different institutions because, apparently, I was born into a Commonwealth realm for fuck all.

anywhoo enjoy the cute puppy

[phynoma]

HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN

As a countdown to Halloween, I'm sharing the original statements I wrote for the Consuming AU! (<<click for ao3 link) The statements function as horror shorts that work on their own, and I'm proud of them, ngl

Without further ado:

Statement 1: The Chocolate Pot

CW: Manipulation, supernatural compulsion, accidental dead-naming, drowning

[Tape clicks on. Head Archivist’s Office]

ARCHIVIST

Statement of Corey Garrett, regarding his discovery of a vintage, silver chocolate pot. Original statement taken August 9th, 2007. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

It was an estate auction that did it.

My cousin, Niamh Flaherty and I, would get out of mum's house by taking our bikes up and down Elvendon Lane. There aren't a lot of turnoffs, and it's one of those narrow, country lanes that seems like it keeps its own secrets. We were lonely, in the way that two young adults in the countryside could be: on the edge of adulthood and the fears of being cast into the unknown, even as we longed for it with all our fledgling desire for flight.

It was the end of summer, and Niamh was visiting from Limerick, and we were terribly bored with country life. Just eighteen, the both of us, and playing at being proper adults. Independant, all that. Both of us had a thing for antiques–though I’ve lost a bit of my taste for it, now–and we were incorrigibly curious.

There's not much that goes on around Woodcote that the whole village doesn't know about, so when Niamh and I saw the lorry at the end of a short drive, nearly blocking the narrow road into town, we stopped. The drive itself was far too small for the mini tipper to navigate; just a blind opening to a gravel track so overgrown it could have just been a path into the woods that would end, like a fairy-path, with no house or sign of humanity in sight.

My parents had moved out to the village when I was at school, and I didn’t know whose house it was that had attracted the house clearance auctioneers like flies to a decaying corpse. All I knew was folks that needed seven tonne lorries were likely old and rich, and that sounded like a magic combination. A proper treasure hunt, you know?

Maybe it was a bit ghoulish, but the idea of a dusty, mouldering house of forgotten and unwanted treasures really got to us–Niamh and me. Like I said, Niamh and I were still pretty young, but I was always impressed with her. She seemed sort of worldly, always got men's attention. She wasn't that pretty, I don't think–well, I mean, I don't know. I'm her cousin, aren't I? But she had a way about her, something that drew people in. I could never figure out if I was jealous of her or if I wanted to be her.

Anyway, watching strangers pack up a lorry with some old, unlucky geezer's worldly treasures might not seem like a good time, but we made the most of it. We made guesses of what was in the boxes, what kind of person they'd been, why they didn't have any family to collect the goods. It was an “adult” kind of fun, nothing kids would be interested in, but now that Niamh and I were grown up we could watch the delivery men carting boxes and furniture down the dusty drive and feel like we were gossiping like real people, real adults did. We were so hungry for a world beyond us.

And there was plenty to gossip about. Crates of old knickknacks and rubbish– porcelain table sets shaped like too-quaint dolls, ratty old tapestries from the 70’s made to look mediaeval and missing the mark– that sort of thing. We sat on our bikes across the lane and kept our eyes peeled for the priceless artefacts we knew we’d spot among all the junk. With our keen, young minds we had a plan that if we did see anything, we’d be the first down at the auction houses and charity shops in Reading to snatch it up. Ghoulish, like I said. But at the time we felt very clever and sophisticated as we guessed at values and made crude but cutting remarks.

We could see a bit of the house from the road–disappointingly normal, all told. Renovated maybe in the mid-90s, one of those monstrosities that was probably a fine thing when it was built two centuries ago and which had been “upgraded” nearly out of existence. We were guessing at how terribly the inside had been refurbished when a woman wearing a cream suit left the front door. For a moment, I could have sworn she looked right at us, down by the road. And she smiled. I don't know how, but I could feel it, like an itch behind my teeth. Then she turned and disappeared behind the hedges and fruit trees that blocked most of the house.

I shook off the shudder that half-imagined smile had given me, and put her from my mind. In any case, Niamh hadn’t seemed to notice the woman. I’d have almost thought I’d made her up, except after a good ten or fifteen minutes she appeared again at the bottom of the lane. She must have walked all the way down, and her cream suit was coated in a fine layer of dust. She held a small crate in her hands.

I don’t know how, but I knew that crate was full of the treasures Niamh and I were waiting to see. I tried to be subtle watching her, but Niamh and I were the only ones on a long, lonely lane, so it was pretty obvious we were gawking. I expected an annoyed glance, maybe, or for the woman to shoo us off. Instead, she looked up. Our eyes met, and I got that weird feeling again, like she was…amused, somehow. It turnt my stomach right over.

I didn’t notice that Niamh had grabbed my arm until later, when I saw the bruises, because I was so focused on that woman. She walked over to us with that little half-smile, the crate still in her arms. She said her name was…I think it was Karen? Karen…something common, I think, but like an old man name. Withers, maybe.

Anyway, she came right up to the both of us and asked if we had known the owner of the house. I don’t remember what we said–if we lied and claimed we did, or what. The answer didn’t really seem to matter. She said the owner had been old and eccentric, and he hadn’t had anyone to leave his belongings to, so they’d been called in. Hope Charities, she said, and pointed at the lorry. There wasn't a name painted on it or anything, but the men doing the loading were wearing white coveralls with B&H on the back. Don't know what the "B" stood for.

She– Karen– showed us the crate. It was open. Inside was a jumble of knick-knacks, exactly the kind of thing you’d expect: a couple of old books with faded dust covers from the 50s or 60s, some miscellaneous silverware, a snowglobe that was nearly opaque from the dissolved snow, a single Skittles pin.

She said it was a box of the things they didn’t think would sell, and offered to let us take anything we’d like. She smiled when she said it, and the smile didn’t match her eyes. Even though it’d been what we were hoping for, I was suddenly uneasy. It didn’t feel like we could say no. I wanted, desperately, to say no. I think I hoped Niamh would do it for me.

Niamh took a book–at random, I think–and I picked up a tarnished chocolate pot. I had half a mind that I could give it to my mum as a birthday gift, with a bit of polish. Karen nodded like I’d made a good choice and gave me one more of those little half-smiles. It reminded me of a crocodile, somehow.

“Enjoy,” she said, and brought the crate back to the lorry to be packed away.

Niamh and I went home after that. There wasn’t much more for us to do, really. We laughed about it, about how we thought we’d been in trouble. Niamh said I must have charmed her with my wicked good looks–but Niamh was always the charmer, and she didn’t seem to realise I didn’t have her way with people.

She showed me her book. It looked like it’d been a library book at some point, and the dust cover was a bit torn. It had one of those generic, oil-painted landscapes as the cover art, of a circle of grey-green mountains with a blue-grey sky behind. It was called A Very Windy Day, and I didn’t know what possessed Niamh to choose that over everything else in the crate. When I asked her, she shrugged and said it reminded her of something.

In the end, I was rather proud of my chocolate pot, and I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to shine it up with some of my mum’s old Wright’s jewellery cleaner. Niamh settled down with her book–I don’t know if she was actually that interested in it, but after my teasing she made a point of reading it in front of me. She even read a bit out loud–something about big spaces and the ever-expanding entropy of the universe. It was way more dry than I expected, and it made me feel sort of funny and small, so I told her to read to herself.

The chocolate pot shined up nicely, though it took a good deal of time. By the time I looked around to ask Niamh something, she had left with her book–probably to get away from the smell of the cleaner. I was a little miffed that she hadn’t said anything to me; but then again, I had been rather focused.

I cleaned the inside of the pot, and noticed that it was in good shape but had some strange scratches on the inside, like someone had gone in with a wire scrubber at some point in the past. The scratches weren’t deep enough that I was concerned it would be unsafe to drink from, and I resolved to make some tea in it, just to try it out.

I steeped a few bags of breakfast tea directly in the pot itself–after all, if the thing was to be used for brewing chocolate, it shouldn’t have any sort of flavour itself, and there was no point in putting hot water from the kettle into the pot and then pouring it over bags from there. But when I poured the tea into my cup, it was almost black, and thick as mud. It had a strong, earthy aroma that wasn’t unpleasant– a bit like a very strong, very unsweetened cocoa.

This was rather off-putting, but I figured to myself that perhaps I hadn’t cleaned the inside of the pot as much as I’d thought, and the hot water had now cleared it out. The vaguely-chocolate-like scent could be from years of accumulated grime, for all I knew. I poured out the rest, washed out the remainder, and tried again.

The second steeping, the stuff was a little thinner, and the aroma thick but sweeter. Perhaps, I thought, the boiling water was doing its job to scrape out the inside of the pot. I poured it out again and resteeped it a third time. This time, the liquid was a warm, golden brown, like a well-sweetened and milky cocoa mixed with cinnamon or turmeric. It smelled mouthwatering.

I realised, belatedly, that I hadn’t added the teabags at all, and couldn’t help but wonder if that had been the reason for the odd black sludge the first time. Whatever the reason, the fact was now that this chocolate pot was a more exciting find than I could have ever hoped for in my attempted grown-up adventure-seeking. I allowed myself a bit of childish delight, that I had something truly special.

Of course, I wasn’t a fool– I wasn’t about to start serving this mysteriously appearing chocolate to my family without some more research. I did some internet research and found very little in the way of magical chocolate pots or cursed items. There was absolutely no record of regular chocolate pots creating chocolate from hot water, although there was plenty about cast iron and other sorts of well-seasoned kitchenware, and some tales of Chinese clay teapots being used for so long that one only had to pour in hot water to get tea.

This seemed unlikely for my silver pot, but I clung to the idea that there was at least some reasonable explanation. I would have even taken a reasonable supernatural explanation–anything that meant I wasn’t simply going mad. And, just in case I was somehow hallucinating the sight and smell of the chocolate, I figured a few other senses were necessary.

For some reason, it was very important to me that I was alone. The childish feeling was stronger; that I had something special, something precious, like a stuffed animal worn to an inch of its life. I wanted to test the chocolate pot in privacy, in a little tent of my own making, someplace dim and close and warm. I imagined sharing chocolate with Niamh like we had as children in a fort made of cushions and blankets, our small hands wrapped around second-best china, in a small, dark world of our own. Safe. Intimate.

I locked myself in the bathroom and climbed in the tub, pulling the curtain around me in as much of an approximation of a fort as I'd allow myself. I poured myself a new cup of chocolate and dipped my finger into the liquid. It was pleasantly warm, not boiling, and thick and silky smooth. I rubbed it between my fingers, marvelling at it, and then without thinking I licked it from my fingers.

It was delicious, just as rich and sweet and full as it smelled. Emboldened, I took a sip directly from the cup. Flavour exploded over my tongue, rich and complex and very clearly chocolate. I finished the cup within minutes and poured another. I was starting to rethink my idea to gift the chocolate pot to my mother, when I could just as easily share its contents with her but keep the pot to myself.

I refilled the pot only once with more water–which I got straight from the bath tap– and looking back, that should have been an alarming sign. At the time, I was simply amazed at how the flavours seemed to change with every cup, perfectly setting off the previous so that each was distinct. It was impossible to tire of, and it seemed to spread through my stomach and then my whole torso and limbs like a good scotch.

I was feeling pleasantly warm and buzzing when Niamh returned. Again, I didn’t hear her come in through the door, but she was suddenly there, in front of me, asking what I was doing. I hesitated, wondering if she would want a cup. Dare I share my magic? Of course, I decided, with a warm, happy surge of devotion. How wonderful, to share in the chocolate pot! How lovely, to be embraced together in such a remarkable creation! It occurred to me that everyone was deserving of such a gift. Perhaps I could sell it. Even better, I could give it away. I could open my home to any and all and share this incredible, magical drink that tasted like the very essence of comfort!

But first, I wanted to share it with Niamh. I wanted to capture a bit of that childhood we'd been so fierce in pushing away. I invited her into the tub with me, my sanctum, my fortress.

It was then that I noticed how distant Niamh's eyes were–as if she were in the room with me, but not. I felt as if she were looking at me from the other end of a very long tunnel, like a mineshaft. She stood in a square of light, while I crouched safe and warm and hidden in the dark. It pressed around me. It was deep, fathomless, but the pressure was comforting. It was the darkness of the womb, of a mother's arms who would never grow too frail, would never turn away. There was no need to fear growing old, there. It was a place where we could huddle in the dark and drink chocolate and always be children.

By this point, it felt as if the chocolate was in my very blood. Its thickness coated the inside of my oesophagus, my mouth. In a slurring, muffled voice, I offered my cousin a cup of the magical liquor. She refused, her eyes still empty.

I felt a surge of despair that she should be so far from me, when all I longed for was closeness. I took Niamh's hand, and when she tried to pull away with a cry of anger, I simply wrapped my arms around her instead.

For a moment, it felt as if I were holding a thousand stars in my embrace–or a million dandelion seeds, about to be blown away by a breath of wind. Niamh wiggled in my embrace and then, all of a sudden, slumped against me. As I hadn’t anticipated this, I could only lower her as slowly as I possibly could to the ground, where she lay curled and sobbing. Her face was a mask of fear and anguish. She draped over the tub, spilling the pot over. Dark liquid poured from it, thick and endless, clogging in the drain and slowly rising.

I righted the pot and handed her a cup of chocolate. This batch was dark as a moonless night and it smelled bitter and woody, but it was still obviously chocolate. When Niamh trembled so much that she would spill it, I helped tip it into her mouth.

At once she became still and quiet. Her eyes were wide and very dark, and she stared at me as if she had seen unknowable horrors.

I drank the rest of the cup, as she seemed uninclined to finish it, and felt the bitterness prick through me like deadly nightshade. My head swam. For a moment, I was drowning. My mouth was filled with thick nectar, and it ran down my front in muddy rivers. My eyesight blurred.

For some reason, my only thought was that I had something in my throat, and that the solution was clearly to wash it out with more chocolate. I poured another cup with shaking hands and slipping gaze, and when I spilled it I simply raised the chocolate pot and poured the sweet liquid directly into my mouth.

There was no end to the flowing chocolate, and for a moment I had a vision of the chocolate continuing to pour, and pour, until it flooded the room and down the street. I imagined the faces of the village as they saw the approaching wave, surprised and then delighted. I pictured them licking their hands like I had, or scooping up teacups full of the stuff to fill their own, hollow bodies. Like a children's story, a fairytale. All was innocent and sweet again, simple. I could save the world with my chocolate pot. All I had to do was keep pouring.

I could imagine how it would sit in us like ballast, thick and choking and so full that no one would ever have to feel loneliness again. To be embraced, inside and out, in thick, sweet nourishment. It was horrible. I had never imagined anything better, or worse. If I’d had any air left in my lungs, if the chocolate wasn’t already pouring from my mouth in an endless fountain, I would have screamed and not stopped. I sobbed, for the fear that I might never reach the beautiful image in my head, the promise of an endless, close embrace.

I felt arms around me, and then Niamh was trying to force the stuff from my stomach, my lungs. I coughed and choked and only managed to let more of the chocolate fill in the last bits of air I had. I was drowning in it. No, that's not right–it was swallowing me. I lay back in the tub that was slowly filling with chocolate and knew it would be my tomb.

I saw, rather than felt, Niamh’s hands pound against my chest. The tub could be our tomb, if only Niamh would join me. I tried to grasp her hand, to pull her into the warmth with me, but the chocolate coating my hands was too slick and she pulled away.

I wailed for her. My consciousness slipped. I was sinking into a deep, black pit of primordial warmth, and I knew I would never escape.

Except…well, I did, didn’t I? I’m still not completely sure how. I think Niamh did it, somehow.

I woke in my bed, with a horrible pressure headache, and Niamh at my side. I could have sworn, in the moments before I woke, that I heard her reading aloud to me–though I can’t recall the story, I do have a vague memory of her setting aside that little hardcover book she’d taken from the crate when I woke.

She explained that I had fallen asleep in the bath, of all places, and nearly drowned. I asked about the chocolate pot, and she seemed confused for a moment. I reminded her about the house, and the crate, and her eyes lit up. She brought to me a small, silver teapot and claimed that this was the thing I had chosen.

I was so tired that I hadn’t the energy to argue with her, and simply decided to ask about it more when I woke again. By the time I did, I could hardly recall what the original chocolate pot had looked like, and I couldn’t truly confirm whether or not the teapot she showed me was the one I had taken from the crate.

Niamh left at the end of that summer, and besides a few emails, we’ve mostly lost touch. It’s too bad, because we were very close once and I have a strange feeling that something that happened that summer contributed to her distance. She moved to Switzerland, I think, to be a ski instructor.

I gifted the silver teapot to my mum after all. She adores it, and it makes very good tea. But sometimes, whenever I’m drinking something, I get a thick, sweet taste on the back of my tongue like the finest of chocolate.

Statement ends.

ARCHIVIST (CONT.)

If I’d read this a year ago, I’d have dismissed it out of hand. It's exactly the kind of urban legend I'd expect would flood the shelves. But perhaps The Magnus Institute is a far less interesting or gratifying audience for such creators of tall tales than the usual, hungry internet forums.

(sigh) Nevertheless, there are a few details of note.

[Paper flips]

ARCHIVIST (CONT.)

(clears throat) Hm, excuse me, it seems that–Cora Garrett has not suffered any long term effects from her experience.

(to self) Note to self, re-record the intro of the statement using the correct name and pronouns.

(aloud) From the preliminary follow-up, it seems like Cora spent a few days in the hospital to get rid of what appeared to be a sudden case of pneumonia. No police report was ever filed, and we've had difficulty tracking down any relations to the original owners of 15 Elvendon Lane, assuming that number 15 was, indeed, the correct house. It was certainly the only house on auction around the correct time. It seems to have been renovated by the new owners, and there are no pictures online of the original house to try and match to Cora's description.

Karen Withers, or Smithers, or whatever her name might be-- the auction agent-- does not seem to exist–either in the Reading area or beyond. I am exceedingly curious to know who and what she is, or if she even exists. For all we know, she could be an invention of Cora and her cousin to explain away an adolescent break-in, or a hallucination like that of a (heavy sigh, dry) overflowing chocolate pot.

The most interesting piece of this statement, to me, is of course the reference to A Very Windy Day. The details are vague, but it could very well be a Leitner, and if that's the case I–

[Door opens]

ARCHIVIST (CONT.)

Ah. Martin.

[dizzyduck44]

Story Time - A British Grand Prix 🇬🇧

Settle yourself in, this is a fan experience of how F1 used to be (pre-Twitter) and is a bit of a novel.

My brother and I went to the 2012 British Grand Prix. Other than a girl I went to school with we knew no one else who had been, so obviously a lot of people grilled us for information, was it good, can you see much, is it worth it, what’s the traffic like.

My brother’s boss decided that’s it, he was going next year by himself. Now my brother’s boss was very much the bachelor. Earning a six figure sum, never married, no kids, not even a pet, owned his own house. He was never short of money. His one luxury was a two week trip to Australia every year to go diving.

So where as we had sat in Woodcote (still an expensive ticket), he of course bought himself a pit lane ticket. Spent quali day overlooking the garages.

So Sunday he gets to the track and raids the merch and I’m not over exaggerating here, he bought merch for every team on the grid and some Motor GP stuff. He ended up buying a Valentino Rossi sports bag to carry it all in.

So he gets to his “seat” and realises, he can see the pit lane, the finish line and that is about it. There isn’t even a big screen. He looks over in the International Pit Straight (now the Hamilton Straight) Grandstand and there are empty seats (yes really!). So he asks a security guard can he go sit there, after all it’s technically a downgrade. They say yes and he and his bag of swag go and find a seat.

He sits down and after 10 minutes realises the guy next to him is on his own and they get talking. Turns out this guy had had an awful year in 2012, his girlfriend had a miscarriage which lead to them splitting up, he had lost his job and his Dad had be diagnosed with the early stages of cancer, but his family had bought him a one day ticket to see the Grand Prix to give him something to look forward to, as he had always wanted to go. However obviously money was still tight as he was not back in work yet, so he had come in on the bus and hadn’t really looked around as he couldn’t afford anything.

My brother’s boss, opens up the swag bag and asks this guy who his driver is, who he supports. Turns out he’s a Ferrari fan so a Ferrari cap is produced out the treasure trove and he hands it to this guy he has known 20 minutes.

They watch the race and Alonso driving for Ferrari ends up in 3rd. Podium over and done with this guy tries to hand back the cap to which the boss says “absolutely not, you can’t come all this way, see your driver on the podium and not have something to remember the day by”.

As they are walking out of the complex, this guy bumps into someone he knows from work, usual pleasantries, “didn’t know you were coming”, “where we you sat?”, “where you parked?” The guy sheepishly says he is on the bus. The work colleague says the hell you are, we’ll take you home.

As he’s about to leave the guy says thank you again and the boss suddenly says, “who’s your Dad’s favourite driver?” “Räikkönen”, so yeap you guessed it, back in the swag bag and produces a Lotus cap to give to his Dad.

Once he was back in North Wales, he continued to share the wealth. There was a McLaren team shirt for my brother (back when McLaren wore real shirts). A Jenson mug for me, which sadly is long ago broken. A kids Ferrari jacket for his goddaughter, a Rossi cap for someone else in his team and a Red Bull cap for one of the cleaning staff. God knows what else he bought, my brother mentioned seeing him wearing a Williams t shirt a few times and mention of some Webber and Danny Ric merch to take over to his buddies in Oz later in the year.

I know F1 Twitter has made F1 fans seem like a dumpster fire at times and certain driver’s (I do mean plural here) fans can take things too far, but at the heart of it, we are genuinely nice and enthusiastic people, who all enjoy the same thing.

Or in the case of Fernando Alonso at the 2012 British Grand Prix, we all celebrate the downfall of the bad guy (the entire track erupted when Mark Webber overtook him on the last lap to win the race).

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Voting is your democratic right!

Hey my Tumblr followers, you’re good people right? You care about kids, yeah? Interested in green spaces and the environment?

Well how would you feel if I told you that you could, with minimal effort and at the cost of no personal information, do both of those things?

That’s right! For the low, low price of just thirty seconds of your time, you could help my cousin’s daughter’s primary school get some funding from a local garden centre to develop a green space at their school.

Plus voting, democracy, having your say, Tumblr polls. We like clicky things and we like making a difference. So let’s channel that. For the kids.

In just four easy steps, you can help fund a space for children to have a green space in their London Primary School, and learn more about the environment.

Click on this link. (You may need to accept the cookies for the form to load properly.)

Select Woodcote Green as the branch

Select Stanley Park Junior School

Submit

Q&A

Q: Do I need to provide any of my details? A: Absolutely none! No name, no email address, no credit card details, no nothing. It’s a simple voting button. And you like Tumblr polls, right? So think of that like this, only with real life benefits for kids.

Q: Jen, why are you naming the primary school your family goes to? A: Because it’s a school, and they’re kids, and they deserve nice things. Also there is no way you can trace them from what little information you might have given the number of kids at that school. Plus they will leave that school at some point in the next eight years but this space will be there for future classes. It’s one hell of an investment.

Q: Why are you shilling for votes? A: Please note that you can only vote once for one community project <-- because it’s a democracy of one person, one vote and while my family is huge it’s not that huge. And for some reason I seem to have quite the number of Tumblr followers so even if 1% of you vote that will help the school a lot.

Q: Can I still vote if I’m not in the UK? A: We have family all over the globe and they report they have been able to vote without incident. So we’re going with yes.

Q: Can I reblog this post? A: Please do! All of the good people out there who like kids, green spaces, and Tumblr polls could enjoy this. The deadline for votes is 25th April 2023 so at time of posting this we have just over a week.

Q: I don’t like kids/green spaces/Tumblr polls. Should I still do this? A: whatever keeps the peace in your head, friend.

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Summer music concert at Woodcote High School, Jul 13

Continue reading Untitled

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Another project underway for a lovely client in #GoringHeath #woodcote #Reading full rip out and Rewire including a lovely new extension and some huge #velux windows. Stay tuned for the next stage. #1stfix #BSElectrical #ElectricalRewire #Rewiring #Extensions #Property #Home #Developing #Renovations #Cottage #ElectricianNearMe #ElectricianInReading #Electrician #SameDayQuotations #NewBuilding #NewBuilds #kitchen #DiningRoom #KitchenDiner #windowdisplay www.BSElectrical.co.uk (at Woodcote) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnnBmKfsVuz/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Info for fanfic part 1/???

Hi y’all this is my first time entering the fanfic/HC world of tumblr- and in general! No one is probably gonna see this but I literally made this blog for this purpose bc I am so Down Bad for Arthur and RDO has been my addiction for the past few months so lkke. Enjoy!

- my characters chosen!name is Eris LeClerk, her birth name is Diana Wattington

- she’s based on my protagonist from RDO

- Eris is autistic coded and my self insert

- fic I’m writing is Eris X Arthur

- Jessica LeClerk basically adopted her prior to events of RDO (events of RDO—> name change to Eris)

-“Diana” was a resident of Blackwater for 10 years prior to 1897

- she learned her gunslinging/hunting skills there heehoo

- insert Trader, Bounty Hunter, Moonshiner, Collector role here (all besides Naturalist bc no way)

- she was all those things BEFORE events of RDO (and partners with Cripps and Maggie as well) but on a lesser scale

-economy more akin to RDR2 story mode

-lost her eye while in Sisika Penitentiary, switches between glass eye (formal events) and eyepatch

- name change was due to ppl recognizing her name in Sisika (plus some extra fun backstory things

- favorite weapon is the Lancaster repeater and improved bow (imagine horned variant bc god it’s gorgeous) and the volcanic pistol/sawed off shotgun/Schofield revolver

- very good at crafting and generally things with her hands. Uses this skill for both artistic and utilitarian things (she makes a lot of explosive ammo because it’s a mindless activity and is very very useful for her. Plus she’s not as good at headshots so this gives her a leg up in combat)

-also good at finding ways to make her arrows poisonous or paralytic - which she learned to do as a bounty Hunter

- genuinely enjoys learning how to use/make other weapons, and owns a wide array of them. She may not actually use them all very often, but she likes having them!

BONUS: Arthur never really knows what to get her and he’s not good with gifts in general, but once he figures out that she likes weapons and practicing with them it’s like a New Favorite Couples Activity

- she has an old black lab named Vesta :) (this becomes more important later)

- she has 3! Main Horses and mainly uses a saddle like the RDO McKinney saddle

- a blue Missouri foxtrotter (M, named Hermes) and a Breton (F, named Althea) as her two main horses that she switches between

- a black Am Standardbred named Nyx which she steals from the Braithwaites in part 3

- Mrs LeClerk owns a white Arabian gifted to her from Dutch Van der Linde that Eris rides occasionally

- Eris and Cripps use a light grey Shire horse for pulling their wagons. Eventually, this Shire is paired with Arthur’s black Shire (the one from Hosea) to pull Cripps’ wagon

- whenever Eris uses a wagon, Althea pulls it

- Eris owns bolas, but they are mostly for show after joining the gang (see also the weapons she uses partially as decor)

- her favorite piece of clothing is the woodcote poncho due to its ease putting it on

- she has a pair of black mountfleet gloves from Mrs LeClerk.

- other gifts from LeClerk include the RDO weapon variants (collector repeater and pistol, bounty Hunter revolvers, Trader shotgun, moonshiner sawed-off, Naturalist varmint rifle) because of Eris’ love for customizing weapons and making them her own

- Eris’ animal embodiment is a bear

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Reflections on Historic Motorsport and Racing Ethics: Donington Classic Festival 2024 Update

Back in May, I attended the Donington Historic Festival. I took lots of pictures which can be found on line here. I try to avoid posting pictures of damaged cars because, having been there myself I know how hard it can be to see the aftermath of bad driving. The Motor Racing Legends combined Stirling Moss and RAC Woodcote Trophy race suffered from a serious incident on the first lap between the…

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No serious injuries after wheel clears barrier at Goodwood Festival | RaceFans Round-up

In the round-up: The organisers of the Goodwood Festival of Speed have confirmed “no serious injuries” occured following an incident in which a wheel came off a car. In brief “No serious injuries” after incident at Goodwood Festival A Jaguar Mark One shed its left-rear wheel during a run at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, which began yesterday. Footage of the incident indicated the wheel cleared a straw bale and went into a spectator enclosure. The event organisers confirmed on social media no one involved had been seriously hurt. “Following the incident on the hillclimb we’re pleased to confirm that there were no serious injuries and those involved were able to go back to enjoying the event,” they said. In May a wheel cleared a barrier at the Indianapolis 500 following a collision between Kyle Kirkwood and Felix Rosenqvist, but no spectators were injured. F1 street races in France and Spain rumoured French president Emanuel Macron has shown an interest in reviving the French Grand Prix, according to Nice-Matin. The mayor of Nice told the newspaper the president had responded positively to the idea of bringing F1 back to the country. However the preferred venue is understood to be a new street track in Nice, rather than one of France’s existing F1-grade permanent circuits. Meanwhile the president of the Executive Committee of the Ifema convention centre in Madrid, Jose Vicente de los Mozos, has indicated it is moving closer to confirming a street circuit in the Spanish capital will host a round of the world championship. It has previously been tipped to take over the Spanish Grand Prix from the Circuit de Catalunya when its contract expires after the 2026 race, but no official announcement has yet been made. Vergne given suspended fine for “misconduct” Vergne committed “misconduct”, say FIA stewards Jean-Eric Vergne has been fined €3,000 (£2,564), suspended until the end of the year, following his public criticism of a penalty given to his DS Penske team at the previous Formula E round in the USA. It is the latest in a series of similar penalties issued recently. Haas F1 team principal Guenther Steiner was reprimanded for describing the Monaco Grand Prix stewards as “laymen”. More bizarrely, Formula Regional European Championship team MP Motorsport were issued a suspended fine after a staff member responded to a stewards’ bulletin in a WhatsApp group using a poo emoji. In Vergne’s case, the specific language he used was not cited by the stewards. Following a hearing with Vergne the stewards said “the driver stated that some of the written words in the press [were] not said by him.” “He agreed that some comments he really said have not been respectful towards the stewards and also towards the FIA. He promised to try to [not] do so in the future because he has the full respect for the work of the stewards and the FIA.” Vergne was deemed to have committed “misconduct towards officials and FIA”, and to have violated article 12.2.1 clauses (c), (f) and (k) of the International Sporting Code. These prohibit: “Any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally”, “any words, deeds or writings that have caused moral injury or loss to the FIA, its bodies, its members or its executive officers, and more generally on the interest of motor sport and on the values defended by the FIA” and “and misconduct towards” FIA members of staff and other associated parties. Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free Happy birthday! Happy birthday to Ryanmack09! On this day in motorsport 50 years ago today Peter Revson won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone which was red-flagged after Jody Scheckter triggered a huge crash at Woodcote. John Watson and Jochen Mass made their debuts in the race. via RaceFans - Independent Motorsport Coverage https://www.racefans.net/