A historic day: I finished the last of the Majestic Purple ink I bought back in 2013 for hand-drafting my first novel. The novel:

Restoration Day – Deborah Makarios

#FountainPens #ink #RestorationDay #writing

Another old technology I love: the fountain pen! Pros, cons, and why this is an Old Technology for everyone:

In Praise of Old Technology: the Fountain Pen – Deborah Makarios

#FountainPens #OldTechnology #EcoFriendly

In honour of Waitangi Day, a native New Zealand bloom: poroporo. #BloomScrolling #WaitangiDay #NativePlants

A Westerland rose. #BloomScrolling #roses

On this day in 2023 I fell ill with COVID-19. In the two years since, I've developed chilblains, IBS, CFS, and alopecia. For the love of all you hold dear, do not give up the battle against this virus. Become a clean air aficionado. Stay away from others as much as possible when either you or they are sick. And #WearAMask - for yourself and for others. These three things really do make a difference. Our household average is 0.5 infections per capita. #CovidIsNotOver #covid #health

Readers, what are your comfort reads? I generally reread the Queens of Crime: Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Patricia Wentworth... #books #ComfortReading

I write my books myself. When I first started writing, I never dreamed that I would ever need to say that. But here we are. I write them myself, without the aid of the Great Plagiaristic Texcretor. At present, that mostly means lying on the sofa with a large blank book and a few fountain pens, with a couple of hours at my desk every week or two when I feel capable of sitting up. (It turns out there is a distinction between sitting up and sitting down, and it is an important one.) So if you are keen on supporting books that are 100% AI-free (also Creative Commons- licensed! CC BY-SA), you can get them here:

Works – Deborah Makarios

AND you can choose how much you'd like to pay for most of the ebooks. ($0 is an option. Reading should not be constrained by lack of income.) #NaNoWriMo #AI #FountainPens #CreativeCommons #books #writing #disability

TIL that there's a power station in the UK fuelled by meat. I read this in Gardening For The Zombie Apocalypse, where they theorize that it could potentially convert zombies to electricity. I looked it up, and sure enough, Glanford Power Station in North Lincolnshire runs on meat & bone meal. Which raises a question I had never considered before: is electricity vegan? #TodayILearned #electricity #meat #GardeningForTheZombieApocalypse

I'm normally not a fan of saying something/someone is "on the wrong side of history" (predictions of the future are notoriously unreliable), but when it comes to slavery, I feel like the jury of history has been in for a while now. This week the coalition government has said that the issue of modern slavery is not a priority for them. (From the mouth of a minister who notoriously said human life had been overvalued in NZ's Covid response.) If you believe slavery IS an important issue, you can: a) do your grocery shopping with guides from JustKai.org.nz b) do your clothes shopping with the Ethical Fashion Guide from BaptistWorldAid.org.au c) email the government and tell them how messed up their priorities are. #nzpol #slavery #ReprioritizeSlavery #WrongSideOfHistory