Irene

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150/365: Hop Pole Inn, Bewdley
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It reached 31 °C today, and I wasn't too pleased about that as it was far too hot to do anything. Sadly there were things I had to do. At least it wasn't the 34 °C one forecast had suggested a few days ago. The sunshine was hot, but I still preferred it to the overcast humidity of yesterday. I had an ice cream cone (toffee and vanilla) in town, but walking back home was still a pretty unpleasant experience. Today's photo is of the Hop Pole Inn, a popular and mildly gastro pub on the western side of Bewdley. I've been there, but only rarely. It's not that big inside but has a fairly large beer garden. Note weather!

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149/365: Sunset towards the Wyre Forest
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A very warm (27 °C) day today, but disappointingly cloudy, which made it feel very humid and uncomfortable. I had enough time for a pint of perry at lunchtime, which was nice -- Wetherspoons is doing a Craft Cider Festival, and perry qualifies as it's pear cider. Specifically, I drank Midnight Special from Mr Whitehead's, a Hampshire company. A new one on me: medium-sweet and easy drinking, and although you wouldn't call it especially complex it did slip down well on a very warm day in the beer garden. My photo from today is of sunset during a short walk I was taking on the western fringes of Bewdley. This photo was taken at 9:56 pm, and I'm looking towards the Wyre Forest on the horizon.

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148/365: Derpy Hooves on a muffin, Worcester
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If you've been here a while then you'll probably know this first bit -- but if you're newish to this journal and are surprised by my subject line, then please read on: in the very specific context of the My Little Pony fandom, "Derpy" is the appropriate term here. It's the first name of the grey pony standing on my chocolate muffin. Although you can't see it in this profile view, she has wall eyes (originally an animation error) and is generally considered the fandom's mascot. There's a fairly detailed story behind why "Derpy" is almost universally accepted, which I'll happily repeat if anyone would like me to. But suffice it to say that in an MLP fandom context as applied to this specific pony, it is not only not a slur, it is the preferred name for her for the large majority of disabled Pony fans -- including for use by us non-disabled fans. I don't use the word anywhere else, but I do use it in Pony fandom without qualms.

As to why she's standing on my chocolate muffin... this is a photo from the MLP fandom meetup I went to today in Worcester. Derpy canonically loves muffins. I am very fond of them as well. I am also very fond of Derpy, though that's pretty much universal in the fandom. "Bolero" is the name of the café we use, a place which has been extremely good to us for some years now and which I thoroughly recommend. By the way, the character you can just see on the bag to the top left is Nightmare Moon. She was banished to the Moon (canonically "in the Moon", in fact) by her sister for a thousand years after trying to impose eternal night. Because, you know, kids' cartoon. :P