Exciting times here this morning.

I had decanted my brew of cold-tea plus plum juice into a plastic bottle after its first ferment (the scobie was raspberry-coloured! I hope it is all right) a few days ago, but there was no room for it in the fridge.

I found myself worrying about whether it would taste good, or vinegary, or outright yucky, so decided to have a little taste. As I loosened the screw top, there was a loud bang, a shriek of outrage from me, and the bottle produced a substantial bright pink fountain of bubbles. Kombucha in its excited state flowed all over the worktop and floor. And my hand hurt from the impact of lid against my palm.

It took a while to clean up. I used the entire teacloth, plus a goodly quantity of kitchen paper, and finished off with the washing-up cloth.

About three quarters of the bottle has gone.... though I am happy to report that the remainder does taste rather nice.

At least I know 'second ferment' is true!

Yesterday was Fruit Day. Beast and I picked

—small plums from the tree next to the patio
—tiny plums from the tree next to that
—large golden plums, possibly greengages, from one of the trees FIL planted. The big purple plums, while a fabulous colour, are not at all soft, and the medium-sized turning-red plums are still rock-like, so they stayed on their respective trees.
—blackberries from the front. I had picked another bowlful from the back garden on Saturday, and frozen them. It's good to have blackberries.

I then cut up the golden plums, stewed them briefly, froze them, and cut up the small plums, ditto. For such a lot of plums they did not take up much space—I have put them in bags inside small boxes, to freeze into blocks, at which point I will reclaim the boxes.

I have used the leftover juice to try and make kombucha, mixed with green tea. We shall see.

Then I made a blackberry and apple crumble. We had some of it for tea.

*

We finished watching Sense8 last night. I am so pleased that the creators had enough notice and were given the space/time to produce a film-length final episode to wrap up a bunch of plot, and indeed to provide an unexpected and very generous dollop of fanservice. I've enjoyed watching this show. The premise is unusual and very well done, and all eight of the core group are interesting in different ways. I like their besties, too. In fact, I cannot point to any one character as my favourite, nor as someone I don't care for. But I do think the prolonged sex scenes were a bit much—not that I object to sex, but when precious little *happens* in a scene apart from writhing nakedness, lingering on it lovingly for long enough to make a proper cup of tea feels like a glitch in the story telling process.

Still. I've reached to point of looking for fic. Does anyone have any recommendations? Has anybody written any plot-without-porn, perchance?

I seem to have skipped a couple, so may go back to them later.

Journaling: Life in fandom goes through ups and downs. Reminisce about the "wild ride" of your time in fandom or in other online communities.

It's not so much the Ups that matter. The exciting moments of being in a fandom—going to Trek cons, meeting people I knew only in writing (or hadn't known at all), having sparkly weekends and Camp Sparkle and some of the best laughs I've ever had in my life, going to concerts, and the highs of real feedback and the excitements of participating in challenges large and small, all those things—are why it's wonderful being a part of a fandom. The sadness comes when you fall out of your fandom and have not found anything to replace it, or else your fandom falls away. I fell out of ST:TNG fandom. Popslash fandom fell away from me. So these are the downs.

*

I have a new medication for diabetes now, the Jardiance having resulted in The Itch From Hell, of which I shall say no more except that when I stopped taking the medication, the itch stopped. (And the peasants rejoiced, etc.) So now I have something that will prod my pancreas instead, I hope.

*

Why Norwich celebrates Pride a month later than everybody else, I do not know, but it is so. I went into the city last Saturday, had tea and scone with a couple of my fellow knitters, and wandered out to explore the many stalls set out in the car park near the theatre. Didn't buy *much*, really. Three pairs of earrings and a couple of badges. (It's weird being the same age as old people.) I paused in town to have an early lunch of pasty and coffee, and met the beginning of the parade coming down the little lane I was in. Very glamorous, colourful, and fun. I even had the chance to say hello to a friendly and well-dressed dachshund.

It's nice to see *overt* tolerance being practised with pleasure and enthusiasm. Normal life is generally tolerant here, but in a passive way. But the city centre was *packed* with people in pride colours (and several in furry suits, who must have been very uncomfortable), either marching or waving and cheering.

So, I've managed to get behind on the Sunshine Challenge, but never mind, I can still have a go. This is #4, I think.

Fun House
Journaling: What is making you smile these days? Create a top 10 list of anything you want to talk about.

( List is in pretty random order )
For a wee bonus, https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1DMrBhsi6e/?mibextid=wwXIfr Gorgeous.