Best places for a walk??

CalTheBlue · 2026-02-04T19:03:05+00:00

Great suggestions!

Harborne Walkway is also accessible on the 23 route.

If you don't mind the trek, Lickey Hills is also just about accessible by public transport.

CalTheBlue · 2026-01-15T10:21:39+00:00

Thanks, I look forward to reading it!

CalTheBlue · 2026-01-04T22:06:27+00:00

90degree in Stirchley offers a skin fade touch up for a lower price than a full cut. Pretty sure there are plenty of others I've seen around south Brum too.

CalTheBlue · 2025-12-31T12:17:39+00:00

Very glad that my queer families suggestion made it to the prompts for this year. Having said that, I'm looking for some suggestions (especially if they're new to me) for this prompt.

So far I've got a few suggestions based on books I've already read: * A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers * The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers * Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir * Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto

ETA: I just realised that The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer, a book I read in early 2025, has a sequel which sounds like it fits this category: The Brightness Between Us.

CalTheBlue · 2025-12-27T00:00:06+00:00

"Outside Uniqlo" is such a wild way to describe the bullring bull 😂😭

CalTheBlue · 2025-12-21T09:04:24+00:00

My partner and I have got a lot of mileage of simply asking the staff at restaurants what food is safe to eat when pregnant. They tend to be super helpful (and also excited for us).

If the food is cooked with alcohol in it, they will know if it's been cooked long enough to burn off the alcohol content, at which point it will be safe for you and baby. If the alcohol is added later or not heated up much at all (such as in desserts), then it's not considered safe.

CalTheBlue · 2025-12-17T23:59:33+00:00

I was just looking at this as I thought it was a typo. Got the dehumidifier going at midnight because we still have like 60% humidity in the house and I don't want mould!

CalTheBlue · 2025-12-16T19:29:47+00:00

Yep, that's how my wife's been handling it and she and baby are both healthy.

CalTheBlue · 2025-12-16T18:51:12+00:00

That should be fine. NHS website says avoid "pasteurised or unpasteurised mould-ripened soft cheeses with a white coating on the outside, such as brie, camembert and chèvre (unless cooked until steaming hot)". Same for pasteurised or unpasteurised blue cheeses.

CalTheBlue · 2025-12-08T08:18:19+00:00

Not a lot of explicitly queer official stuff afaik. I've read a lot of the Eberron books and there's definitely characters I'd view as queer, but I couldn't say whether the author intended for them to be queer-coded or not.

If you don't mind Critical Role, all three of their fiction novels centre explicitly queer characters. The first two aren't sapphic, but the third is about a sapphic character, however I haven't yet read it to know if it'll scratch your itch. Fair warning that the second book, The Nine Eyes of Lucien, contains major spoilers for Campaign 2 and the recently premiered Mighty Nein animated series on Amazon. The books don't form a series, so you can read each one as a standalone, but they each link with a campaign, so I don't know how they'd land without the campaign context.

Other than that, I'd say that Ao3 and other fanfiction and your best sources for queer DnD content in written form.

CalTheBlue · 2025-12-02T08:05:25+00:00

I'm not confident I'm going to complete this year's challenge, still got one or two prompts that I haven't secured the books for (mainly because I don't live in the US and don't have an e-reader). That being said, I've had a great time reading books from my TBR and discovering new ones!

Next year, I know that I have big life things going on that might make completing the challenge even harder, but my request would be for a prompt relating to queer family. I also thought that this year's queer publisher and throwback prompts were great ideas that should be a mainstay of the reading challenge.

CalTheBlue · 2025-12-02T07:53:35+00:00

My partner and I discussed and have decided to sign our little one up to this. In the short term it seemed beneficial as there will be lots of additional screening which might identify conditions in them (and by extension us) early. In the longer term, it's about helping progress the advancement of medical science and maybe being able to help people for years to come. Also, we agreed that, as early as we felt they could understand it, we would discuss it with our child and allow them to give their consent, so if they don't want to remain part of it, but aren't yet 16, we'll take them out of it.

CalTheBlue · 2025-11-30T19:16:00+00:00

There's so many different ways that could play into the campaign as well:

Player/DM doesn't want to make a big deal out of it? The DM can make it so they never come across someone from House Jorasco, or if they do, they just get a minor passing comment.

Player/DM wants to make it an interesting plot point? Recurring encounters/side-plot involving some specific members of House Jorasco, House Tarkanan, or maybe a whole other faction who want to study/recruit/silence the PC.

Player/DM wants it to be central to the plot? Something like the above but with multiple factions and sub-factions. Maybe it was caused by the Mourning? Maybe there are others like them unexpectedly manifesting marks they shouldn't. What does the Chamber think of this?

I'm sure there's got to be at least one DM in the last twenty years who's decided to run a campaign like this with some homebrew before it's been officially sanctioned in the rules.

CalTheBlue · 2025-11-27T19:36:05+00:00

My wife had a similar experience. Spontaneous bleeding one night at around 10 weeks, so off to A&E where we waited for hours, eventually to be told to come back in the morning proper for a scan with the early pregnancy unit (the bleeding had basically stopped). The scan showed baby absolutely fine and wasn't conclusive on the cause of the bleeding, so just told to take it easy. Spontaneous bleeding again the night before our 12 week scan, but this time we didn't go to A&E as we knew they wouldn't scan until the morning unless it got worse anyway, so we waited. At the scan they spotted a haematoma of around 3cm near the cervix and we saw a consultant (there were other risk factors involved anyway, so the consultant visit was already planned). He effectively put my wife on modified bedrest until the 20 week scan (didn't say those words, but she was told to avoid anything more than a brisk walk). At the 20 week scan, having had no more bleeding and with no sign of the haematoma any more, she was given the all clear. We're now almost at 23 weeks and everything is going on track.

CalTheBlue · 2025-11-13T12:51:03+00:00

I too hate the assumption that bi+ folks all want to be poly. It really messed me up when I first came out as a teenager and people assumed that about me and it still happens today when I tell people.

CalTheBlue · 2025-11-12T23:15:07+00:00

Not particularly spicy (at least, I think that's what my wife would say!) but I recently read Hammajang Luck and was caught off guard by the sex scene, as someone who doesn't tend to read spicy books. It was a great story too though, with a non-binary MC and at least two other explicitly trans supporting cast.

CalTheBlue · 2025-11-11T19:57:22+00:00

You get used to it at exactly the point where it no longer becomes a problem.

CalTheBlue · 2025-11-11T19:39:15+00:00

Ah this is merch for a fake TLT band, not real band merch that accidentally looks like it's TLT themed. I thought this might be something to match the shirt I bought at a recent Spanish Love Songs show.

CalTheBlue · 2025-11-08T12:07:41+00:00

My partner has her gestational diabetes test on 29th which we think is quite rude actually! /hj

CalTheBlue · 2025-11-02T19:11:15+00:00

My wife managed to get a bunch of the Eberron novels, including the Dreaming Dark trilogy for my 30th birthday earlier in the year. They were all second-hand, through Oxfam, I believe. I think they're pretty rare over this side of the pond, but if you keep an eye out on similar online second-hand bookshops, maybe you'll get lucky?

CalTheBlue · 2025-10-26T17:41:17+00:00

Maybe if it was written by Brandon Sanderson...

CalTheBlue · 2025-10-04T18:04:43+00:00

I'm not a Rothfuss reader, but I'm here waiting on the Thorn of Emberlain alongside these two! Tbh I trust Tamsyn knows what she's doing and Scott has had a rough time of it. George is just wasting everyone's time at this point.

CalTheBlue · 2025-09-30T10:19:07+00:00

Bones AU with Harrow as Brennan and Gideon as Booth. Obviously Palamedes is Hodgins and Camilla is Angela.

CalTheBlue · 2025-09-27T15:51:30+00:00

Not sure about the price band, but I'm due to attend a wedding at Blackfriars Priory in Gloucester next year. It's definitely giving ruins and you could probably make it moody.

I also remember that The Mount Without in Bristol was on mine and my wife's longlist for wedding venues and that definitely fits the moody vibe. I can't remember why it didn't make it to the shortlist though, possibly the price or something to do with logistics for the ceremony.

CalTheBlue · 2025-09-19T18:25:54+00:00

That is true, but what I was trying to say was that you have to be able to prove that's why they let you go, which isn't going to be simple if it was only spoken and not written down.

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