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Nicola Pitchford

@npitchford.bsky.social

5.4K followers 1.8K following 5.4K posts

Immigrant. Winner of the inaugural Nature Chronicles Prize (2022). She/her. In Northern California on unceded Coast Miwok land.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · Mar 19

Honoured to be part of the beautiful, fragile collective work #BirdsOfFirle, created & curated by Tanya. An ongoing project of 100 writers responding with objects & online to a single physical manuscript, circulated by post over the course of a decade. On grief & hope as the things with feathers...

Tanya Shadrick @tanyashadrick.bsky.social · Mar 19

‘She worked on the Harrier, the Concorde. She had a love of speed and freedom. Sports cars. Like the one in which she fled. Flew. From marriage and family. From us.’

Stunning piece by @npitchford.bsky.social for the decade-long collective #BirdsOfFirle project…

selkiepress.com/2025/03/18/b...

Birds of Firle: She Was Always in Flight by Nicola Pitchford

Aerodynamics was her chosen field of engineering. She worked on the Harrier, the Concorde. She had a love of speed and freedom. Sports cars. Like the one in which eventually she fled. Flew. From ma…

selkiepress.com

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 12h

Agreed. Perhaps it's partly the elaborate Victoriana that makes it feel less violent on the landscape (although dramatic) than some dams. And that particular landscape can itself match whatever drama is imposed!

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 13h

Definitely not! 😘

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 13h

Vivid memory of a male friend (?) saying, "those trousers do quite unusual things to your arse" — which I took happily as a compliment at the time, then shortly thereafter realised was not.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 13h

I don't think I have a single photo from Warwick! On the one hand, profoundly glad I had a briefly misspent youth before everything was documented for posterity — on the other, would like a memory-trigger or two.

I do have a couple of pics from visiting family that winter tho.

Faded snapshot of me, smiling, in a snowy winter garden. The look: long black wool charity-shop coat, oversized sweater, black skinny trousers tucked into socks and combat boots. Short post-punk red hair and long dangly earrings.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 14h

Oh, I've had happy walks there too! 💛

Looking down the deep blue spillway from a crenellated dam between thickly wooded fells.

Dark, dark, choppy waters of a dam with green fells beyond and grey skies above.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 14h

So many family visits there over the years! 💚

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 15h

Are you telling me those don't count as vegetables?

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 15h

Gorgeous.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 16h

For lunch I'm having a sort of soufflé made from perilously old cheeses — cream cheese that was going to be discarded at the office & feta that had begun to develop green spots. So either I'll reflect back on a luxuriously cheesy, cheap lunch or this will be the last you'll hear from me.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 16h

(Just remembered a friend telling me that reading LOTR made him first recognize he was gay — bc he, like many others of various genders, had the hots for Legolas.)

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 17h

Wouldn’t risk it. A nice hot toddy delivered instead?

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 17h

The whole city is his office. 👍🏼

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 18h

Like Stevie Nicks, but more goth. I say that as a compliment.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 18h

Hi, Governor Newsom. This is how you do it:

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Reposted by Nicola Pitchford

matthew @pahuski.com · 23h

Happy Columbo’s Day

Screenshot from Columbo. He his talking to his dog, which is sitting is the drivers seat of a car. “Okay, I’m gonna put you in charge. You take care of the car. You’re a responsible dog. When I get back, if the car’s okay, I’ll give you another cookie.”

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 18h

Oh my! Intellectual in the wild 🥰. And a covetable sweater thrown in.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 18h

Oh, Wasdale Head. The loveliness of it.

(I have a photo of it as my desktop background — but adorned by a cow instead of sheep, on that occasion.)

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 20h

Also, doughnuts ftw

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 20h

Thank you! For a while I went everywhere without shoes or bra but nowhere without earrings.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 20h

The only time I’ve been asked to leave an event (I really should work on being more offensive) was the ceremony rehearsal the day before, where I was kicked out for having no shoes.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 21h

Friend-shaped! 🥰

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 21h

Post you from a different era

Me in the 80s, having condescended to put footwear & a dress on in order to receive my degree but still steadfastly refusing to brush my hair.

Two women arm in arm clutching rolled diplomas, one in academic cap and gown (with face obscured for privacy), the other in a loose paisley dress, sandals, enormous earrings and short messy asymmetric curls.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 21h

👀

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

This is so incredibly inhumane. Have these people no conscience?

Reposted by Nicola Pitchford

Julie DiCaro @juliedicaro.bsky.social · 1d

So Kilmer Abrego-Garcia will not challenge a deportation to Costa Rica, who has agreed to for him residency, but DHS won’t agree to send him there because it’s not cruel enough.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

For weeks, Mr. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who is married to a U.S. citizen, has made clear that he would not challenge his deportation if he were sent to Costa Rica, which has promised him legal residency and guaranteed that he would not be sent back to El Salvador.

But the Trump administration has refused to deport him to Costa Rica, and in an earlier hearing this week, Judge Xinis pressed the administration to consider the option or clarify why it was unacceptable.

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