Jen Duck
LightNews LightNews
banner
jenduckie.bsky.social
Jen Duck
@jenduckie.bsky.social
49 followers 48 following 260 posts
🦆 Music, guitar, piano
🦆 Travel
🦆 Deutsch
🦆 Photos
🦆 Board/video games, puzzles & TTRPGs
🦆 Books & poems & writing
🦆 Walking, climbing, lifting heavy things
Posts Replies Media Videos
jenduckie.bsky.social
As I was trying to find my 18th birthday card from William Hague (for a PowerPoint quiz, what else), I found this birthday card from my Granddad. And I think we can all agree - top tier life advice. It's all we can hope for in this world.
The inside of a birthday card with flowy script reading "May a perfect birthday be just the start to a very happy year". Underneath, in classic old man script, the words "Happy Birthday Jennifer. Hope you succeed (with the second 'e' squished in) in what you are looking for. From Grandad. x x x"
November 25, 2025 at 5:33 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
My Dad's just redone my parents' bathroom and it looks swish af. My sister and I chime in with helpful comments. Mine was a projector for when we come home for Christmas. My Mum has vetoed it.
A WhatsApp message from Mum saying: "No can you imagine the queue - everyone else waiting outside the bathroom with their towels and rubber ducks while someone watches Ben Hur ????" A second message says: "Ref Ben Hur - it's a 3 hour film"
November 25, 2025 at 9:36 AM
jenduckie.bsky.social
Dad's having a normal one with a new tool he apparently found in the middle of Lidl

The man already has angle grinders and chop saws coming out of his ears so this must be the only thing he doesn't have
A man's hand holds a black pipe with masking tape around both ends so it looks like a magic wand. A small black and white dog looks nervous in the background. There is a door behind the dog with glass in it, and another tall, blonde dog peers through anxiously.
November 15, 2025 at 8:33 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
The street I live on has lost one of its most famous, friendly cats. The outpouring of grief and support in the WhatsApp group is something else. Poor Rupert. Hope you're sleeping in lots of inappropriate places and clawing people's trousers wherever you are.
A woman in a red and white stripy top is crouched down on a pavement on a street in front of a row of terraced Victorian houses. A ginger cat is stood on her thighs, his tail held up nearly to the woman's face. The woman is giving a thumbs up, her eyebrows raised to the sky and a big grin on her face.
November 15, 2025 at 12:04 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
Yay Sheffield
A view from the middle of a counter protest against a UKIP march in Sheffield. Lots of banners in pink reading "stop the far right" A woman after her first counter protest showing what she wore. It is a Choose Love t shirt (white t shirt with black writing) with three badges: Joy of Life International, Luv Thi Sen, and a capybara being serene in an onsen full of lemons
November 8, 2025 at 6:32 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
Happy National Poetry Day

I am very, very late to the Mary Oliver party but here are some of my favourites:

#poetry #nationalpoetryday #maryoliver
A picture of a page from Mary Oliver's A Thousand Mornings. It shows the poem Three Things to Remember: As long as you’re dancing, you can break the rules. Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules. Sometimes there are no rules. A picture of a page from Mary Oliver's A Thousand Mornings. It shows the poem The Gardener: Have I lived enough? Have I loved enough? Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusions? Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude? Have I endured loneliness with grace? I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it. Actually, I probably think too much. Then I step out into the garden, where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man, is tending his children, the roses. A picture of a page from Mary Oliver's Wild Geese. It shows the poem Wild Geese: You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting– over and over announcing your place in the family of things. A picture of a page from Mary Oliver's A Thousand Mornings. It shows the poem The Morning Paper: Read one newspaper daily (the morning edition is the best for by evening you know that you at least have lived through another day) and let the disasters, the unbelievable yet approved decisions, soak in. I don’t need to name the countries, ours among them. What keeps us from falling down, our faces to the ground; ashamed, ashamed?
October 2, 2025 at 4:12 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
Yes I'm having a lovely holiday thanks
A screenshot of the Merlin app showing I heard a Eurasion Scops-Owl. It's a little brown owl with yellow eyes and thick frowny eyebrows. A screenshot from the Merlin app showing I saw a Short-toed Snake-Eagle. It's mainly white with a few dotted rows of black along its body and wings. I can't see how short its toes really are.
September 8, 2025 at 7:06 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
I don't know what I interrupted here
A brown and white cat is sat on a road like a gremlin, hunched over, one of its front paws is between its back legs and one back leg is slightly raised. Another brown and white cat is a zooming blur running across in front of it.
September 7, 2025 at 4:12 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
Man, Slugblasting kicks ass. The ⏩️ story was beautifully told by @andrewwormald.bsky.social @the-sanctorum.bsky.social @ptwiddle.bsky.social and Master of Slugs @thebadspot.bsky.social

Thank you for bringing Ken along for the ride.

No one pauses fast forward

@wilkiescandylab.com
Two pages from the RPG Slugblaster handbook lay open showing a pale green background and a little hoverboarder grinding down a piece of the multiverse while their friends look on and film. On top are 5 badges with various phrases including 'BRB sucks', 'Check it!' and 'Brainduster'. A fingerboard sits among them next to a character sheet that's been doodled all over in pencil featuring a salvage crab delivering a pizza, fast forward symbols, an avocado bat squirrel thing and a multitude of other random scribbles.
September 5, 2025 at 9:13 AM
jenduckie.bsky.social
Ringinglow rainbow
A man walks towards a row of archery targets in a green field. A full rainbow arcs overhead against a moody grey sky.
August 28, 2025 at 7:39 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
Did I need a Microkorg? No.

Will it inspire me to practice my other instruments? Maybe.

Does it make funny noises and lets you pretend you're a DJ in Ibiza about to drop the sickest fucking beat and people will lose their goddamn minds but without actually having to be in Ibiza? Yes. Yes it does.
A Microkorg synthesiser sits on top of an electronic keyboard. Black and white keys make up most of the image, along with lots of dials and buttons and a red LED display.
August 23, 2025 at 12:45 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
A white wall in the Tate Modern with the printed text in black "The world I want is filled with ease."
August 17, 2025 at 6:14 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
An action packed episode of The Perfect Blend had us rolling for Madge management, emergency tracheostomies, an entire Kitchen Tea and not being bribed by Paul Robinson.

I still can't remember what dogs are

@andrewwormald.bsky.social @neiljmathews.bsky.social
#ttrpg #rpg #neighbours #homebrewrpg
An outdoor table covered in papers, notebooks, snack bowls and dice trays. Four people sit round it, one at the head of the table is the Games Master and is gesturing to another player.
August 11, 2025 at 8:49 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
A lovely ebening
Pale blue dusk sky, sliced through by white and blue bunting. Underneath buildings, more bunting and the tops of heads of SMOD Fest party goers
August 9, 2025 at 9:00 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
I'm desperately trying to find a dress for a wedding. I am not good at clothes.

My sister is very good at clothes.

Is this a compliment:
A screenshot of a WhatsApp conversation. The person on the left has said "when is this wedding I might have to dress you" with a crying emoji. The person on the right replies "pls help"
August 6, 2025 at 8:19 AM
jenduckie.bsky.social
My Mum is bowling tonight. I sent this.

She has no idea what a meme is and will think I've drawn it
The classic 'are ya winning, son?' meme, but with 'son' replaced by 'mum'
July 28, 2025 at 6:28 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
If you see this, I implore you to post a pic from your device without context
July 20, 2025 at 10:34 AM
jenduckie.bsky.social
Holy fucking hell.

If I am half of what these guys are in my late 70s I'll be ecstatic.

What. A. Gig.

The audience's average age was creeping up there and the old bloke who put his newly bought tour tshirt on the end of his walking stick and waved it like a flag was a particular highlight.
Russel Mael of the band Sparks is on stage dressed in a floral waistcoat and floral trousers. He is holding a microphone with one hand and has the other arm raised and a finger pointing to the sky. Ron Mael, also of the band Sparks, sits near him at a keyboard dressed in black. He is, as is customary, expressionless.
July 20, 2025 at 7:31 AM
jenduckie.bsky.social
Had the classic RPG double this week of Neighours: The Perfect Blend, and hot new RPG Slugblaster.

Going from grooming Karl Kennedy's dog (not a euphemism) to giving a zen manatee my hyperoptic visor to record our final, sick as fuck trick for the Miper run was quite a 180 (pun intended)
A table strewn with paper, dice, poker chips to act as XP and of course, popular Australian snack, TimTam A book with black, purple and yellow sections is partially obscured by a Slugblaster character sheet covered in doodles including the cool S and the fast forward symbol
July 18, 2025 at 7:55 AM
jenduckie.bsky.social
A poem: When I was a kid I'd look out of the window on car journeys. I'd imagine an invisible force jumping over tall things we drove past like trees, telegraph poles, hay bales, bus stops. Leaping over buildings, streetlamps. Hopping over the dashed lines in the middle of the road. There was one particular patch of trees on a regular journey that, in my mind, was the Hundred Acre Wood. I had no concept of an acre. But it could be. Why not? I'd look for strange things special things things that weren't meant to be there things that stood out. I saw a camel once. My parents didn't believe me, until I made them look. It had a red bridle. I'd search for sheep, for cows, for pigs - the rarest and best spot. I'd see if I could see the moon or the stars even if it was a cloudy night. I'd try and be the first to see the sea.
July 2, 2025 at 2:50 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
When you make an impression on your ex colleagues - one that leads them to send you 6 bottles of Grauer Burgunder when you leave because that's what you drank with them after going into the office. ❤️🍾

Also, is that a bad impression to make
July 1, 2025 at 4:42 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
Because I have no self control I've finally installed an app/website blocker and you can customise the block message. Guess the website/app:
White text on a blue background that says "why are you even checking this there's nothing for you here just misery and rage"
June 26, 2025 at 2:18 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
Smug af
A large black silhouette of a giant bird against a pale pink and blue sky A screenshot from the Merlin app showing the previous bird has been identified as a white tailed Eagle
June 13, 2025 at 9:06 PM
jenduckie.bsky.social
@lordtoots.bsky.social kindly invited me to a book event last week. It was genuinely life-affirming, not only listening to the author but because Juno books is an awesome space filled with powerful people.

We talked to the author after and I didn't realise til later what she'd signed in my book.
The title page of a book called The Ladie Upstairs by Jessie Elland. The author has signed it with the message "To Jen, hope you enjoy! And keep writing!" Keep writing is underlined.
June 7, 2025 at 8:28 AM
jenduckie.bsky.social
Today on a page
A piece of white paper that's got groups of holes in from being stabbed by a safety pin. There are dark scribbles from a pencil being pressed very hard to the paper. Lying on top of the paper are a circular fidget toy and a safety pin
June 2, 2025 at 4:11 PM