Marianne Heaslip
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marianneh.bsky.social
Marianne Heaslip
@marianneh.bsky.social
2.8K followers 1.5K following 960 posts
Workingtonian in Liverpool (home)/Manchester (work), UK.
Architect working on tools and processes for better building retrofit, mostly in houses, mostly for coops and community energy orgs. Keen on the need to #stopburningstuff.
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marianneh.bsky.social
It's a wet Sunday, so I've spent the morning in Bootle at a @ipha.bsky.social Passive House open day visit - Daniel from DK Building letting us all have a nosy round his own home, where he's aiming for EnerPHit.
Photo of a round window opening. The internal face and the reveal is unfinished, so you can see the build up. Woodfibre on the outside, original brick, internal lime parge coat. Grey external NIBE heat pump unit and a white battery unit on a platform with a slate top. White rendered wall behind with grey framed window. Behind the render is about 200mm of woodfibre insulation.
November 9, 2025 at 1:12 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
People know how that whole thing ended for Charles I right?
Black and white contemporary engraving of the beheading of Charles I (1649). Big crowd in the foreground. A few people on a platform in front of a pavilion. Quite a lot of spurting on the place where Charles' head used to be.
November 3, 2025 at 6:50 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
My partner described me being in small spaces doing air tightness taping as my 'happy place'. He might be right - feels nice to achieve something tangible.

In this case was sorting out some of the holes in the mini loft above our bathroom. (That wallpaper is not visible normally).
Blue airtightness tape on a wall running in an L-shape across the middle of the picture with white airtightness membrane below left, covering a hole made by some old pipe runs now removed. Some very fetching 60s wall paper to the right and top of the picture. One with geometric repeating flowers of different sizes on a pale background. The flowers are blue and purple.
September 28, 2025 at 4:44 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
Another Sunday after a small amount of light rain, another poo warning that means I can't go for a swim as originally planned.

At least I know, thanks to the Surfers Against Sewage app: www.sas.org.uk/updates/real...
A map of the north coast of the Wirral. Showing red crosses on a poo emoji all along the shore.
September 28, 2025 at 9:32 AM
marianneh.bsky.social
I know this station has not been open for quite as long, but the best part of two centuries later, that's the line I commute on.
A view of the platforms at 'new' Edge Hill Station, built in 1836. Two storey sandstone station buildings, one of which is occupied by an artists collective, and the tunnel down to Lime Street.
September 15, 2025 at 7:02 AM
marianneh.bsky.social
If you're in Liverpool next Saturday, come to this!
Poster for Squash harvest auction: Saturday 20th September. Harvest Auction. Cafe Open from 5pm. Auction from 6-9pm. Join in our annual harvest auction where great Liverpool-grown fruit, veg and homemade treats will be up for grabs to raise funds for: Habibti Liverpool, The African Caribbean Cebtre, 'Soup it forward', And Palestine Seed Bank / UAWC. At SQUASH, 112-114 Windsor Street, Liverpool, L8 8EW. More info: 0151 707 7897 @squashliverpool www.squashliverpool.co.uk
September 14, 2025 at 9:53 AM
marianneh.bsky.social
I was hoping to go for a swim this morning. Dammit.
A screenshot of the very useful Safer Seas and Rivers service app showing a map of the top of the Wirral with two poo shapes with red crosses next to them meaning there is an active sewage overflow.
September 6, 2025 at 7:22 AM
marianneh.bsky.social
Of course the flag to fly in Workington to demonstrate pride of place would actually be based on this cross.
A zoomed in photo of a bag of cheese XL crisps - a west cumbrian delicacy. A red X on a yellow background.
August 23, 2025 at 1:44 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
Glorious dooking in sight of the wind turbines.
A sandy beach in the foreground with the sea I was just swimming in beyond. Beyond that you can just about make out the wind turbines in Liverpool Bay against a very blue but not totally cloudless sky.
August 2, 2025 at 7:03 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
Can also run to cheeky chappie with skillz, eclectic tastes, and a nice line in silks - also haunted by a ghost of sadness.
David Tennant as Casanova in a big white shirt and silk waistcoat, beckoning.
July 20, 2025 at 8:24 AM
marianneh.bsky.social
This is the kind of thing that made teenage me write 'nationalism is a created product' in silver pen over the badge on my reclaimed army shirt.

Not the most sophisticated analysis - but it went with the heavy eyeliner and suited my mixed heritage.
Front cover of the Manic Street Preachers 'New Art Riot' EP, showing a EU flag with blue background and gold stars. If I remember right, the back of this is where I got the quote from.
July 16, 2025 at 11:41 AM
marianneh.bsky.social
Enjoyed some lovely music at Stoller Hall tonight with a good friend and am now legging it back to Liverpool before the crowds descend from Heaton Park.
A view of Manchester in the evening light from a Transpenine Express train window. The 1960s CIS tower and its solar panels glinting in the sun and the tops of 'Coopolis' and the fairly random mix of buildings by Victoria Station.
July 11, 2025 at 8:28 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
Not sure the people in the stained glass would have approved of coops.
Large screen projection with the Co-op Congress banner and logos to the right and stained glass to the left with 15th - 17th century kings and queens in chronological order.
July 5, 2025 at 2:57 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
How have I never been to Rochdale Town Hall before today? It's fantastic!

(Here for Coops Congress - just over the road from where the modern cooperative movement was founded).
A vaulted roof with exposed ornate timber trusses and Victorian high gothic revival decoration and stained glass. It's amazing and in the middle of Rochdale!
July 5, 2025 at 9:11 AM
marianneh.bsky.social
This bit pops into my head on a fairly regular basis. It's a real mystery as to why.
The Encyclopedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun to Be With". The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be first up against the wall come when the revolution comes", with a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent. Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopedia Galactica that had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who were first up against the wall when the revolution came".
June 30, 2025 at 6:21 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
I was in London on Thursday evening, visiting places that were semi-derelict when I used to cycle home along the canal here a quarter of a century ago.

London is definitely over.
View of Regents Canal at the basin by Deispeker Wharf from the terrace of a handy cafe. It's sunny and the sky is blue. The water is calm and in the distance there are cormorants (possibly not quite visible). To the right is the curved and stepped glazed residential/office block developed by Pollard Thomas Edwards architects (whose Liverpool office I used to work in), with other new glass buildings in the background.
June 28, 2025 at 7:37 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
Don't need to buy a train ticket for luggage, right?
A 0.75m roll of white Partel airtightness membrane in a Northern rail seat, admiring the view along Oxford Road in Manchester.
June 12, 2025 at 6:00 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
Views along the journey are pretty decent too.
'Saxon Switzerland': slightly weird shaped sandstone rock formations - wobbly looking and multicoloured - with trees all around, above green fields and a tranquil River Elbe.
May 29, 2025 at 6:50 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
Been toddling about all over the last couple of weeks for work and for fun. On the sleeper train from Prague to Brussels tonight and then home tomorrow - and back to normal next week. The European Sleeper is even a coop! www.europeansleeper.eu/about-europe...
A view of a sleeper car - two windows with green fields and trees whizzing past outside and a bunk with white bedding to the left of the picture.
May 29, 2025 at 5:23 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
Do you think he clocked that the 'Slayer of the Nazgul' was a woman?
Eowyn removing her helmet, dooming an over-confident bloke who was a bit too certain of his own knowledge and so failed to see approaching disaster.
May 11, 2025 at 1:06 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
Glorious dook here this morning.
The beach at Seascale. A bluer than normal sky and a calmer than normal blue sea at almost high tide beyond a pebble/sand beach and a grass bank. A life saving station at the right of this picture - which didn't get used for me, despite the water being flipping freezing.
April 12, 2025 at 11:34 AM
marianneh.bsky.social
Sunset over the estuary at Ravenglass. The sky at the top of the picture is blue, fading to yellowish pink and then the dark sands with a ribbon of water flowing through it reflecting the fading light in the sky.
April 11, 2025 at 8:38 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
I was a bookish teenager and listened to a lot of John Peel. 🤷‍♀️
Super Furry Animals - Fuzzy Logic (Probably the band I've seen most often live). DJ Shadow - Entroducing (Saw him supporting Radiohead in 1997 - truly brilliant). Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go (Holy Bible had been on heavy repeat a year or two earlier. I had a feather bower and a lot of eyeliner). Belle and Sebastian - If you're feeling sinister (This, The Bends, and Exit Planet Dust were the albums that got me through my maths A level).
March 19, 2025 at 11:04 AM
marianneh.bsky.social
My aunt just shared this with me. It's really cool! Arthur Dooley mosaic about life in Workington - that has been stored in a shed at Banklands since the 70s 🙄.

It's going to the Dooley museum in Liverpool for restoration.

m.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...

www.christ-the-good-shepherd.co.uk
A multi-coloured tiled mosaic by Arthur Dooley. Shows scenes of Workington - the bridge over the river, buildings on what I think might be Washington Street, a big blue area that is probably the sea.
February 18, 2025 at 2:07 PM
marianneh.bsky.social
I once roped in a cake-making landscape-architect friend to make this iced version of 'Homebaked' in Anfield, Liverpool.

It was in the Liverpool Museum for a bit - hence the glass case.

Was part of this project: urbed.coop/projects/2up...
A cake version of a Liverpool terraced block - with a bakery on the corner. In a glass case in a museum. Bit weird. In the background is a large wall-mounted photo of the inside of the old 'Mitchell's Bakery that stood opposite Liverpool Football Club and became Homebaked.
January 30, 2025 at 8:45 PM