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redskies.bsky.social
Redskies
@redskies.bsky.social
1.6K followers 380 following 4.7K posts
Books, art, maths, knitting, embroidery, gardening, cats, hens, Early Medleval history, the Western Isles, good food, sea swimming, shells, birds & wildlife.
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emmasartworks.bsky.social
Goldfinches (the European species) in the winter’s morning sunshine. Ink and watercolour.
#artAdventCalendar
🪶🐡
Ink and watercolour painting of two European Goldfinches perched on bare twigs against a pale blue sky
December 3, 2025 at 1:07 PM
redskies.bsky.social
#rainbow #uist
So is it the old car or the wind turbine beyond that the rainbow is illuminating?
December 3, 2025 at 1:19 PM
redskies.bsky.social
Towering clouds #uist
Looking out over the lochan, half the sky is blue with golden sunshine, half is grey rain clouds. Looking down the driveway to the west, towering white clouds in a blue sky.
December 3, 2025 at 10:50 AM
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janh1.bsky.social
Bore da 😊☕️ A smidge of sunshine here to start the day. Hope yours is good.

Here's the pill at Oxwich Bay. We all need some blue!💙
A wonderful white cloud like an explosion in the blue sky is reflected in the calm shallow river running through marshes into the sea at Oxwich Bay.
December 2, 2025 at 9:26 AM
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janh1.bsky.social
Just a glimmer of sunset over Devon this evening.
#SwanseaBay#Wales
Distant clouds breaking over the horizon to reveal sunset reds and golds. Swansea Bay in the foreground with a wave breaking.
December 2, 2025 at 10:53 PM
redskies.bsky.social
Final Christmas hat and scarf for the figurines on my brother’s Dutch street organ 🧶🦌🎄
Red and white scarf and hat decorated with colourwork trees and reindeer.
December 2, 2025 at 10:06 PM
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annelouiseavery.bsky.social
The Second Window. Once upon a time, there was a green-eyed Tabby Cat who ran a bookshop by the Christ Church gate of Canterbury Cathedral. It was a marvellous place, four stories high, with treasures on every shelf & free buttered toast, plum cake & hot sweet tea for all who visited.
Canterbury in Winter by Ernest Uden. Tabby cat by Rachel Stribbling. Bookshop by William Oxer
December 2, 2025 at 4:26 PM
redskies.bsky.social
Little and large fill out an armchair. @janh1.bsky.social #Blossom #Sherbet 😻🐈‍⬛🐈
A large young tabby cat sleeps on an armchair cuddling a rug. A small dark tortoiseshell kitten has managed to squeeze on there with him.
December 2, 2025 at 3:39 PM
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alisonfisk.bsky.social
The incredible ‘Orkney Hood’ from Scotland! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

So well preserved it looks like it was woven yesterday rather than some 1,500 years ago!

It’s thought the hood was made for a child. Found in 1867 in a peat bog in St Andrews Parish, Orkney.

National Museum of Scotland
📷 by me

#Archaeology
My photo shows a museum mannequin wearing a brown-coloured woven woollen hood with a long knotted fringe. The remarkablely well preserved hood was found in a peat bog on the island of Orkney in 1867. Organic clothing rarely survives, but the lack of oxygen in the peaty conditions of the bog served to practically halt its decay. The hood has been radio-carbon dated to between AD 250 and AD 615. On display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
December 2, 2025 at 11:19 AM
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wodieskodie.bsky.social
Buth an Rubha relaunches under community ownership

https://www.hebrides-news.com/buth-an-rubha-relaunches-community-ownership-11225.html

#scothinews
December 2, 2025 at 10:24 AM
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janh1.bsky.social
Some *colour*! A winter-frosted rose.

Yes its not totally in focus but hey, sun on frost, nice pink, composition... blah blah
#ExcusesExcuses
A winter-frosted magenta rose with frost on petals buds and leaves. Sunshine is lighting the back of the rose.
December 2, 2025 at 10:07 AM
redskies.bsky.social
Possibly the most handsome cat I’ve ever fostered. #Sherbet the gentle giant. 😻🐈
A tabby cat sits gazing out of the window, where a golden sun lights silver clouds. He may be a giant tabby cat but he’s still a kitten at heart. Look at those fabulous whiskers! The feather wand is Sherbet the tabby cat’s favourite toy. In a rare moment, the usually reserved and self contained tabby cat lies on the back of the sofa .
December 2, 2025 at 10:07 AM
redskies.bsky.social
#morning #uist
A fiery eye has appeared in the midst of the grey foaming clouds and reflects in the loch. The clouds have ebbed revealing more blue sky.
December 2, 2025 at 10:02 AM
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harrywallop.co.uk
Great culture can save lives. Literally.

Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard
December 2, 2025 at 8:48 AM
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jessemlocker.bsky.social
Fascinating painting of a very rare subject by Artemisia Gentileschi going up for auction tomorrow at Christie's: A mother presenting her newborn child to St. Blaise (San Biagio), identifiable by the wool comb, the instrument of his martyrdom. www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6...
"In a darkened room, a woman kneels with her young child at the feet of a bearded bishop saint, who, in turn, sits on an elaborate throne decorated with a gilded harpy. He wears a golden mitre on his head and holds an ornate crosier, his body visibly weighed down by the heavily embroidered cloak fastened at his chest with an ornate clasp." https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6561659 Detail, wool comb Detail, mother and child
December 1, 2025 at 6:01 PM
redskies.bsky.social
My perfect evening. #knitting #panther 😻🐈‍⬛🧶
A huge black cat is sleeping halfway on my lap beside the red Christmas doll’s scarf that I’m knitting.
December 1, 2025 at 6:11 PM
redskies.bsky.social
A fine afternoon and the #kittens are sleepy. 😻🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛🐈 #uist
The sun is low in an afternoon sky of silver clouds. In the foreground, a dark tortoiseshell kitten cleans herself while a grey kitten sleeps snuggles against her. In the background, a tabby cat sleeps on another armchair. The two kittens are now asleep.
December 1, 2025 at 3:40 PM
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lizanderson.bsky.social
Ist of December so my mother is baking gingerbread men, and I’m really not sure if there’s something wrong with her oven or this is some kind of death threat.
Rather crudely baked gingerbread men, armless in one case and misshapen. Bizarrely, my mother has decorated them with thick lumps of icing and sequins.
December 1, 2025 at 3:31 PM
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drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
TIL an older version of ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ had the line ‘The wood-pigeon lifts up her tail / And shits before she goes’, why have we sanitised all our carols
December 1, 2025 at 1:53 PM
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helenaullmark.bsky.social
Because RUNOR 😍
hornesupremacy.bsky.social Dr Tom Horne @hornesupremacy.bsky.social · 1d
Copper-alloy bullion scales box with runic inscription:

'Djärf acquired from a man from Samland these scales in [...] land. [Semigallia, Latvia?]. And Värmund and inscribed these runes, A bird tore apart the pale thief; People saw how the corpse-cuckoo [raven] swelled'

My 📷 Ref: Historiska museet
Box for balance scales with runic inscription
December 1, 2025 at 2:06 PM
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brianbilston.bsky.social
This poem is dedicated to anyone making a start on their advent calendar today.
The Good Old Days   Pity the poor children of today, with their calendars stuffed with chocolates,   never to know the thrill of opening a small cardboard door and discovering behind it   a picture of a bell. Brian Bilston
December 1, 2025 at 8:05 AM
redskies.bsky.social
We’ve moved to St Balthild’s golden ring and her life story. The ring now in the Norwich Castle Museum. Her embroidery survives and is stunning. 😍🪡
The saint’s seal ring showing her name and face on one side, and a risqué scene to be used on letters to her beloved husband. An embroidery by the saint showing the jewels she once wore.
December 1, 2025 at 11:26 AM
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bernardhughes.bsky.social
‘Where do you want this golden trellis, mate?’

Always love a visit to the Courtauld.
A picture in the Courtauld Gallery in London
October 29, 2025 at 4:24 PM
redskies.bsky.social
Attending the #WuffingEducation morning seminar on Beowulf and beyond. We’ve moved from St Eligius to the Merovingian kings and on to the #SuttonHoo coin collection. #EarlyMedieval
The collection of 37 gold coins (each from a different mint) and 2 gold ingots from the great purse in the Sutton Hoo ship burial. A coin for each of the crew, ingots for the helm and the skipper.
December 1, 2025 at 10:23 AM
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bodleian.ox.ac.uk
The 1178 Ranshofen Gospels give big Monday energy: three evangelists turn up to work missing key tools: no pen, wrong ink, no parchment.... only St John is prepared for the day.

A medieval reminder that some Mondays haven’t changed!

MS. Canon. Bibl. Lat. 60
#MedievalMonday
Four illuminated manuscript panels featuring Evangelists writing in ornate settings, each within their own architectural frame decorated with medieval Christian art motifs.
December 1, 2025 at 9:52 AM