Purple Poet Prepares to Perform Political Poetry Perfectly (by sarah)

I'm off to Oxford tonight for The Not The Oxford Literary Festival at the Albion Betnik. This marks the beginning of a hectic and creative few weeks for me.

Tonight I perform political pieces such as my No Wage Slave poem and Shit Creek song.

I decided as part of this I needed to re-dye my hair - it has not come out as purple as I'd hoped but will probably be more purple after a few washes. The lipstick is also not my favourite but was the only decent one I have so far unpacked and I thought it gave a nice contrast. I've added in my festival hat as well it is a festival and here we go!

I Spy… (by sarah)

Last night we went for a walk with the kids, we were playing eye spy - as any parent will know eye spy with kids is always interesting 🙂

We spent ages trying to guess what began with H and falls off of trees and is a seed with spiky bits (we allow glues if you get stuck in eye spy). The answer was of course Haycorns!

Of course - silly mummy and daddy - Jean has had the whole collection of pooh and piglet and all the other random poems read to her several times.

As it is she thought they weren't acorns and they weren't pine cones but those little almost pine cone things you get on some succulent looking spikey trees we see growing in various places.

She showed us one - and yes it does look like a cross between a pine cone and an acorn 🙂 Felt a bit sad to have to tell her they weren't haycorns and that it is just piglet can't say acorn as he's too little.

The game then progressed and Jean began introducing things like 'I spy with my little eye something beginning with COT' the answer to which was Cut Of Twigs. There was also SWNCII - Sky With No Cloud In It.

She then began to get more and more abstract so we changed the game to 20 questions. But Jean tended to just repeatedly ask if the answer was Horace her House Dragon (a series of stories I've written for her).

When me and Alaric got distracted she announced 'You Guys! Come On Focus, we are trying to play a game here'.

So we then ended up playing word association which was lots of fun though had a tendency to end up in loops of characters from various stories or films - namely Mysterious Cities of Gold and Harry Potter.

It was a fun outing though we did have to keep telling Jean she couldn't whack the bushes with her stick as they were peoples fences but then we found a lovely set of park and tree lined lanes to walk through right near our new house!

A Walker! (by sarah)

Mary has finally walked on her own 🙂 She has been able to walk for ages but just wouldn't - she always had to hold a finger or use the pink truck walker thing my friend gave us.

Of course she is now walking into things and has bruises on her head :/ She has also learnt a new word 'Uhoh!' which she says just as she is about to loose balance and land on her bum!

Bringing Science-Art to All (by sarah)

Science-Art - sponsor me/give me crowd funding have a little read to see what I am upto and what I need money for!

Ok so as many of you know I did a piece of 3D textural science-art for the exhibition In Braille at Centre Arts last year. I have since been asked to do a second piece - but more interactive so I have designed a sound/sensory cave to show through several media the order and structure of nature.

As you can image it contains proper electronics this time (not just the ipod and speakers) which are going to cost me quiet a bit so I am looking for sponsorship in exchange for things like downloads, art prints and the like. The more you sponsor the bigger the gifts.

Also I have been talking to a local gallery about running a Science-Art Exhibition next year (this is a response to my post about National Science and Engineering Week which very few people had actually heard about!).

Now there are several reasons I feel doing this is important and excess funding over and above component costs will go to fund the exhibition and maybe bigger and more far reaching things in future.

The first is that art is art and stimulating and helps creative thought and then there is science-art which helps communicate the glory and wonder of science - showing people it is not a boring and dead subject. Many people feel science and technology is not approachable so I want to make it approachable - less scary but showing concepts using the medium of art.

It is part of communicating science to the general population for - I am not saying the art is science - just a way of showing concepts.

Secondly - if I am doing this - I want to really comunicate it too everybody reguardless so I am very happy to initially be working on a piece with accessiblity in mind.

Thirdly - Science-Art is not really know in the UK, in other countries there are degrees you can take in science illustration and the like. If this art and science combo had been avalible to me I would have probably gone for that. I did look at Art, Archeology and Art History but was told to reapply for a more scientific degree :/

Art as a form of communication is very important especially for engaging the next generation - that was why even during my degree I was writing kids stories to show concepts with pictures and stories. To show investigation and thinking!

So part of this is to get Science-Art out there to inspire the next generation. Anyway there is a video and things and the list of gifts so go look 🙂

Mothering Sunday – The Outing (by sarah)

Mothers Day was lovely - I received three cards! One from Jean with a painted cat upon it 🙂 One from Mary with a very similar felt tip pen cat, glittery stickers showing things like camp fires and tents, and lots of scribble, and one from Alaric saying thankyou for making my dream family 🙂

(this was why I was in bed - I was awoken by child and baby clambering onto me with a cry of Happy Mothers Day Mummy!)

Al's one had a sad little side note in it about the fact that I have not got the life he promised I me i.e. the one I was working on when we met and got married - the science stuff but that he would never stop trying to make me happy.

I love him and the kids and PhD's can wait - not that I now think I have the attention span for one! I love projects that take 3-6 months! But that is something to dwell on later in life.

Anyway - we were going to go to the church but I looked on line and they seemed to only be doing Lent stuff and not a mothering sunday service and there was a large class breakage which needed cleaning up by which point it would have been to late anyway.

So we headed out to Gloucester and walked to the Cathedral to have a look at The Open West - which is an art display/instillation. I am still writing poetry and flash fiction from the pieces they had there as part of the Crucible exhibition.

We wondered round, building itself is awe inspiring and the evening song was on so singing echoed with sunlight hapazadly filtering in through the stained glass. Mary crawled around exstatically and Jean got excited everytime she found a new piece of art.

It did feel a bit invasive though as basically there were people lighting candles to pray and stuff and we were wondering around gawking at stuff. The cloisters and that were also closed so we didn't get to see it all which is a shame as I don't think I'll be able to get back there before it closes 🙁 But Jean did buy me a set of the prints for Mothers Day (with money borrowed from me) - she wanted some of the images too!

I was a little disappointed at the quality of the prints and of the photography itself if I am honest - but it will still serve as lovely writing and art material for me to work from. And hey Jeany desperatly wanted to buy it for me 🙂

I think my favourite piece was the Inside Out - a gold scaly umbilical cord - I took video of it as I found the light effect so enchanting.

Jean's was the video of people kissing under water.

Alaric liked the light and glass sculpture that looked like a neuron.

Mary - the steps of the Cathedral itself 🙂

We were going to go to the tea rooms and me knit but they were closed by the time we finished, and the ice cream parlour we were going to visit doesn't open on Sundays it turns out. But we found lush ice cream in BBs down by the shopping centre and then went in search of cheesy chips.

We went to the Aviator at Staverton but alas - it is apparently the busiest day of the year for them so they were bookings only and complete set menus! So we went to Sam's Pizza and Kabab House and I had a Kabab which is rare indeed, Al had a curry and Jean chips which she shared with Mary whilst we watched the sunset at Burrow Wake Viewing Point.

It was a lovely day.

Here be more photos!

This reminds me of an episode of Ulysses 31