Festival Sheep for Wychwood :) (by sarah)

This is Ianto and Yori who are really looking forward to Wychwood at the weekend - they are hoping that all the festival goers will make them lovely multicoloured fleeces to wear just incase of the rain.

Time (by alaric)

Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun
Pink Floyd - Time

I've always felt rather cursed with the fact that I have an addiction to designing things. It's bad enough knowing that I can easily design something that will take a week to actually do in half an hour, and that I can do that designing while walking or driving or in the shower or lying in bed, while I can only actually do any making when free of distractions... I try to make the best of it, writing the best of my ideas up on this blog when I get time in the hope that some of them will inspire others in some way, as I can't bear the thought of them all being lost. I believe that ideas are cheap, especially for me, so there's no point in hoarding them - I can always come up with more!

However, the past few years have been worse than ever; I've been crucially short of time, so I'm lucky to get a day a month to sit down and make things. I knew that parenthood would take up a lot of my time, but I didn't reckon on pregnancy and childbirth making my wife an invalid, or our house flooding, or all the knock-on effects of these things. I'm running a Cub pack on my own, because nobody else can spare the time to help me; I'm already barely keeping up with the basic requirements of running the pack, and I can't put in any less time without shutting the whole thing down (which would weigh very heavily on my heart, as I love working with those kids, and couldn't bear to let them down). That takes up two or three evenings a week. And I lose a lot of evenings or weekend days helping Sarah build her career, to keep her sane (I don't want her being stuck in a dead-end life of childcare) and to help relieve our financial pressures. I lose three lunch breaks a week to transporting Jean. I'm barely keeping up with keeping the house clean; it gets worse all week and I catch up at the weekend if there is time. And yet most of the things that are taking up my time are the kinds of things I can do while still designing things in my head, so the creative output hasn't slowed that much, even though the time I have to follow up any of the ideas has nearly vanished. There just really isn't much time for me in the week; my one safe escape valve is my weekly visit to Bristol Hackspace on a Thursday after work, where I have two hours.

But then a second problem kicks in: When I do get some time without pressure, I often don't actually want to concentrate on things right away. Over the bank holiday weekend I got about a day to myself (in a few chunks of several hours here and there), and I think I spent at least the first three hours playing Cyber Empires; I only felt up to doing something mindless. After that I got stuck in and did some work on a couple of Ugarit tickets (4363bc7631 and 34e21d597f)... But it's too easy to spend my two hours in Bristol each week just nattering to people!

I've found I'm starting to get self-conscious about it. I'm feeling embarrassed about telling people about the fun ideas I've had, because I know they know I probably won't ever execute them.

There are too many people who go around being smug about the great ideas they have, that they can't implement as they don't have the skill (often, these folks feel that implementation is a mindless task to be given to hired goons). But you can't design something you couldn't imagine every step of the construction of; knowing the limits of the medium is essential to designing something that pushes those limits to their best... It's no better than a child triumphantly saying they have designed the best car ever, that drives at a hundred miles an hour AND flies AND has a laser gun AND has a fridge full of cakes in the boot. That's not a design; it's a requirements document (of sorts).

I don't want people thinking of me like that. Every time I've updated the ARGON web site I've put in more and more perrimistic estimates of my hope of ever implementing it. When I started it, it looked like a tractable project I could slowly work on over several years; now it looks like something I might manage to do in my retirement, at best. That makes me sad. I'm not a person who designs things they can't build (except when I'm doing science-fiction worldbuilding, at least...); I'm a person who just doesn't have the time to build the things they design...

Party in the Park (by sarah)

Today we went to the Party in the Park in Gloucester - we weren't sure of the weather and we wanted to walk in to see how my pelvis held up so we did not pack a picnic something we did regret. But it was a great day (bar the goldfish which I shall cover in another post).

We arrived and the first thing that struck me was that there is actually alot of grander in Gloucester that I just haven't noticed before probably as the last time I took a camera in to take photos specifically of Gloucester I was doing it twinned with visits to Bristol, London and Swindon to take photos of derilict buildings for a comic book/RPG project.

The first thing in the park we came to was the Museum folk who had a giant pie they were filling with messages for the Queen which will be presented to her in September. So Jeany wrote a message and bored people by asking questions on how the pie crust was made and rabbiting on about my papier mache 🙂

Then Jean found a lovely simplistic game of using balls to knock over knights which she spent ages on!

Jean then made a crown of crowns of crowns of crowns of... well I lost count but I loved the concept 🙂 She said it made it infinitly more crowny 🙂 We tried to include the baby but she was happy just shredding the tissue paper flowers I made her!

Jean then bought a flag followed and we walked onto another stool "oh no! purple Daddy - Mummy will be here for ages". Though she changed her mind a bit when I bought her a knitted cupcake bracelet (pin cushion!) - I've been promising to knit her and Mary a plate of cakes since February. Anyway it turned out the stall was run by a local crafting/knitting etc... group. They are called The Wild Cherries of Gloucester and look interesting. My only issue is that it does say it's a women's social group and I dislike that on equality grounds but on the other hand recently I have discovered that alot of things that call themselves that are really pleased and suprised when Alaric produces his crotchett.

I shall be having a nose around anyway - I really miss the London Geeky Crafters.

Then we went to the fun fair and Jean had a set limit of £5 which ment she got to go on two things one of which has resulted in us now owning a goldfish (Goldy).

Because it was a party Jean insisted we play party games when we got home. So we played pass the parcel were the baby got fed up of the package being given too her and taken away again and so ran off with it! Musical bumps which Jean won as Daddy has further to flop, Musical Statues which I won (against Mary), Musical Chairs which Mary won by Jean being complacent, but it's ok cos daddy won pass the parcel - a fine pipe cleaner bracelet Jean had made in neon colours 🙂

We were then going to go and watch the beacon lighting after dinner and a skype call with Al's family but alas the baby fell asleep and I was emmersed in LitChat, our timing had been thrown out by an emergency goldfish accomadation search. I went upstairs to my studio in dispondance only to see by pure chance the beacon being lit on top of Robin Hoods Hill from my window!

Jubilee Cakes (by sarah)

So Jean wanted to celebrate the Queen's Day so we have been 🙂 We have been to lots of fantastic events and I've even done a poetry reading at the Stroud Water Festival which was lovely. But before I write all that lot up here are the cakes Jean baked and I decorated 🙂

This was my first attempt at these sort of cupcakes 🙂 Technique learnt from The Baking Bird and Lakeland Youtube videos. It was also my first attempt at using cooky cutters for making the decorations something inspired by my friends at Centre Arts in Cheltenham. The big cake is a rich fruit cake with brandy soaked fruit.

As an aside The Baking Bird is doing deliveries throughout the UK and she is giving a chunk of her profits in June to Shelter Box. If they do a big bake again next year I may take part 🙂

Write up on cake making will appear on Salaric Cooking shortly. Also just click the photos if you want to see a bigger image 🙂

Music Corner (by sarah)

So this is music corner in the house - off course there is also the hammond organ as well. I love having the instruments there and accesible. The only sad this is that a few weeks back I dropped contessa and she is not really repairable at least not for the sort of money we can pay out 🙁

This had actually been more of an issue for my guitar playing than it should be - basically I am now being a little worried about picking up the electric and playing it incase the guitar strap gives way on it (which is what happened to Contessa).

But after watching some hot guitar playing today I am psyched to get going with the guitar again.

I think having the instruments as part of the room rather than a thing that is put away and hidden has made a huge difference. I feel I am developing musically - I know I'll never be a professional person or anything like that but it means I can do little twiddly things for my poetry collections - like the recorder for the Easter Collection and the Organ for Shy.

The girls also love the instruments especially Mary who plays with them probably more than the baby toys we have for her!

Even Alaric has been caught playing cords on the organ 🙂