Swords And Mirrors (by sarah)

With the realisation that we have almost been here a year and that our sword was still not mounted on the wall we thought we would get a wiggle on and start doing all those niggly little jobs we didn't get time to do though out the year - we also needed to put hooks up for Christmas decorations etc...

We also mounted the little butterfly that Jean made me two christmasses ago! It wont sit in my preferred orientation so I may have to take sugru to it.

Here is Alaric preparing the way to drill.

The funniest bit about this though was that the sword was down off of the mantle piece and the girls were both instantly drawn to it! I love this pics and will be creating a story about them on the Wiggly Pets blog.

Cirencester’s First Christmas Slam (by sarah)

I had a great time on Friday at the first Poetry Slam to be held in Cirencester. It was organised by the fab Marcus Moore and Sara-Jane Arbury and was lots of fun. Of course I did not score very high but that is not why I go to them - this was my third Slam and I think I have drastically improved from my first one.

I performed Mummy's Socks from The Little Book of Festive Poetry and even sold a copy! Which means I have enough money to another book for the school library!

Here is a picture of me mid sock swing.

I had a great time catching up with old friends plus it was my first time out in not completely flat shoes since Mary's pregnancy. So it was win win and yes I had to use the walking stick to get back to the car but that was due a) it being cold, b) having stood around chatting to people and c) having parked far away from the venue as our sat nav doesn't understand Cirencester!

Once again I got to perform with Breda Reed Brown who is The Gloucestershire Poet Laureate, Joy-Amy, Cloe who I normally see telling stories rather than reading verse! and The Luchador Poet. Plus the lovely Tommie who I met at the qualifier for the Cheltenham Literature Festival Slam.

This time I also had Alaric with me which was lovely as we got to have a meal together as well 🙂 Just a shame he has a cold at the moment so wasn't feeling to hot on the night! (hence no video!).

However there is a video of me performing the poems at The Brewery in Cheltenham last year!

And you can go and listen to nice recordings of the poems and my christmas story at my Bandcamp.

Sarah’s Christmas Collection – audio book (by sarah)

I have spent the last week sorting out this audio book / album - it contains The Little Book of Festive Poetry, a story about a mouse and Jean and Christmas during the flood era and a song. You can listen to it free on my Salaric Bandcamp.

Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to embed it at the moment and also Bandcamp have decided to make the song the main thing so it always starts with it - this is what they've put into there home page and stuff but I can't currently unselect it. So to actually listen to the thing from the beginning you have to either download it for £3 (all profits are going to buy books for Jean's school library) or you click the back button to get to the first track. A bit annoying I know and I'm sorry about that but thought you would all like to hear it rather than me continue to faff ad infinitum.

Santa’s Little Helper (by sarah)

Last year our friend bought Mary a lovely little outfit which too our surprise fits again this year! It has a little hood as well but she wouldn't have it pulled up over her head (at least not whilst I was trying to photograph her!).

She is really excited about Christmas and it is making us all grin!

Mary is developing in leaps and bounds at the moment - she is trying to potty train herself which is being interesting. This has resulted in frustration for her as she forgets to pull down her trousers or lift the lid on the potty or both!

She likes to have snugs whilst drinking milk still and we have to watch Gotye first thing - she points to the music video and says 'Daddy toot!' meaning Daddy's foot - I have actually tried showing her both the music video and then our spoof to show her it's not actually Daddy but I think this has confused things more :/

Our spoof

The first video is Daddy Toot the second is Daddy Bubba (baby). She is very waily as babies go but also very easy to entertain and make giggle. She tries to do a magic trick of making her arm disappear up her sleeve which is really really cute! And she is too rough with the cats and sulks when they get put out at night or when we are about to go out.

She can ask for 'Roe Roe!' Row Row Row Your Boat. And she has problem solving skills that are doing my head in as it means I take something off of her and she works out how to get it back no matter where I have put it!

She loves play dough and music and drawing with Jean. She bites Jean and Jean is too soft on her. We are looking forward to Christmas Day and her and her sisters interactions 🙂

New Banner – Snowflakes (by sarah)

You may have noticed that we have put a new banner on the blog 🙂 We liked The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry one so much that we made a wintery one out of one of the illustrations for The Little Book of Festive Poetry. The truth is that this was what this theme was for in the first place - well almost. The original plan was that I would take a series of photos of the roof of The Bakery that marked the seasons and have them change automatically. Unfortunately by the time I had gotten the photos that would work well we were having to look for somewhere else so it just never happened.

But we both like the way the drawings have worked and it feels like a project finally being completed.

However I am disappointed that everybody else in the UK appears to have snow (real snow) this morning and all I have is my drawings of snowflakes!