Weekly Twitter Round Up of The AethelflaedQuest (by )

We are now about a week away from the Aethelflaed Festival in Gloucester to celebrate the 1100 year anniversary of Aethelflaed (actually its her death date but we are celebrating/remembering and learning about her life). A lot happened last week but a big chunk of it was in London so I don't think there are as many tweets as I was expecting! But on the other hand there have now been a couple of cases of other people using my hashtag which makes me soooooo happy 🙂

categories Aethelflaed and All things Anglo-Saxon | | datetime Fri 1st Jun 2018 9:46 am | comments Comments (0)

Aethelflaed Down Time (by )

I've had an amazing couple of days in London, Aethelflaed the puppet went on several explores and we did the Bishopsgate Women's History History ShowOff with Science ShowOff where we were sharing the stage with Christmas Lecture peeps and British Museum peeps etc... It was a fab event but the weather was not kind to us on the journey home nor was the traffic and so a 3 hr journey took over 7.

Strom a brewing

So for now we are relaxing with the Lady of Mercia gaming and making some thrones - or she will be once she has mined some iron.

Aethelflaed the Puppet relaxing after a long couple of days in London

categories Aethelflaed and All things Anglo-Saxon, Sarah, Travelling | | datetime Thu 31st May 2018 11:09 pm | comments Comments (0)

Health, Weight and Emotions (by )

At the weekend I went to put on my pirate outfit - I was going to be a purple steam punk pirate because lets face what other sort of pirate am I likely to be?

But the skirt didn't fit - the skirt DID NOT fit and not by a little bit. I am aware that I am putting on weight again, I am very aware of it. I'm also not really sure what to do about it. It has been constant since the miscarriage which was in November - I am still spotty, and my hair is going grey - as if it switched something in me. To be fair I had grey hair before when I was struggling to get pregnant with Mary - when I had the suspected ectopic. That grey hair went away - but this lot I'm not sure will - I am creeping towards the big 40 for a start and I am growing a beard - again this is something that has been happening since I had Mary when they put me on the hormone stuff to try and stop the bleeding but now it's got a little ridiculous.

And I have crow lines - again these have come and gone in the past but I am feeling shit - my hair is broken - not only is there grey but it is not curly - not properly curly - it isn't bouncing back like it always does. People keep saying it's still curly but it is more what I'd call wavey. And on top of all that I am having to use the stupid damn walking stick far too much - I just can't seem to ditch it due to the slice and ache of pelvic pain.

But though it feels rubbish I've also been here before - I am pretty sure I can pull myself back together more than I am and hey! My periods are really light now! And the head injury stuff is being managed well. I need to do something about the diet again I think but the lady that dealt with all that had her position axed from the nhs so is not there for me to check in with. I haven't even dared get on the scales. (Do not suggest Slimming World or Weight Watchers to me -- they work for some people but for me they are hell in a handcart and I spend all my time brimming with intense hatred for the entire human race when in such groups).

I kind of have a plan.... I am about to break the 3000 km barrier on my exercise bike - it took me two years to breach the first 1000 km, 1 year for the second 1000 km and this will have been about 6 months for the third lot of 1000 km - I reckon that even though I am over weight that means my general fitness has still been improving. When I started I was doing 20 mins max and it hurt - now I easily do two hours without noticing. So I will actively aim to halve that time again and the gamification of walking worked really well for me last time but now the pedometer is broken and my phone is old and knackered - so I need a new phone and I plan to finally be able to play Pokemon Go which has never worked on any of our tech.

Also the thing about the walking stick... it is there so that I can walk and that is what I do and I want to do more of that and I am a little bored with walking into town but I've worked out a route to Robinswood Hill which is a similar distance and I am doing lot of poetry walks which I tweet - I used to do this straight from my phone before the head injury but again old phone is a broken phone :/

I am still experiencing horrendous muscle cramps which I think is the anaemia - I probably need to go back to the doctor but find that a really depressing thought. But I basically can't do my pull ups or weights whilst the muscles are being like this and have had to stop my bike stuff in order to deal with my foot testing up. I have seriously had nothing like this except during Jean's pregnancy when I had to drink bloody tonic water.

Of course it would probably just be easier to go on the 1000 cal a day thing again but we've only just got our kitchen back (yay no more take aways) and Alaric is enthusiastically cooking EVERYTHING so though I will do that if things don't improve I don't think that is going to be doable in the next few weeks - of course having lived six weeks off of take aways and restaurant meals probably hasn't helped the weight situation even if I was trying to be good about no desserts event when they come with the meal etc...

If anyone else has any good ideas of where to walk and of games to get you walking then please share 🙂

categories Health, Sarah | | datetime Tue 29th May 2018 10:06 am | comments Comments (2)

Loki My Hammer (by )

Loki my new hammer

This is Loki my hammer - it is a Thor number 2 copper and raw hide mallet and is one of the hammers I always paw over when we go to the welding gas shop. I kind of wanted a hammer for the workshops I am preparing for the Aethelflaed Festival in June so it seemed like the right time to actually take the plunge and buy the thing.

This will be used for leather, metal and wood projects - the guy in the shop asked what I wanted it for and I started to explain about the impression work I have been doing - he suggested that I call the made things Loki Impressed which is kind of fun 🙂

Expect to see it a lot on the Salaric blogs 🙂

These hammers are awesome and have been used for all sorts of things including the Royal Engineers during the second world war as it meant they could assemble last minute bridges at night in enemy territory without making loud hammering sounds. They are the mainstay of engineers who need to be gentle whilst hammering their machines or miners who need to avoid sparks (well did graduate from the Royal School of Mines!) and of course jewellery makers love these things!

I wish I had the old one shown on the Wikipedia page - just look at it! Look at the mushroom wear on those hammer heads - this in an instrument that has made many things!

It is a bit of a faff but you can replace the heads when they get too worn so I am hoping that Loki is with me for life! I may well have hugged it all the way home whilst grinning - I think it disturbed Alaric slightly 🙂

You can even watch how they are made 🙂

This one has audio commentary 🙂

You can read up on the manufacturing history and techniques on their website too 🙂 Since our visit to Makers Central I have been interested in where my tools actually come from - so am very pleased I can trace my hammer like this.

categories Aethelflaed and All things Anglo-Saxon, Art and Craft, Metalworking, Sarah, Video, Work | | datetime Sun 27th May 2018 10:28 am | comments Comments (2)

Weekly Aethelflaed Twitter Round Up (by )

This year marks the 1100 yr anniversary of the death of Queen Aethelflaed Lady of Mercia and Mother of England - a Warrior Queen lost from much of our visible and accessible history in this country. Finding out that Gloucester is where she was buried and that there was going to be a festival in honour of her in June - I decided to undertake an Aethelflaed Quest and Search for All Things Anglo-Saxon. I have since ended up on board and doing things for the festival - I am having a lot of fun and there is a new puppet - Aethelflaed herself once more resides in Gloucester.

Here is the weekly tweets 🙂

The Festival is all over the city - I am doing family fun drove in stuff actually at the ruins of St Oswolds - you can find out more about the whole thing here.

categories Aethelflaed and All things Anglo-Saxon, Archeology, Art and Craft, Education, Events and Outings, Work | | datetime Fri 25th May 2018 8:25 am | comments Comments (0)

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