Cranham Feast 2013 (by sarah)

I forgot my camera on the Saturday - boo hiss - Alaric I believe took some photos on his phone but I do not yet have them to pop on the blog!

Saturday we arrived and I set up face painting which I was doing for the whole afternoon inbetween talking to friends and the like 🙂 Jeany took part in the Boundary Race but was sad she came last - the fact that she was talked into doing the race by the first aider who was dealing with her ouchy chest (she tried to summersault on the bouncy castle and had a collision) didn't seem to mean anything to her - we pointed out she'd raced whilst injured and after Christmas Daddy should be able to start running again so they can train for next year!

Sunday we got all the kids sports stuff ready - softy play kit, rackets, balls of various sizes, skipping ropes, hula hoops and more and drove to the cricket pitch were I felt bad about having to get cricket peeps to move cars off of were the kids sports and games were going to be. Then we walked to the church for the flower festival and musical interlude,

Mary sat down expectantly on the seats awaiting the music but got bored about half way through and was grumpy that mummy and daddy were on different rows and insisted on going from one to the other until Al gave up and took the girls outside to run around. Music was lovely with flute, organ, oboe? and sax, I bumped into a friend I had not seen for ages but as she was the flutist it was a quick hi!

Scarecrows featured heavily in the flower festival this year - I wish I'd found a few more to photograph but it is a busy weekend for us 🙂

The Banner and belt (which has been missing for a few decades!) were waiting for Al at the Church entrance, And the flowers inside were amazing - I didn't photograph as much as I wanted as chatting meant I ran out time - bad Sarah.

Alaric has carried the Feast Banner for the last few years - this year we had three cubs (one of which was Jean) and they had a procession from the church to the field were the service was being held and then a later one up to the cricket field.

I was a bit worried as to fit all the sports stuff in we had taken our car crate out of the boot and so we had no rug to sit upon during the service but a nice man (not sure who he was) had put out a series of blankets so we sat on the most purple one - as in me and Mary as Al and Jean had to be up with the banner. Mary was taking it all soooo seriously - NOT!

It was an animal service so of course there were animals! Everywhere! And me and Mary got loving kisses off of a black doggie and Mary wouldn't believe me that they were DONKEYS and not horses. Then she loudly named all the animals and ones that weren't there but she thought should have been and then she pretended to be a cat. I don't think anyone noticed in all the baaring and barking! I hope no one noticed she'd broken my top too and announced loudly that Mummy has boobies,

There was a silver band and we sang the Cranham Feast hymn for the second time which was nice. There was someone important taking the service but I'm really lame and knowing what's what with sorts of thing sand only remember that the lovely sheep were his.

Mary found the village sheep and as she had done the day before attempted to climb into the pen with them - she almost got over the top on Saturday.

We then amassed and began to parade up the hill to the cricket ground - Al's cousins and uncle tried to help me with Mary up the hill but she was being a moo!

We then put games out for the kids to play so they weren't noisy during the handbell ringing.

I really like listening to handbells - I used to do handbells in junior school - not that I was any good!

The animals processed as well and spent the afternoon at the Cricket Club were cricket was a foot. This was interesting whilst trying to run the children's sports!

It was actually quite funny 🙂

And lastly we finished with hula hooping and football.

And that's that for another year!

The Successes and Disasters of the Garden! (by sarah)

There are loads of little apples on the apple tree! The potatoes are doing epically well, I have been living off of garden salad for weeks and we have for the first time ever... Chillies! I have never been able to keep the plants alive long enough to get anything off of them 🙂

However the slugs have pretty much eaten all of my squash plants 🙁 Which actually just as well as we still don't have an allotement and after pestering the council it looks like we still wont have one by the end of the year so I had nowhere to plant the braccias - I popped them in where the squashes had been this weekend. Also our neighbours have rearranged their garden resulting in them giving us a plastic chest seat thingy - the sort I have been saving up to buy! So I have finally managed to clear all the potting compost and spare pots and what not up 🙂

The 'grassy area' is basically were I am growing stuff for now until we get the allotement. Due to roof fixing there is a big bag of stuff to be burnt and planks of wood randomly scattered around the garden and I'm not sure when we will next have a weekend to sort that lot out! Once our budget has recovered from buying roof sealent stuff I think we are going to have to get decking paint as it is starting to break up in places. There is a bramble in Mary's bit of the garden which we need to sort! Jean's Pirate Cove is starting to look good and I think it is all generally moving forward!

My tomatos have fruit on them but just haven't looked healthy for weeks :/ Buns still hasn't gotten his bigger run though he's not in a small one as it is and continually gets to run round the entire garden!

Jean and her friends decimated my salad by making a salad for Alaric - just as well with the weather the way it is the radishes I hadn't already harvested began to 'run' and were getting a little woody so they picked all of those , and the chives and the lettuce - Mary just ate the salad from the pot!

Alaric enjoyed his salad 🙂

Mummy? Bath on your own? Hahahahaha (by sarah)

So I made the mistake of trying to have a bath whilst the kids were awake.

Mary who up until two baths ago was screaming the house down at the mear mention of the word, took all her cloths off and neatly removed her nappy and attempted to hoist herself over the side. We don't put bubble bath in her ones due to her exma but it looks like she loves them. She had the normal screaming fit but this time when she was taken out of the bath!

Jean wanted to get in as well :/ and spent ages stealing my bubbles and making excuses as to why she needed to be in the bathroom.

And then the kitten! Who once the baby was safely in bed came climbed onto me in the bath! She also spent a while by the taps fishing for my feet :/

UWE, Goslings and Me (by sarah)

Today I had a bit of a mixed medium day - I went to UWE (University of the West of England) in Bristol to look around their science communication centre and to talk about maybe doing the post graduate certificate there. Being me I arrived stupidly early and was doing my normal clumsy performance with my paper work and bag and what not. My legs have also not recovered from the poetry festival yet so I found keeping up with the lovely woman who was showing me around a bit hard but I managed it.

The university campus is quiet different to UCL and IC and for that matter the OU - there was lovely wall art/graffiti type stuff with inspiring messages through out the place - they are more the sort of thing I would have expected at a six form college - but I love this type of art work so annoyed students by getting in there way to take pictures.

They also had a random fruit and veg stall inside!

The department itself looked pretty much like others I have been in that have not yet had some sort of corporate make over. There were examples of publications and works of the students on the walls and an air of hard work. I feel I was't my normal energetic self as I was having a mild flare up but then in many ways this is a good thing as I needed to check I could get about on a not so good day anyway.

As many of you know I came out of the failed to complete MRes experience knowing that I enjoyed putting together my talk and writing the essays more than I probably should have - add that to the fact that I have been building myself up as a writer and artist over the last few years and the natural shift is obvious - science communication. I've been looking at this course for a while and got a prospectus last year and have tracked down people who have done the course and spoken to friends at the uni about what it is like.

The course sounds more doable due to the structure of it than the MRes was as I like to focus on things - it is in blocks of 3 days which means it is less travel time etc... than what I was doing before which was all evenings and in London. I also now live in walking distance to the train station that takes me to the train station in Bristol I need which is a vast improvement!

I am applying for the bursary but there is only one so it is unlikely that I will get it though I have already writing the first draft of an article for it. Alaric also things this is far more doable than last time - we are in a more stable position and I have back up money for it in case and it is going be less of an issue with finding child care solutions.

Having said all this I am still nervous that I will not get a space or that something will go wrong but I still have to try. And that leads me to module choices - I want to do them all to be honest :/

After the meeting I wondered out to meet Al who was in Bristol (almost getting myself hit by a car as I was looking the wrong way :/ due to being confused about traffic flow and the round about! I also had my waist length hair down which was stupid as it was sooooo windy). He popped over to pick me up and whilst I was waiting I found goslings!

The photos are not brilliant as the light levels kept changing and it was soooo windy - I tied my hair up!

There were ducks and moles too!

I also found a bench with The Personal is Political written on it.

Once home we went to get a cat tree to stop the kitten shredding everything - Mary was not impressed that I had gotten out of the car without her again at Bristol so was very clingy - as was the kitten.

When I got home - I sat down in the nursing chair for a rest and... was instantly covered in cute things!

May Day outing in the Docks (by sarah)

After the BBQ and excesses of the night before the day started slowly with some kitten snuggles and a Dr Who fest.

Eventually we headed into Gloucester for a late lunch - Pizza Express - we couldn't get a table outside boo hiss but the girls decorated hats.

Then Mary spent ages trying to decide weather dough balls were really food or not.

She decided they were.

There was a slight altercation about Jean sharing her food with Mary but Jean redeemed herself enough for desert.

Hmmmm.... Oh yes and of course she made Olly sit next to her!

Then we went for an explore in the docks area.

May loved the water so Aunty Becca had to hold her lots.

Jean was very surprised to find the word RANTS written on the wall - Olly attempted to explain it though he forgot to take phonetics into account - as you nearly always have to with under tens.

I found birds to photograph for the 100 Birds in 100 Days challenge.

Becca and Olly explained paddle steamers to Jeany.

I found more birds to photograph.

There were some lovely sites to take in in the sunshine.

See:

Jean with Aunty Becca's help found out that Olly's hair can be used as reigns on a horsey - I don't think he was impressed!

I found more birds to photograph.

In our explorations we found a dry dock with a boat in it and so we spent ages explaining to Jean how it worked.

I found a boat to photograph!

And more buildings and birds - Jean put her hands on her hips and said 'Mummy will you please stop taking photo!' She even rolled her eyes - which I think is unfair - I only took a few more!