The Folk Museum (by sarah)

The Folk Museum (rebranded to the Life Museum) is Mary's favourite museum - it is a great local treasure full of local history and fun activities for the kids, behind the scenes there is a lot of curation and looking after the collections. The building itself is a beautiful wooden beamed structure that is hundreds of years old - sadly this also means it is expensive to maintain.

And so what with cuts and austerity and a struggling council the heartbreaking news that they were going to close the museum was not so much a shock but an expected blow. The museums do relatively cheap activities for the kids and the staff are lovely but the news had already reached me that the staff had been slashed in number over all three council run buildings (two museums and the Guildhall).

This is the museum where Mary left her money baby in the wendy house and the staff went out of their way to return it too us.

So obviously I'm not the only person who feels ill at ease with loosing this local resource and historical gem and a petition was soon up and running - you can sign it here. Since it was started up the Civic Trust have said they will take it on but if that is the case then it is doubtful that they can afford a curator so there would be no one to manage and maintain the collection. Curation is not just about labelling things and putting them in shelf displays - it is also about making sure things are kept in ways that do not damage them - with out a curator then the potential damage is pretty high (mind due the roof leaks so if that is not fixed then the damage will be damn high too).

Added to all this is the fact that historic buildings that are not wanted by the right people tend to go up in flames around here - recently there was three fires in one night - all targeting local old pubs with development issues.

Jokingly me and my friend suggested we might need to make a human shield around the museum - we were only half joking :/ I wish I was rich because I would buy it and fix it and pay the staff and make it free access and have a mini hackspace and little science/education bit in the new building out the back in garden. I'd hold talks in the cafe and stuff like that.

Welcome to the Jungle (by sarah)

This is my kitchen at the moment - it is full of rescue plants - peppers, courgettes etc... with fruit and flowers already on them. I hate waste. So my friend rescued these plants and bought them to me.

The plants, like many were left to die - this is normal practice at nurseries and garden centres and farms for the not as pretty plants or the ones who will have small yields - they are not economically viable for the businesses but for people like me they are perfect!

Yeah sure some wont survive but some will and like with our rescue chickens anything you get from them is a bonus!

But this for me also highlights something - we are actually living in a post scarcity society but we use this artificial construct called money to hedge everything in - to make things scarce, to control the economics and the populace with it. Everyone is so scared of being called a slacker or enabler that no one is really talking about this issue properly (except perhaps Dan Holloway.

The fear of being seen as a free loader or scrounger is high, most of us are shortening our lives drastically by working in high stress environments at "make-work" that has no real worth. And at the same time alot of the work that is valuable - fruit picking, rubbish collection, cleaning - is seen as demeaning and not paid well.

Then the idea that everyone needs to be climbing forever upwards in their jobs - up and up to more money, more responsibility, more time at work (or commuting too), more stress. This leads to mental breaks and fatigue, it leads to bad immune systems - it leads our medical professionals chronically exhausted and more likely to make mistakes.

It makes the waitress who is a good people person with excellent memory and quick service - a failure - even though they are making many people happy.

The pressure grows and automation is here and we still have not adapted, automation should be a good thing but it has been used to impoverish many instead of freeing up our time for science and art and moving our society forward and onwards.

Farmers have a high suicide rate because they are lonely riding their tractors and if they are a tenant farmer then making everything work is hard... there is a small team normally a family and you are bouncing around to various pockets of land owned by other people who can pull the land from underneath you at any time.

We - at least in this country have mountains of food, clothing and housing that gets wasted - sometimes people actively destroy it so that people can not rescue and use it. Sustainability is an issue but large poverty gaps cause more environmental impact because ethical/environmental buying is often more expensive in the short term. As always being poor costs more than being rich but if you don't have the capital or a means of saving in the first place you are always going to be stuck with the short term - falling too pieces - no room so having to get rid of stuff on a seasonal basis - issue.

And people being judgemental of others really grumps me - oh they aren't really hard up they are part of the throw away culture... not taking into account they live in like two rooms with no storage - or people in expensive bamboo clothing sneering that they are better for the environment than me with my synthetics... most of my cloths are charity shop buys or made from scratch - I use acrylic wool to knit with because I am allergic to actual wool. They will then go on about all the booze and meat they've eaten or the drugs they've taken - drugs that have high environmental and human traffic/slavery costs.

They don't see that they are buying an image (and yes I realise this makes me judgmental).

I'm aware my house is ramshackle - we tend to repair and repair and make things a bit clunky - this is our way of trying to save the environment. Others give money to charities and make other little life changes. There is much we can do but being negative about it tends to put people into apocalyptic mode where they feel it is already too late and/or just another stress to an already stressful life.

I remember when we were struggling for money having to buy stuff I knew was not the best for us or the environment but it was cheap and was going to go a hell of a lot further - that is the place most people are at. They try when they can but alot are scrabbling around for the weekly food shop money as it is.

So many of the changes do have to come in via government policy - something which I fear is currently going backwards. Change needs to be coming from the top down as well as the bottom up - all the domestic recycling in the world is going to be pointless if our big institutions and businesses don't also get behind this.

And the middle needs to get a wiggly on - I'm talking about the small businesses, charities and organisations. There is so much each and everyone of us can do from using repair cafes to checking where our office paper supply comes from or the straws the pub you work at are biodegradable etc... This is part of why we are with ecotricity.

Two of the reasons I am so obsessed with running my junk modelling and upcyled art workshops and sharing the tutorials for free is a) it is using the waste without burning it or using energy, bleach, extraction methods to recycle it and it becomes for at least a short time something that brings people joy and teaches them a skill and often is even practical, b) many of groups I am working with do not have a lot of money and upcycling is relatively cheap though not always free, I myself am passing on alot of stuff that I picked up as a child in 80's and 90's were there was no choice due to the recession and we were lucky we had a large extended family and a practical skill set to draw on - I saw the results in families that did not have that and I know many families currently don't have that - so I share what I do know.

I am not perfect - sometimes I get over whelmed and miss things but I do try. It is also a decade since I wrote my piece on why recycling is stupid.

We Want Our Alaric Back! (by sarah)

So yesterday Mary tried to bite me - she pulled the bite at the last minute so basically did that thing dogs do when they lay their teeth on your arm and give a warning pressure. She was in full melt down - the issue - we weren't going over the bridge on the way home. She had already pinched Jean hard enough to leave a mark and so had not had her promised ice cream.

I was pretty tired by this point I ended up giving Jean the bags and piggy backing Mary the rest of the way home after she broke down in tears. Daddy has left - I keep explaining he is coming back and she is excited he might bring her a present but in truth she just wants him back.

I've been getting worse and worse as the week has progressed with remembering what needs to be wear. I forgot PE kit and had to do a lightning dash change for Funky Thursday. Mary drew on herself in felt pen yesterday morning and again this morning. But they've been fed and kept clean and had lots of hugs and the same goes for the cats and chickens.

Once home yesterday Mary was still in melt down and threw all my paper work off the desk onto the floor and then broke her heart in sobs saying no one liked her. Someone she wants to be friends with at school doesn't want to be friends (for now) and she thought I'd hate her as she tried to bite me. I explained I love her - I said I wasn't happy with her when she tried to bite me but that I still loved her.

She settled down to sleep and wasn't too bad this morning once she worked out Daddy is coming home but both girls are frustrated with me. I couldn't even say goodbye properly this morning it kept coming out as goodnight - and speech got to the point last night where they were struggling to understand what I was saying. (This is what happens if I don't take all the breaks and things I need due to the head injury)

On the whole I think we've managed ok, last night was always going to be the most taxing part as it was the latest night with the most walking etc... And I think speech starting to go on day four is pretty awesome actually and Al left me and Jean with numbers to call if we got really stuck.

I thought the freezer was broken but it appears to be more about Jean putting her water bottle in the top and the freezer not shutting properly and I remembered that the heater in the attic is actually an aircon unit got during my pregnancy with Jean. So me and Jean sorted that out and that improved Mary's temperament no end!

We went out and watched the starlings begin to flock and that cheered us all up.

Al is currently on a plane - hoping to see him tonight!

Good Solstice :) (by sarah)

Do to the heat I am letting the chickens roam around the garden meaning that they come to see us when ever we are in the garden or stupid enough to leave the kitchen door open. Jean has declared I am an embarrassing parent for calling them Dinosaurs - especially when I do so on social media - parenting achievement UNLOCKED!

Today is the Solstice - it is also a heat wave here in the UK - my attic was getting up to the 40's when I realised that the heater I have up there is the aircon unit we got when I was pregnant with Jean and couldn't breath properly etc... so that went on complete with pipe to the outside - it got the temp down to high 20's when I switched it off this evening - cooling the attic is important as it is a) my art studio and b) it will have a knock on effect with the rest of the house.

I am warm enough - starting to get a bit too warm - mainly worried about kids, cats and chooks!

Means I get to sit in the garden and draw and read and write - re-reading Women in Roman Britain at the moment which I read nearly 20 years ago for my Classical Civilisations A'level course work. I also made myself iced coffee with decaf filter, coconut milk and sugar free dark choc syrup. It tasted pretty good to me 🙂

Writing little snippets of story ideas for The Punks Universe and a kids story and researching the Middle East via podcasts and documentaries.

Jean got to Scouts, Mary had a bath, I cut down and pulled up stinging nettles - remembered to feed everyone - so winning at life.

Rainbow Clouds (by sarah)

Yesterday was mad! It took five hours of extra driving to get home thanks to lots of different road works, a detour to th wilds around Oxford due to kids not listening to "go to the toilet now as there wont be any other toilets on the way home" and having to show the nice police that our van only contain kids and no stolen motobikes!

But it did mean we were driving when the rainbow clouds appeared in the sky, the colours haven't really come out that well - possibly as the best angle for colour was not one where I could get a picture and I was in a moving van taking the photos through the windscreen!

I believe this is Cloud Iridescence and was something I have only come across in the last few years when I saw and photographed some green clouds with my phone. Since then I have been seeing it quiet regularly though normally when I am not in a good position to take photographs!

It's basically little ice crystals in the clouds working like mini prisms and splitting out the colours of sunlight. It's beautiful, I am wondering if it is because our climate is changing that I've only just started seeing it or if it is because I was just really unobservant before?