A Flambe Lunch (by sarah)

So yeah - looks like I still can't really cook on my own. I'm fine with popping something in the oven to heat and nuking stuff in the microwave and even things that cook quickly in the frying pan though I still tend to burn them. But yeah I was grilling some bacon, I knew it was an off day, I couldn't find half my craft supplies that turned out to be exactly where I left them and so on.

Issue - weekend was busy with poetry performances, kids parties and tax returns. I think it might have been the tax return I had to think about which years stuff happened in and that is often different to the year it was paid for in which might be a different calendar year to the tax year and might not. Al did the reciet checking but I still had to work out dates and where I'd filed (or hadn't filed) various invoices etc..

Basically I am on my own during the day, Al normally makes food for me to just nuke for lunch or I have dips and veg etc... but there wasn't time to organise that because the weekend was busy and I didn't even do everything we were supposed to do! ie I was supposed to have a self defence class - something kind of needed after the van being smeared in shit and yobs throwing sexual insaults at me and my daughter.

Getting back to it - I decided what I wanted was bacon because it was being a slow day and I couldn't get my head around anything so working was a no go. Everytime I tried to do my naps someone was at the door delivering stuff (yes Christmas stuff is still arriving at our house!!! And we still have presents to hand out - go us!). I put the bacon on, I don't like cooking it when Al is around because it stinks and he's a vegi and its not nice for him.

Not really sure what happened, I was in the kitchen, the bacon was under the grill, it smelt like bacon cooking and then suddenly it smelt like bacon burning and when I looked there were flames coming out of the grill and I was like "AARRRGGGGGGGG" I oiked the grill tray out singing my oven gloves (booo hissssss) and popped it in the garden where the flames where leaping and spitting as the rain hit the hot fat.

I looked for our fire putting out thing... cylinder. It wasn't there - this is because it is actually in the workshop where it is more likely to be needed but Al says we can get a fire blanket for the kitchen which will make me happier.

When I looked the flames had signif. calmed down in the rain and I thought it would be ok so I got my camera and took a pic - because you know that is just what I do! Here's a picture of my lunch or rather the lunch that would have been.

Of course I was then too worried about burning things to attempt making the kids dinner and was just setting them up with cheese and biscuits (remembering Mary can't eat cow milk and is refusing peanut butter I wasn't very sure what I was actually going to be feeding her - we were going to be having fish fingers but the grill tray was/is still in the garden and I am not sure it will be much good). To the girls delight and my relief Alaric came in brandishing shopping and started cooking pasta.

This meant Mary went to bed an hour past her bed time as he comes in just before her bedtime. So kind of failure - kind of funny - kind of scary - very frustrating but also I am starting to see the correlations with things. I did heavy brain load stuff (tax) whilst not having my naps - I will get there with this one but it is why Al worries about leaving me on my own.

And Then There Were Three :'( (by sarah)

Friday night about 11:30 pm I awoke in a panic, I was suddenly convinced that something was very wrong with the chickens, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep so I went down to check on them. Only three came out to great me... and there was a smell. I checked in the nest box and it was gross, one of them had obvs. been ill but there was no forth chicken in there. I eventually found her dead and huddled and stinking in a little hollow. Her tail was devoid of feathers, the meat/flesh look fresh but she stank and what the hell happened to her feathers?

So I proceed to set up the remaining three in a little hutch and run thing we had for rabbits because the hen house was in just too much of a state. There temperatures were still hovering around freezing. So what had happened? Had I miss counted that morning?

It had snowed so I went out and checked on them before the sun came up but maybe I miss counted, maybe we'd missed her when she died? I'm sure there were four apparently healthy chickens in the run when I went to check. I think I woke up because I forgot to check for the straggler (dead chook is the straggler), she was the under chicken but the bullying wasn't bad enough for me to take her out, she wasn't being pecked but sometimes they wouldn't let her near the food so I would make extra food piles for her and sometimes they wouldn't let her in the hen house so I would go and put her in at night. I can see from the kitchen when this needs to be done.

In hind sight I hadn't seen her when we went out there with kitchen scraps mid afternoon but that is often when they are laying or sitting and we try not to disturb them so I wouldn't have thought it odd that their were only three chickens 🙁

So... I assume she was ill and then curled up and died, I don't know if the other chickens then plucked her bum trying to get her to move or just because she was there or what. I think she was there when I checked in the morning, I am sure all four came out to great me. Now they are in the medium run because there was a bird flu out break and it is covered where the big run isn't so it keeps them safer from wild bird contamination so was it bird flu?

The others seem fine. Did they bully her to death? Did I miss judge? Did she stink because I'd missed she'd died or did she have egg perinonitis which I had missed and the rotten egg inside had finally ruptured? Al reminds me that they are rescues and they are around the age of being to die anyway and that the other three look fine.

She looked fine though - this is them on Monday.

I get lonely so I go and get them and they walk straight into the kitchen and keep me company and yes I have poos to clear up but it is a moppable surface.

Feeling guilty about it, a stuck egg is the most likely, all the chooks we've lost from this batch have died from that - one of them laid an shelless egg the first evening after rescue and never woke up. They have all the suppliments and things and I know this is normal for old hens but I feel it's my duty to analyse it so I can look after future and the remaining hens better.

Here are the remainers again jostling to get in.

Arguments About Coats (by sarah)

Yesterday it was supposed to snow... it mainly tipped it down with horrid ice slushes stinging you every now and then. Jean resists taking her coat to school and has already worn out a pair of school shoes with her daily too and from walks. Her friends parents gave her a lift home.

This morning there was snow.

I considered getting dressed and going with Alaric and taking photos of the common whilst he took Mary into school and going onto Cheltenham for the business networking morning.

But... I gave Jean my hiking boots to walk to school in (her school shoes in her bag). We then proceeded to have an argument about her coat - she doesn't need it - sadly I know of too many snow stories that start off that way and though we are in a town so it is probably going to be fine it might not be... so she left wearing her coat, gloves, hat and scarf. Not sure how much she'll be wearing when she reaches school but she will at least have it with her and that is the important thing! (I think the garden fairy could do with a coat as well and I might have already checked the chooks were ok).

Yes I realise this is not bad snow but that is actually more dangerous because people are blarzae about it and are under prepared when it then snaps bad.

Mary on the other hand was very excited to be wearing coat, hat, gloves and insisted on a scarf. I will now be a fretisical until Al txts me to say they've all arrived safely.

Of Test Drives and Zines (by sarah)

This is a Surprise Pouch - they contain one mini zine each plus some other bits and pieces like but not always stickers, page corners, charms and so on 🙂

I love them, I am very pleased the idea worked so well. They will be coming to shows and things with me, they are 50p and will first appear at the OK True Believers Comic book Festival in Feb. I'm there as Wiggly Pet Press and there will be cosplaying and things a foot but I'll bore you with all that at some later date 🙂

I've spent the last few years writing and illustrating and constructing zines (little homemade comics and booklets) but have not always had the infrastructure to actually birth them completely into the world. Now I do. Now I am finishing off all those little zines that have been langishing on hard drives and the like (or worse in my head!).

So be prepared to see alot more of these little butes 🙂

Also I am in general mixing the writing up with the arts and crafts side of things, making tie in necklaces and writing stories for the steam punk accessories I'd made and so on.

Yes I'm aware I need to sell it all on line or something... I do have various e-shops I just don't always remember to list new things or tell people when I have!

Mary had Ballet today it was her first time in the new more advanced class, she was shy and with drawn, it is probably because she hadn't really slept but it was also because her two friends are not in this class. We are seeing how the next few weeks are going but if she continues to be distressed then the teacher says she can drop down again.

Then we went to test drive the Zoe - an electric vechile - we've wanted to have an electric car... well since before Al could drive. I used to enter all the comps to try and win a hybrid when they first came out - of course we never won 🙁 But now we are in a position where we might be able to do a lease for three years. Electric cars are still emergent technology so we wouldn't really want to invest as such in owning one (at the moment) but leasing one would cost us less than running our car plus we wouldn't have to do the maintinance and that is driving me insane (haha!).

Yeah I'm sick of spending weekends crawling under cars getting my cloths drity when it's a desperation factor because I need to be somewhere - also bare in mind I can't even drive!

The show room where lovely and we got hot drinks and we all got to go in the car. Jean likes it because it's smooth, I like it because it's quiet, Al likes the way it handles, Mary doesn't like it because a) it is not a red tesla (kind of agree on this one as we don't really have a choice of colour and they are all erm... muted but at least they are not biage!) and b) it was too "jumpy" this was actually Al getting used to the breaking system.

I like the back lights stylistically not too keen on the front ones, am sad that if we get it then I can't really put decals or anything on it and we don't even get funky hub caps because that all costs more or ment we had to wait longer or something.

I was pleased and yet embarrassed that I was asked if I wanted to test drive it.

We were supposed to then go shopping but there had been ceiling fans all rotating at different speeds around the lights and I'd had to think about numbers without the naps I am taking for the head injury during the week - the result was that I completely crashed and we came home, not really sure what we then did until I started folding things for comic book festivals but I know I slept.

Whilst Mary was in ballet I got another origami book from Waterstones because it has the little baskets/boxes I want to fold for Mary's birthday party in. I think it is counting as my birthday present from Al but I already have it because I finished all the projects I can do in the other books and have infact started to improvise weird geometric structures out of multiple sheets of paper and altering simple folds to be other things. Hence the Surprise Pouches which probably do exists elsewhere but for me are an adaption.

Alaric is helping me out with some zine formating as my brain is just not playing ball at the moment. The Christmas decorations are still sitting in piles in the living room but I am taking things at my own pace.

Pony’s and Paper (by sarah)

Today was quiet, everyone but me went away, I sent my eldest off into the icy morn without her tie because though we thought we had sorted everything days ago the tie had slipped our notice, the same as we forgot to go shoe shopping in the sales. She got to borrow one from student services and is not yet in trouble - we still can't find the tie!

Youngest had her first day at after school club and came back more hyper than ever, she arrived home after her sister which was weird!

She was a little tearful mainly I think because she will not sleep and of course school during the day means no naps, she was still a pickle when it came to bed time tonight. She is being good to the cats as her new years resolution - she got licked and not scratched today - this has cheered her up.

After chickens had been fed and watered Jean did homework and Mary played with her set up of play mat, palaces and my little pony, moshi monsters and disney princesses.

Dinner was still Christmas food - we are still in Christmas here and will be until the 6th. Jean announced that when ever she starts looking at religions and studying them all she can see is plot holes.

They then played minecraft together, Mary went to bed and we watched Steins:gate just the first episode with Alaric so he can start sorting his cosplay for the Comic Book Festival. Now I am awaiting the chest nuts he is toasting and yes I did not make it to the first Drink and Draw of the year - I'm not really sure the evening ones are going to be that doable for me anymore 🙁 but fortunately they do now have weekend ones as well 😀

So what did I do all day whilst my family where away?

Well I actually got to do all the rests that I am supposed to do, and inbetween them I managed to have an amazing almost the old me day... I wrote 1000 words of fiction, I sorted out cross posting and other blogging issues. I processed a few photos. I can get max 2 hrs of high concentration done and that is split up and broken.

With great effort I have stuck to calories (1600 until the end of the week and yes that includes the chestnuts), my arthritis is being a little act uppy at the moment which sucks but I'm good.

This means I have not done much physical exercise today but have done some.

I had the most lovely amazon delivery lady 🙂 Really churpy and happy, she delivered sparkly my little pony stuff for Mary's birthday which I will probably actually do the party for in February as I need more space to plan and do things than I used to - it the shift from being physically unable but mentally capable to the other way around - physically I am the best I've been as an adult but brain is a big fat raspberry (ie I just wrote the same paragraph in slightly differing forms three times because I had already forgotten I'd written it!).

Also there was origami paper - lovely lovely multiple sizes paper - but sadly the books I've ordered at various points with money and vouchers have still not arrived so I am stuck with the 70's falling to pieces project and what ever vids I can find!

Still I have started improvising and making up my own projects and to my utter amazement - today I came up with new ideas for workshops - I've been working on ideas I had already planned before the head injury and fortunately there had been alot of them - but this... this was brand new ideas with brand new skills and there was not one but two of them!!! With variants 😀

Yeah so origami featured in my day whilst "watching" the Hogfather - I was lonely so put it on in the back ground - again this is something I have not been able to really do since the head injury - I managed to focus on a project with background noise. I wanted the sounds because I was lonely - so happy about managing this 🙂