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!

First Summer BBQ 2013 (by sarah)

Saturday afternoon was filled with laughter and chat and BBQ as my college friends Becca and Olly came up for the last of the bank holiday weekend along with another friend Helen. We had a BBQ of course!

The trampoline was a great hit right from the start!

Olly was finding it too hot so Jean (who was dress up as Princess Layer in camo on the forest moon) went and found an umbrella for him to hide beneith.

Here is Alaric with his veggie burger.

And Alaric being sexy geek on the trampoline 🙂

Alaric whooing the girls including Olly with his Krav Maga moves on the trampoline.

Or rather wowing should I say.

I took video of him seeing how many strange positions he could bounce in - not sure it is safe for the net though!!

But mainly he kipped on it!

Then Jean helped Helen with her sun block - erm....

As you can see there was rather alot!

Helen's response was 'Do I look sexy?!' 😀

It was however worth it for the snooze in the hammock with beer.

I went geek spotting and found these two lesser spotted geeks in the middle of some sort of courtship ritual - it appeared to involve computer programming languages.

Mary found dressing up as an alien and hiding in her house was the best thing ever.

She was very cheeky about it and kept shutting the door so you couldn't possibly tickle her!

She also put the head band on around her chest and announced they were boobies :/

The trampoline became a gaming platform with Mary running around the players in a never ending squeal of glee.

Then I spotted Helium basking in the sun on the roof of the workshop.

So did Alaric.

He says the cat just loves it when he climbs up there to stroke her - I wonder who loves it more!

I only managed to nock two drinks over and Olly escaped having to play with barbie dolls as Jean opted for lego and minecraft.

Poetry Riot (by sarah)

Unfortunately we only caught an hour or so of the final night party Poetry Riot of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival - but what an hour with Trevor Meaney (yes not good photos but light levels were really low by this point as was my energy!):

And the sadly hilarious Clayton Blizzard with his whispered poetry and folk/rap songs that you are either going to laugh or cry or both too.

It was great fun though we sadly missed Mark Neil performing though I almost crashed into him at the top of the stairs and said my normal hello and he responded with his (I can't remember who you are) smile like normal 🙂 - Alaric appears to have transmogrified into Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi.

No really look!

I took embarrassing photos of the interns 🙂 (who should start a comedy show up!)

And I took arty pics of people taking much better pictures than me!

Other photos of events can be found at Write Out Loud and Bilt Photography (which is where my current profile picture on FB comes from!).

You can probably tell that I really really enjoyed the festival 🙂

I Forgot to Do Any Work (by sarah)

Yesterday I sort of forgot to do any work - after 9 days of intensive festival coverage I awoke tired but happy and helped get the girls off to school mind buzzing with more things to write up about the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. But I had to go to the bank at 10 and somehow this took up the entire morning!

I did find some fantastic bits of wall art to snap whilst out though!

Then my parents and Al had conspired together meaning that I was taken for lunch were I relaxed and ate and drunk and produced the rough first draft of a childrens picture book.

I then came home and slept!

When I got up Jean was home from school and I ended up watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs whilst buried in children and kittens. It was then tea time which was eaten in the garden.

With a rabbit for company!

My dad also tried the trampoline.

Then I had a bath and read the book I was given as part of World Book Night during the festival, in bed I wrote two poems and babbled about arty stuff.

Of course today I am staring at the state of the house going eep! And Mary isn't going to let me get much done as I've basically been missing for a week and she is determined to catch up on snugs!

Some of These Things Are Beautiful (by sarah)

Last night I went to watch my friend Dan Holloway perform his show Some of These Things Are Beautiful as part of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival.

He is a fantastic poet and as always his set was emotionally charged dealing with creative freedom and the intensity of life and death.

Lighting levels at the venue were a bit tricky so I apologise for the quality of the photographs.

Again I did some experiments with long exposures and this photo came out in a way that I just feel fits with Dan's creative zest - to me it is a poet in a spiralling tunnel of thought and creativity.

The event also had two other poets performing - I unfortunately had to run away before the last performer but I did catch James Webster.

Who did a wonderfully funny piece on time travel and the self - it was philosophically deep but light in the presentation.

The event took place in a lovely bar called The Strand in Cheltenham which had some lovely wall art I will have to go back and photograph at some point.

Anna Saunders one of the Festival Directors was there in person to compare and I just love this shot of her I got - I think it shows her fantastically warm and bubbly personality.