Tweets of Aethelflaed (by sarah)

Lots of bits about my Aethelflaed Quest are ending up on social media but are being a bit slower to get onto the blog and also I pick up bits and bobs that others are saying - so I am collecting the tweets together in a kind of weekly round up thing and I have started using the hashtag #AethelfleadQuest 🙂

Side tracked myself from Anglo-Saxons to the Viking Age because I like to look at the bigger picture to understand the microcosms of history - really enjoying myself far too much! #AethelflaedQuest #cuddlyscience #salariccraft https://t.co/8b9HwxDyV9

— Sarah Snell-Pym (@Saffy) May 8, 2018

Reasons @alaric hates being in the house when puppets or figures of various types are being made 😀 - not creepy at all! #AethelflaedQuest pic.twitter.com/2Xy4zWaYIf

— Sarah Snell-Pym (@Saffy) May 9, 2018

My mum & dad do a lot of the work on the puppets for #cuddlyscience here are some of the in process of the puppet being made #AethelflaedQuest overlockers and straight stitching sewing machines are used along with hand sewing, braiding & sometimes show making! #salariccraft pic.twitter.com/RwMXFm2kWM

— Sarah Snell-Pym (@Saffy) May 10, 2018

The Quest for Aethelflaed Hots Up!!! (by sarah)

This year is the 1100 yr anniversary of Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia and Warrior Queen's death - living in the city she was buried in means that of course I have become involved with the celebrations to mark the occasion!

Here. is a little summary - though it does not yet mention everything that is happening 🙂

There is so much AWESOME going on for this event - I'm taking Cuddly Science's Histories to the event and have been researching and amassing much stuff for workshops including metallurgy, textiles, music, a new puppet, mud squishing, art history, wood work and more!

I have been privileged to work with the people at the Museum of Gloucester and have been pestering historians everywhere - I might also have high jacked the family holiday and various story telling gigs to slip in some extra research. I've reached the stage of trying to track down copies of various Chronicles (in translation) and have revived my interest in Viking/Saxon et al poetry.

Last year I decided it was time to move Cuddly Science onto phase 2 - Cuddly Histories and so found myself at the Archaeology Festival and even at some digs <3 Being a geologist by training this reminded me of my love for archaeology and history - I went on to take part in the History festival with a talk on Cave Art and so on...

I'd already decided to make the Aethelflaed puppet for this year when the chance of being involved in the festival came up and so my Quest for Aethelflaed and Search for All Things Anglo-Saxon started - I have taken photos of rocks and statues and medallions and fallen down rabbit holes of Norse language roots, I am using my science, technology, art, and craft skills, I am researching and learning and this makes me very happy - I am also meeting lots of interesting people on the way.

I am also learning so much about the city I live in - things I just didn't know.

With only about a month or so to go before the festival it's time to turn the heat up on my Quest - can you work out what I am up to with this little piece of kit?

Tamworth Castle Aethelflaed Quest PoetryWalk (by sarah)

Poem composed as tweets during our visit to Tamworth Castle during our quest to find out about Queen Aethelflaed and all things Anglo-Saxon - the castle contained much history from many time periods - here are the embedded tweets.

Tamworth Castle - a little Russian doll of a castle with different ages and life styles hidden and recorded within, layers of history nestled in the eves along with an errant pigeon, I met a lady with a sword #poetrywalk #history pic.twitter.com/mvaHg3kK8a

— Sarah Snell-Pym (@Saffy) April 12, 2018

A Mercian Queen who built a burg, wood and mud upon a hill, which was turned to stone and built upon within and without, until bricks closed the chinks and ages had passed, it sits with its stories waiting to tell #poetrywalk #history @TamworthCastle pic.twitter.com/Z8sEs19Nlc

— Sarah Snell-Pym (@Saffy) April 12, 2018

Doors and windows slit and narrow, once designed for a rain of arrows, a view that stretches across the land, here to defend and make a stand, now the armour lays for the curious child so they can play and be a knight for a while #poetrywalk #history @TamworthCastle pic.twitter.com/ipqnERkVlB

— Sarah Snell-Pym (@Saffy) April 12, 2018

Ruins and Rain (by sarah)

As part of Mothers Day Alaric took me for a walk around the ruins of St Oswald's Priory here in Gloucester - I realised that I had not explored it properly and he decided that that needed to change - in general I like exploring old buildings and plan to do it a bit more this year including more Cuddly Histories as well as the science. This was only part of our walk which also included the industrial run down bits but I've separated them out for now. These photos are not meant to be academic though I really do want to study them more as being a geologist I kind of want to know the full story of each and every stone!

If you want to know more about the history then go here (actually the lovely website I was going to link to seems to have disappeared so I will try and do a write up on the blog at some point), also this year is really important for the Priory and there are going to be all sorts of things happening in and around it this summer due to one of the founders Aethelflaed!

Serious check this woman out - warrior queen and all sorts!

Now to the photos - I am putting them up here as I know several people want to use them for art projects (me included), you are welcome to use them to draw from - if you use the actual photos this is fine for non profit works (though please still credit me) but could you please talk to me for anything else. 🙂

You can see larger version of the photos by just clicking on them - there will also be a prose-poem type thing at some point but for now this is the photo dump for us artists to be getting on with 🙂

p.s. it kept raining hence the title!

Form more images to draw from you can look through the archive on this blog or check out some of the stuff on my photo and images blog, or look at my Flickr.

SmashFest Photos (by sarah)

Back in the autumn we took part in SmashFest Earth and Sky Tour when it came to Gloucester Library. It was an amazing day with lots and lots of people - so many that I we began to run out of our Space Craft supplies so that was more than I typically get through at a whole weekend of music festival!

As Cuddly Science we had a fantastic time and my new asteroid impact simulator went down very well as did the paper mâché volcanoes!

Here is the SmashFest Flickr account with some cute pics of Mary etc... hidden in and amongst it all and maybe the rest of us as well 🙂 Mary had her rainbow coat.