2014 – New Year New Fear (by sarah)

The festive period has been trying - it has by no means been the worst one we've ever had but there are catastrophic Christmas's and then there are just bad Christmas's - this is the latter.

Lot's of medium and small things have been going wrong - washing machines breaking resulting in 3 weeks of hand washing, a pain flare up for me, boiler breaking so not hot water or heating for almost two weeks, vomiting kids (at various points and for various reasons), tiles flying off the roof, Al getting sinusitis badly resulting in headaches were he couldn't look at writing etc..., a misunderstanding meaning the work I'd done for college was all wrong and has to be redone, spam attack on blog breaking my emails so I then don't see the requests for the changes etc..., kitten is being duffed up outside and has over cleaned her fur as it itched in healing meaning she has bauld patches, garden water logged so emergency stuff has to be done for Chickens, workshop roof leaking (again), there is more but it's pretty trivial and is only an issue as it's all happening together :/

But you know we have insurance for the roof and insurance for the boiler and so it is being sorted and we where given cash for Christmas by a few relatives so fixing things for the chickens was too bad.

For every thing that has gone wrong wonderful things have happened - christmas jumpers appeared in the post, I actually managed to go and attempt climbing (huge huge break through for the pelvis especially as it was my shoulder that stopped the climbing and not the pelvis!), Jean and me are really enjoying going to Games Workshop together to paint her little hobbit figures, I met up with a dear friend I haven't seen in a long long time, I have a beautiful little niece, friends brought round hand knits they had made the girls and chocolate and stuff, I sold poetry books at a level I wasn't expecting, I won an advent competition and massage oils arrived in the post from the local college and so on.

So I am really stressed at the moment and really fearful that things will get worse but at the same time I feel resigned and also on finding our dinning room roof is leaking this morning - to cries of 'It raining in my house! Oh dear broken!' from Mary - I am awaiting the next good thing and yes I am writing this instead of finishing of my course work but I can't do anymore until my emails are fixed and that is chugging away in the background on my laptop so for now I am off to eat some cheese and biscuits and discuss plans for the year with Alaric.

Happy New Year everybody.

Breast Feeding Vouchers (by sarah)

So the idea is that breast feeding mums will be rewarded with £200 worth of vouchers to spend in supermarkets or on the high street as laid out in this BBC story. Great idea? Will increase the numbers of breastfeeding mums and after all breast is best right?

Well no, to be honest this will just make things worse for new mums and I doubt it will have much affect on the numbers as £200 verses your actual wages may not equate. For a start the scheme will financially punish those who can't breastfeed or who's babies can't take lactose or those that want or have to go back to work, the result of which will be that mums will feel even more of a failure over something that is beyond their control. When I had Jean I was desperate to Breastfeed, during the early pregnancy I had a plan to still breastfeed whilst working on research at the Natural History Museum which they were supportive of - I was very ill so sadly that didn't come to pass. Then I struggled for 5 and a half months not able to take my stronger pain killers and the breast feeding itself was painful as hell and she was a hungrier baby so I had to supplement almost straight away.

I cried when the Dr told me to stop - but the baby had bitten both breasts hard enough to make me bleed and the bruising was bad enough that I just couldn't do it anymore. With Mary I was stopped at 3 and a half months and I cried again and felt very bad but my body was confused by the hormones and every time I breastfeed my bleeding got heavier and heavier result in several trips to the hospital including casualty.

There are others in similar positions due to babies not taking the milk or it making them sick, milk not kicking in, infections, the need for sleep causing mental breakdowns and so on - what affect will this scheme have on women who like me had problems with breastfeeding, bearing in mind they already feel awful about not doing the 'best' for their baby - Breast is Best but sometimes you just can't and that makes you feel like a bad mother - a fail mother and this is a dangerous time for new mums. This can increase the chances of the mother sliding into the old baby blues.

Breast feeding is already an emotive issue for mothers, but it is worse than that - domestic abusers will use the vouchers as a new form of bullying and a reason to withhold money from the mother. I say domestic abusers rather than partners or boyfriends as it can be other family members. Add in the issue with the obvious slant that women shouldn't go back to work for this incentive to work and you have a nasty bundle of disempowerment.

It will also increase the class distinctions in this country as those that are militant about breastfeeding tend to be upper middle class women who do not need to go back to work - they will be getting the rewards for not really doing anything extra whilst the mums that have to go back to work will not get the reward. The single mum who can't work due to looking after her kids maybe better off with it depending on how it's handled but things being as they are I wonder if they will dock it out of something else she gets.

Now the thing is it would be a great idea to increase breastfeeding but this is not the way! Breastfeeding pushers are already resented by a lot of women as they just do not seem to appreciate what the average women has to do in their lives. It is seen as a faddy thing homeschooling mothers do etc... And on top of that sometimes you get shouted at when you breastfeed in public or chucked out of restaurants (women are actually protected by law in the UK for breastfeeding but somehow that doesn't always matter plus many new mums are not given this vital piece of information and it is only up until the child is 6 months were as the WHO recommend breast feeding up to 2 yrs). Here is an article that shows just how confusing this can be and how pressured mums can end up being to 'breast feed acceptably' because it's not already an big enough issue for them.

And you get stories like this one where a judge informs a woman to stop breastfeeding her ten month old so it can stay over with it's dad. Our society sends mixed messages about breastfeeding and women are feeling the pressure.

So how do you increase breastfeeding number? After all it is a good idea for both mother and child to have that breast feeding time, from a health and an emotional point of view - if they can.

1) Make sure that pubs and restaurants are breastfeeding friendly - what ever the law says the mother has to feel safe to actually breast feed efficiently.

2) Get the idea out there that breastfeeding is normal and not something to be scurried away and hidden - My Dad said that in the 40's and 50's when he was growing up there were babies attached to breasts in the street - that was just how it was and he would be lifted up to see the baby whilst it was still attached to the nipple.

3) Support don't preach what ever the outcome or need of the mother/baby - breastfeeding is being seen as something privileged mothers use to badger those that aren't, to say 'I'm better than you as I breast fed.' Some of the midwives/health workers are quiet frankly scary in their zeal over the thing, meaning mothers feel bullied into breast feeding.

4) Show mothers what to do! Conversely to the previous point - the problems I had with Jeany were preventable, I was not shown how to breast feed and so spent 5 and a half months doing it wrong and causing myself a lot of pain and Jean not to be getting the best feed. If I had been shown I may have managed the 2 yrs I was hoping for. Support groups are few and far between and tend to be full of the 'preachers' but I think if they were more accessible then that would alter and women would feel more secure knowing there was a support network there. But the other thing is that these support groups are all voluntary and often have no finance to speak of.

5) In house/work creches or ones within five minutes of where you are working with the flexibility to allow you to take breast feeding breaks, at the moment this is only high end jobs but they do exist but for breastfeeding numbers to truly go up you need this sort of thing in place in Tesco, ASDA, Morrisons etc... the police are ok with this in they tend to allow expressed milk to be kept in the work fridge etc...

6) Help women not to feel ashamed of their bodies in the first place - this is perhaps the biggest hurdle to breastfeeding, women are shy, embarrassed, worried about their breasts and the publics reactions. Breasts have been turned into sexual objects, women with nothing on is seen as on giant billboards but a woman sitting breast feeding is not which is an insane way round for things to be.

7) After generations of pharma produced formula and mothers being told that that was best for baby, don't expect a rapid over night change in behaviour and then see it's absence as a failure of gentler incentives. Use the breast feeding fights cancer sound bites and things to grow awareness and tackle the idea that parent hood should be hidden. There are people out there who really do still believe that breast feeding mothers should not leave the house.

College Induction (by sarah)

So yeah I went to college yesterday 🙂 (without my Drs note as they receptionists didn't know where he'd put it as it isn't a sick note as such and he wasn't in - who would have thought that it could be so difficult :/ ). Anyway - I got there with the minimal of shouting to get myself out of the door - I thought I was going to be late and then got there like an hour before it started so orientated myself and picked up a tea.

I really enjoyed meeting the other students and discovered I know lots of stuff that is relevant to others like the different ways to run planitariums (planitaria?) and a slight astrophotography knowledge, theatre and science and so on... Of course I still can not spell for toffee and babble at people or stammer and my legs hurt from sitting down too much and so on but I am really looking forward to my first lecture now 🙂

Also the insight I gleaned from how others work was interesting and I feel valuable already even though we've not yet done any of the course as such! The library is amazing with all the electronic stuff etc...

My first course is...

Science writing 🙂

I ended up with two free sessions at the end of the day which I used to go and sort out the fact I wasn't appearing on the system but had been sent the welcome stuff etc... as expected it was the issue with my English GCSE cert :/ I lost it in the 2007 floods and didn't know what exam board I'd taken it with - I didn't even know you could get replacements until a despairing update on Facebook got the teachers and ex-teachers amongst my friends telling me how to sort it 🙂 I emailed my old school Gaynes and got no reply 🙁 I phoned them to no avail and got quiet frustrated then I did abit of internet stalking and tracked down one of my old teachers and messaged her - she responded the next day and I sent the form and the cheque off to the likeliest place. They had to go and check weather it had turned up at the college and clear me as qualifications varified - so I should be able to complete registration this afternoon from home and then set things in motion to get my swipe card etc...

This is feeling a lot more organised on the university part than my experiences with either IC or Birkbeck.

After the admin faff I had some lunch and read the print out of the stuff I couldn't yet get too online and did most of my 'homework' whilst awaiting a friend for an afternoon tea. I was in quiet a lot of pain at this point and had to take the pain killers which did not help my tiredness levels but I was still feeling engaged and happy - I was finished with the work I could do there and knitting a teddy bear when my friend turned up 🙂

He helped sort out the bus navigation and things and I headed off to the Bristol Hack space where Alaric goes on a thursday - I was really hoping he could do a 3D printer induction as I found creepers I wanted to print for Jeany's very late birthday party but alas it didn't happen - instead I knitted more bear and he helped someone with an electronics project - I met someone into computing projects for the visually impaired and wibbled on about stuff to do with that (I've done the In Braille exhibition etc... ). Then I went and slavard over the lathe and talking wood work with the guy using it - I also found a design for my monster boxes for the writing game I've made - the hack space now has a little library going on 🙂

Alaric had bought me a packet of sticky tabs and a kitten note book and sparkly gel pen for college 😀

(by sarah)

Oh my godo what a morning :/ I have been chasing to get this drs note for college which resulted in me being informed at 9:30 that I needed to come in and see my new dr at 10 (apparently the one I'm supposed to be under has retired not that I ever saw him as it has all been womens problems since the move). I went in a t-rex bite me t-shirt and belly dancing skirt as they were the first clothing items I came across. Then I managed to get Mary into her pushchair and out the door and closed it - guess who did not have her key? Tried to phone Alaric and phone died - white screen kaput! Walked to the Drs surgery as fast as I could which as I was in pain wasn't that fast :/ Arrive at Drs fifteen minutes late but that's ok as he was still going through my notes - get in there and he's like - your notes are vast and a mess did you ever actually get a diagnosis? Me: erm I don't really know I know what they told me I had... go through med history, he's rushing me off a note today so I can pick up tomorrow for college on Thursday and he wants to sort it all out so I am now booked in for a sweet of blood tests and have to keep a pain diary :/ Then I leave and find a pay phone - phone my parents house which is like the only number I can remember but got answer machine so left a message to phone Alaric and tell him that I was walking to his office to get his keys - I made it there and back - was gifted with crisps by an elderly man on a scooter who's way I blocked by being slow and lathargic with a pushchair and now I think it is time for a cup of tea - as soon as I can stand up again :/ Mary liked her adventure.

The Best of Berries (by sarah)

That awkward moment when someone takes a photo of you picking berries along the foot path to town and you realise OMG! I've turned into a hippy! I'm not even just picking black berries but ones people give you funny looks over as they think they are poisonous (which they are if you don't cook them!). My top was not quiet tie dye but near enough and my baby had no trousers on whilst my eldest skipped about in a hand painted t-shirt - yep I'm one of those mums - also urban blackberrying - BEWARE THE CYCLISTS!

This was a post I put on facebook and some interesting things came out of it - for a start I had to qualify that I meant the Rowan berries as toxic unless cooked. But they are not very toxic as in it is something that builds up over time and can sometimes lead to liver (or maybe kidney failure) from what I've read. Anyway the chemical is broken down by temperature extremes so that is freezing and cooking. Which is why the old country lore is that you don't pick until after the first frost.

And the classic argument over elder berries and weather they are poisonous. Main issue being that ripe berries aren't but they have to be really ripe and that they just aren't very toxic again though the leaves and stems are. Again cooking brakes down the cyanid within (it is also in apple pips and various other things) - some people have developed a tolerance from eating them as a kid etc...

Then I was asked what I thought of berrying along busy roads - which is an interesting one - this was my response.

Ok when the petrol was all lead based it was a big problem but now it should be ok - some of the ones (berries I'd picked) today were from road sides - it helps that my friends did the soil surveys a few years back - only thing I would say is that they shouldn't be eaten directly from the bush still if from heavy roadsides as there will be dust on them but a quick wash should sort that out. (However be aware this is my opinion and I haven't seen any data for years).

Also unless you have a map of the UK with metal ions on it etc... you are going to struggle to know what is safe where anyway - there are areas of Wales for a start where heavy metals weather out of the soil and plants there should be avoided for human consumption - add in illegal human refuse dumps and so on... Somewhere may seem nice a pleasant - even have farm crops growing on it and really not be good at all.

But the risks are minimal anyway as it is build up that's the issue wand everyone eats from a wide variety of places these days.

Having said all this people swapped recipes for things, and then I found out that haw stones contain cyanid - but again the cooking will brake this down - but this lead me to think about the confusing wealth of info out there on edible plants etc... I have not found an actually study of this specifically to tell the public the exact risks of things - for a start a table of how much cyanid is on average in various foods and compares say free food to stuff like apples and almonds etc... Also people seem confused by cyanid groups verses cyanid itself which react very differently - if we cut everything with the groups in out of our diet we would quickly starve (if I remember my A'level chemistry correctly).

Also I have been freely dispensing information about blackberries to people who enquire whilst I am out and about and often on of a group will be really taken with the idea whilst another will have apoplexy about them being dirty etc... There is very little in the way of public knowledge about this stuff - have any tests actually ever been done I wonder? How dirty is a blackberry straight from the briar and what do the soil test etc... mean around the road sides.

In the wake of Jamie Olivers comments about food and poverty and people being silly for not knowing - it would make sense to have an education program, healthy eating reduces costs to the NHS and benefits etc... it is a long term thing. People are scared of food they haven't grown up with or don't want to squander tight budgets on culinary experiments that might go wrong or really just can't get the fresh fruit and veg from the shops but also do not feel safe or confident in going out and finding their own in case they poison their family - these are reasonable fears and so easily addressed.

Jamie has always had a big head but he's also got a big heart and has done a hell of a lot with the school dinners and stuff (I think he just needs to stop and have a little think again over what he is saying and step into others shoes for a bit), but you know he really shouldn't have too - we should have a Ministry of Food anyway :/

So if I was in charge what would I do?

Well I would have all school children out on wilderness trails learning identification of edibles or more importantly poisonous plants. I would have fruit trees planted along verges and in parks - I would get tests done to see exactly what impact traffic fumes etc have and if the levels of harmful things are too high I would look at traffic regulations and find ways to reduce those. I would have cook-ups at community centres and places so that people can come along and learn to cook for free etc...

I would have a government leaflet/website that told you all about were it legal to forage (in clear terms) and the risks set out (this is the risks not just the hazards) but I would include the same for processed and main stream farming foods. I would initiate more allotments and community orchards and let the public know the things exist!

Schools are starting to grow veg and stuff thanks to the super markets and there has been an upsurge in general homestedding activities but they are being seen as a very middle class thing as they tend to be the ones with the time and spare resources to plough into learning about these things. I am finding it very frustrating trying to get hold of an allotment and to be frank most of our shopping bill is fruit and veg and that is just wrong! It is stupid that processed foods cost more than fruit and veg fresh from the field/vine.

As one of my friends posted on FB recently - growing your own food has become a middle class want rather than a working class need - but the problem there is that it is really still a need for EVERYBODY regardless of income or age. I've been reading up on things like depression, stress, learning difficulties etc... all being helped by... well nature - yes I know it all sounds hippy but these are medical studies etc... I think it would need a lot of work though - most of those being pushed into poverty at the moment are households were both parents work (I know surprising isn't it?) and therefore they are not going to want the extra stress/time restraint on already tiring lives - but maybe allotment sharing could come into place or something like that.

You also need to make sure people know they can join these things and that they are not exclusive schemes - I remember some of the allotments near were we grew up were very particular about who they let on to the site etc...

I hear that high end offices in London are now installing gardens on their roofs were people can grown veg and even keep bees. I have hope and I am enjoying my blackberrying - I've received one jar of jam from a friend and the neighbour nabbed me yesterday to shyly ask if I would like some of her 'bramble' jam once it was cool.