Allotment Stuff (by sarah)

We are loving our allotment but we still want a walkable one that I can attend with the kids after school and plant the stuff that needs lots of watering etc... so I prodded the council again - found that their email system has apparently changed which might be why I've only been getting bounces back lately. Anyway I pointed out that I had been trying to get an allotment since we moved in which is now well over 2 yrs ago (I should probably stop calling it the new house!). Apparently we are registered as having asked about it last year and they will pass on that we are still interested. :/

So I think we made a really good choice, going for the private one on a farm - at least I can grow something! And hopefully more than dandilions!

We have so far (and when I say we I mean poor Alaric as I have had course work or been ill) dug over one section of it and have planted the pumpkins out in a little cold frame or mini green house we have hobbled together out of bubble wrap and bamboo canes - it wont take strong wings but then neither will most of the polythene and metal frame ones you can buy.

The pumpkins are tad insane - half of one of the pumpkins started to go off and when I went to compost it I saw that the seeds where germinating so I bunged the whole thing in a pot and popped it on the top shelf of the propogator that is in the dinning room at the moment. I'm hoping one or two of the plants will live to maturaty.

The girls love the allotment and Mary calls it The Mud, Jeany has gotten over her fear of worms and actually held one! (I think Al took a photo of that on his phone so I need to extract it!).

Jean has requested the old tyre at the end of the plot and wants to grow flowers - we have compromised and she is growing edible flowers. I have lots more seedlings and a rota written out for which seeds need to go in next 🙂

Also there is an amazing view and the girls like having picnics there.

Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair (by alaric)

I took it upon myself to translate the following into Lojban:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I decided I wanted to aim for an idiomatic Lojban translation, rather than a word-for-word translation of the English (which would probably result in quite clumsy Lojban). However, this was a challenge, as it would mean making up new good-sounding idioms for things that I either didn't know, or hadn't actually developed as idioms in Lojban yet!

Here's what I came up with. There's plenty of problems with it, which I'll explain below, in the hope that jbopre will read this and suggest improvements. However, even if you don't know Lojban, please read on; I think you might find the breakdown of it (I give literal English translations of it) interesting:

.i .u'e re lo barda tuple ku se stuzi le cantu'a
.i cpana le canre fa lo se porpi be lo flira
noi .iiru'e lo du'u ke'a frumu ku
     .e lo du'u ke'a tolpluka turni cisma ku
   nibyti'i lo du'u lo zbasu ku pu te smuni
      le se cinmo poi lu'e ke'a za'o renvi
           zi'e poi fu lu'e ke'a xraci'a fi le na jmive
.ije rakci'a fi le zbepi
     fe lu ga'isai mi'e la'oi .ozymandyus.
           .i mi turni lo turni
           .i .a'onaidai ko catlu tu'a mi doi tsali li'u
.i zo'e bi'unai po'o renvi
.i lo .o'ebe'udai pinta canre ku po'o diklo le barda se daspo

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Father and Daughter Soldering (by sarah)

Jeany got an electronics kit for Christmas - her and Al had a great time building it. It was a little musical instrument which she now keeps making me play! I got a different musical thing which Al is going to help me with. I believe this is all his cunning plan to get us both good at soldering as there are now off the shelf units to do the kind of LED lighting I wanted to put in at The Bakery. We've been eyeing up our living room 😉

Plans are to give her a bit more formal programming training now too.

p.s she did do most of the soldering herself but this bit was tricky and she was helping hold things in place.

An Allotment At Last! (by sarah)

Today we went and signed for and paid for a plot of ground to grown things on - it is not an allotment as such but is on a farm - I would still like an allotment round the corner but have gotten hacked off with messages being ignored etc...

In the photo Jean is marking on corner and Al and Mary the other - I'm taking the photo from the apex.

Anyway - it is a large plot if an odd shape and comes with raspberry canes already in situ. They have of course died back now but there was shrivelled blackened fruit which I rubbed to get the smell and yep - raspberries.

Of course everything is water logged around here at the moment - Jean wasn't complaining though. She even got Daddy and Mary to join her 🙂

Glass Ceilings (by sarah)

Or why I can no longer work from home now Al is in an office.

Alaric has gone out of his way to help with my course taking Thursdays off work and working through his lunch brake on Fridays so I can attend lectures and has helped with the writing and craft stuff giving up weekend days to take me to events etc... but this morning he subjected me to the glass ceiling and wasn't even really aware he had done it. It happens quiet a lot and normally it doesn't matter that much as I am only trying to get a few of my own blog posts done or making stuff but today was the day I had set aside for my college coursework and business admin - just like Friday was.

It didn't happen on Friday as he ended up going into London so Mary couldn't go to nursery. I can write fiction and draw/knit a bit with the baby about but for anything I need to immerse myself in, it just doesn't work - she needs me too much - so that is course work or articles out of the question. On top of that I have been struggling not to feel like I need to sort the house out before I start work on the Mondays etc... I went back to college and that is a strain on both of us so house work (which we both do) has fallen behind.

His suggestion was to move up to the attic to work so after he left this morning I spent a while sorting things out so I could work upstairs. I've been finding I can work when I am in Bristol as I am away from the home and everything that needs doing - this wasn't an issue when Al was working from home as we were both there and me, him and Jeany would all be sitting there working together and taking breaks etc... Now it's just me.

I sat down and did half an hour of work - after a frantic morning of getting up early (after a night of no sleep due to Al having insomnia and keeping me awake), to get Mary to nursery before the school run instead of after it and taking the kitten for her shots after the school run. I was feeling really positive and happy about it all as I'd spent a while this morning answering Jeany's questions on mammal evolution which included the extinction of the dinosaurs and plate techtonics.

So when I heard Al bring the kitten home from the vets I rushed down stairs to give him a hug, and then I heard... Mary. He'd gotten stuck in traffic so was grumpy his getting up early had been in vein, He'd suggested yesterday that Mary stay at the house until lunch time so he didn't have to get up early and I'd explained I have deadlines and I needed the morning to work - I made sure Jean had clean uniform (which as the washing machine has been broken for the past two weeks involved me handwashing the stuff in the bath). I was sympathetic and assumed he'd be taking her in just a bit late. But no he was leaving her at home. The glass ceiling whacked me in the face, I threw over the bin and threw open a door with enough force to put the door handle through the plaster board. I cried and cried and wouldn't let him come near me.

He'd lowered the glass ceiling, not because he is a sexist pig because he isn't - but because he works in an office and I am working at home. If I had been in Bristol sitting in the library working then he wouldn't have been able to do that - it would not have been a solution to his problem ie he was now running late for work. He'd asked me what else he could of done - he'd tried his best which in truth he had - I know his finding things very stressful at the moment. But if I'd not been at home then bringing the baby back to me would not have been doable - he would have a) not made the vet appointment for one of the two busy weekday mornings in the first place (he had tried to get me to walk the kitten to the vet in the pushchair but I'd pointed out that this was my day for doing college work - I was AT WORK, I get two days - no make that mornings a week to get stuff done), and/or b) he would have taken Mary to nursery anyway and been late.

Al left hurt and angry as I really could not communicate what he had done, I was too hurt and angry myself. And of course I hurt my hand in the door slamming as it rebounded on me :/ This was exactly the sort of issue I hoped to avoid this time - I'm extra peeved as I am paying for nursery time that is now not being used so Mary is loosing out too 🙁 Of course Alaric gave me part of the money being used for that in the first place.

So basically I can't work from home is my conclusion, Friday I will hopefully be going into college to work instead. I say hopefully because of course the thing is that Al getting to work is very important, he earns the money that pays the mortgage and most of the bills, anything I earn is the extra and so sick children who can't go to school or nursery end up at home with me. And do you know the really sad tragic thing about all of this?

Al would love to be at home looking after the kids and tinkering with his projects.