October Events and Stuff! (by sarah)

September was frantic and wonderful - the Gloucester History Festival was amazing and has started me down the paths of several new and exciting things for the future! And I have a lot of events photos and sketchtember pictures to share with you all.

But for now it is October the 1st 2018 and this new month hold even more in it that September did! Namely The Cheltenham Literature Festival, Gloucester Poetry Festival and Frightmare Halloween Festival! I am involved in parts of all three of these over lapping festivals - wish me luck!

And then as my fun/de-stress there is Inktober - a drawing challenge that was one of the major factors in me actually producing the art work for Love: A Stranger Dream.

And then there is GothNoWriMo which is a writing challenge and shall see me writing yet more of the Punk Universe (which I will be releasing parts of properly next year!).

So here are the current confirmed dates!

Sat 6th Oct 7 pm Frightmare Preview Night at Overfarm Gloucester - ticketed event (prices vary)

Tues 9th Oct 7pm Operation Beehive in Swindon part of the Gloucester Poetry Festival and a Gloucester take over of the regular Ooh Beehive Night

Thurs 11th Oct 7:30 pm - Hammer and Tongues All Star Poetry Slam in Cheltenham, part of the Cheltenham Literary Festival at The Bottle of Sauce tickets are free and can be booked here

Fri 12th - Sat 13th Oct Young Gods showcase at Elmbridge Primary School 6:30 pm Jean and Mary's Drama group

Fri 12th - Sat 13th Oct Frightmare Scare Attraction Over Farm Gloucester from 7 pm

Sun 14th Oct 2-4 pm Poetry hosted by Sarah at the Gloucester Waterstones part of the Gloucester Poetry Festival - free event including goody bags as part of Books Are My Bag

Tues 16th Oct 2-4 Book Wyrms at Gloucester Library a poetry event with guest poets hosted by Sarah - part of the Gloucester Poetry Society and free event

Fri 19th - Sat 21st Oct Frightmare

Sun 21st 2-4 pm Poetry at Gloucester Waterstones as part of the Gloucester Poetry Society hosted by Sarah

Wed 24th Oct 2-4pm Book Wyrms free poetry event at Gloucester Library part of the Gloucester Poetry Festival hosted by Sarah

Wed 24th - Sat 31st Oct Frightmare Halloween Festival at OverFarm Gloucester

A Canal Walk and Whole Ears (by sarah)

Yesterday me and Jean went to get her ears pierced at a friends house - I don't have pierced ears - family members range from multiple piercings dripping silver and charms to no body ornamentation what so ever. Jean has been nagging me since she was 7 but I wanted her to be been grown up enough that I felt she could make an informed decision on the subject. She saved her money and it was time.

So we dropped Mary off at another friends for an adventure day and walked with my shonky old phone deciding to be flakey were the navigation tools were concerned. We got there only half an hour late and mainly that was due to me stopping to take photos. We were passing a building site - and couldn't resist the rubble - sadly there were some shots I just couldn't get due to some pesky fencing.

We walked via the docks around to the canal by the building works and then back via the canal.

The Bones of the City

The bones of the city just through to a skyline grizzling with an autumn struggling to be born.

Remnants of structures long abandoned and decaying in misuse give up their ghosts to the wind and rain.

Buildings from an age lost a century or more ago are slit open for us to fest upon the hidden spaces that crept from them in the twisted shadows of the city crawling towards progress.

Lost last ones of this time, hover on the horizon watching as a new land and time arises around them.

Preparations are made to hide new sentinels within to keep us healthy to keep us safe from drowning within our own wastes and needs.

Cages and guards await next to the monsters that will make their new homes... beneath and beyond the sight so that they are not ugly, as if utility is something to be ashamed of.

Like megalithic bugs all legs and spindles of sensors they wait, dormant and filled with the potential to create or destroy, the construction of... something.

Waiting in the colours of the sea, waiting alien and surreal on a rubble field that no war has produced but the minds of those striving for a place to be, to grow.

The inflows and outflows of change and all the could bes and should bes and moments when all hangs in the balance.

Waiting for that perfect fit.

Dormant sleep - this land is cocooned waiting.

Memories of what it had been when it had thrived with boats and industry and polluted skies and people becoming and learning and striving. Things were learned and some of the learning is forgotten but much is not and so the land remoulds itself at the hands of these apes that tell stories of their own existence.

Beyond the tower and scars of industry lays a hill side that is older than the city and the roads and the chained and kept waters of the canal and it reminds of natures way and of how time will claim all things... grinding us all back to... star dust.

The Ear Piercing

Jean's comments on me taking the photos and discussing with her the poem I was going to weave and create out of them: "it's the first thing about me people find out - I have a weird mother, sometimes it's a good thing and its good weird, sometimes its funny and everyone laughs and sometimes its narghahahahahah - so embarassing there aren't even any words for it."

Also she had some frustration that I was making us late but the truth is that I just can't walk very fast and taking photos helps me walk further as I rest a little whilst I am stationary.

We had tea and chat and stroking of cats and hugging of babies and looking at Warhammer and lego awesomeness and then it was ear piercing time. I held her hands but she didn't even wince!

We then walked into town taking vids for our summer vlog though Jean reckons no one is interested in me rabbiting on about various insects - other than people like me and there aren't many of them apparently!

We ate food and felt sorry for our serving staff who were having one hell of a day with dealing with complete SHITS of customers - starting with a vicious old lady and ending with the family who were insisting on free refills in new glasses aggressively after only taking a few sips from it >:(

Then it was on to the accessory shops to pick up the fluid for cleaning the piercings to reduce the chances of infection and a look in various gaming shops etc... I may have bought rainbow ear rings for both of us (mine are clip ons hers are spiked) and some Lord of the Rings colouring books that were reduced to two quid.

Then it was bubble shake and tea stop before the final push through to walk home - sadly I have to have regular long sit downs like this if I am going to do the walking but was desperate for an explore and outing. Jean drew an unflattering picture of me with facial hair and looking old, I drew her - she said its not fair because I made her look nice and we were supposed to be doing charactures. I think she looks scary grown up now and that she has stolen part of my teen age wardrobe in the form of my plaid shirts.

I will put the second part of the canal walk into a different post as it will be another Poetry Walk entry and likely be a little long!

So just to end with - I think it was a good outing - Jean says it was a father/mother-son/daughter outing.

p.s. the land around the canals that appeared to be wilderness like when we first moved here were actually brown sites - ie they had been built on in the past and were laying derelict - they had once been a thriving part of Englands transport network with goods yards and workers housing. So though I like the wilderness I will always be happy with brown sites being built on rather than green belt or agricultural land. The waterways have been being heavily restored and are a wonderful walk now in a way that really was just not possible before - and they are providing lots of bits for wildlife - I was however sad to see the amount of bottles and things thrown into the canal but that is part of an on going litter and refuse collection issue the city has rather than anything else - I think my one remaining concern is that the housing is all being built on areas which really are very likely to flood.

Spoogy Woogy Oooogy! (by sarah)

Monday night I inflicted my childrens poetry on an audience in the Waterstones Cheltenham as part of the Villanelles series run by The Gloucester Poetry Society.

This beautiful photo of the reading was taken by Kurt Schroeder Photography which is a challenge as I can't really do flash photography and the light levels were poor!

The The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry has been getting out and about again - Last weekend saw me take the baby yeti (Alaric) to Cheltenham Library along with El Nosy Rat for the Fun Palaces Event.

It's interesting to note that the outfit Alaric is wearing is the reason there is a poem with the line "One Daddy dressed as a Yeti" in it and now he puts the outfit on for the poetry readings! It was originally made for a Yeti Hunt when we first started up the Cranham Scouting sections 🙂

At the poetry readings he is a naughty baby yeti who is also very shy and has a habit of hiding until the children call him to come out! This time the baby yeti stole Jean's shoes! When I took him to the climbing wall he kept hanging upside down! That baby YETI!

El Nosy Rat also features in one of the poems which he is a bit disgruntled about as it feels it gives rats a bad name! He is a relatively new member of the performance team and is also known as Ratty The Plague Rat/Black Death Rat when he comes out on Cuddly Science outings 🙂

He is a big hit with the kids and talks with a bit of an Eastend twang. In the photo above he his holding on of the lovely cloth patches of the Mummy Eating Cherry Pie (one of the poems and illustrations from the book). I had these made last year and they are in some of my surprise pouches! These were made by White Wizard Purple Elf who also made Jean's beautiful dark fairy hoody. Talking of surprise pouches I did kind of forget I they were also glitter bombs so covered the Children's Library in glitter 0.o

Last year I also spent ages tracing some of the pictures from the book so that I could turn them into black and white colouring sheets. The idea is that eventually all the illustrations will be up for free down load and maybe even as an actual colouring book. I tend to be a bit slow going with this as I do a little bit every September and October. But it did mean that this year I had lots of pictures ready for digital clean up and conversion to colouring in sheets 🙂

I am steadily popping them all on WigglyPets Press - including the older ones I made which have some colour traits like the pumpkin outlines being orange 🙂

There are still quiet a few to be traced and scanned still but that along with new audio files will have to await my new computer!

And talking of audio files don't forget you can listen to the poems on my bandcamp though it is still missing it's story and song to be a proper collection 🙂

Or you can watch a much younger Jeany reading the poems and a baby Mary trying to join in 🙂

I only have about 20 of my original print run left, after they have gone the book will be a more expensive print on demand thing on Amazon. And a second volume is also wending it's way to completion 🙂

But that will be a tale for another year!

But before I leave you I shall explain why it is the Spoogy book and not a Spooky book - when she was 4 yrs old Jean asked me if we could make a poetry book for halloween and so we did about topics she picked... that book was all hand drawn and written and did not contain all ten poems that later appeared in The Little Book it also got a cup of water knocked over on it shortly after it's creation as Jean has it in her tray table next to her bed - the tray table where she was allowed her night time water as if it was spilt it would all stay in the tray!

The 4 yr old Jean could not say Spooky - 4 yr old Jean said Spoogy and the book was for her, I've been asked to change it for "proper" publication but the poems are what they are - first and for most for my kids and the Spoogy bit is an essential part of that. If you are interested here is the blog post from when I made the book back in 2009.

Horrid Henry isn’t Horid (by sarah)

There is an article on the BBC news website asking - Should Parents Ban Horrid Henry?, my response to this is... NO.

Horrid Henry is not actually horrid - pretty much as soon as you ask should you ban a book the answer is NO (even bad books that really shouldn't exist should not be banned they should be watered down with lots of other books and besides if you ban them you have just made it more likely that impressionable people will read them as they are now EXCITING, it's what I call the prohibition effect).

The stories have progressions where the kids fight and resolve differences and get around issues such as dyslexia and ADHD etc... and the insecurities that brings for kids etc... they are a positive thing. They also covered headlice and all the other little things that dominate a child's world, yes they contain toilet humour but lets face it 6-12 year olds tend to love that sort of stuff (regardless of gender), just pomp loudly in a room full of kids and you'll see what I mean!

Jean's read all the books and for Mary the Too Cool for School episode/film thingy was immensely important as a confidence builder. In the article the actors main issue was that his kid started kicking up after watching it - my take on that... kids go through phases. Jean started kicking after watching Ben 10 the animation - this was a time to teach that you can't just blanket copy what you see.

Also the books have the easy read high content thing going for them which is exactly what reluctant readers and those with things like dyslexia need. They need a story they can get their teeth into and in this case they will often identify heavily with the protagonist i.e. Henry but it is not so bulksome and wordy that they will feel they are grinding their way through them.

Yay so Horrid Henry is not actually horrid!

The Journey (by sarah)

The weekend was complicated - we were down in London visiting family and Alaric was due to fly to the US meaning me and the girls would be heading back on the train - everything was pre-booked.

It was an early start which included Dad cooking pizzas for me and the girls to take on the train and having made us bottles of water in the freezer etc...

Al saying goodbye involved lots of hugs and snugs and in truth we weren't far behind him in leaving the house. Dad gave us a lift to Upminster Station - I had thought the Fenchurch Street Line did not run at the weekend but it did and we would have been in plenty of time for it... if I hadn't had to get Jean a ticket for the underground and the queue was pretty extensive!

The next wasn't for ages so we bought some crisps and drinks for our high adventure and went and sat on a District Line Train. We ate pizza that was still hot and due to a chance question by Mary on Gidea Park we ended up deep in the throws of family history which took us pretty much all the way through to zone one!

Now I had been in London on Wednesday and Thursday - I knew the train lines were broken but what with the head injury and things I just kind of forgot (not about the fire but just about trains). I hadn't even registered that the train was only going to South Ken. meaning we ended up at South Ken with me and Jean trying to work things out... back on the district line we went to Embankment were on the way in Mary had asked why everyone was getting off :/

Mary was beginning to get restless - we'd eaten our lunch and the trains were getting more packed so I told her a story - How Mary Became the Gap Toothed Monster! There was giggling and fluroshes added by her toothlessness herself.

I was a bit stressed - I was already struggling with understanding the tannoy and being able to read the signs and Jean was trying her best but just doesn't know the system - between the two of us we managed to get on the Bakerloo Line - all three of us sat on two seats - many were standing because it's the underground. It was hot and airless and Mary began to fret - we put the drinking water on her head and assured her there would be ice cream at some point in the journey.

Oh yeah on the District Line she'd broken out in uber energy and shimmied up the hold on to pole. Fidget Spinner was for the win for getting her to sit down - Jean tried to scare her into sitting by saying trains crash - I snapped at Jean because when you are on the train you don't really want to think about that or at least at that point I didn't.

And the train stopped in the tunnel, the District Line had done this lots too. Mary was excited that we were actually underground. We got into Paddington with 20 mins until our "big train" so we bought ice creams - I couldn't work out the self serve till - I couldn't work out which ticket got us through the barrier - I did get coffee.

I am paranoid about travel so had given myself an extra almost 2 hrs to get across London - good job really!

We found our seats, terfing the poor welsh dude who fortunately got another seat - the train had people packed in the vestibles which made me feel bad when I had to ask them all to move so I could go a loo! But I had been on packed trains for several hours at this point.

The girls ate their ice creams, we had little chats with the welsh guys and the guy next to us offered to lend Jean a charging cable for her phone which was lovely even though we declined.

This is my fidget spinner:

It kept Mary quiet long enough for me to reset my brain a bit though her and Jean fought over who was going to get to play with it and Jean dismantled it which grumped me!

I love the fidget spinner - Alaric bought it for me - it is a beautiful thing.

We then played the Story Telling Game - were we each say a bit of the story and pass it on - Jean tries to pull the story into scifi and Mary always adds magic and fairies and I have to thread it into something coherant - they often take unexpected twists and Mary really enjoys telling them DRAMATICALLY!

And she had an audience.

We got through to Swindon on origami - Mary loves origami so spends ages folding her own shapes (which she then tries to teach you how to fold!) and I had also made some little modules she can fit together to make bigger structures including a snake 🙂

I was pleased with myself as I managed to fold a tetrahedron or three sided pyramid - I am working on modular origami at the moment as I wish to use it in various workshops.

And then we were at Swindon... were there were no connecting trains :/ There had been nothing about this at Paddignton - as none of the other passengers knew anything about it either! The poor station lady had to explain over and over again the two ways we could all get to Gloucester, Stonehouse etc... depending on where we were going. It would be faster to go to Bristol and get a train back from there - we opted for the bus/coach because it was half an hour till the next train and I wasn't sure I could cope with more changes and platforms and I don't have good previous with getting back from Bristol when tired etc... having found myself heading "up north" on several occassions and the notable time I ended up in Wales.

A fellow passenger - a lady who spoke very little English made sure I knew which bus to get on with the children which was lovely.

There was aircon on the coach - we blasted ourselves with it and ate nibbles... and got stuck in traffic and Mary had a melt down arching her back and thudding into the seat. I managed to calm her down though she wasn't really quiet at all for this journey until she flopped her head on me and dozed a bit. To be fair by this point of the journey I kind of wanted to join her and Jean had retreated into her iPad.

The walk home was hot - there was more water poured on heads and Mary had her second melt down when she realised we were walking home via the "stone bridge" as she just did not want to go that way. She was throwing a massive wobble shouting and flouncing and then I said "do you need a hug" and she nodded and climbed up me for a hug and... burst into tears... she wanted her daddy back.

We all walked together - Jean had been going to go on a head but a) realised she had a "kids" rucksack on and b) felt Mary needed big sis to hold her hand. We bought second ice cream from the corner shop and were home.