Poor Goldy – Poor Jeany (by sarah)

So at the Queens Jubilee Jeany rescued a goldfish from the fayre and proceeded to care for it in a manner that astonished me and Alaric.

She would panic if she was running late for school and had not yet fed it. She was keen to clean the tank out and had selected a friend in the form of Slimey the pond snail for it.

Having gotten out of the initial first few weeks I thought we were safe but alas last night Jean came done the stairs sobbing that something was wrong with her fish. He wasn't moving and he was floating at the top of the tank.

She took me back upstairs and yes poor Goldy was a goner. I took Jeany back down stairs and sat her on the settee, 'Do you understand why Goldy isn't moving Jeany?'

shakes head

'He's died sweety' - clingy hug and hysterical sobs up several levels from the previous crying.

We had conversations (very wet conversations involving hugs) about death and about how she made Goldy's life really good and it would have died sooner etc...

She remembered Betsy and Minni and Eve and Percy and Cosmo and the Ginue Pigs. And we sent Goldy on a journey to the sea where Goldy's body would become part of the Great Cycle of life and nourish other creatures and were it's soul would swim in kinder different waters.

Jean was very scared of why Goldy was floating so I explained about how the tummies of the dead get filled with gas as they can't poo anymore and so the stuff starts decomposing meaning they turn into a sort of balloon. Part of me wondered why I was resorting to science and thought that Jean probably just wanted more cuddles but it actually calmed her down.

It's been knitting a fish which Jean asked me to finish so she could hug it in bed - so I did.

We sang Goldy a goodbye song.

Jean slept after being assured that any little ghost fish would be one that loved her for taking such good care of it.

This morning her main concern was that Slimey would be sad and loney.

Postcard Art (by sarah)

As part of the Art Tournament mini festival in August there is a picture on a post card competition organised by Sabre Arts. Here are my two entries:

Jean did her own postcard though she is not old enough to enter, she decided to do a space theme too 🙂

The cards are going to be auctioned for charity after the comp is over :).

Cornbury Sunday 2012 (by sarah)

There are a lot of photos here, just click on any you want to see bigger 🙂 (WARNING lots of CUTE)

Sunday Morning at Cornbury Music Festival loomed large and again I was the first to rise,s o I went to the lovely on site showers and then went and bought Kava Coconut milk from the brilliant site store and began making breakfast and stuff. Jean had instructed me not to run away again as she didn't like me being missing Saturday morning when she woke up!

Though the baby didn't stay over with us again as she is still so chesty she did have a good explore of the campsite 🙂 Whilst her sister decided to roll down the hill in her sleeping bag - this is traditional for camps we are on. Last day come rain or shine she gets to find a hill and roll! This time she was disgruntled as I wouldn't let her go any further and there were spiky plants she was worried she would roll into!

We didn't see the giant rainbow birds again but we did see some Road Rage Grannys ridding their shopping trollies - Jean thinks it might have been the same people just doing a new pretend.

We had a go at Welly Wanging - Alaric almost won me a pair of wellies but the welly skidded half an inch over the line and it had to be the whole welly in the circle 🙁

Mary Mary not quiet a fairy, has lots of flowers you know! She also kept trying to run off with other toddlers which was fine until they got pushy as toddlers do and being small she was being bowled over by babies 3 months her junior!

Alaric really wanted to make a fish as did I but Jean didn't so Al went and made one anyway but just the frame as we didn't want to be taking a gluey drying thing home with us!

I love stilt walkers! This time it was a larger than life Lord who kept trying to join in the Morris Dancing!

Jean has a habit of finding people who will blow bubbles for her - this I found is quadrupled when she has her sister with her!

We still could not find any childrens ear defenders so Jeany did not want to go to near the stages but that didn't stop her and Mary from dancing to the songs!

The girls loved the ribbon maze which Jean had spent large parts of the festival making as she did last year at the festivals!

We liked the Morris Dancers especially as they had girl ones dressed in funky blacks highlighted with different colours and there was a Big Cheese too who actually had a cheese hat 🙂 I had to stop the girls trying to join in, I spotted the symptoms - wiggling and inching forward in the hope mummy and daddy wouldn't notice. But big sticks and stomping feet wouldn't mix well with little girls so I had to be mean!

Mary managed to join in the crafts this year - well painting - with just a little help. Jeany was so excited to be helping Mary to paint!

There was one group of people running the most fantastic kids workshops! This was the Going Native one which Jean loved!

She even made a bow and arrow which she got a bit annoyed with having done actual archery - there was a feather and no knock on the end of the arrow. No arrow rest she could cope with but no knock....

Here is a pic of my family festivaling it 🙂

I ran the sock puppet making so Jean made several - this is her with one of her creations whilst wearing her angry birds hat from Wychwood Festival.

And then after face painting and candyfloss and Jean winning a badge from the Qi elves for her question about recursive acronymes (it was her own question too! I was relieved that it was a different set of people to the ones I'd asked my question off!). It was time to go - with me moaning about a certain Will Young who's lovely voice was mullering once again, one of my favourite songs - warrble warrble - how much warrble? rolls eyes.

Saturday of Cornbury (by sarah)

If you want to see bigger versions of the photos just click on them.

Rainbow Birds - Jean had us tracking these birds all over the place! Though she was worried they were going to lay an egg on me due to a seam on their bum 🙂

We had a lovely breakfast at the campsite before we headed off to run my workshop.

Jeany's photography

We had a very sleepy Jeany after she had done loads of crafts so we had a late lunch with iced drinks from Cafe Nero were we heard the lovely Yvonne Lyon.

Later on we went to the Riverside Stage and everyone was fed up with my camp food so we bought some noms to eat whilst watching the acts.

I thought the singer here had an amazing voice. I think they were called Satsangi.

We then wizzed over to the SongBird stage to catch Hugh Laurie and The Copper Bottom Band (although due to the Qi tent I kept saying we'd seen Stephen Fry but amazingly everyone knew who I ment :/ )

If I lost Jean and Al I could just wonder over to the Alpro Bowl and find them every single time.

Ecover were there again with a cool dome for yoga and stuff, we played games and painted a giant ECOVER. Jean and Al came 7th out of 2000 odd players on the game last we checked 🙂

This is Dave - he was the brains behind security and had a great time dancing at the main stage.

After Alaric accused me of always taking photos of random bits of plastic I went back to the camp site and took a photo of some plastic.

I just had to photograph these guys.

Whilst I was doing my sock puppet workshop these guys did the most amazing fairy workshop!

This was the outside of the kids zone - it was fantastic!

Jean loved the Morris Dancers so we kept stopping to watch them though we only saw the women dancing the whole weekend!

Saturday like Friday saw a rainbow!

The only thing Jean asked for during the day was a toffee apple so as she had been so good we bought her one 🙂

This tent was next to us and Jean as predicted - loved it 🙂 Her and Daddy want me to do similar to our tent :/

Rainbow!

Cornbury Festival 2012 (by sarah)

Thursday I was so tired - I had had a bad night of muscle spasms but was very excited about Cornbury music festival and I still had a lot of stuff to pack (like all my workshop stuff!). I ment to post these pics of the new hair before I went but forgot! If you want to see bigger versions of any of the photos just click on them 🙂

We ended up putting our tent up in the twilight and therefore cooking dinner in the dark - but I think Alaric enjoyed the challenge 🙂

I was quiet cold and woke Alaric up quiet early on Friday as I didn't realise exactly how early it was. I had restarted my iron tablets but was still suffering cramps in my leg muscles and stuff and I was bored!

It was quiet wet in contrast to last year when I got sun burnt! Not that Alaric cared it gave him an excuse to wear his cloak. It was interesting with the cloak - at Wychwood people had asked where we had bought it and were excited about it - at Cornbury we got Dickheads being very unoriginal about it. Though looking at the second pic I think the Hogwarts comment was spot on - it was just the sentiment behind it that narked.

We headed out to the Festival before it was actually open to the public so that we could work out were the workshop was going to be etc...

I took photos of funky festival things (as I always do).

These were for the top of the bins and are a funky use of empty bottles and has me thinking of some more upcycled projects 🙂

We had lunch back at the campsite and then headed off to run the first of the weekend workshops 🙂 This year it was Sock Puppets which worked really well.

We then went to the Qi tent were I was expecting cocktails as it said interesting drinks in the programme but alas and alack there were none. But Alaric had fun working on my tea cosy and knitted about ten carbon atoms whilst thinking of a question to ask the 'elves'. I asked 'Where are you most likely to find naturally occuring terrestrial buckminsterfullerene (C60 also known as Bucky Balls). I got a badge for challenging them and then much to my suprise as I hadn't seen anyone else given one - I got a signed photo! I think this was for knowing the answer!

I watched Never the Bride whilst Alaric went to get Jeany from my parents.

Jean of course insisted we head straight to the Alpro stand!

I saw this cool natural lighting on the wicker man so had to take another photo!

We then saw same of Charlotte Church - she was delayed by technical difficulties and was a bit wobbly for the first song but then she was great.

We then found a very tall police man.

Then I got to watch the Waterboys 🙂

Jean and Daddy having a sneaky snack that wasn't camp food I'd bought with us!

We then saw the first rainbow of the weekend 🙂

I was really gutted actually as it was a really faint rainbow and disappeared and I headed off to get Jean some suprise bubbles for the morning but I left the camera behind and lo! Full arch with glorious storm lighting over glowing banners up in the festival grounds. It would have been a stunning photo :/

Photos of Jeany