London’s Burning (by sarah)

London is reeling - everyone knows someone who lives in a Tower Block - London has a lot of Tower Blocks full of families - the fire by Latimer Road has shook the foundations of the city - and as the situation unfolds it looks more and more like we may not be able to tell how many have died, the fire spread in a way that was unexpected due to the cladding causing issues with people following the advice and how fire services initially reacted and advised people.

Fire fighters risked their lives and are still currently working - many of them have been injured but they kept going to get as many out as they could - they went in knowing they themselves could die - it was a write your name on your helmet just incase situation.

This is the sign I saw on my way home from London yesterday and my facebook post on return.

My heart hurts from the news - I had to walk part of my journey yesterday and that is a small price - I would have walked the whole thing to undo this tragedy- Alaric Blagrave Snell-Pym contacted me to warn me - I panicked when he initially said a Tower Block in London but it wasn't the area that sprang to my mind - that doesn't alter the horror just the likelihood of me knowing the people living there and highlights a huge issue - there are many tower blocks and flat complexes and even the "luxury" ones give me the chills when I hear from people living in them that they've turned out to be structurally unsound and are being re-built around them and so on. Many are old and do not follow the modern regs. The fire fighters fought and rescued and did amazing things - and I know their work is still on going to find what exactly happened - they sustained injuries, they are heros. I cried when Al told me and then later on when I saw the news before I went to the memorial reception I was heading too. I saw this sign on the way back home today from East London, at least I couldn't smell it on the way home - I did on the way in yesterday and that sickens me :'( It's a nightmare, a pure nightmare.

.......

My mum was struggling with the news - this is an old nightmare of hers due to the flats that were opposite her as a child and the fear of collapse from fires etc... Mum and Dad were both surprised that there was gas on in the flats due to a blow out when they were younger, that had collapsed a block of flats - there is sadness and anger.

When I got into London on Wednesday there were harrowed faces and people dashing for the newspapers as soon as they hit the stands - those who were talking had the event on their lips. London is a sprawling hive of people, mainly in the last century it has sprawled upwards.

There are regulations - each flat is supposed to be a sealed fire safe unit, they are designed and often retrofitted to contain fire - that is not what happened here. Grenfell went up like a candle with the fire spreading around the building, violently, unpredictably and rapid. People jumped and threw kids out of windows from the 15th storey and so on.

Many things appear to have gone wrong. I can not get it out of my brain and it hurts. I was visiting South Ken the Fire was North Ken. a) there was no sprinkler system and they had just redone the plumbing - apparently not adding it was not about money b) the alarms were all in the corridors outside the flats and were not loud enough to wake people c) the advice was to stay still which if it had been a normal fire would have worked sadly it didn't and that has cost lives and will continue to do so as now no one is ever going to stay still whilst the fires burn themselves out d) the cladding...

Now obviously lots of investigations have to be done but from the information that's come out so far this is what I think happened - the plastic was not fire retardant, it caught fire and was wrapped around the building - worse it had huge air gaps behind it causing a flu effect that sucked the air through making the fire burn more viciously and helped it spread upwards. The company that make/instal? the cladding are saying they followed regs in which case those regs need to be looked at. But more than that - where were the engineers? Did no one stop and thing what could the down sides of this be? What might happen if a) b) c) were to happen? One report was suggesting the cladding had been involved in other fires in India if that is the case then they must have known it was a potentially fatal issue?

The cladding also fell down meaning that police and fire fighters had to clear the local area and evacuate near by buildings. The gutted block is however still structurally sound enough for the fire fighters to be wondering around looking for bodies.

The emergency services were all maxed out and then some and they still saved lives, they still risked their own.

Nearly 9 million pounds was spent on tarting that building up - mainly spent on the cladding - to make it look nice so the expensive flats didn't have to look at the ugly mostly social housing. Yeah... so if the cladding was the problem those families, that community have been decimated because they didn't fit with gentrified London. They were the working class that had to be covered up and hidden - the asthetics of the building to the outside gaze was more important than the internal functionality and safety of its residents.

I am so ********* angry right now.

There are kids/whole families missing, out of those confirmed dead there are refugees who had already fled horror only to die like this, the young, the old... people - The People - just a standard mix of Londoners - wiped out.

And I mentioned the community, those who got out watched their homes and neighbours go up in flames - that is not going to be easily if ever forgotten - pretty sure the emergency services people will struggle too. Ontop of that what happens now? There are displaced families - some had bought their flats so now we wait to see if the insurance companies are going to be evil or not and the others? There aren't any new council houses being built - social housing has been being whittled away so where are they going to go?

London/Britain is having a bit of a time at the moment - and that is when heros emerge as the Underground sign says and not just the emergency services - various religous and social communities have stepped forward to help shelter and provide - even back here in Gloucestershire people are trying to work out how to help.

As I left South Ken and made my way through central and East London to my parents home I passed many many blocks of flats and the fear curdled my stomach - and the next morning too on my way back to Paddington Station - seeing them in day light with washing and bikes and sundries showing just how full of life those blocks are. All I can hope is that things will be done to make sure this is the only time this was allowed to happen. But that's what my parents thought about the gas blow out...

Yes I think this was preventable and that the chase for pretty penny has cost families their lives and their homes and worse of all I think those who should answer for it wont.

All I can do is offer love to those who are affected but that wont bring the dead back to life :,(

Worried nay Petrified (by sarah)

So I mucked up which month was which and we ended up over booked for June (we were pushing it with May!), this is over booked due to head injury recovery etc... well I am having virtigo issues and have a bitten tongue again... I need some down time but that is not really going to happen because today I have to go to the hospital by myself for physio which has whacked me out every other time leaving me exhausted and dizzy.

I've been at the hospital once or twice a week for months now and Al's work have been amazing but... but today he can't come due to meetings. Getting to the hospital is not the problem I can just walk there - it is the getting home again - it is the getting home in time for children to get out from school.

There is a planned work around, that I worked out yesterday but haven't heard back as to weather it is a go or not yet!

Then tomorrow... tomorrow is a memorial reception for one of my Undergraduate lecturers in South Ken. I am desperate to go but a) I am already so tired that I am whoozy and the tinitus is high b) there goes the money for my laptop! I may stay over and come back Thursday. I may yet bail - it leaves Alaric running Scouts with Mary in tow.

I have a meeting Wednesday morning - I am taking music and sleeping on the train - it is the only way!

The weekend we are back in Essex for a few hours and then me and the girls have to come home on the train as Al is off to the US for the worst timing - he gets back the day before my cousins wedding so me and the girls are there on the train too and I am reaching the stage of over tired where I can't read properly and I don't want to rely on my 11 yr old to read all the tickets and signs and things because that isn't fair!

I am being taken and met at the stations and hotels are already booked but it's still enough stress - it would have been stressful without head injury stuff.

So yeah feeling edgy about the whole thing.

Plus I am already making mistakes - we turned up to the school fair not realising that we had to bring our own tables - we set up on the blanket - Alaric looked after it all while I did face painting for pretty much the whole duration (4 hrs - I'd promised the neurologist I'd only do 2 hrs of such activity :/). And we sold one pair of ear rings for £1 - these are earrings I have made including the beads and for some of them the metal work too. I don't do selling for less that material costs and it urks me to sell below time cost etc... This confirmed things for me - the last few years we have sold one or two small thing at events in Cranham - the last craft fayre we actually took NOTHING so it just cost us the pitch fee and a day of our time. So I'll come to the things and spend my money on stuff for the kids and no more pitch fees. I am still doing the comic cons and zine fayres and trying out some of the inner city crafty type stalls but really I fell out of love with the craft fairs about 5 odd years ago now - they'd been in decline (for me I don't know how others were doing) for a couple of years before that and I personally need to cover more than my pitch fee and then they haven't even been doing that.

I'm good at workshops and people pay me for them and they tend to eat my weekends so there is also not really enough time for fairs and fetes either.

Plus you know I didn't enjoy Sunday - I felt a sense of acheivement over the face painting - it raises lots of money for the school and makes all the children happy - I LOVE that sort of thing and will do my damndest for that sort of thing. But the stall thing is soul destroying - the knitting and jewellery and fimo etc... represents hundreds of my hours making and creating so it always feels like a rejection when this sort of thing happens. And to be honest I don't think it would have been much better if we'd had a table.

And yes I'm in a negative funk - I've been doing events non-stop since the end of April and it's been amazing and yes there was only one or two events in a week but that is the limit! This last week was an over reach as we knew it would be - it was supposed to be fine but then a memorial and US trip and more hospital appointments got thrown in on top.

Someone asked me at the weekend what I do when I am not at events - I get up and help get the girls ready and Al out to work, then I have a little 2 hr window where I can work on the computer or intensively read - it is not really a solid 2 hours as 40 mins or screen staring is enough to plunge my poor brain over the edge so it is broken up with house work.

I do physio and rest/nap for half an hour, then I do crafter-maker-art bits until my next scheduled break of 10 mins, then I make my lunch and eat it and do more physio and go for my longer sleep which is 1-2 hrs, then I tidy up and finish off the morning jobs and have my next half hour break/nap and then I do domestic stuff until evening when I may or may not get some time with Al for us to just be and then it's bed time - sometimes I spend the evening riding my exercise bike - I like to do 10km min on it. These are actually very productive days - I get a hell of a lot done and a lot of resting but yes they are not full "working" days. And on top of that I can't do too many workshops or too long but the amount of time I am good for is increasing but it is a long slow road peppered with naps!

A key thing is that I have to loose expectation - other peoples and my own of what is "enough" work etc... that is the hardest - I hate watching people work when I am not.

The Gap Toothed Monster (by sarah)

Mary would like everyone to know that her tooth fell out a while ago - well actually it was a day or so ago but to a six year old that's a long time you know!

The tooth was put safe and sound in the tooth pillow that Daddy went and found, this tooth pillow was made by Mum, for big sis Jean when she was young.

It's pink and blue with a giant white tooth, and a space to write letters asking for Fairy Proof. Mary put the tooth inside hoping for a coin to spend on fair ground rides.

But when she awoke there was no money, just the tooth so she ran to tell her mummy, "The tooth fairy had some wing trouble last night, and that slowed down how fast they could make their flight." Daddy said, "We'll try again and don't put it too far under, the tooth fairy is rather small, and doesn't like to have to crawl, all the way under a sleepy head to delivery a coin whilst your in bed!"

"Ok," said Mary, "I'm no fool, I don't want to make the poor thing crawl," and so she put the cushion tooth and all, next to her bed making sure it could not fall. And sure enough in the morn, there was a glint in the first rays of dawn.

It was a coin where the tooth once was, a whole pound too just because... the tooth fairy was rather late and so had decided to double the rate. So now the Gap Toothed Monster is quids in, or was - there are now a lot of sweet wrappers in the bin. She'd better wash those toothy pegs well, fairies don't come for rotting teeth that smell!

The Black Fly (by sarah)

I was working
Working hard
Educating children
For free as there is no funding
Police and officials arrived
Those who seemed to not fit
Scooped inside
Out of view
Out of sight
But we could see
The campaign bus
We could see the
VOTE US
Sign
Black limos
On the scene
And a down pour of rain
From darkened skies
A storm was coming
Would it blow over?
The rain pelted hard
Frosting my window
But I still saw
The PM there
Standing serene
Surrounded by
People from
The bus
Brought with
Not those who were there
Those who belonged there
Who's streets these were
I stood and thought
I could go out and take a photo
And I thought
Why?
I don't want to talk to this person
If I do and I speak my heart
I will be rude
If I do and am polite and nice
I wont have spoken my heart
I felt the sliver and slime
Of both of these
And so I stood a statue
Unable to move
I thought I should take a photo
It will be news...
But I could not
Would not
I wont say should not
Because maybe I should have
Maybe I should have heard the speech
Given a chance
A blue bottle
Landed on my window
Blotting out the Prime Ministers head
It's eyes were multifaceted
It's wings had been buzzing
Droning in the background
Gnawing at my mind
And it reminded me
It was a shit sucking thing
OF infection and illness
Rotting putrid thoughts
Large and bulbous
With irridescent lines
I could not look away
Staring now focused on this fly
Transfixed on the effergy
That seemed to have the PM's body
A foul wind blew
Lashing the trees...

Bristol and Mateys (by sarah)

Facebook has been popping up memories from previous years - at the moment it is kind of the same thing regardless of the year... meeting up with our Friends Becca and Olly and this year is no exception!

This year we went to Bristol and walked around the water front, slightly hampered by the outside wheelchair lift being broken but we found other ways around.

Then we went for lunch at Prezzo who had a gluten free menu and was quiet enough and was vegi and wasn't a bank breaker and had toilets and tables on one level and had dairy free options (as a group we quiet hard to cater for but Bristol had us covered!). We ordered a stupid amount of food as we thought the pizzas were individuals but were huge!

Jean saw to the left overs as she'd had a kids meal and is a teeny-tweeny and now slightly taller than me and growing fast!

Mary was good and managed sitting still for the meal as she a) took daddy outside for run arounds and b) was going to get to play in the fountain - unfortunately she was then so excited about the fountain she splashed straight into it and run out of Alaric's sight and ended up in trouble! But she did then get to race Becca up and down the dock side by the M-shed which was closed by this point. Then she played with Olly going up and down the river - a stylised map set into the tarmac.

She also gave her pocket money to a homeless guy.

We popped into the german beer festival to see if any of the craft stalls etc... were still open but they weren't but there was a photo board 🙂

I'd pretty much run out of room on my camera other wise there would have been alot more photos! Including Jean sitting on John Cabot who sailed from Bristol in 14... something and found North America. A young tourist asked us questioned about him but ended up telling us more than we knew including finding the date the statue was made.

Looking up this (historical figure)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cabot] I find the finding of the Americas by Europeans is a long and distended tail and I have a whole lot more to learn including a celtic myth about Hy-Brasil which I think maybe the glass isle myth. This is all good stuff for The Punk Universe novel series I am writing.

I've been researching a lot of stuff for this series lately including discovering a myth that Jesus actually went to India and England in a world tour before returning home and being killed as a political radical. This was interesting as Becca was explaning local historical sites to me including the wells and hotspring and the fact that an ancient (as in 3000 year old) jewish religous site was found in a house basement recently - my brain instantly wondered if that was maybe a site that historical Jesus (Jesus in historical records not as/as well as a holy figure) might have visited.

There is lots of funky stone work in this area of Bristol which I love - I love both the rocks natural history and the people history that laid them there was structures.

Bristol is a rich city for history as most cities are... as well as modern archetecture and the interaction of society, tech, city and environment. This was highlighted quiet well by the renovated crain that has been turned into a little eco hut and the tumble down ruins becoming little oasises of plants. I never fail to find new things (some quiet old 🙂 ) to take photos of.

The outing was rounded off by the kids watching a film and us rabbiting about everything and nothing and looking at photos from our uni days - Mary's comment on seeing a picture of my by three giant axes in Greece "mummy you were so small!".

Of course I ran out of camera space so missed the giant beetle eating my children - but fortunately Becca was there!