Day18 – Feast and Diet :) (by sarah)

Nurse visit - she is really really pleased - even with flu and therefore no exercise plus the upping of calorie intake I have lost a bit more weight, also she doesn't tell people their January readings as well... Christmas. My mum also phoned to say the photos of me yesterday looked like my Auntie Sylvie (actually my great aunt), for some reason this made me think about my nans and I made me smile as some of the scarves on the skirt were their and my great nans head scarves (this used to be a thing in the UK). It also reminded me that I need to sort charm bracelets for the girls and that when I was pregnant with Jean we'd planned to make chemical symbol charms to over lay geek culture on top - I think should resurrect the project in 2015 🙂

Day 17 – the Queen of the Fairy Godmothers (by sarah)

The queen of the fairy godmothers visited the climbing centre today and told off a very naughty elf who would not share the Chocs and spoke to Father Christmas about all the good children and told stories about a little mouse and enjoyed the crafts very very much.

Also my mum phoned me up to tell me I look like my great out Sylvie, this made me smile - the skirt is made out of head scarves and wraps some of which are my nan and great aunts scarves 🙂

I did discover that cutting out the poetry at the beginning is actually the wrong thing to do as it get the children settled, it was a fab day 🙂

(phone photos)

Day 15 – Pinterest (by sarah)

It is day 15 of Advent and so I painted an Ice Tunnel - well actually I painted it like a fortnight ago but I am putting it up now 🙂 Yes I was behind, yes I have back blogged!

I kind of got obsessed with this colour scheme.

Also I found an interesting article on what happens if you try and live by Pinterest for a week - Pinterest is an image sharing platform. I discovered it existed as people where putting my photos on there and my friend saw some cakes I'd made and nagged me (still have not blogged nor pinned the cakes).

I was a bit sad to see that there is a Pinterest stereotype - Mummy Blogger, White middle class housewife etc... and some people have found it depressing as they are not crafty enough 🙁 I'm kind of sad that I now know this. I also have a horrible feeling that this is me and yet not me. I know tattoos and nail art where on there as I like those things and occassionally look them up! I still don't know what the hell a Mason jar is and I write craft tutorials :/

I use pinterest mainly to gather inspiration for me and other writers and to discover potential artists for book covers or to post my own images or find science peeps etc.. I would not have gotten through her experiment! Well not unless someone was sponsoring me anyway!

Anyway this is my Pinterest, for those who are interested.

Day 6 – Snowman and a Song (by sarah)

It is day 6 of Advent and so here is my water colour - say hello to Mr Snowman. Alaric likes this one though I kind of don't!

And to keep with the chill of winter, here is Jean's song In The Winters Heart.

The Chronically Ill and Missing Stuff (by sarah)

As anybody who has spoken to me recently will know I was looking forward to this weekend, I had the night of dangerous writing which to be fair was only a maybe as I needed to see when my practice sessions and stuff where, and the Writing Retreat.

But this week had been a bit rough but I thought I was managing it ok, and I had already had to do damage limitation and not go to my Chuffing It class. Friday I felt a bit odd but in a way that could have been nerves over doing a new show for the first time a school and the first time on my own too!

I really enjoyed the shows and the kids were great but in the car on the way home I got really sick, well not really sick but suddenly very flu-like very chronic pain flare, even my pelvis hurt. I was scrubbed out and didn't make it to Bristol. Then I spent today napping and having warm baths and stuff.

Then this evening I find that due to being out of it yesterday afternoon and evening and really and truly this morning - I'd missed the writing retreat which I was desperately trying to be well enough to go to.... tomorrow - yeah somehow I managed to get my days confused and I only found out after getting an email saying how unfair it was of me not to turn up as there was a waiting list.

This is something that happens to chronically ill people no matter how much you try, regardless of how much you make sure that you pay for things you do not go on etc... people just do not understand and one of the things that was hard to learn on the pain management course 10 odd years ago - is that you can't really expect them too either.

From their point of view you are just being awkward.

It doesn't help that now I have a extra food issues and they had gone to extra effort to cater for that.

Of course if I had known I wasn't going, I would have let them know but I didn't and I am uber hacked off that I missed it - not that I could have gone even if I had been with it enough to realise what the day was!

It's the same mechanism by which the chronically ill lose friends as people think the last minute cancellations are excuses for "I don't like you".

And annoyingly it may be flu but equally due to the arthritis symptoms resurfacing we looked at the breakfast I'd been eating this week. It turns out that some porridge contains a thing called spelt - this turns out to be a kind of wheat - it never occurred to me it would be it oat based stuff and I was only having it as the nurse had increased my calories and it's frosty icing mornings :/