Finally I Get One of My Dreams (by sarah)

This week has been harsh - I am not going to lie about that - there have been Drs trips for Mary (she's fine and her skin is responding to the cream but really - two skin conditions?!), finding I had missed the deadline for the resubmission of course work that had been done the first time and I accidently submitted the wrong piece due to muppetness etc... BP seeming to be actually quiet high from the monitoring I've been doing and pulse perminately at about 100, someone kicking our door and egging our house and visits from the police and yeah - so rough week.

But I always wanted to be a in a band, I always thought it would be with my Bro and then when I got to uni I discovered that everyone else was an accomplished musician and I could play the first part of a Tori Amos song badly.... and erm... course work and medical stuff and yeah well...

I always dreamed of jamming and making stuff up as we went cos it sounded right.

Today I was downloading and printing forms to apply for various things (mainly art and science stuff today) when Jean appears with her guitar - it is not the pink one she got around when Mary was born as she wasn't really using that as it was PINK and Mary claims it as her's as it's pink but a few weeks back one of the parents in the play ground just asked Al if we had use for a child's guitar and he said yes.

She loves it and has been faffing about with it and Mary is happy as now the pink guitar is officially her's. Anyway she looks at me and says 'can we record a song Mummy?' I almost said no I am too busy as it is I told her I had to finish what I was doing, she sat and she played what she wanted to have as backing. I gave up and set the laptop up to record.

I am so glad I did!

The tuning is her own special tuning where the top E (the thin one at the bottom (yes I know!)) is actually an F and the G is an A but the others are all standard tuning. She then wanted some wind sounds over the top which we recorded in a separate channel, she added filters and that was that!

She is now making plans for an album and musical future for us both - so at 33 I think I may have just started a band with my not quiet 9 yr old daughter! Who musically I think is much better than me 😀

As far as the singings concerned I think I was channeling Jim Morrison or Nick Cave or someone - Jean did point out that I almost started singing another of my songs in it. Jean was desperate to share this piece but worried people wouldn't realise it was her work, she was really pleased to see her name on it.

Comic Books, Cuddly Science and Music and More (by sarah)

So I've been a busy bee but I kind of forget to blog about stuff which is stupid as then people don't know it is happening. Anyway I have just finished writing another 50,000 words in a month as part of the summer CampNanowrimo - a variant on the Novel Writing month challenge. Everything was based in the Punk's Universe which is now epically big and pushing to get out there to the public but apart from a few flash fictions and short stories which you can read here, it simply is not yet ready!

Second there has been great progress with Cuddly Science thanks to help from Mum and there will be an unleashing of more puppets soon plus a website etc... this next month is going to be about really pushing that project forward which is really exciting 🙂 Though I have to confess Ada puppet has managed to scare a few house visitors especially when I forget to move her out of the guest room. To fully realise the vision of Cuddly Science though I now need to be looking for some external funding and also kind of finish the very last piece of my Science Communication course. For those of you who don't know Cuddly Science is a series of scientist, engineers, technologist, medicine and maths peeps in puppet form who can either run shows and/or interact with kids showing and helping them through games, experiments and sci-craft activities. Using their own stories they explain the wonderous discoveries that have been made and show just how much there is still to find out whilst giving the children a gentle taste of some actual science.

And Universe In A Box has arrived to help run Cuddly Science workshops and a few other bits which I am very pleased with 🙂 And also part of the money I spent on this fab kit will help poorer schools and things get hold of the same kit on a global scale which can only sit well with my idea of science for all 😀

I have also been working on music and have produced a song called Somebody Please which came about as I was so distressed to learn of the children from the single mother's homes that were neglected and disrespected even in death. It was a song that had to be - it isn't a happy one and it reminds us that there are still children that can be rescued - it was one of those that had to be written and also has my first ok attempt at guitar.

I think I kind of forgot to blog about the last few songs as well - so here is I'm at the Bottom of the Sea - were I attempt to play the Temple drum out friend Seth gave us.

And Little Ghost of Parade.

Then we get to the comic books, I have discovered that Gloucester Library has lots and lots of comic books and graphic novels which I think I mentioned before. Well I've started taking them out of the library rather than flicking through them whilst in situ as it were. When I was little the library in Hornchurch did not have such things and I couldn't afford them. This week I read Neverwhere which I loved but kept kind of remembering bits of it in a very specific voice. I know it is a novel as well but I think it must also be an audio book or radio show that I've heard before. Anyway I really liked it.

Hmmm amazon has a BBC series so maybe that is what I am remembering!

Anyway I have also been working on my own comic and due to feed back etc... I now have two covers and am toying with the idea of there being a black and white version and a colour version.

I also have the light core of the optronic super computer which is a mix of water colours and computer jiggery pockery which I worked out and did all by myself without asking Alaric how to install stuff etc...

I have also drawn the Punk walking - this picture looked better before I inked it in and rubbed out the pencil as the pen splodges so I need to look at materials again - maybe different pens or paper or both. But it is supposed to be a fusion of the "traditional" DC/Marvel comic book styles and the Japanese Manga and the old old cowboy comics and fantasy art stuff.

I'm still mucking about with how I'm going to colour the pictures but feel I am making great progress!

I also painted a flamingo as a last minute birthday present for Al's aunt. It was one of those wake up at five in the morning ideas - I have really only just started with the water colours but it seemed to work.

So as you can see things are busy busy especially if you add events and life in on top! But I think it's all going well - though sadly at the moment due to health stuff I'm only going to paid gigs which has made me feel like I am slightly letting people down but I can only do so much stuff at the moment 🙁

There is a lot more fun stuff I need to blog about - the girls and the chickens and what not so hopefully I'll get a chance to catch up soon!

Blood Pressure and stuff (by sarah)

So I've been suffering from headaches - not the ones I had before where my eye kept spasming but like an almost constant one making me feel sick and grumpy which would then splurge into a completely crippling can't do anything, brain being squeezed and sliced and lights and shapes and halos and little white spots and stars.

My skin has also gone all mottled and stuff again, in a way that has happened before but this time it is everywhere and no matter how much sunlight I show it has just gotten worse!

This morning I finally got to the Drs - the skin is the same as before and is worse as the weather is humid so I have shampoo for it and breathing a sigh of relief that it isn't SOMETHING else to add!

Headaches it turns out are actually two different types of headache - one a tension induced headache - my neck, back and shoulders are all locked down tight - unsurprising as I am currently limping from the muscles in my right leg doing the same - same old same old. Then the really bad head aches which feel like what I had in labour - are migraines. But my blood pressure is up and it turns out I should have had my blood pressure monitored since I had Jeany (who is about to turn 9) as I had the pregnancy induced hyper tension and stuff and so may be suffering from hyper tension.

So I have the number of an acupunturist and some tablets for when the headaches are really really bad.

Of course I'd also meant to mention the fact that my bleeding has gone from being low level all the time to two weeks on two weeks off to two weeks at random points. We had a big enough gap that we got a pregnancy test (which was negative). But I forgot - same with the swelling up throat thing (I keep looking like a bull frog!) - I'll have to go back for those at some other point and hope they are not related to the other stuff!

I have this nagging feeling that I was supposed to have a bleeding diary and a pain diary for the Drs but I can't recall if that is recent or not :/ This is why I got her to write everything down and handed it all straight to Alaric explaining what each was once back in the waiting room - which was just as well as I was missing one of the prescriptions and had to go back!

I'm now monitoring my blood pressure and have an appointment for a couple of weeks time. Dr was concerned that I throw up with the headaches but I pointed out that I tend to end up chucking alot anyway between periods and food allergies and what not. Also had to point out that the shoulder grinding and crunching stuff is an old injury and that I have chronic fatigue so yes I'm getting enough sleep as I kind of struggle staying awake to be honest.

I hate going to the Drs and just have this sinking feeling that it will be another round of stuff but hey I am still alive which without modern meds I wouldn't be so I shouldn't complain but you know I will! :/

A Lovely Forgetting (by sarah)

Last year I went for a walk with Alaric, just the two of us as my parents were around to look after kids, it wasn't anywhere fancy just around Gloucester especial they area around our house. There was a kind of urban fairy tale about it - so I wrote him a song which I then recorded initially with guitar but that bit for some reason came out mangled so I took it out. And I posted it to FaceBook and gotten his feed back on the guitar bit etc and blasted it around the internet in various ways whilst I was working on it and then... I kind of forgot about it.

And it also turns out I forgot to tell Mr Al that it was written for him!

Yesterday morning whilst sitting in a camper van visiting family in Essex I mentioned it too him, realising that I had never actually presented the song to him I played it and explained about the photo and where I'd taken it (down by the rail way with the sun behind the Cathedral - near his work place).

It made him smile - it's cheesy and naff and about us and were we live and so on. Alaric was so happy and the fact I'd told the world but not him and he'd missed it made him laugh as it is typically me.

Last night he said that one of the things that attacks him to me is that I am always creating something - he sees this as amazing. I kind of see it as scatterbrained ooo shiny. From his reaction I'm realy actually glad I forgot to tell him 😀

Because… War (by sarah)

Most of the time I try and remain positive about humanity and where the future is going etc... I know that the world is actually becoming less and less violent and prejudice but that that is not a straight forward progression and slips back and forth but there is a positive trend there.

I know the dangers inherent in our advances in science and technology but see the good out way the bad on a daily basis. And then I get days like today. I was going to be researching Mongolian archery in the 11th century but I saw the news and there were the bodies of kids on a beach in Gaza for no reason than ideaology and then another plan down over the Ukraine/Russian area. This time the plane was carrying over 100 researchers and workers in the field of HIV and AIDS research and prevention. They were all on their way to a conference in Australia.

And this rips my heart out.

First off it doesn't make the plane crash worse - if it had been a bunch of 'ordinary' people who died on the plan then it would still have been horrendous it would still have been 100's of minds lost, hundreds of families and co-workers moarning. It does however give it more of an impact on a global scale, that is a lot of researchers lost in one field and there is no way it will not impact the science and rate of break threws and how quickly the medical care will get to the people who need it.

AIDS is still a global epidemic and still impacts ALOT of people. I have friends who are only alive now due to break threws in this field but also it isn't just this field. Most academics I know have been on plans full of people going to the same conferences, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

Politicians and business people do not travel like this, for this exact reason but budgets mean that scientists are all likely to be in the cheap seats on one plan - all together.

Worse though is that this is not an accident, even if it is mistaken identity it was still an active act, one human against another - BAM! Lives gone and lost.

Because... War... like the kids on the beach, like those sitting in camps within Australia and places themselves... because one lot of people fail to see the value in the other peoples lives. BAM BAM BAM.

Because land and food and wealth are seen as limited resources or faith renders them OTHER. But solutions are on hand to solve the food problems and humanity as a whole out grew this world at the end of the last century. Most of the time this is a mirage - there are enough resources its just even one is so scared of sharing. Add in expansionist regimes and the fall out of them collapsing and you have rebellions and separatists and counter rebellions. And at some point it stops being a fight for freedom and ends up with dead kids.

Of course to make things more depressingly complicated sometimes it is those in charge killing the kids or both sides of a skirmish have innocent blood on their hands and heros who saved foe and friend alike.

In war there are no winners same as the torturer gets post trumatic stress in a similar way to the tortured. And sometimes you do have to fight even knowing this but never should it be a light decision.

And how soon we forget the victims - remember the kids shot by a religous and political loon a few years ago? No you'd all forgotten. Because there is a continual feed of it all, drip drip drip, war, death, power play.

The plane crash itself was initially reported as part of the larger power games and those lost upon it were hardly mentioned at all.

Of course social media stepped up with the continual 'but that isn't as bad as this or that and my cause is being ignored and things are far worse here...' etc.... and yes that is no doubt true but it doesn't take the tragidy and pain away from those families.

But then the media and people in general do have a blinkered view and I am continually amazed that people don't know of the suffering that surrounds them in this world or even in their own country. Blinkered we are and suffering is ignored on a daily basis like the Congo and I have no solutions, no ideas or powers to sort any of this out.

I have kind of given up - I can not save the world, for a while I couldn't look after myself nor my family but when I can I help those I see who need help. Most of the time that is people around me or in extended friendship groups but it is something and it is what I have to give.

I sometimes hope that I am changing the world through my art and writing but know that I really am not. Perhaps I could have helped more as a scientist but that is no longer really me. So I do what I can. I don't think I can do much for those affected by today news.

Sometimes I write flash fictions about victims, sometimes I give happy endings or just voices to those who don't have them - it is probably a waste of time possibly even something considered bad taste - I don't know.

The thing that really gets to me though is that people watch this stuff on telly and they seem to not actually absorb it, not see it as different to the programme that was chopped in half to bring them the news. Grizzly pictures abound on my facebook but it's all 'this made me feel sick and I can't believe this!' no action no love, just a recycling of news to get the biggest NOW effect.

You still meet people who think the worst atrocity was the Twin Towers. It was an atrocity and one where the victims should be recalled and remembered like all those others that have happened globally. It was the worst for those who's city it was, for the families effected possibly even for the country it was in but IT WAS NOT THE ONLY ONE.

Violence is very cyclic and we are all capable of it, we respond and adapt.

But throughout all our history war and murder and abuse and violence and oppression have not even been the main thing that kills us. Humans kill humans often with war machines and other such trappings of our intelligence I wish we could turn the ingenuity of war into the fight for our lives for our survival against disease. Flu killed more people in the outbreak between the two world wars than those who died combined in the two wards and that is the case even taking the upper estimates for the camps.

And plague outbreaks of the past are pretty dam scary, ebola is scary, AIDS is scary... oh yeah look the people fighting to save our lives globally have lost theirs due to war. Because... WAR, like the kids on the beach and families in the camps and women in the Congo, because.... because... because... ?

I didn't really have a point with this, just that sometimes I find it all depressing.

Our existence as a species is precarious, life in the solar system is precarious, all of it is fragile, why destroy rather than making us more robust?

Disease kills us accidently. War does not.