Ten Things That Amaze Me About Me (by sarah)

1. My six year old daughter has a spelling age that is the same as I had at 18. Though my vocabulary has always been massive as in exceeded what is expected for an average adult in the UK in primary school.

2. I am obsessed with reading and learning things though I still do not have an adult reading age. Reading at all didn't really happen for me until about the age of 12. I am still a slow reader - I read text books for fun.

3. I got glandular fever and failed my first year at university - then had back and mobility issues involving painful weekly hospital trips plus a side helping of IBS with ulcers. And I still have a degree from one of the best Universities in the World and it was so close to a first it's painful.

4. I am so shy it is classed as a medical issue compounded by C-PTSD but I have a solution - it is called performing - as in stage.

5. My hearing needed sorting yet I have always been obsessed with music and probably because of this it is a thing I feel with my body and not just something I hear. I still struggle with comprehension if I can not see a persons lips moving.

6. Shyness and stutter plus the remnants of things like lisps mean that I like diction, languages and singing.

7. I am dyslexic, and I don't mean just a little bit - the educational psycologists said he had never seen anyone with such severe dyslexia even sit GCSE's let alone get the grades I got. The natural reaction to this for me? I have always had the ambition to write stories. I managed to get published before I was eighteen.

8. I am scared of heights and used to get bad vertigo, was the clumsiest kid around (called dyspraxia and is a cousin of dyslexia) - I became a climbing and archery instructure.

9. I almost died and was crippled by having a baby, I willingly decided to have another and do not regret it.

10. School and even university bullying made me feel that I was going to be single forever and never achieve anything. I have the most loveliest husband, intelligent and cute to boot and I have been 'going out' with him since I was 21. He supports me and seems to actually fancy me too.

Forgive the egotistical post but these things really do amaze me.

What An Amazing Week! (by sarah)

Friday I went off to Not The Oxford Literature Festival were I read out stuff from an upcoming collection called Political Converse including the song Shit Creek.

I gave out my new business cards which I am very happy with from Moo. Each card has a different picture on either of my art work, photos I've taken or me being arty. I have rationed them to one per person as some people want to collect the pictures 🙂

I came home on Friday feeling great especially as I'd worked out the old guy at the festival was infact the guy who's stories I'd been obsessed with as a child!

He's called Dennis Hamley for those of you who are interested 🙂

Then I checked my emails and.... I've won a Bronze Medal in the Gloucestershire Creative Olympics! For my song Windy Gloucestershire. So I am going to to an awards thing at Battle of the Winds in Stroud at the end of the month!

Then Sunday I went off to Art Tournaments No Hoax where I read out more of my Political Converse including another song 🙂 This was all whilst wearing my flashing corset!

Sound quality is naff and I am competing with the band in the other room! But you get the idea 🙂

I enjoyed watching the other acts and knitting whilst Alaric crotcheted - this was then topped off by winning a place in the finals for the Gloucestershire Poet Laureate! Which will take place at Gloucester Cathedral in August 🙂

So with all this I thought I should start working on my web home/hub, somewhere were all the bits of me are collected - I'm still working on it but here it is 🙂

Then I got an email saying I had made the long list for Flash Fiction South West.

I then made a cake with Alaric and Jean for Al's birthday - it didn't quiet work but tasted brilliant!

I feel I am on a roll at the moment and that I may even have reached the 'tipping point' with getting my work out there etc...

The only iffy thing has been that my SponsorMe account will be closed if I don't get some sponsors soon! People keep saying they will sponsor me but haven't yet - so if you're going to do it now please otherwise it will be too late!

Help me bring science art to all 🙂

The End of NSEW (by sarah)

So we have reached the end of National Science and Engineering Week - I have had fun following things on twitter and the like - but also seriously talking to gallery owners about putting on a Science Art Exhibition for next year.

I would also like to see more local event - I could find nothing in my area - maybe I was looking in the wrong places. We were going to go down to London to join in some stuff there but due to car braking down Alaric couldn't take me and the girls with him to London (he had to go in anyway on the train to replace our servers!).

Another thing is that I hadn't realised how many science poems I have! There are all the ones from this years World Poetry Writing Month challenge for a start - I'd focused on science and nature poetry written from New Scientist and National Geographic prompts.

So next year I plan to release the full Ballads of the Scientifica - book, CD and science art post cards.

Tomorrow will be the last day to get your free down load of what is already there.

Higgs Boson Anthology (by sarah)

I thought I would just re-high light this collection of which I am part with my poems Where Are You?

The Higgs Boson Anthology

Here is a spoken version of the poem:

Colours Song (by sarah)

The lyrics are wrong and Jean forgot what she was doing and it was filmed before we moved but I thought it fitted with the National Science and Engineering theme I was going for with this weeks posts - so here is what is essentially an outtake of a science song for kids I am working on.