Keeping Positive (by sarah)

It is 6:30 in the morning on a Sunday and I am up and awake and in alot of pain. I haven't slept and am feeling down right grotty. Last night before sleep was attempted I got angry with everyone as I fought the pain and then when I tried to leave the room found that my walking had got so bad I had to use my arms on the furniture to get to the stairs where I promtly burst into what were supposed to be quiet tears.

I've been using crutches outside and attempting to keep walking but have been ok on the short distances needed for shuffling round the house but then a few days ago I slipped on something Jean had left on the floor resulting in a painful crunch from my pelvis. Alaric found me clinging to the door frame of her room. Pelvis didn't really settle much after that - and it felt like when you sprain your ankle. Then last night I went out to a poetry ready and music event (which was fantastic) but the step up to the stage was so high that it hurt getting up there too read and I ended reading my poems shaking - I wasn't sure how much was nerves and how much was pain.

Then tonight we went out for mums birthday - it was postponed from Friday due to her having to have a biopsy for another breast lump 🙁 She gets the results next Friday. When we got home I went upstairs to change and as I tried to change into trousers I cried out in pain. My pelvis again - since then I have not even really been able to hobble - I thought it would settle down but hasn't.

The tears were because the pain is so bad but also because though it has been slow going I have been able to move about with the crutches and in the house with out them - getting little bits of say house work done here and there. This last week when Al went to London were iffy anyway as I found I couldn't do anything really - I managed to feed, wash and cloth me and Jean and feed animals and that is it. Mum and Dad arrived to a house where Jean had unmade the setee, there was three days worth of washing up in the kitchen, the fire no lit and rug covered in crumbs.

Things are seeming quiet bad - and suddenly the third trimester of this pregnancy seems to stretch to infinity. Especially when it was seriously suggested that I might like to cut up some fire wood for Barbara as it would be good exercise for me :/ I was sort of hoping that now we have a car that we could go swimming which is about the only thing I'm supposed to do :/

But I am trying to keep positive.

Mum's biopsy will hopefully be fine fingers crossed

And I am getting a replacement string from my guitar and two books of guitar music - Nursery Rhymes and Christmas Carols so I can play and me and Jeany can sing together. I am also focusing on my writing - I am obviously doing Nanowrimo and PiBoIdMo and am now able to get to some of the nano write-ins. I am going to these reguardless of pain other wise all I have is the pain. It is the same with the poetry reading and stuff - besides I really wanted to see the music and probably more importantly talk to my friends (even if they were distracted as they were running the event!).

The main thing I fear at the moment is losing the use of my hands again - but even then I am trying to remember that the hands don't forget the muscle memory I give them they just don't work for a while and yes it takes a while to get full functionality back but what I learn stays lernt. This is important for me with things like the guitar.

I can't say I'm not feeling down because I am = I have lost the freedom I fought to get by no longer being able to get to the bus stop under my own steam and with the way my pelvis is now being I don't think I can even get out of our little bit of valley 🙁

But I got accosted by people who liked my poetry one Friday - including in the girls toilets! And I am going to a Prize Giving as one of my poems has been short listed on Wednesday. This things I am holding dear.

I am writing draft two of the novel I hope to submit to the Pratchette Prize as well which seems like an achievement in itself.

And lastly - this pregnancy is still much much MUCH better than Jeany's plus unlike last time I can see this bueatiful little girl who is being like my best friend most of the time and I think yes it was hard - so hard last time but look what I got! I have my Jeany and I'm going to have another one 🙂

Jean's been asking me to go through the songs I used to sing to her as a small baby - some of which are the same as now and some of which are different. The first song I sang to her was a sung grace saying thankyou I learnt in Kenya. I thought I was going to die with her and then with the miscarriage and infection we were worried that there wasn't a hope for another baby and yet here I am in the third trimester. This makes me happy - honest - even though I cry in pain I am happy.

Spiky Spoken Word (by sarah)

This Friday I am going to be reading my poetry and depending on how brave I'm feeling maybe some of my sort of rap/performance geek poetry at the Frog and Fiddle . It costs about £4 to get in I think and on top of that there is A F Harold who is well worth a watch for his interesting poems (I'm not biased because he used one of my cats names in his Tweet Poetry for the Cheltenham Lit Festival honest!). There is also Men Diamler and Brown Torpedo who I have been meaning to blog about for ages and have like photos of performances and stuff but haven't gotten round to yet!

Men Diamler is what I think of as a sort Nick Cave / White Strips mix with a dark middle English ring to it. He weaves fantastical and often tragic tails in his music and yes I am a fan 😉

Brown Torpedo are erm... well the only way I can think of describing them off the top of my head is, I suppose - Trippy with that sort ethereal swerl allowing dreams of the present day - or something Simon from Uni would make us all listen too and then tell me they don't exist and I imagined them the next day!

Oxford’s International Women’s Festival Poetry Competition (by sarah)

I'm going to be entering this competition - it's one pound a poem and the theme is women and well being. Deadline is the 5th of November so I thought I'd let you all know about it. I'm entering 5 odd poems covering a range of what is termed 'women's' issues but what I think of as far broader than that. I'm even sending in Charcoal which I wrote after reading an article in the National Geographic about women in the Congo. There is no restriction in the sexes where the competition is concerned (otherwise I would not be entering).

National Poetry Day Uk 2010 (by sarah)

Today is National Poetry Day UK and the them is Home. Like last year Jeany has composed a poem - this time it's a bit longer and she wanted to do loads more poems too :/

I like my home
It is great
But my window
Should be a different colour
It should be rainbow

I told the painter
And he didn't paint it
The colours I wanted
It should be
Blue, green, red, purple, yellow, black

I Jean love my home
I love my drinks bottle
And my slinky
It is rainbow coloured
Purple, orange, pink, blue, green, yellow
And it's boingy

I love my dinosaurs
My plastic ones
I'm covered in rainbows

I love my cats
I love Tom he's white and ginger
I love Helium she's white and black
I love Hydrogen she's white and black and pink

I love my toy baby
I love my rabbit
He's the same as Helium
The guinea pigs are daft

My slinky goes round my head a bit

I love my home
I love my computer
Oh no there's cornflakes
All over the floor

The tea cup and everything are good
Except the windows

Science is Vital Poem/Rap (by sarah)

Science is vital the scientist said
The politicians just shook their heads
And smiled oh so very primly
they knew what's best they said rather grimly

Science is vital the teacher cried!
The politicians shrugged and simply lied
The way they had done before
Is telling the truth such a chore?

Science is vital the nurse intoned
The politicians thought it just - another funding moan
Even with their private health care plans
They failed to see what drove - those cancer scans

Science is vital the cleaner shouted
The politicians just looked at money and counted
Forgetting to take in the longer view
Thus knotting the financials into a thorny stew

Science is vital the artist sang
The politicians ignored them till the world went bang
Or did at least for an island at the edge of the world
Crushed and broken is societal whorls

Slowly it crumbled to the sea
A brain drain leaving it's people be
Without the intellectual resources to save themselves
This is what historians will see once they delve

A people derelict and poverty stricken
Science is vital

Why
did
they
not
listen?