Physics has become boring (by alaric)

A common trope in contemporary science fiction is a small team in a lab somewhere (be it academia, industry, or just a hobbyist in a basement) fiddling around and discovering some new science - usually, some way of travelling to other universes or something (and then a whole load of plot unfolds as they accidentally unleash some terrible evil or whatever).

But... that kind of thing just doesn't happen any more. Sure, back in the 1600s, you might sit in a lab and discover electricity; back then, many of the fundamental forces that bind the Universe together were ripe for the discovering. As the centuries passed, the easy stuff was cleaned up bit by bit; in the early twentieth century, relativity and quantum theory cleared up the last mysteries that were easily recreated on a hobbyist budget. There was some fun to be had in nuclear physics, which could be experimented with if you had institutional-level funds to build particle accelerators and atomic piles; but since then, all the really cool peeling-back-the-mysteries physics requires vast financial resources.

What, then, for the nerd in a basement? Not only is exciting physics beyond their grasp, but the escapism of science fiction is dulled by the difficulty of suspending disbelief when our plucky heroes rewire a microwave oven to generate a disruption field that prevents the formation of a super-wormhole to R'lyeh. There's no shortage of fun things that can be built to demonstrate known physics, such as a desktop fusion reactor; but that's just an engineering challenge. There's no new science. Wikipedia's excellent List of unsolved problems in physics is sadly short of things that can be explored from one's bedroom; they're mostly highly theoretical problems, for a start. Perhaps a better-funded amateur could tinker with high-temperature superconductors, but the others on that list seem to either require vast machinery, or just pondering mathematical solutions to problems...

Sudden Snow (by alaric)

When we went to bed last night, it was raining hard. So I was pretty surprised when I got up in the morning to find the world covered in about ten centimetres of snow.

And even more surprised to find that the awning over the back door had fallen down, blocking it so I had to get out via another door to investigate:

The weight of the snow had been too much, causing the bracket on the left to shear off:

This, in turn, pulled the bracket on the right out of the wall:

And the falling awning crushed our little table:

Jean and I managed to undo the surviving bolts and get it off the wall without further destruction. The wall is undamaged at the left bracket:

But the bricks are cracked where the bracket pulled out at the right, and the mortar has plenty of cracking too, so this will need some work:

Also, our outside light is mangled and just hanging on by the cables, and will need replacing:

International Mens Day (by sarah)

It is International Mens Day today - this popped up in my memories on Facebook - Alaric curled up with kitten Lithium after her op. Alaric as he says is not shy about his emotions like most male people but he does still have extreme self reliance which causes him much misery and is part of the bundle that makes men more likely to commit suicide - my friends that have killed themselves to escape the dark places have so far all been men - here is the tribute song/poem that I made for them:

And also Al's write up of the miscarriage from the father point of view. Something which often gets over looked.

And guys - if you are in that dark place please please seek help - I know it's the hardest thing to do.

Universal Misdirection (by sarah)

This morning is the first morning alone since the miscarriage as Alaric has had to go to work in Cheltenham, I did last night with just me and Mary but mainly she went to bed and I made Christmas cards until Al and Jean came in.

This is a whole day of empty house - so I decided to make more cards - I like making cards. I made it up to my attic, rested, looked through things until I found my crate of card making things... I bought it down stairs - my stomach is now unsurprisingly hurting and cramping up again. I'm not quiet sure what I was thinking, but in my defence it wasn't a heavy crate.

Anyway - I have made lit. hundreds of cards - no idea what I am going to do with them - I want to make more as well. I think I'll just put them out as "pay what you want" at the 2 craft fairs I am doing. And of course we wont have to buy any cards...

Mainly this is a distraction - I am trying not to think too hard whilst on my own. I've finally started my NaNoWriMo and got to 1000 words last night - again I was on my own with Mary in bed and I needed to blot my own thoughts out or rather have them on the perifery where I can think about them but not always feel them.

I still have a living room full of Christmas Craft stuff I'd gotten ready to run workshops with when it all went wrong. The kids and their friends keep randomly making things out of them.

Tuesday I went for my physio/neurology appointment for treatment to do with the head injury. The universe being the universe decided to kick me or attempt to a healiness or something and my physio had chosen that day to announce she was pregnant and going off on maternity leave - not that she needed to announce it what with her little belly.

Then I had to tell her what was wrong and why I hadn't been doing my exercises and why I was having a huge flare up of concussion symptoms. I am not sure who the appointment was harder for but she handled it well and head injury stuff is on a break for a month until I recover from this.

And also it might be aneamia causing alot of the problems so I need to go to my GP and have a review with the head injury team to try and sort things out. I am mucking up numbers again - I ordered the wrong knitting needles that I needed to finish a project off and I order twice as much mega chunky huge wool/yarn to do make Jean's rug with than I need.

But I managed to go for a short walk around the block and to make some food yesterday which is a huge inprovement. This was increadibly important yesterday as they day started pretty roughly with another kick in the teeth from the universe - we have a letter from the hospital for the Dr surgery but I've needed a lot of looking after and there have been alot of things to cancel/book etc... for Alaric to sort out and the up shot is the Dr surgery didn't yet know about me loosing the baby so I get a phone call from a super chirpy midwife congratulating me.

I said. "oh... no"

And obviously they were startled by this - I then explained with my voice getting quieter and higher in pitch. The phone call had woken me up, I had not slept well due to stabbing pains shooting through me. I'd only answered because I thought it would be the person saying the combined ashes had been scattered.

I should have tried to book more bloods then like the physio had told me too but before I could the midwife said she was sorry and didn't know what to say and then said goodbye. I cried. It would have been the day we had the next scan to see if the baby was still growing or was dead so it wouldn't have been a good timing for the phone call what ever.

I'd cried once we left the physio appointment too - I just can't help but think "thank Universe" over this at the moment.

On top of that I am angry at the universe - this means I end up in internet arguments with 50 yr old men who think they know more about the second world war than me. Or that women just plan can't understand strategy etc... Thank goodness my dad doesn't think like this and as he says he's 70!

He's a star and spent an hour on the phone talking to me about military history snippets he'd picked up he thought I might not have heard yet - he is a good distraction - knitting is a good distraction - shame the project is a breast feeding shawl but it was started for this pregnancy or even for me so I think I'm ok with it.

I realise that the two books I was supposed to have out before Christmas are not going to really happen but I have started to prod them a little further towards the finishing line - they were going to be tight anyway and with everything that's happened and me not even really sure of day/week I think it's best to just let the projects complete when they complete.

My inlaws have been wonderful - phoning up from South Africa and Brighton and offering support etc... and friends too - from all the different stages and parts of our lives.

Physically I am getting there (as long as I don't try to do stuff) and emotionally - well I'm a mess but I think that is the healthy thing at this stage - only time will tell on that one.

Can I have Christmas now?

An Outing (by sarah)

Yesterday we attempted a gentle outing - I'd really really wanted to see Paddington 2 and it is one of the few films that the whole family would be happy seeing - I've been waiting for it to come out. Cinema is expensive so it is normally reserved for special occasions.

The cramps have reduced drastically so we thought we'd try it, you can park relatively close to the cinema and it is basically just sitting down and I wanted to do something fun and family.

It was a great outing but... a) I lacked the energy and clean cloths to get dressed in so was in my christmas onsie with a large jumper over the top b) just the walk to the cinema ended with me clinging on to Jean and walking so so slowly - I had to sit down whilst we got tickets and muddlied my food order.

The process of sitting down is also often still painful and I had to take it slowly, I still have a horrible cough and it hurts everything inside so goodness knows what the teen boy next to me thought.

I became light headed and dizzy during the trailers - not sure if that is due to the miscarriage or the head injury and I had to leave the film at one point due to cramps/contractiony things but...

The film was lovely and Jean and I shared pop corn and Mary did her little laugh and ended up snugged on Daddy and I only cried once but it was a happy cry.

It was physically painful and probably not something we should have done but mentally I think we as a family needed it - Mary has been asking for a kitten then getting concerned that it will die before we get it home - Jean snapped at her about this asking why she was obsessed with pets dying like that. Mary paused and said "because of the baby". Yes we haven't hidden this stuff from them - a) I don't think we could have even if we had tried b) it is their family too and this is their grief too.

They both need hugs at the moment (though this did result in both of them managing to hit my stomach and cause a lot of pain which they then both felt bad about :/).

Physically I am in that annoying place of thinking I'm fine whilst semi laying down but crumbling as soon as I try and do anything. Saturday night Alaric cried again - I heard him and came to hug him - we are in separate beds because our bed is broken and not comfy for me and I am still getting the cramps and would keep waking him up and that is not fair as he is doing everything - working, housework, the kids and looking after me and being Al he feels his responsibilities very keenly and so trekked out to the Remembrance Day stuff yesterday morning but felt guilty about leaving me.

He heard me crying yesterday morning and came in to hug me - kind of ironically (or something) I was crying because he'd been crying - I was crying because I was remembering his pain and anguish and I don't want my husband to be hurting like this.

Mainly I like seeing babies and children and though sometimes I cry at specifics I'm finding my friends life shares about baby first smiles and things more healing and happy moments than despair. I did cry at older sisters holding baby dollies sitting next to their younger sibling being held but it was still healing. But social media network bots have gotten hold of the pregnancy thing and not the miscarriage thing and so I am receiving targeted ads for baby and pregnancy stuff - this I find hard and hurtful.

Al has canceled Wednesday's scan - this was the scan to see if the baby was growing. The Early Pregnancy Unit said we can make an appointment and talk to them if needed - right now I would like to stop bleeding and having cramps. It's not heavy but there is still the occasional (small) clot which I don't like.

We've told both schools - Jean was late several times last week and being Jean just wrote down "traffic" in the book for why.

I've kind of lost over a week of time - it was suddenly Sunday and my last coherent day was the Thursday morning before the cough hit bad and the bleeding started, this was not the Thursday just gone. It's all a bit of a jumble.

I'm supposed to go to the hospital for my physio for the head injury tomorrow - I'm not sure there is a lot of point but at the same time I am also not sure really what I am supposed to be doing about all of that as I can't currently do some/most of the exercises :/

Everyone has been amazingly supportive and I know we haven't replied - just overwhelmed at the moment.

Paddington was a good film - me and the girls loved it Al said it was all right. Jean announced she is Jean Pym and likes Computer Games at the end of it 🙂