Bread Maker :) (by sarah)

I discovered a while back that soya was making the bleeding worse so we tired to get bread without it in - this ment no ready sliced bread etc... and checking with bakeries etc... but then it turned out that some of them didn't really know what was going into their bread and we were told they didn't contain soya and then when my Dad went he was told they did!

So we were making bread by hand except that my hands can't really take the neading, fortunately a friend stepped in with some no nead bread recipes which are great but I still missed classic bread.

Then my cousins decided they did not want their bread maker anymore and said we could have it! This was in the summer - it took us until Christmas to actually go and pick it up!

But we have been enjoying it 🙂

A day of drilling (by alaric)

Last Thursday, I had my safety induction for using the laser cutter at Bristol Hackspace, and as my test piece I laser-cut a name tag for Jean. She likes that sort of thing.

However, she requested that it have a hole in the corner, so she can attach it to her school bag. So today we went down to the workshop and I helped her to drill it out.

But I had more drilling to do. A friend asked me on Facebook how she could drill holes through pebbles. It just so happens that Sarah owns a set of diamond core drills, so I borrowed them and had a go, so that I could offer some advice.

I set the bit up in the column drill:

The challenge was in how to hold the stone still while it was being drilled. Irregular shapes are tricky to hold. First off, I tried a simple clamp:

The drilling has to happen under water, to help cool it and to wash away the dust that the stone turns into. I put some scraps of cardboard underneath so that I drilled into that once I was through the stone, rather than the bottom of my box, which would lead to it leaking all over my cluttered workbench:

As soon as the drill cut in, dust whooshed out into the water and made it impenetrably murky, so after a short drilling session, I took the stone out of the water to see what was happening:

It looked good so I tried again, but this time the stone pivoted in the clamp. I tried to clamp it back again but it wouldn't go back at the same angle and kept shifting, so I tried a new approach - gluing it to a piece of wood that was large enough to not be able to rotate inside the box, so I just needed to hold the box steady while drilling:

That worked quite well, but the vibration shook the stone loose after a while, and I had trouble with the wood wanting to float and the stone wanting to sink causing it to flip over in the water. so I glued it more thoroughly (making sure glue came over the side of the stone so it was held in place rather than just stuck in place), and glued a bit of scrap metal to the bottom to stop it floating over:

That worked; now the stone was steady, it was easy to press on all the way. I had to drill a millimetre then back out (with the drill still spinning) to clear the dust out into the water, then press on again. Progress was slow but steady, taking a few seconds to do each millimetre:

Once I felt it go through the bottom of the stone, I had no trouble in peeling the rubbery hot-melt glue back with my fingernails to free the stone. Job done:

So, to conclude:

• Use a column drill.
• Use a diamond core bit.
• Hold the stone steadily in something that conforms to its shape. An ideal technique might be to use something like Plasticene to firmly secure it to the bottom of the box before pouring the water in.
• Drill slowly, backing off to clean the bit every millimetre or so.

When I came back, Sarah was asleep on the sofa:

Aww!

Chores (by sarah)

Yes I know the picture is over exposed the camera is broken! But I think you can still make out Jean sweeping the front 'garden' bit of the house. Oh my how she wailed about this because to get the broom she had to take her wellies off rather than just stomp through the house in them and there were bricks where she wanted to brush and what do you mean I've got to put it all in the bin bag I thought I just had to make a pile. The neighbours probably thought we were being really mean but she was getting book money for it and had asked to do jobs that would help and then tried to choose the jobs!

Plus in the end she was happily trying to tame street cats and making a game of it and talking excitedly about how she moved a slug etc... In the end she enjoyed but the first bit was hell.

Broken Mugs and Birthdays (by sarah)

So today is my 32nd meaning that I am the same age my mother was when she had me and that 16 was half a life time ago!

I've just had two school friends over for a couple of days and as always we talked of school, the bullies, the crushes, the arguments and so forth. Was school really half a life time ago? Was school only half a life time ago?

So much stuff has happened in that sixteen years and yet... and yet I feel pretty much exactly the same bar health issues which started around then anyway.

But in same ways I have changed - on seeing The Hobbit I can tell you how as well. I am Bilbo Baggins, I had a stronge adventurous streak in me when I was younger, I did climbing and archery and hiked through mud and went of to do a geology degree, had a stunt bike and never admitted that things phased me or scared me. I went off to London for Uni on my own even though the prospect was petrifying! On many different levels.

I liked doing stuff all the time, choir, gardening, caving, taking my friends on long rambling walks and designing dresses. But now everything feels more sedate and constrained. And the nearer I got to 30 the more ok that sort of life seemed. But then the last year as I was plunged into the world of festivals I began to hunger for it all but after the chaos of the last few years and the struggle to sort our lives out I found I didn't want things too busy and craved the stability of home. I also began to see just how lucky I was - after all the struggles and trials we have our home and it is a brilliant home and it is ours and even before that I had Al and the girls and my family and friends. Ok so health is missing but I suppose you can't have everything. I am in the middle of a mild flare up at the moment - I call it mild - it has persisted for a while and would be termed a set back by physios but really it is not. I know that if I am careful I can continue to be productive through it and look after my kids though the house may get messier.

It wont last more than a few weeks if I rest and then I will be up and at em in time for festival season starting.

One of the things that has led me to thinking about if I have changed though is that a) people tell me I haven't changed and b) the people who used to moan at me that I acted too grown up now moan that I am too immature and too me they have grown boring.

And too be honest I fear that boredom, that conventualism more than I fear the chaos. But I am scared of new things, and so this year y 32nd is about pushing my personal boundaries to stop me stagnating, to stop everything including the new skills I aquire from just becoming gears within the machine of existence.

During the Olymipics I felt a great sense of what I can achieve pour into me once more and though I know that my health is always going to put a spanner in the works, those leaks and breakages to the flow can be worked around. I thought on all I have achieved already and all that I feel is within my grasp and I sat and drew pictures - I filled a note book with them and have many more that wish to be drawn.

They are called The Inspira Pictures. This one is called Face Your Fears and is apt for my plans 🙂

Also I broke my Pocket Dragon birthday wishes mug which made me really sad but at the same time the search to replace it has shown me there are quiet a few designs out there still. The pocket dragon stuff isn't made anymore which is a real shame and I was really looking forward to using it over the weekend - for which I have gaming and film watching planned. I get quiet grumpy about m mugs and things which again has led me to the Hobbitness - the buttons also all popped off my coat :/ And I have hairy toes if I do not pluck, I am also rather... erm... short and if I thought I could get away with it would love to have second breakfast but alas the waist line is bad enough as it is!

This film was not The Hobbit as such - it was a mix and match across the books and alot more dramatic than the book with depths added that just weren't there. It is however a brilliant prequal to Lord of The Rings and made in that style. The Dwarfs however were alot more 'man' like than expected coughs with two cuties to boot! Though Oaken Shield really didn't need to look like a stocky Aragorn did he?

But Bilbo's sentiment at the end that he has a home, a lovely home and they don't and that is why he is helping them just reinforced my desire to help. Before Christmas I embarked on a mad cap scheme of trying to illustrate a book in like two weeks but with Christmas prep and the fact that not many people sponsored me I didn't make it but I am going to be working on this through the year now and hope to run some other events as well such as Creativi-Tea which I blog about later. I just can not take the thought of thousands of kids being homeless or in temp. accomidation so you will be hearing more and more about this!

So for now I am off to spend my birthday writing and drawing and baking cakes in prep for the weekend but here is the sponsor button just incase :).

Jean and Piggies and Cat (by sarah)

This photo is from a few years ago at the old house - the Christmas after we got the ginea pigs - as you can see they were well loved and we miss them greatly - I think we were so busy at the time that we never really got around to blogging and stuff about them. I may add some back blogs in but just wanted to share this pic with you all.

Along with this one of the run being protected from the sunshine - Jean is sitting under the big umbrella if you look carefully.