Never, Ever, Ever Give Up! (by sarah)

When my friend Charlee came to visit she bought stuff in this lovely panda bag. I love the image of the panda kicking the celestial butt and saying never to give up! So I took a photo and posted it to facebook tagging all those people I know are having a hard to at the moment with various things :) But I also like the style of drawing. It's got another lovely photo on the back saying Follow Your Own Star :) and other inspirational things written on it. [This appears to be the company it is from](http://www.artbox.co.uk/) - I am trying to ignore that they have a Domo cuddly toy :)

Weaveworld (by sarah)

I follow Clive Baker's page on Facebook and he/his admin posted a piece on concept art surrounding his novel Weaveworld which is my favourite of his books and one I found important in my development as a reader and writer. I read Weaveworld when I was thirteen/fourteen - it was a struggle and it was the second of what I think of as full length novels that I read, the first being The Eight. I pretty much had been on point horrors until then. I picked it up on a second hand book stall in Romford market whilst out with my friends Helen and Nikki - It was dark and scary and romantic and lovely and enchanting and it introduced me to Literature - before each section there are quotes and many of these I fell in love with and wrote out into my diary with illustrations, they are from the text book greats but at the time I had never heard of them, it was also the first time I saw poetry coupled so intensely with the prose of a book. The story made me hungry for more stories and I moved on the James Herbert and Stephen King and Anne McCaffrey and a mirrade of others but the quotes made me want these other things and so I found a plethora of ancient and not so ancient writings that resonated with me and I began trying to craft complex multi-threaded stories, to think of stories within stories and to realise there a wealth of legends and histories around the globe I could 'steal' for my own writing. I would walk home from school with my nose stuck in these books and sleep on the floor of my bedroom as I'd filled the bed up with books from the school library, town library, charity shops and friends. I would set myself the task of reading more and more each day - I was in love with words and stories which had so recently been nothing but the bain of my life. The memories of this washed over me as I saw the post on facebook. I am sitting here with the book that I last read at 21 - it has been lent to a lot of people and is starting to fall to pieces but I am wondering what I will make of it now? The way I used to choose books from the second hand book stall was to go in and close my eyes and see what book 'called to me' - this yielded a jem everytime though this is probably because I was always starting off in the speculative fiction (Horror, scifi, fantasy) section, The first book I got via this process was The Eight which years later proved to be a wonderous cross over of reading between me and Alaric. I love books - I now have a shelf devoted to Clive. I should read Weaveworld again.

The Gloucester Litter Picker (by sarah)

Today on the outskirts of Gloucester we saw an old man litter picking the road verges with his own bin in hand - I found this inspirational and heart breaking - the litter should not be there for a start, and litter that is a accident etc... should get cleaned up as part of the city maintenance, the old man is caring for his local environment and as such is a leading light. I couldn't get a photo and it started raining so I have drawn a sketch of him from memory.

UWE, Goslings and Me (by sarah)

Today I had a bit of a mixed medium day - I went to UWE (University of the West of England) in Bristol to look around their science communication centre and to talk about maybe doing the post graduate certificate there. Being me I arrived stupidly early and was doing my normal clumsy performance with my paper work and bag and what not. My legs have also not recovered from the poetry festival yet so I found keeping up with the lovely woman who was showing me around a bit hard but I managed it. The university campus is quiet different to UCL and IC and for that matter the OU - there was lovely wall art/graffiti type stuff with inspiring messages through out the place - they are more the sort of thing I would have expected at a six form college - but I love this type of art work so annoyed students by getting in there way to take pictures. They also had a random fruit and veg stall inside! The department itself looked pretty much like others I have been in that have not yet had some sort of corporate make over. There were examples of publications and works of the students on the walls and an air of hard work. I feel I was't my normal energetic self as I was having a mild flare up but then in many ways this is a good thing as I needed to check I could get about on a not so good day anyway. As many of you know I came out of the failed to complete MRes experience knowing that I enjoyed putting together my talk and writing the essays more than I probably should have - add that to the fact that I have been building myself up as a writer and artist over the last few years and the natural shift is obvious - science communication. I've been looking at this course for a while and got a prospectus last year and have tracked down people who have done the course and spoken to friends at the uni about what it is like. The course sounds more doable due to the structure of it than the MRes was as I like to focus on things - it is in blocks of 3 days which means it is less travel time etc... than what I was doing before which was all evenings and in London. I also now live in walking distance to the train station that takes me to the train station in Bristol I need which is a vast improvement! I am applying for the bursary but there is only one so it is unlikely that I will get it though I have already writing the first draft of an article for it. Alaric also things this is far more doable than last time - we are in a more stable position and I have back up money for it in case and it is going be less of an issue with finding child care solutions. Having said all this I am still nervous that I will not get a space or that something will go wrong but I still have to try. And that leads me to module choices - I want to do them all to be honest :/ After the meeting I wondered out to meet Al who was in Bristol (almost getting myself hit by a car as I was looking the wrong way :/ due to being confused about traffic flow and the round about! I also had my waist length hair down which was stupid as it was sooooo windy). He popped over to pick me up and whilst I was waiting I found goslings! The photos are not brilliant as the light levels kept changing and it was soooo windy - I tied my hair up! There were ducks and moles too! I also found a bench with The Personal is Political written on it. Once home we went to get a cat tree to stop the kitten shredding everything - Mary was not impressed that I had gotten out of the car without her again at Bristol so was very clingy - as was the kitten. When I got home - I sat down in the nursing chair for a rest and... was instantly covered in cute things!

Muppet or Mr Men? (by sarah)

Yesterday Alaric awoke looking like this - well the hair not the face. The face came latter when he looked into the bathroom mirror and in horror began this conversation: Al: ARRRRG!!!!! What the hell has happened to my hair? What have you done to it? You sprayed it in the night didn't you? Me: It's boufont People pay money for that Al: Yeah in the 80's! I have since shared it on facebook a couple of times - the last asking the question Muppet or Mr Man? I was already thinking of adding captions to this but serval people have suggest Lolcatz type captions and I also think he looks remarkably like grumpy cat who he happens to share a birthday with. For those who do not know who grumpy cat is check out the [link](http://www.grumpycats.com/). If anybody has any caption suggestions popped them underneith in the comments section :)