Knitted Atoms (by sarah)

These are a few of the knitted atoms I made at Wychwood Festival whilst listening to great bands, comedy, pirate pantos, and poetry. They along with some red oxygen, green Chlorine and a few others will be sewn together as molecular representations of things like sucrose (sugar). These will shortly be on display as part of the Please Touch Exhibition at Centre Arts in Cheltenham.

I was quiet happy to find that I was knitting at a festival on Knit in Public Day as well 🙂

Stroud Water Festival 40 yrs Party (by sarah)

Last weekend we went to the Stroud On Water Festival for me to read my poetry - it was on our wanting to do list anyway so I was very happy to be asked and in some ways wish we had been able to spend the whole weekend there but obviously I had originally been booked for another festival which had to be canceled due to flooding. (Today we are off to another wet looking festival!).

It was a lovely festival with victorians wondering in to listen to poetry.

I got fed coffee, eton mess and other goodies whilst listening to the other poetry - Alaric and girls missed my performances which was a shame.

After the poetry we wondered about and bought plants and things and looked mainly at bees!

It was the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the restoration of the canals - so here are some photos of work on the canals 🙂

They had a steam roller!

But for me I think the highlight of the day was that as Alaric and the girls left a tent I heard '....good to see the Gotye impersonator has bought his children along...' I missed the rest of the conversation so am not sure it was Alaric that was ment but I think it must have been 🙂 On top of that random people he meets are now saying the same to him :/

Goldy (by sarah)

This is a rubbish photo of the fish but until he becomes a bit more accustomed to things it is probably all we are going to get - his name is Goldy the Goldfish and Jean won him at the Fair. We were a bit alarmed to see that this was still going on and the more we explained why it wasn't a good idea to get one of the fish the more determined she became to get one as they looked so sad :/

So to cut a long story short she had a set budget for the Fair - she got a goldfish - we all went home to sort the gold fish out - she insisted on carrying him home herself and fretted about weather he could breath and showed him to any and all other children we passed along the way.

I told of my carnival fish Sandy and Shelly that I had at her age and Daddy spoke of how he and his mother used to win as many of them as they could in order to save them when he was little.

Alaric turns out to be a fish expert (at least as far as goldfish are concerned) and we had wanted to get fish as the New House Pets as there had been fish here when we came to look around.

Once home Alaric and Jean set about equalising temperatures of water with the bag in a bowl - so that the poor thing wouldn't get shocked being put in new water. Then we zoomed out to buy supplies. Which being a bank holiday wasn't that easy!

It is only a small tank for now as we just don't have the money but hopefully say next month we can get a larger one - Goldy seems abit worried about the space to be honest and has mainly hidden behind the plastic plant and dug himself a little whole in the gravel.

Today we went to the Aquatic Habitate to get a real plant and a snail - Jean wanted a shrimp but apparently Goldy would eat it (it was not much smaller than Goldy!). Anyway Jeany has named the snail Slimy and is now obsessed with alliteration :/

Again Jean insisted on carrying the snail and has been very militant about feeding the fish and has even taken to remembering to feed her rabbit without being reminded.

I'm glad we have the fish and we are all looking forward to establishing an ecosystem but we were not happy to find them at the Fair and worse than that - in rescuing Goldy we are supporting the trade :/ But Goldy actually came out to see us today when we came in which we think is a good sign 🙂

Festival Sheep for Wychwood :) (by sarah)

This is Ianto and Yori who are really looking forward to Wychwood at the weekend - they are hoping that all the festival goers will make them lovely multicoloured fleeces to wear just incase of the rain.

Party in the Park (by sarah)

Today we went to the Party in the Park in Gloucester - we weren't sure of the weather and we wanted to walk in to see how my pelvis held up so we did not pack a picnic something we did regret. But it was a great day (bar the goldfish which I shall cover in another post).

We arrived and the first thing that struck me was that there is actually alot of grander in Gloucester that I just haven't noticed before probably as the last time I took a camera in to take photos specifically of Gloucester I was doing it twinned with visits to Bristol, London and Swindon to take photos of derilict buildings for a comic book/RPG project.

The first thing in the park we came to was the Museum folk who had a giant pie they were filling with messages for the Queen which will be presented to her in September. So Jeany wrote a message and bored people by asking questions on how the pie crust was made and rabbiting on about my papier mache 🙂

Then Jean found a lovely simplistic game of using balls to knock over knights which she spent ages on!

Jean then made a crown of crowns of crowns of crowns of... well I lost count but I loved the concept 🙂 She said it made it infinitly more crowny 🙂 We tried to include the baby but she was happy just shredding the tissue paper flowers I made her!

Jean then bought a flag followed and we walked onto another stool "oh no! purple Daddy - Mummy will be here for ages". Though she changed her mind a bit when I bought her a knitted cupcake bracelet (pin cushion!) - I've been promising to knit her and Mary a plate of cakes since February. Anyway it turned out the stall was run by a local crafting/knitting etc... group. They are called The Wild Cherries of Gloucester and look interesting. My only issue is that it does say it's a women's social group and I dislike that on equality grounds but on the other hand recently I have discovered that alot of things that call themselves that are really pleased and suprised when Alaric produces his crotchett.

I shall be having a nose around anyway - I really miss the London Geeky Crafters.

Then we went to the fun fair and Jean had a set limit of £5 which ment she got to go on two things one of which has resulted in us now owning a goldfish (Goldy).

Because it was a party Jean insisted we play party games when we got home. So we played pass the parcel were the baby got fed up of the package being given too her and taken away again and so ran off with it! Musical bumps which Jean won as Daddy has further to flop, Musical Statues which I won (against Mary), Musical Chairs which Mary won by Jean being complacent, but it's ok cos daddy won pass the parcel - a fine pipe cleaner bracelet Jean had made in neon colours 🙂

We were then going to go and watch the beacon lighting after dinner and a skype call with Al's family but alas the baby fell asleep and I was emmersed in LitChat, our timing had been thrown out by an emergency goldfish accomadation search. I went upstairs to my studio in dispondance only to see by pure chance the beacon being lit on top of Robin Hoods Hill from my window!