Brilliantly Big Birthday Bonanza BBQ, Banquet and Baffonary (by sarah)

Friday it all started with the arrival of the alien shroom

a.k.a. my father or Ferfer as he is better known. This was accompanied by the rest of my family as in my mum.

My bro and his wife all of whom got family snuggles 🙂

Jean had been preparing treats for the last few days 🙂

Which she forced people to eat - especially people with April birthdays

I'd been baking too.

Lots of DIY and work on the house was done then Saturday night more madness ensued with the arrival of friends who also had April birthdays - they bought yummy vegan cake with them 🙂

We ordered take away - I set the table up nicely - the 'new' table as in my grandmothers dinning table which had come up in my parents car on Friday. It has leaves that fold out to make it a big table - but there were now 11 people in the house so I went for buffet style.

Food arrived - a mix of pizza, chips, curry, and chinese food. Everyone was catered for 🙂

Including the baby

Aunty Michelle kept giving in and feeding her 🙂

The next day - with five birthdays to cater for we decided BBQ was the way to go 🙂

the neighbours bought round cake too as it was their easter celebration 🙂

Of course it had to be lit first

Then the celebrating began 🙂

My Bro on his birthday celebration 🙂

The weekend also saw scrabble playing

And Music!

A good time was had by all 🙂

p.s. almost forgot to mention the welding and papier mache that took place too!

Stroud Dance Festival 2012 (by sarah)

This is Jean getting ready for her dancing at the Stroud Dance Festival. She did really well though had to sit out one of the dances due to feeling sick towards the end - it was very hot in the hall and the kids were doing A LOT of dancing.

Not The Oxford Literary Festival 2012 (by sarah)

On March 30th I headed to Oxford to read some of my up coming collection Political Converse. Earlier that day I died my hair what was supposed to be purple - it came out not but that didn't matter. I had a weekend then week then month of readings and workshops, it was time to get rid of the four inch roots plus I was nervous and this sort of thing helps me cope and actually go and perform.

Then there was the issue that due to scare mongering there was no fuel to be had so we had which set up a panic but was quickly solved and we were on our way.

We arrived in plenty of time and then spent an hour trying to find somewhere to park - we didn't use the park and ride as our experience with it have not been good and as I'm still struggling with walking we need to be somewhere relatively near the event.

But we arrived in time to catch the end of an interesting session on self publishing and small indie presses. Including a talk from Dennis Hamley who I remembered from my school days! Though this didn't stop me saying that if he ever met my dad and drink was involved - they would never stop discussing the war (as in WWII).

We then had some fantastic music.

And no I don't remember anyones names 🙁 And that goes for the poets too!

This guy had been involved in the UnCut protests and got himself arrested for being in a shop and reading poetry which is menacing behaviour - if I understood it correctly.

This guy is an ex-solider and has PTSD - his poetry was powerful and I also found out that Westminster is trying to make it illegal to help the homeless to get rid of the problem before the Olympics which makes me sick. I shall be looking into that one a bit more - the guy is involved with various charities.

Dan Holloway the organiser and runner of Eight Cuts Gallery.

I'd bought a posse:

And then sang my Shit Creek I was very nervous and struggled to get my voice out - Alaric said it was just quiet at the beginning but I still did it 🙂 I then read my poetry.

More Poets:

The whole thing was run in the loveliest book shop in the world (that I have found so far). The Albion Beatnik in Oxford - it is almost what me and Alaric wanted to ran our Salaric Emporium (books, gifts, tea, think), back in my uni days.

The night ended on a high with much laughter and deep thought. People left to put poetry to the public - stringing it on fences and what nots. We left to grab a veggie kebab and drive back to Gloucestershire.

p.s. my set was similar but not the same as I read at the Art Tournament No Hoax on the Sunday which Alaric videoed.

Sound quality is naff sorry about that!

The Five Commandments of Sarah (by sarah)

My five commandments (in response to the author Anne Rice's question on Facebook)

1. Love all including yourself
2. cause the least possible harm
3. think for yourself
4. listen to others but make up your own mind
5. Do not be wasteful

What I found interesting was that many people just rehashed the biblical code with no thought as to the base concepts. I do not like the 10 commandments mainly due to them reguarding me as possession of my husband/family. But there was some under laying concepts there thickly overlain by the culture of the time. My 5 have no divine providence they are just the result of me thinking how I would like to live my life and how I think others should too.

The fifth is really part of the second in the same way that making up your own mind is thinking for yourself. Taking responsibility for your own actions I could have slipped in there but erroniously felt it was part of the thinking for yourself - though in hindsight it would make a good fifth.

Ten Things That Amaze Me About Me (by sarah)

1. My six year old daughter has a spelling age that is the same as I had at 18. Though my vocabulary has always been massive as in exceeded what is expected for an average adult in the UK in primary school.

2. I am obsessed with reading and learning things though I still do not have an adult reading age. Reading at all didn't really happen for me until about the age of 12. I am still a slow reader - I read text books for fun.

3. I got glandular fever and failed my first year at university - then had back and mobility issues involving painful weekly hospital trips plus a side helping of IBS with ulcers. And I still have a degree from one of the best Universities in the World and it was so close to a first it's painful.

4. I am so shy it is classed as a medical issue compounded by C-PTSD but I have a solution - it is called performing - as in stage.

5. My hearing needed sorting yet I have always been obsessed with music and probably because of this it is a thing I feel with my body and not just something I hear. I still struggle with comprehension if I can not see a persons lips moving.

6. Shyness and stutter plus the remnants of things like lisps mean that I like diction, languages and singing.

7. I am dyslexic, and I don't mean just a little bit - the educational psycologists said he had never seen anyone with such severe dyslexia even sit GCSE's let alone get the grades I got. The natural reaction to this for me? I have always had the ambition to write stories. I managed to get published before I was eighteen.

8. I am scared of heights and used to get bad vertigo, was the clumsiest kid around (called dyspraxia and is a cousin of dyslexia) - I became a climbing and archery instructure.

9. I almost died and was crippled by having a baby, I willingly decided to have another and do not regret it.

10. School and even university bullying made me feel that I was going to be single forever and never achieve anything. I have the most loveliest husband, intelligent and cute to boot and I have been 'going out' with him since I was 21. He supports me and seems to actually fancy me too.

Forgive the egotistical post but these things really do amaze me.