Science is vital - it provides us with technological break-threws which are the corner stone of the modern economy, it provides medicine which we have all benifited from in one way or another and it has fueled the creative industries. At a time when other countries have increased their science funding regardless of the economic state or even becuase of it, our government has decided to slash funding.
Ham stringing the country for at least the next 20 yrs if not 100 (in my opinion). I am watching the brain drain increase as friends are already feeling for other countries where they can continue their research and eat.
This is why I just thought I'd bring Science is Vital to your attentions. Please sign their petition regardless of what your job is (without science you wouldn't have your TV, toaster, kettle! or car - just think about it for a while).
There is also a demo on the 9th of Oct and lobbying on the 12th for those who can make it - check the site out for info on those.
Albert the gardener came to say there was a kestral on the ground and the kittens stalking about and maybe we should catch them and put them inside before it got messy. Unfortunatly Alaric woke me up with this info which in my half asleep state ment that I though a kestral had attacked either Hydrogen or Helium!
So I rushed outside with towels and what what not and got annoyed at dad for stopping to put cheese away before going out with the teatowels I'd thrown at him. Anyway it turned out to be a juvinile (I assume from the family roosting in the trees along the stream.) And Hydrogen had chased it into Barbara's garage :/ We flushed the cat out and caught the kestral which didn't appear to have anything wrong with it - Alaric had thought its wing was broken but after a lot of faffing and three adults chasing it. Alaric threw a towl over it and I scooped it up!
I then took it up to the top of the paddock as Dad and Al rounded up all cats and put them inside so they couldn't follow. I put it down gently and because I was wearing chunky monkey gloves I had a little look at it. It seemed fine just scared and the painter had said to me he thought it had flown into something.
So we are assuming it is dazed and scared - it's hidden itself in the gazebo/summer house so I left the door open and continued my calls to it (Al kept informing me that they only respond when trained but it definatly responded when I made noises like they do when they fly. On to of that it came out and sat on the grow bag and looked at me - then I called again and one of it's parents answered.
We have left the door open in the hope that it was dazed with collision and then chased by cat and humans and then bundled in a towel :/ It's mother is calling it and hopefully it will be able to fly up and join her.
If not it will probably still be in the gazebo when we check later - at which point we will catch it again and take it too the vets 🙁 I know we probably should have taken it straight to the vets but if we do that and its only dazed then we've sperated it from it's family.
However one issue came up with all of this - the towel got hooked up on some splintering old boards in the garage which Alaric says are asbestos 🙁 So me and the towels ect... where covered in asbestos dust. I stripped and showered and Al put everything in the washing machine. I am hacked off though as I've already paid for one lot of asbestos to be removed from this place and the whole lot could have all gone at one >:( And I asked if there was anymore!
Septembers challenges went well - I haven't finished the novel but am almost there! And am hoping it wont eat too far into the month though I have realised I want to rewrite huge chunks of it :/
Blog post wise I did well over 100 posts over my various blogs and finally sorted out a writing home page and got my head around a few of my on going projects!
And so there is October - and the main question is do I do GothNoWriMo?
I still have the novel from last month to finish :/ and have another project I really really want to complete. This project is The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry and mainly involves sorting out illustrations and the like.
What I am thinking of doing is saying the novel has priority though I still don't want to push at more than 1000 words a day. It is so almost there I don't think it needs it either - then once that is done I shall re-write it, spending an hour on it a day.
I will spend an hour on the Little Book too which should get me a good long way through it and hopefully produce at least a finished book for Jean by the end.
Then if I feel upto it I may well do 1000 words for GothNoWriMo but this will only be on week days as It can only really happen whilst my little girl is at school - this leads me onto another issue with my challenges this month. There is a half term holiday so I will be loosing a weeks worth of writing time which hopefully I will be able to catch up during the rest of the month.
I am also aware that this is basically 3 challenges - GothNoWriMo is taking low priority but hopefully something will get written for it! It may even get it's own monster blog - we will see 🙂
Again wish me luck.
I had my twenty week scan on Tuesday, we have decided to find the sex of the baby this time round due to the whole room issue.
If it's a girl it can share with Jean in bunk beds once old enough - a prospect Jean is most excited about, if it is a boy then though initially it can share with Jean but would rapidly need it's own bedroom - this means selling my office furniture or getting Barbara to let us have the Stable area to have the office in, allowing us to have the office/hayloft as a domestic space.
Things are a bit up and down domestically where the house is concerned anyway at the moment so (look away if you don't want to know!) I was relieved to find out that the baby is probably another little girl! Obviously it is only a 9 out of 10 chance but still I am breathing a bit easier.
The scan showed no annomalies with the baby though I do have a low laying placenta and so have to go back for another scan at 32 weeks. I am seeing the consultant on Monday about weather to have a C-section or not anyway.
I really really hope they will give me one otherwise I am going to be in a wheel chair again - I might be anyway but I will definatly be without the C-section.
People keep telling me I don't want one (bar the midwife who thinks I need one) as it is an operation and you can't do anything for six weeks. Six weeks? I couldn't do anything for about 10 months after Jean was born via natural birht :/
Having said that I do have a few quarms about it - like how is my body going to flush all the placenta and stuff out? Is there a danger to the baby with knives cutting them out? And how will my body know it's had the baby to start up the proper milk production? Plus it's going to have to be a pretty large cut and into what I consider a major organ so what are the infection risks?
Other issues to be addressed are - the fact I am starting to struggle with walking at all and turning over in bed makes the old pelvis go click crunch but I need to be mobile as I'll just pile on even more weight 🙁 I am having nose bleeds and headaches which are going to be from the stress of whats going on domestically but how can I get it low again - all I've been told so far is to rest.
Still we got to see the little baby and the lady showed us everything she was taking measurements of! We even got to see the four chambers of it's little heart!
It was being like it's sister v. v. wriggly so was not very photogenic :/
I do want to get copies of the ultra sounds up - so bear with us for glimpses of baby 🙂
My Google-Fu
Does Work for you
I writes to my MP
I helps my community
Remember
TheyWorkForYou
And MySociety
Helping you to say what's wrong
Which is why I made up this song
To let the people know
About how and where to go
To set things straight
To fix things
B4 it's to late
When I sees things out of place
I writes it on MySpace,
Live Journal, Blogger, WordPress and twitter
Yes I'm a social media witter!
Citizen journo of the worst kind
Google and you will find
ME
Doing electronic rants
For my community
Events and Outings, Sci/Tech, Society | sarah | 
Sun 3rd Oct 2010 8:33 am | 
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