Babble (by sarah)

Jean has been doing something interesting with language - she is pretty good at talking and is often mistaken for being older than she is but she sometimes gets the word sounds back to front or just uses the wronge word full stop.

But the really interesting thing is that she will purposly babble at you - just a stream of noises whilst grinning - she knows they make no scense but tries out different combinations and watches the adults to see if they react to any of the sound combos - she knows there are lots of words she deosn't know and is looking for new ones.

However she is also a bit naughty in that she has cottoned onto the fact that there are words that alot of adults react very strongly to certain word sounds! And sometimes - esprcially when Barbaras around I think that they are the ones she is actually looking for :/

No Mummy they are my Best Friends! (by sarah)

Jean gets upset if I tell the cats off for things like raking the seat - she does this by crying, 'No Mummy they are my Best Friends!' or Hydrogen is her best friend or mini or Helium depending on who is in trouble.

Even when Mini has upset her she defends her, this is interesting as it she has definatly developed a scense of us and them but this isn't a clear cut relationship.

She will defend me and daddy from Nanny and Ferfer and Barbara but she defend them against people in the 'outside' world. She has also started to say names from pre-school as her best/specific friends and there is definatly a social dynamic forming there.

She also pretends to be a baby or a mummy and takes car of random things like she'll tuck a shoe in for the night and sing it a lullabye. She is always tucking Mini up for the night to which our grumpyest cat responds by purring. Jean also cuddles the cats which they just put up with though if others do it they mew pathetically - there is definatly a two way relationship there.

Race For Life (by sarah)

As many of you know there is an event called Race For Life which is designed to raise money to 'beat' cancer and our friend is going to be running and is looking for sponsorship!

You can sponsor her here.

It's quiet a run anyway - the sort of length you really need to train for plus she is offering to crochet thankyous for people which is an excellent idea!

Cancer touches so many of our lives and in developed countries is a big killer - my first contact with cancer was my granddad who had asbestocise which led to mesophilioma (have no idea how to spell either of those but basically the fibroids fromthe asbestosis cuased cancer), he died shortly after I returned from Kenya and in fact my perants weren't even there to pick me up as they were at the hospice.

By this point my friend Amber was also sick with luekemia a cancer of the blood. She went in and out of remission and had various things happen to her like a stroke due to the treatments and stuff - she dies whilst I was in Kin Lochleven in Scoutland during a field trip. I missed her funeral for which I am still sad - she actually died of pnumonia and was in remission but was just too weak from all the treatments.

Her illness was found as she came with me to give blood on my 18th birthday and she phoned me on my 21st though was too tired to come to the party - a year younger than me she died not long before her own 21st birthday - she was one of the nicest and most intelligent people I knew and asked me about Imperial lots.

More recently there is mum's breast cancer so obviously I feel very strongly about events like this - hence the hair dyeing and things in the autum.

So please if you can sponsor 🙂

And I hope this wasn't too morbid.

Getting Lost With Dad (by sarah)

Today me, dad and Jean went out to find an oil filler cap for his car and do other sundry errands. We got abit lost around the village of Staverton and Dad was panicking abit so I took over the navagation and between the two of us we found our way.

Dad hates getting lost and was actually panicking but then we found this lovely church and we stopped to take photos and look and the map and suddenly it turned into a lovely outing.

The sun was shining and there was lovely blossoms on the trees and lots of flowers - orange tipped butterflies and the like. We did our chores and then decided to head to Gloucester docks for an actual outing.

Jean loves the boats and spent an age just walking around looking at them all - dad carrying my lavander sparkly tote bag which caused lots of hilarity in the shop were I bought him and Jean an ice-cream (I'm still too sick for things like ice-cream). We sat watching the ducks whilst they ate the ice creams with Jean changing her mind every few minutes as to which seat we should be sitting on!

Jean got a bit upset that the ducks would 'full over' the stuff in the water - this was the litter that people had dropped in the water - she was most indignant about this 🙂

We watched one of the narrow boats in a lock that was filling very very slowely - the men looked grumpy and didn't wave at JEan though she was proclaiming she wanted to live on a boat!

We then went into the antiques place where Jean decided she only wanted to look at the Dr Who stuff! Though we found a 'pretty light' in a room full of stuff that looked like I'd been let loose with ceramics! Jean loves all the old furniture and was more interested in going in and looking at the 'pretties' which were all chest and things than looking at the dinky toys or the ty toys with dad which was a suprise.

And then I made a mistake - I wanted a cup of tea and JEan asked for something to eat and selected a packet of quavers - sure if we share them I said and we did and Jeans mood changed to one of complete horrible small whirling dervish! I was so embarressed as she shouted she wasn't stupid and stuff and ran off.

We left - Jean in disgrace and me vowing to check out exactly what is in quavers and feeling slightly guilty that I didn't check the ingredients when I know that one of the red food colourings is bad for her behaviour etc...

On the way out though we saw a youth-dude hanging upside down from the ancient crain - so I tried to take a pick but he moved as I was getting the camera out!

I was a sad that Jean's behaviour had deteriated so much we were going home as punishment when we had been going to go to a country park for her to run around and stuff - never mind though it was a nice day over all.

I Believe I am Not a Writer (by sarah)

At the writing classes I used to go to we did a combination exercise - we had to write about how we viewed our selves as writers starting with I believe. I found out some very interesting stuff about myself during this excercise and it was part of the realisation that I really want to be writing pop sci and bringing knowledge to the masses via scientific poetry and art if nessascary. (please not I am not talking about the psuedo science that I hear spewed at alot of peotry evenings)

I believe I am not a writer

I believe I am a story teller

I believe I am an information conveyer

I believe I am an ideas creator, cemetor

I believe I am a scientist

I believe I am rationally irrational

I believe I am a frontier Finder

I believe I am an explorer of words

I believe I am a bridge between

I believe I am an embodyment of the duality of science and art

I believe I am dyslexic

I believe I am frustrated

I believe this leads to creation, adaption, and the sideways evolution that is known as lateral thinking

I believe I am bound to the earth in its intercasies of systems I love to explore

I believe I am cut free and floating in celebral space where the concept of super novae roam

I believe I am the colour purple, unique in my colour spectrum, 2 colours superimposed

I believe I am hurtling through life faster than I can handle

I believe this is inspiration

I believe I am a contradiction

I believe I like this

I believe I am jack of all trades

I believe I am more than the sum of these words