That Which Does Not Kill Us…. (by sarah)

I used to write about "The Curse" a lot - so many damn things go wrong for us that it has just become a kind of on going sitcom comedy type situation. I tried to twist things round and be more positive and things were great for a while... then they weren't but it was the Head Injury and the migraines before it and the recovery and I generally forgot about the curse.

And of course this year has had lots of wonderful, amazing things in it but it is also a dark time for us. A sad time, a devastated time - the last 2 and a bit years have been full of tragedy and pain. I haven't felt up to sharing a lot of it... the people we are missing, the physical after affects of miscarriages and the shake up of domestic things to try and make sure everyone who needs stuff has it.

It is too depressing in many ways.

But I do want to be sharing stuff a bit more again - and there is joyous, wondrous and creative stuff in the mix but I am afraid that is not what this post is about - nope - this is about the crap!

Not the deep sorrow stuff just the crap.

Where to start?

Well my new computer (not new now I know but still not exactly old) has never really been fast and I have had issues with stuff just working on it, with email and the spam thingies stopped working on my blogs and I have over 20 so my emails got broken by all the spam, some of the blogs got broken with the spam, our wifi is periodically being blocked by something that likes to move channels and therefore follows our attempts to get away from it. This means that a) it as well as emails was hampering work greatly and b) has meant my phone bill is a lot higher than it should be because I wasn't checking what it was using and it was on roaming data whilst I was watching videos in bed rather than on our wifi :/

Yes stupid me.

I did amazing arty things in the summer and mostly it was absolutely a positive experience but some of it was really soul crushingly negative and had me not wanting to go to events and thing - such nastiness does not belong anywhere let alone the creative sector. This was multiple things and they all bundled up and have made me hacked off with Gloucester and I don't want to be hacked off with Gloucester - it is my home.

On top of that I still have not been paid for three different things I did in the Summer - let alone my autumn stuff - this has had ramifications and has seen me having to trek out to bank meetings - fitted in between physio for Jean and other medical stuff for my mother (I need to book my own appointments and just haven't managed!). Bank meetings where fun!

Here is the Facebook comment I made about it:

Due to multiple people having not payed me - I had to go to the bank to try and stop credit card spiral debt - I explained the situation but nope... they would rather lock me into a spiral of debt than give me a loan to pay off the credit card I'd had to put stuff on and then cancel the card - reason is they won't cancel the card but are worried I'd just rack the same debt up again as my spendings been erratic - well yes because I wan't paid when expected by multiple people and I thought the money would be through before the end of the first month and I am now getting to more than four months down the line and the interest is now more than I spent in the first place. I've found a way around this but only because I... am married to someone with a high end job and even then when I say sorted I mean we've just stopped the spiral being unmanageable but I'm still going to be paying the bank back about 4 times min what I actually spent - and none of this would have happened if I'd damn well been paid on time. I am so annoyed - I tried to sort it out the first month when it looked like the money was going to be on the card a while but we couldn't prove who I was - AGAIN - so proving I exist has been fun :/ I hate banks - oh and the spends where so I could continue working not random shizzle. Interest rates make a huge difference to debt management - hence wanting the loan - but also they don't like freelancers.

The support I've been offered from family and friends over this has been amazing but I feel embarrassed that it has come to this :/ And worse - if this was the money that paid the mortgage and/or food rather than DIY and festivities and vets bills and opticians then we would be screwed.

Incidentally I need new glasses desperately - the anti scratch coating got scratched in the summer - probably all the rock handling sessions I did - blooming meteorites! But obviously I have been putting it off until I get paid... and so it goes and goes around again :/

Wednesday was supposed to be the big Christmas shop were we go up to Bristol and make a day of it and see friends etc... but what happened was that I found 3 of our new hens dead. I have never lost them in a batch before which had me contacting hen experts and asking if others had experienced the same on forums and facebook etc... the conclusion is that they were either sickly to begin with - they weren't from the rescue org I normally go with and where a direct rescue via a friend so that was very probable or Mr Fox had scared them to death.

Illness in live stock is a serious thing and bird flues etc... can be passed on to humans so this was a bit of a stress and involved poo picking and of course a little hen funeral 🙁 Also just be extra disturbing some chickens have a tendency to have movement after death - hence running around like a heads chicken - they really can do this - I have in fact seen this as a kid but this was the first time I'd seen it in one of my chickens - it is very disturbing.

The dead chickens where bad and stressful enough but there was an added issue - the kids are supposed to check for eggs in the morning and feed and water the chooks after school - they are very slap dash about this so I tend to go out at lunch time to do a check up and remove any packaging from pellets etc... that the kids have left behind. So the chickens should have been found by the kids - obviously it kind of a good thing they were but... it means that the kids didn't check on them that morning.

I set a trap by which they could lie and dig themselves deeper but both independently told me the same thing - the crooks had been very "chickeny" moving about and chasing them for food but they had forgotten to do the chickens - I was actually impressed with their honesty and they were very upset about the chickens but the duty of care to the animals is very important and can not be shirked. This means they are not in as much trouble as they could have been but combined with some other things I had to call a family and put the entire house on chore lock down.

I will confess I can not cope with the housework and Alaric is great but is finding he can't even start helping with dinner because the kitchen needs cleaning before he can start so dinner is getting later and later.... so everyone has a semi screen ban - the xbox, blue ray and fire stick are unplugged and tablets and phones are rationed - for everyone - including the grown ups, including Nanny.

There is more laundry to do that before and I am trying to work and take my mum out on a regular basis - Mum has had two lots of cancer and is in her 70's and still heart broken from the loss of my dad. Domestically we are in a bit of a pickle as I try to fit another house into my already cluttered home - the kids toys are currently covering the living room being culled and sorted etc... and it is taking me forever because I too do not have motivation, time or energy and so have had to set a time when we all just plough into this sorting and cleaning. It falls to pieces every time I have to disappear out of the house for events - nothing gets done and that is something that can not continue - I have mobility issues and mum is a wheel chair user and we have had to have a stair lift and stuff fitted - things can not be left on the floor or in piles in the way - it's just not going to work and is unsafe.

Sadly this is a source of stress for Jean as she has a lot of home work some nights having started her GCSEs and it takes her ages and hurts her due to what now appears to by her version of the hyper-mobility that plagues the family. She felt she had no time to begin with - so we have had to sit down as a family and draw up a plan of exactly how this is going to work and work best for everyone,

So we didn't do our big Christmas shop - this is normally the big outing that gets the bulk food for December and January plus some treaty things and presents and is our family outing with pizza (I have jacket potato these days due to that whole not being able to eat the yummy foods anymore).

So that was Wednesday then there was Thursday - I try and take my mum out and about every other day but sometimes it's only once a week - and Thursday was the only day I could really do this an we went to Dunelm to get her some house thing - we ended up with house things too - because you always do when you enter such shops! This was an extended lunch break for Alaric who then has to make the time up later - but this seems to be working ok at the moment.

Anyway she decided she wanted to push the boat out and get her medicines by herself. So Alaric dropped her off at the ASDA as they have a pharmacy - this was the first proper out on her own that she'd done since my dad died in April.

Her scooter had been fully charged but then she didn't come home and I began to fret - it was starting to get dark - she didn't have her phone on her - it was in her bedroom :/

It was now starting to rain - I started opening the door to check for her - I ended up getting the neighbours to look for her... she was fine she'd gone to look at the cloths in ASDA as well but by the time she turned up I was frazzled and she was being sleeted on and was cold and wet even in her big yellow Mac and me and Jean just helped her into the house and were fussing about making her warm drinks and getting her dry cloths. When I went back the scooter was gone - I thought Jean and Al had put it back in the car... I was wrong.

The mobility scooter - my mum's life line to going out of the house had been stolen. From our front garden and taken down to the carpark at the end of the road and smashed up. Of course I wasn't going to find that out until Friday evening.

Friday I had been given the opportunity to attend a free training course and series of talks including on photography - it was also a networking event with free lunch!

Yay! Things were looking up - I was a little stressed due to running slightly late but my friend and co-story teller was also running late - in fact later than me so other than ending up in an awkward seat it was fine. And I got an entire pack of biscuits to myself - yay for the no gluten or yummy food thing - also the biscuits where yummy.

I met lovely people and was leaning things and had bought a blanket so I wouldn't get cold etc...

Lunch time arrived and I had HOT food and the session I really wanted to attend was after lunch. I ate my food and then took the lift down to the toilets - leaving my phone behind me because I am being paranoid about bad things always happening to me unless I have my phone on me and this was a safe space - so pikachu was relegated to guarding the note book.

I was saving my energy for the event so was using the lift - I am still having to use a crutch to walk any distance at the moment.

All fine... I get into the lift to come back up - the basically new lift in the refurbed historical site and it shonks out... "going going going going going up" reeeee "going going going..." The door won't open to let me out. Dude at the desk spots me and comes over and does magic reset and the door opens and I want to get but think I am just being daft - being trapped with no way out is a big thing for me - just writing this makes my pulse quicken and the panic in stomach and throat start. It's not claustrophobia as I am perfectly happy with small spaces and the trapped in space can be huge and I will still be panicking if I can not see an escape route.

Anyway - he's reset the lift so it should all be fine and I give him the thumbs up and up I go until CLONK it comes to rest almost exactly between the two floors - so that now I can't even see out of a window - there is maybe 20 cm of the window for the ground floor visible at the bottom of the lift. I hit that alarm button until muffled voices appear and the faff starts...

The events organiser appears and I have to tell him that I have seizures and the chances of seizures goes up with stress levels and I don't like being trapped. I say it all calmly and I was working very hard on calm because the last thing I wan't was to have a seizure and plus my instincts tell me to kick and climb my way out of such situations - in the natural world this makes sense - in a lift in a building that is not on fire - it doesn't

I end up sitting on the floor because standing up is too much hard work - literally my legs start shaking with fatigue and I am in pain and now sitting on the floor which I was trying not to do because I know the chances of me needing help back up are really high and Alaric is not there and I can't phone him or even play Pokemon go and there is a poke stop just out side - damn me and trying not to be taken over by my paranoia!

Any way the events organiser stayed by the lift taking to me to keep me calm and then the engineer was there and fixing things - but it seemed like forever - I think the whole thing was half an hour maybe 40 mins and the engineer worked really hard to fix the lift for when I needed to come back down but I opted to go slowly down the stairs.

I had missed the rest of lunch and most of the photo workshop but the talker gave me his contact info so I could ask questions later - I was shaky and got hugged lots. I was going to walk home to a) do fitness and b) to hatch pokamon eggs but I phoned Al and he came and got me.

Then we found the scooter was bashed up and then there was contacting the police and then Saturday we took Mum out in the wheel chair to a caftfair - we have to be careful with the wheel chair as Alaric has sciatica and issues with his back and Jean has issues with her wrists, neck and back.

The craft fair was lovely... the cafe however was very busy and our large lunch order.... well after waiting for over an hour they had to come and give us a refund as they'd run out of food!

Fortunately there was a chip shop but there were hanger issues occurring (angry because you are hungry!) - so yeah that is kind of where I am - it's been one hell of a week

Country File Live photos 2017 (by sarah)

Country File Live was an amazing event with just so much going on - because I was working there I barely got a chance to snap things as I passed - the girls and Al also had a fab time but still felt that they had barely scratched the surface - Jean took photos on her iPad which we'll pop up in a different post. These are the snaps I took on the first day.

This beautiful snake was part of a demonstration including handling by the Oxfordshire Amphibian and Reptile Group (I think!).

I caught this blue dragonfly whilst taking a nap on some bails in front of the bee hive (head injury recovery means I have to take random naps but it is very surreal to conk out in public but I think it's working well).

There was a lake with a wibbly wobbly bouncy but secure temporary bridge across it. It contained various birds and plants coming and going.

There were some great flower displays in the Wild Life Zone.

I love this duck - it is exactly the sort of thing I would buy Al if I had more money 🙂

This bike display cheered me up even though it had just been bucketing it down!

Tractors! I live like machines like tractors.

I love old machines like tractors.

Probably a good job I didn't have more time or there would have been hundred of flower and machine pics!

I'm working on a series of machine colouring sheets for an event in the autumn as well to be fair - but I would have still taken all the photos regardless.

I like the gubbings of machines.

I think they are pretty

These were all from a huge monster of a machine

Many people were taking photographs - elderly men mostly and a press officer.

Everyone feels they need to ask me why I am taking photos of tractors or make jokes about it - this happens at car shows too.

We got Batty with the Oxfordshire Mammal Groups.

And met the cuddly foxes and badgers.

And a squeaky little mouse 🙂

And skulls of said animals - well actually in the photo there is a mouse skull, fox and badger.

Insects also featured heavily including butterfly nets creches, many types of bees and this giant papier mache stag beetle!

Milk churn flower display - this is similar to what I wanted when we lived at The Bakery though I was going to bare paint them so they didn't rust away.

Sheep sculptures - love these though more from a making point of view if I am honest - I remember going to a Garden Show and seeing large metal dragons like this which I adored! If we ever get to do the Salaric Emporium idea and have a tea garden then this sort of thing will be in it (along with dinos and fairies!).

These beautiful yellow water lilies where on the lake.

Loved the giant Go Wild sing 🙂

Water plants on the lake - oh I probably should have mentioned that this was at Blenheim Palace.

The geese kept landing and taking off from the lake and were pretty impressive!

There was plenty of garden ideas - especially those to help you have a greener more wildlife friendly garden - I like this shed but I'm pretty sure ours is falling down and couldn't take the extra strain!

Food is a huge part of the event too - I caught sight of this fab cheese stall!

And Kendal Mint Cake Laqueur!

And to end - more animal sculptures 🙂

Good Solstice :) (by sarah)

Do to the heat I am letting the chickens roam around the garden meaning that they come to see us when ever we are in the garden or stupid enough to leave the kitchen door open. Jean has declared I am an embarrassing parent for calling them Dinosaurs - especially when I do so on social media - parenting achievement UNLOCKED!

Today is the Solstice - it is also a heat wave here in the UK - my attic was getting up to the 40's when I realised that the heater I have up there is the aircon unit we got when I was pregnant with Jean and couldn't breath properly etc... so that went on complete with pipe to the outside - it got the temp down to high 20's when I switched it off this evening - cooling the attic is important as it is a) my art studio and b) it will have a knock on effect with the rest of the house.

I am warm enough - starting to get a bit too warm - mainly worried about kids, cats and chooks!

Means I get to sit in the garden and draw and read and write - re-reading Women in Roman Britain at the moment which I read nearly 20 years ago for my Classical Civilisations A'level course work. I also made myself iced coffee with decaf filter, coconut milk and sugar free dark choc syrup. It tasted pretty good to me 🙂

Writing little snippets of story ideas for The Punks Universe and a kids story and researching the Middle East via podcasts and documentaries.

Jean got to Scouts, Mary had a bath, I cut down and pulled up stinging nettles - remembered to feed everyone - so winning at life.

The Jan Recap… (by sarah)

It's the end of January so what has gone on in the household snell-pym in the first month of 2017?

For a start there was the end of Christmas, I am still making the last few Advent vids ready for Christmas next year. We delivered presents though sadly not all the presents so we still have a back log!

Also mine and Mary's birthdays - mine involved a coffee, meal and shopping with Al before hospital stuff but we have only just done the proper celebration with kids and friends this weekend just gone which was also Mary's birthday. There was also posh vegan/Gluten Free brunch. Mary has so far played in the Waterstones cafe with her friend Lilly as her party is going to be in two weeks time. We've planned the party and got stuff ready for it.

This includes me working out how to make upcycled unicorn head bands and tail belts and little roll and pop up horses for the kids to make.

My mother was hospitalised so there was a trip to Essex and the adventures of getting home on the train which were unexpected.

DIY wise we have fixed several toys, remounted a coat rack which had pulled off the wall, dealt with networking and upgrading Jean's computer.

We got a telescope - an amazing thing which was a pool of Christmas money instead of presents for Al and Jean and part of mine and Mary's birthdays. We've seen binary stars so far. It was an undertaking to assemble and we now need to build a storage/transport box but it is assembled and being looked through though we've only had like three clear nights!

I've had three lots of testing at the hospital which took it's toll and norovirus hit the household. I missed a theatre meeting about performing a monologue and a poetry recording evening but I am being given second chances at those so that's all good.

I also missed my Krav self defence one off class and a poetry book launch which made me sad but on the other hand I was live streamed reading poetry at Food For Thought.

Talking of poetry I have also been typing up and editing poems from the BOOKCASE (Not shelf) of notebooks I have. The shear number is insane obv. not all of it is usable but a lot is so I have been organising Turquoise Monster and have even started submitting work again (as in 2 poems so far). I've written three poems this month predictable all about Trump. Of course I am doing my poetry writing challenges so I've drafted a good few more mostly not about Trump.

Jan has also been me gearing up for the poetry writing challenge that I host over at Wopo.

I have also designed, refined and created mini poetry scrolls, story scrolls, made bookwallets etc... for blank scrolls for others to write poetry on, personalised pencils and made write your own poem kits, made and put together 100 mini zine surprise pouches, story boarded two more zines, drafted half a short story, edited a couple of flash fictions, tried to write daily on this blog and started on the mammoth task of trying to sort out the Salaric Craft blog.

Also Storystorm - what used to be Picture Book Idea Month has rebranded and moved to Jan. so I have been idea generating and expanding on those ideas for kids books.

Alaric has been making a cufflink holder for the cufflinks I made him for Advent, the girls have been making invites and decorations for Mary's party and we have all been working on the cosplay outfits for True Believers Comic Festival which is this weekend coming. This has involved sewing, sticking, painting, metal twisting, papier mache and buying new wellys.

I had to get a third print run of my colouring book Love: A Stranger Dream made and in general have been trying to sort out The WigglyPets Press.

I have been teaching myself origami and have folded lit. hundreds of things from geometric modules to make bigger things from to little stand up foxes to pretty little boxes.

We've organised things for getting back down the allotment, so just sorting out containers for soil etc...

I've knitted four hats, made an Ironman craft kit, taken the kids to two (not us) birthday parties. Three projects are still currently being designed and refined including mending a rocking horse that is older than me. I accidently made a pair of slippers from an old coat whilst trying to make a portal gun (please tell me this happens to other people!).

Alaric made my laptop usable again (for now) and we had a chicken fatality 🙁 and we had to fix the chicken run and stuff and general animal stuff to sort out. We've got our new electric car and there was pie making!

NB pie was not chicken Al is veggi!

Jean is still at Scouts, Jujitsu, and Drama and Mary is doing her Ballet, both girls are missing climbing but for one of the parties we did get to go "caving". Alaric is still doing Krav and Hackspace each week. Oh and of course we had to do my tax (sobs!).

There were also visits from and too various family.

So that was January - it snowed and it rained and there was scary fog.

And Then There Were Three :'( (by sarah)

Friday night about 11:30 pm I awoke in a panic, I was suddenly convinced that something was very wrong with the chickens, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep so I went down to check on them. Only three came out to great me... and there was a smell. I checked in the nest box and it was gross, one of them had obvs. been ill but there was no forth chicken in there. I eventually found her dead and huddled and stinking in a little hollow. Her tail was devoid of feathers, the meat/flesh look fresh but she stank and what the hell happened to her feathers?

So I proceed to set up the remaining three in a little hutch and run thing we had for rabbits because the hen house was in just too much of a state. There temperatures were still hovering around freezing. So what had happened? Had I miss counted that morning?

It had snowed so I went out and checked on them before the sun came up but maybe I miss counted, maybe we'd missed her when she died? I'm sure there were four apparently healthy chickens in the run when I went to check. I think I woke up because I forgot to check for the straggler (dead chook is the straggler), she was the under chicken but the bullying wasn't bad enough for me to take her out, she wasn't being pecked but sometimes they wouldn't let her near the food so I would make extra food piles for her and sometimes they wouldn't let her in the hen house so I would go and put her in at night. I can see from the kitchen when this needs to be done.

In hind sight I hadn't seen her when we went out there with kitchen scraps mid afternoon but that is often when they are laying or sitting and we try not to disturb them so I wouldn't have thought it odd that their were only three chickens 🙁

So... I assume she was ill and then curled up and died, I don't know if the other chickens then plucked her bum trying to get her to move or just because she was there or what. I think she was there when I checked in the morning, I am sure all four came out to great me. Now they are in the medium run because there was a bird flu out break and it is covered where the big run isn't so it keeps them safer from wild bird contamination so was it bird flu?

The others seem fine. Did they bully her to death? Did I miss judge? Did she stink because I'd missed she'd died or did she have egg perinonitis which I had missed and the rotten egg inside had finally ruptured? Al reminds me that they are rescues and they are around the age of being to die anyway and that the other three look fine.

She looked fine though - this is them on Monday.

I get lonely so I go and get them and they walk straight into the kitchen and keep me company and yes I have poos to clear up but it is a moppable surface.

Feeling guilty about it, a stuck egg is the most likely, all the chooks we've lost from this batch have died from that - one of them laid an shelless egg the first evening after rescue and never woke up. They have all the suppliments and things and I know this is normal for old hens but I feel it's my duty to analyse it so I can look after future and the remaining hens better.

Here are the remainers again jostling to get in.