The Homeless Babies (by sarah)

Today I am doing the front cover of Percival's Christmas Wish as part of my Draw-a-thon to raise money for Shelter. I have only been sponsored £10 so far but that is half a family who wont end up homeless in the first place! So it is all good though making it a whole family by the end of today would be brilliant 🙂

In total I need to draw 14-16 pictures before Christmas Eve! I am currently on number three which is the hardest of the pictures as it is the one for the cover as well. So far all pictures are only sketches and some of that quiet rough but I am going out later to pick up some new colouring pencils as mine were damaged in the move.

I would like to just emphasis that there are over 75, 000 homeless children this christmas the likes of which has not been seen since the 60's! I know it seems like a sea of faceless people but it's not - those people are people like you and me, things can change so quickly where finances are concerned.

Also last week a baby bunny was dumped outside a pet shop near us in a cardboard box, which we said we would take if it was adopted by yesterday - it hadn't been adopted so we now have a new addition to the Snell-Pym zoo - Fluffy Obsidian!

Guess which part of the name was mine and which bit was Jean's? :/

She reckons that rock names are too hard in that they are not fluffy and they are hard to say! She gave Alaric the option of Hedgwig or Fluffy for the rabbit and he opted for Fluffy as a bunny isn't an owl and though it is also not a three headed dog it's genetics would be closer to that than a bird.

If we could adopt the homeless kids we would but they don't need adopting - they need to be with their families and taking them away would be taking us straight back to the horrors of Victoriana, therefore we help the whole family. I am really hoping that someone will donate another £10 so that we have helped one whole family instead of just half.

Here is a donate button.

And thankyou so much for the donation/sponsor that I have already received 🙂 The money goes directly to Shelter so they can start doing stuff straight away 🙂

Bonfire Night 2012 (by sarah)

Bonfire Night saw m and Jean cooking away - we attempted ice box cookies but it went a bit wrong - Jean ever resourcefull decided to turn them into bone sliver biscuit slivers.

We made some spooky chocolates as well with white chocolate 🙂

Not to mention a Fire Works Night cake 🙂 complete with an icing Guy Fawkes on top 🙂

Once all the cooking was done we popped out the decorations I'd gotten for Halloween which then sort of hadn't happened for us as we were at Cubs!

Jean toasting a marshmallow! A giant marshmallow! Baby scoffing a non-toasted marshmallow 🙂 And a tray of giant marshmallows - we still can not believe the size of these things!

I love my purple spider mug add in the glass eyeball stick that my friend Ulrike gave us and it is perfect for spooky drinks 🙂

Of course Jean's glowing screaming skull straw is pretty ace too 🙂

We had snacks 🙂 Little jelly ghosts, chocolate covered witch biscuits and chilli spider web pretzels.

Then we had indoor fireworks! (it was pretty miserable outside which is why we were not out at a display as planned plus there had been a good fireworks display at Legoland anyway!).

We did do one of them outside though as it was a fountain 🙂

After the in door fireworks we lit a fire lantern 🙂

After the outside stuff we had toffee and chocolate apples 🙂

The cats who should have been hiding from the fireworks - followed us out into the garden to see what all the fuss was about and seemed completely unworried about the fireworks. This being our first fireworks night in a built up area with them we were concerned but it was all fine in the end 🙂

If you want to see bigger versions of the photos just click on them 🙂

Halloween Hunt At Primrose Vale 2012 (by sarah)

We went to Primrose Vale Farm shop for the Halloween Hunt as we have done for the last few years but we were an hour early so we had our breakfast which we were going to have as an elevenses later on. Jean was horrified that it didn't start until 10 am 'That's nearly lunch time!'

Mary resented being in her buggy so went off for a wonder.

Her sister joined her

Then they went to play on the swings

There was the cutest blonde bunny that Jean pointedly ignored (still being too sad about Blacky Buns departure to the meadow in the sky) and that Mary spent ages pointing too and announcing Ca'!

Me and Jean had the most delicous icing and chocolate covered apple danishes whilst Mary had everything free batty cupcake that Mummy had made especially for her little allergy bunny.

Jean decided that being in her lovely coat and wearing her pretty dress it was time to go and do some construction work.

Mary decided that it was time to leave home and found herself a nice little shack

We then went on the Halloween Hunt which both girls loved!

Jean loves Harry Potter and Scooby Boo so was very very happy with a few of the things on the Halloween trail 🙂

Jean tried to show Mary how the Pumpkin and spoon race worked but didn't entirely do it properlly herself!

Mary just didn't get it at all but loved running around with the minni pumpkin!

So much so that Jean decided to buy her one to take home with us!

The girls loved the maze thingy made of trees and we started working on a poem about it - maybe it will make it into a little book of poetry at some point :).

I found a cool piece of farm equipement to photo - sadly I forgot to ask what it was for 🙁

We then walked down to Subway for lunch and saw a heron! It flew right over the top of us in it slow ungainly way - Jean couldn't remember what it was just that it was one of the 'Mill' birds.

If you want to see any of the photos in a bigger format just click on them 🙂

Also don't forget to download your free copy of The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry - it is only free until midnight on the 31st of October!

Blacky Buns Bye Bye (by sarah)

Blacky Jean's rabbit has sadly died - he had seemed off colour and then whilst we were on holiday his back legs just stopped working and he died shortly after. Jean initially did not cry when told - she had suspected it might be the case she said. I went off to get her some pjs and when I returned she was at the door of her room crying that he was her best pet. He was her first pet bought with her own money and raised from a baby. His ear never did recover properlly from where he tried to follow the guinea pigs out of the run on thier ill fated bid for feedom. But even with the scaring and repeated infecting he was still much loved and stroked and spoiled.

being a wiered mix of flemish giant and lop ear he was prown to health issues but when we got the little baby blacky we thought he would be with us for a good while.

Jean wrote him a letter explaining how sad we were and asking him to say hello to her goldfish and other pets we have lost. She then did a poem to.

For Jean this summer has been a bit trumatic for pet deaths - all three of her pets have died. We have taken great pains to explain that she looked after them really well and that is not why thy have died. She said to me that 'if you love something lots and look after it, when it dies if ghosts are true then its ghost will love you and protect you?'

I cried after she was a sleep as I hadn't said goodbye to him I'd just popped a pot of veg I'd been growing for him into his run so that he would have a great treat whilst we were away. Alaric says he strocked him for all of us.

Poor Goldy – Poor Jeany (by sarah)

So at the Queens Jubilee Jeany rescued a goldfish from the fayre and proceeded to care for it in a manner that astonished me and Alaric.

She would panic if she was running late for school and had not yet fed it. She was keen to clean the tank out and had selected a friend in the form of Slimey the pond snail for it.

Having gotten out of the initial first few weeks I thought we were safe but alas last night Jean came done the stairs sobbing that something was wrong with her fish. He wasn't moving and he was floating at the top of the tank.

She took me back upstairs and yes poor Goldy was a goner. I took Jeany back down stairs and sat her on the settee, 'Do you understand why Goldy isn't moving Jeany?'

shakes head

'He's died sweety' - clingy hug and hysterical sobs up several levels from the previous crying.

We had conversations (very wet conversations involving hugs) about death and about how she made Goldy's life really good and it would have died sooner etc...

She remembered Betsy and Minni and Eve and Percy and Cosmo and the Ginue Pigs. And we sent Goldy on a journey to the sea where Goldy's body would become part of the Great Cycle of life and nourish other creatures and were it's soul would swim in kinder different waters.

Jean was very scared of why Goldy was floating so I explained about how the tummies of the dead get filled with gas as they can't poo anymore and so the stuff starts decomposing meaning they turn into a sort of balloon. Part of me wondered why I was resorting to science and thought that Jean probably just wanted more cuddles but it actually calmed her down.

It's been knitting a fish which Jean asked me to finish so she could hug it in bed - so I did.

We sang Goldy a goodbye song.

Jean slept after being assured that any little ghost fish would be one that loved her for taking such good care of it.

This morning her main concern was that Slimey would be sad and loney.