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.
It was my dad's 65th birthday (his actual birthday was the 3rd but what with all the well everything that we've been doing - we decided to post pone it!). My dad is a massive fan of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchette - I introduced him to them when I were back at university.
SO I themed his birthday. We had:
The luggage and Friends:
Wizard Hats and white chocolate stars:
I made one or two of them 🙂 If my Bro and his wife could have made it I was going to do chaos butterflies and Death cupcakes but as it is I already made far too much!
And of course we had the main cake - the Great Star Turtle A'Tuin rinding through space with the world on his back, held up by four elephants - who admittedly look like some sort of elephant/mouse cross bred.
Dad seemed very please even if we did have a clash of the culinary cultures over his macaroni cheese and fried onions (Alaric put them in the actual macaroni cheese which was great but as we had never had that before and the only thing like it had been a horrible celery in the macaroni cheese - we initially all reacted with horror which we tried to cover up as he had been cooking for ages making all the sauce and everything - poor Alaric). We had pear cider and opened the Cider Brandy Alaric's Step brother Simon got us.
Dad's reaction to the cake was great - he says he loves the elephants and the fact I put the mountains in too 🙂 The Luggages didn't not come out as well as I wanted but Jean who had been watching The Colour of Magic and The Hogfather with Ferfer came into the kitchen and exclaimed 'Mummy you've made Luggages!'
I think the box set of Discworld films was greatly appreciated by Dad as well 🙂
Alan Turing one of the most important people in the history of the computer would have turned 100 today if he had lived. Though the chances of living to 100 are not great Turing didn't even manage to get as far as he should have.
It is occasionally argued about but it is considered that he committed suicide due to being hounded by the powers that be and given chemicals to subdue his sex drive. The reason for this was that he was Gay and in 40's and 50's being homosexual was not just illegal but thought to be a security risk.
Alan was faced with the choices of chemical castration or prison and exclusion from his work. He chose the chemicals. They had nasty side effects but he seems to have taken his treatment mainly in his stride.
Mr Turing wasn't just a mathematical genius he was a war hero having worked at Bletchley Park during the second world war cracking codes and thus saving at least allied lives. He is most often mentioned in association with the enigma machine.
His contributions to modern computing are huge and he is considered one of the founders of the subject Computer Science.
His achievements are great and yet the first time I heard of him was when I picked up one of Alaric's computing books after our move to Gloucestershire. It is strange that like Ada Lovelace he seems to have fallen through the cracks some what. And worse than that his centenary year is plagued by arguments of how to portray him.
Is it good or bad for those on the autism spectrum to know of him and so on. If he had been alive to day he would have probably been diagnosed with Aspergers syndrom but why is this a problem? Yes that was a facet of his personality but that is all. Use him to show others in the same situation as him that they can achieve by all means but that is not what is happening - I think there needs to be a gear shift in society. After all with the modern world lets face it the Geek shall inherit and that is all geeks, the meek, mild, argumentative, know it alls and the distracteds.
His achievements are his and he should be being portrayed as a founder and hero to everyone and I mean everyone. I will twist Alaric's arm into writing a blog post about Alan's achievements.
We made a Turing Machine Cake and drew the shamefully bad picture at the top of the post.
It is Mid Summers Night and it is tipping it down. The rain seems to last forever even though yesterday was lovely. Now I find it really difficult to have energy if the sun is not shining so I decided to make a sun picture to share with everybody and amazingly the baby let me! Though she her self did end up covered in pen and we had a slight altercation over running off with all of mummy's pens.
Thursdays is Alaric's day in Bristol so me and the girls tend to bake stuff and watch films. Today we did bagel burgers and solar cakes complete with sun spots 🙂
Recipes will be on Salaric Cooking soon 🙂
As of yesterday our garden broke even on the amount of money spent on plants, soil and pots, ok so it is a slight cheat as we bought alot of stuff with us and have been given a lot of things and that does not include Mary's apple tree but still I am very happy with this. Especially as everything is in pots and containers!
Above are some of our crops 🙂 At the weekend I bought a lovely rosemary plant for 50 p too 🙂
I love my salad! Recipe is on Salaric Cooking.
Animals, Jean | sarah | 
Tue 17th Jul 2012 8:03 am | 
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