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](http://turquoise.monsters.wigglypets.co.uk/) 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](http://wopowrimo.wigglypets.co.uk/). 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](http://www.salaric.co.uk/). Also [Storystorm](https://taralazar.com/) - 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](http://oktruebelievers.com/) 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](http://www.wigglypets.co.uk/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.

A Flambe Lunch (by sarah)

So yeah - looks like I still can't really cook on my own. I'm fine with popping something in the oven to heat and nuking stuff in the microwave and even things that cook quickly in the frying pan though I still tend to burn them. But yeah I was grilling some bacon, I knew it was an off day, I couldn't find half my craft supplies that turned out to be exactly where I left them and so on. Issue - weekend was busy with poetry performances, kids parties and tax returns. I think it might have been the tax return I had to think about which years stuff happened in and that is often different to the year it was paid for in which might be a different calendar year to the tax year and might not. Al did the reciet checking but I still had to work out dates and where I'd filed (or hadn't filed) various invoices etc.. Basically I am on my own during the day, Al normally makes food for me to just nuke for lunch or I have dips and veg etc... but there wasn't time to organise that because the weekend was busy and I didn't even do everything we were supposed to do! ie I was supposed to have a self defence class - something kind of needed after the van being smeared in shit and yobs throwing sexual insaults at me and my daughter. Getting back to it - I decided what I wanted was bacon because it was being a slow day and I couldn't get my head around anything so working was a no go. Everytime I tried to do my naps someone was at the door delivering stuff (yes Christmas stuff is still arriving at our house!!! And we still have presents to hand out - go us!). I put the bacon on, I don't like cooking it when Al is around because it stinks and he's a vegi and its not nice for him. Not really sure what happened, I was in the kitchen, the bacon was under the grill, it smelt like bacon cooking and then suddenly it smelt like bacon burning and when I looked there were flames coming out of the grill and I was like "AARRRGGGGGGGG" I oiked the grill tray out singing my oven gloves (booo hissssss) and popped it in the garden where the flames where leaping and spitting as the rain hit the hot fat. I looked for our fire putting out thing... cylinder. It wasn't there - this is because it is actually in the workshop where it is more likely to be needed but Al says we can get a fire blanket for the kitchen which will make me happier. When I looked the flames had signif. calmed down in the rain and I thought it would be ok so I got my camera and took a pic - because you know that is just what I do! Here's a picture of my lunch or rather the lunch that would have been. Of course I was then too worried about burning things to attempt making the kids dinner and was just setting them up with cheese and biscuits (remembering Mary can't eat cow milk and is refusing peanut butter I wasn't very sure what I was actually going to be feeding her - we were going to be having fish fingers but the grill tray was/is still in the garden and I am not sure it will be much good). To the girls delight and my relief Alaric came in brandishing shopping and started cooking pasta. This meant Mary went to bed an hour past her bed time as he comes in just before her bedtime. So kind of failure - kind of funny - kind of scary - very frustrating but also I am starting to see the correlations with things. I did heavy brain load stuff (tax) whilst not having my naps - I will get there with this one but it is why Al worries about leaving me on my own.

Shakespearian Mock Tales (by sarah)

Last night we had the second ever Mock Tales - 2 hours of stories and writing creativeness with sticky non-alcoholic cocktails. They were Shakespeare themed as it was his 400th birthday at the weekend :) I did 20+ pages of my comic book script/story board and now know how this story arc ends, Alaric managed 5000 words of our joint novel/series. There were 3 of us so I was limited as to how many drinks I could make! Above are Twelfth Night which was minty, Midsummer Nights Dream which was vanillary, The Scottish Drink which was fruity, and The Tempest which was Sugary. We also had home made Pizza which was dairy and gluten free - Mary had opinions... I remembered that when I was in secondary school I became obsessed with The Tempest as a story and drew the whole thing as a comic - I wonder if it survives somewhere? I loved the stop motion animations they did of the shakespeare stories I need to try and find them for the girls. Jean tried a Tempest before she went off to best - she was a little horrified at it's stickiness - she still drank/ate it. Recipes are being written down for [Salaric Cooking](http://cooking.salaric.co.uk/) before people start prodding again :)

Geo Bake Off – Geologist Despair (by sarah)

I mentioned [the Geological Society's](http://blog.geolsoc.org.uk/) Bake Off to Jean - this is the result - she's been planning it for weeks! The girls are seriously proud of this 7 cake monstrocity. They have certainly enjoyed eating it :) There is a lot of hidden stuff that went into this cake. One of the themes was mud which is why there is chocolate orange mud flows :) But there were all sorts of challenges and Jeany decided she wanted to try and complete as many as possible. So within the river valley there is structure for a cross section. And then she just got plan creative - with the structure of the cake and I believe some youtube research. These are the marzi-bones fossil human ancestors or related species buried in a cash by volcanic ash - they may or may not have already been dead when this happened some more excavation will have to occur to find out! The top layer of the Mud Tower is a chocolate gravel lens between a sandy mud and a volcanic ash. You can see the colour difference really well in this photo. Here is Jean cutting open mud tower to reveal whats within. Spoiler... the chocolate gravel lense. Here's the river valley with birds foot delta - at this stage the volcano is dormant or extinct. This is the main part of the cake with Mud Tower and the ammonite loaf as zoomed in bits and the past hidden behind the lush "hill". Of course there is a hidden volcano and... erm Jurassic Park toilet death scene... The geologist hammer was another challenge - but being Jean it is a geo-thor hammer so is the wrong shape (to be honest she sneaked a time travel train into it so I was amazed there was no tardis). I did the writing. Within there is an ammonite - this one was completely and utterly Jean's own idea and it worked and she is soooo happy she is taking it into school tomorrow :) This was the tense moment of cutting in and finding out if the idea had worked. It's a bit flatter than intended but we agreed it's had metamorphic stuff happen to it thanks to the volcanos proximity. The cake did kind of over flow but that's not surprising - here's how it was made... Did I mention that she called this cake collective - Geologist Despair. Volcano before lava. She did try to put structure inside the volcano but it didn't work that well. The volcano was fun to put together - she remembered Dino-Mountian I'd made her for her 5th? Birthday :) How the river valley was put together... One time travel train and it's in a tunnel - the tunnel was the challenge :) And before the tunnel, infact she did a lot of icing moderling for this. Of course Mary pulled her weight too :) Mainly with rolling out icing and smearing chocolate everywhere! She did most of the Mud Tower by herself :) Mary put chocolate gravel leaking out of an erroded side and some other bits including sticking out marzi-bones :) Mud cracks were a challenge - Jean went with the existing cake cracks and made the lonely tree which was another of the challenges. Lonely tree... did I mention the lonely tree? Other general cakey making pics... Creating the Marzi-Bones... I really love this idea :) Creating T-Rex... This has been EPIC - it took 3 days to make the cakes - Alaric is taking Mud Tower into work tomorrow etc... Both girls have enjoyed it so much and of course we used home grown eggs. The cakes themselves range from chocolate orange to mint to vanilla and strawberry in flavour. There are three icings and marzipan involved and some of the cake is me friendly ie gluten free (the volcano) and some is Mary friendly and so on. Jean was a little sad as she had meant to put Mary Anning in and a geological map too but she forgot and just don't ask her about how atomically correct her loo death scene is ok.

Tangling it All: Make, Bake, Create (by sarah)

It's March and as I am not a hardy gardener, March is the beginning of my growing year. Which means that we have been along to the allotment and I've (yes me!!!) dug a bed over and harvested a load of leeks and so on but mainly I've been potting seeds up and transferring things into bigger pots with the two girls. They both love this - but Mary most of all - I took over the dinning table for three days and she spent hours each day filling plant pots for me :) She also loves watering them all, as does Jean so I have to be careful not to end up with little "floods". Mary also thinks that watering can is a musical instrument - she is not wrong and I am glad I don't use it for any fertalisers or anything! (photo) This weekend was heavy on the garden stuff - I sorted out the chicken run so that we could use the old flooring as stuff to dig into the allotment. This is quiet heavy work and I also have to sort out the wormeries and see how much compost I have ready to go in them. The answer was several bucket loads! I also had to fix two of the sumps which is a bit ick as they are by nescesity under all the liquid that settles at the bottom of the wormeries. This stuff is basically liquid plant food which is why I collect it and my tones of tomatoes last year proves that it works! And though I now have new funky plant pots on the window sill in the dining area I also have various pots that have been painted either by me or the girls. This for me is an interesting cross over of the craft and the gardening. I even have two that I painted back when I was a Ranger (top section of Guiding). That was not the only craft cross over either - I'm having a finishing projects month and though not a project that was already started - I have had this idea for ages (*years*) so we went ahead and did it :) We made plant or seed markers out of knives by dipping them into metal paint we have left over from [Alaric making his ladder](http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/?s=ladder). We also did some spoons to make Easter Eggs for plant pots decorations and the garden. Alaric and Jean set up a drying rack by using an old kitchen tidy and a length of metal and clamps. Clingfilm was placed beneath to catch drips. He then showed Jean how to dip the spoons. She then had a go and was very careful and patient. She did all the spoons and knives and Mary helped Daddy find the right size dog clips to pin them all up to the drying rack. The paint is supposed to be touch dry in an hour but it was on quiet thickly so we left it over night. The next day we took sharpies and took to decorating the spoons as easter eggs and the knives as seed markers (ok so I did all the knives but we all did the eggs including Alaric and Mary). I'm not sure how well this will work and this first lot are going out without varnish, the sharpie pics we did on [the chair at the allotment](http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/archives/2014/06/24/what-a-lot-of-allotment/) have faded but that maybe due to the under laying paint flaking - we will see - it's an EXPERIMENT!!!! mwhahahahahahahaha Jean spent ages on decorating her ones. I am very very happy with the seed markers :) Infact we are going to have to do a couple more batches as I have a lot more stuff planned for the growing! I coloured the inside of my Easter Egg spoon with a chick - Mary decided she had to do one too and demanded the colours "ellow, norange and black" and then with a stroke of genius announced that the back of her chick needed to be fluffy yellow as it was already crick crack hatched! Well I was impressed - I was equally impressed by Jean's sheep and tree :) I love these Easter Egg Spoons :) I don't think you can tell which one of us did which egg to be honest :) The only issue is that you can't let them touch each other or various plastics as they stick. Mary is most pleased with her flower pot :) And it is great fun to mix the crafts in with the gardening, things like bird scariers and wind chimes are fun to make and practical too. But this weekend kind of had the cake and the icing and the eating :) For a start CHICKENS that lay stoopid numbers of eggs which always equals cake but second... I grubbed up some potatoes that I've been growing in the big bags we used to move with three years ago. This is the third year of potatoes in the garden. They are lovely new tatties so small and firm and Alaric being the whizz that was whipped them up into a gorgous curry that was dairy, gluten and soya free and found naan breads I could eat too! There were even star anises in the top :) And this? This is my purple chilli :) I basically grew the chilli plants from seed all the way through the winter and autumn and I had [chillies in Feb](http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/archives/2015/03/04/chillies-in-feb/)! And as promised by the packet they are all different colours :) I am so excited about this, I have never managed them from seed before! Basically this weekend we managed to do gardening, craft and cooking and the boundaries between them were blurred and in truth there was DIY too which crossed over very nicely too :) p.s. we also took Jean to two different sporting clubs and a sleep over.