Stroud Water Festival 40 yrs Party (by sarah)

Last weekend we went to the Stroud On Water Festival for me to read my poetry - it was on our wanting to do list anyway so I was very happy to be asked and in some ways wish we had been able to spend the whole weekend there but obviously I had originally been booked for another festival which had to be canceled due to flooding. (Today we are off to another wet looking festival!).

It was a lovely festival with victorians wondering in to listen to poetry.

I got fed coffee, eton mess and other goodies whilst listening to the other poetry - Alaric and girls missed my performances which was a shame.

After the poetry we wondered about and bought plants and things and looked mainly at bees!

It was the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the restoration of the canals - so here are some photos of work on the canals 🙂

They had a steam roller!

But for me I think the highlight of the day was that as Alaric and the girls left a tent I heard '....good to see the Gotye impersonator has bought his children along...' I missed the rest of the conversation so am not sure it was Alaric that was ment but I think it must have been 🙂 On top of that random people he meets are now saying the same to him :/

Festival Sheep for Wychwood :) (by sarah)

This is Ianto and Yori who are really looking forward to Wychwood at the weekend - they are hoping that all the festival goers will make them lovely multicoloured fleeces to wear just incase of the rain.

Party in the Park (by sarah)

Today we went to the Party in the Park in Gloucester - we weren't sure of the weather and we wanted to walk in to see how my pelvis held up so we did not pack a picnic something we did regret. But it was a great day (bar the goldfish which I shall cover in another post).

We arrived and the first thing that struck me was that there is actually alot of grander in Gloucester that I just haven't noticed before probably as the last time I took a camera in to take photos specifically of Gloucester I was doing it twinned with visits to Bristol, London and Swindon to take photos of derilict buildings for a comic book/RPG project.

The first thing in the park we came to was the Museum folk who had a giant pie they were filling with messages for the Queen which will be presented to her in September. So Jeany wrote a message and bored people by asking questions on how the pie crust was made and rabbiting on about my papier mache 🙂

Then Jean found a lovely simplistic game of using balls to knock over knights which she spent ages on!

Jean then made a crown of crowns of crowns of crowns of... well I lost count but I loved the concept 🙂 She said it made it infinitly more crowny 🙂 We tried to include the baby but she was happy just shredding the tissue paper flowers I made her!

Jean then bought a flag followed and we walked onto another stool "oh no! purple Daddy - Mummy will be here for ages". Though she changed her mind a bit when I bought her a knitted cupcake bracelet (pin cushion!) - I've been promising to knit her and Mary a plate of cakes since February. Anyway it turned out the stall was run by a local crafting/knitting etc... group. They are called The Wild Cherries of Gloucester and look interesting. My only issue is that it does say it's a women's social group and I dislike that on equality grounds but on the other hand recently I have discovered that alot of things that call themselves that are really pleased and suprised when Alaric produces his crotchett.

I shall be having a nose around anyway - I really miss the London Geeky Crafters.

Then we went to the fun fair and Jean had a set limit of £5 which ment she got to go on two things one of which has resulted in us now owning a goldfish (Goldy).

Because it was a party Jean insisted we play party games when we got home. So we played pass the parcel were the baby got fed up of the package being given too her and taken away again and so ran off with it! Musical bumps which Jean won as Daddy has further to flop, Musical Statues which I won (against Mary), Musical Chairs which Mary won by Jean being complacent, but it's ok cos daddy won pass the parcel - a fine pipe cleaner bracelet Jean had made in neon colours 🙂

We were then going to go and watch the beacon lighting after dinner and a skype call with Al's family but alas the baby fell asleep and I was emmersed in LitChat, our timing had been thrown out by an emergency goldfish accomadation search. I went upstairs to my studio in dispondance only to see by pure chance the beacon being lit on top of Robin Hoods Hill from my window!

Stroud Site Festival Slam and Career-ness (by sarah)

Friday saw me in Stroud for my frist ever poetry slam - and I was so nervous. It was part of the Stroud Site Festival and was run by Marcus Moore and Sara-Jane Arbury.

Over the last few years I have done quiet alot of poetry readings including some performance stuff but not a slam. Not a situation where I felt I had to have the poem memorised. I did a Flash Fiction Slam in Oxford about two weeks ago but again I was reading from sheets of paper. My mother keeps saying it's the same as when I did acting but I was mostly back ground people and had a few words or sentences punctuated by other people which acted as prompts.

As a result I performed No Wage Slave as that was the one I am the strongest with having performed it so much recently. I also now have I Hate Race Week and Hopscotch (most the time) memorised. I am working on memorising more.

On top of that I've been looking at Science Communication courses but then found myself being asked if I could come in and give a talk to scientists about using art and crafts to help with thought patterns and communication. So am re-thinking this especially as there are only burseries for doing it full time which would defeat it being part of what I have already built up.

As it is I am pretty much booked up for the summer and now have a couple of events already in the calendar for the Autumn.

I am trying to learn to drive mainly as my main limitation at the moment is how to get home from performances and events etc... I would love to do more stage stuff, maybe some TV and radio too. Which was part of why I was looking at the Science Communication courses - its the work placements and the science writing I would like.

Not sure if I told everyone I now have a home page / hub for my various websites - it is not all that good at the moment but I am getting little time to work on it at the mo!

Also I now only need £15 for the sensory cave to be built but I am running out of time! So please sponsor me there are lots of fab things I am willing to send people who back my project and extra money goes towards a science-art exhibition in March next year that I am organising with a local art gallery.

Cake Pops (by sarah)

This is our first batch of cake pops - made as a family for a delayed May Day celebration.

I had wanted to get this machine at christmas but with house moving and stuff I couldn't.

We all had fun making the cake pops 🙂

I think they looked good as the table centre piece 🙂

Here are Jean's cake pops

Here are Alaric's Goth Pops 🙂

Out of mine there were only two good designs - black icing with purple edible glitter which I could not get a good photograph of and my topary cake pop.

I wasn't sure about the thickness of icing etc... so we had made up different thicknesses to try and we decorated some then and there and others we left to dry and decorated with icing pens and things later on!

Alaric and Jean had fun making cake pop pals for me which I filmed and will be making wiggly pet e-comic type things with the still photos 🙂

There will be more cake pops and cake pop pals 🙂 My big project is a cake pop bucky ball 🙂