Cuggles! (by sarah)

Little Mary is now two! The last two weeks have seen her suddenly saying more understandable words, she asks for cuddles (cuggles), she says Dean (Jean which used to be meemee), she repeats and put her hands on her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, arm etc... she will sort of count with Jean as long as Jean goes slowely enough - just mimicry at the moment. And I was startled to hear her doing the alphabet with my mother.

She still mainly uses the baby sign and asks for milk in Lojban rather than English, she does appear to have taken to only trying to copy the English words though she responds best to the Lojban ones.

She is a little cheeky monkey who climbs on everything and escapes from everything!

She pretends to give herself injections in the tummy (just like my Dad does) and has started proper imagination play.

She was potty training and doing really well and then she forgot to pull her trousers down and now refuses not to have a nappy on. Unless it is near bed/nap time, she will tell us she needs changing - she knows that having her nappy changed is what happens before bed!

She is obsessed with cloths! She has opinions on what she will and will not wear and gets excited - she will even try and steel Jean's cloths - like the rainbow cardigan my mum knitted - 'MINE! Mine!'.

She sings nursery rhymes enough for me to guess what she is singing (normally twinkle twinkle little star), her grin is so large if I get it right 🙂

She mimics sounds so clicks like indicators (Jean did this too), makes a squeak like the broken tumble dryer and the scraping noises of zombies in Mine Craft.

If she wants to go out she will go to the clean laundary pile, select cloths, put her wellies on, get her ruck sack, fill it with toys and beaker, put her coat on and drag a blanket around - she gets very annoyed when you then say it's nap time. Sometimes we take her out just because she's put so much effort into it.

She is getting there with petting the cats and they tolerate being used as warm fluffy pillows.

She is still diddy but seems robust enough - not as much as Jean was she can't take the cold very well where as Jean never seemed to notice or want to really ware cloths!

She will tiggle tiggle you! This is high pitched and involves lifting your top and tiggling your tummy 🙂

She is a putting things away baby 🙂 She will tidy up putting stickle bricks away etc... unlike Jeany who is a messy little moo 🙂

She can get very cross - not laid back at all like her sister and is more clingy but at the same time is more likely to sit and play on the carpet next to the dest rather than having to have me entertain her. She loves her sister most of the time and runs up and hugs her but not when Jean is asking for hugs! Though if anyone is crying she will hug them.

I made Jean cry by telling her off about tidying bedrooms, Mary took one look at the poor sobbing Jean and instantly joined in and this was proper crying from both of them. I felt like a really bad mummy but had to stick to my guns.

Mary is definatly a hobbit - she has second breakfast though you are hard pushed to get anything other than a snack into her for the rest of the day.

Food Safety (by sarah)

As the horse meat issue rears it's head once more, we are faced with a bigger problem than most people realise. As I said before when this first came out - food needs to be what it says it is as if it doesn't it can kill or make people sick through food allergies and the like.

The issue is not that it is horse meat but that it is an unknown in there and the horse meat has turned out to have drugs in it that are not safe for humans. This is an issue on two levels - first off it means they are not food animals, have not been raised for it and have been medicated with things that would not be given to livestock. Such meat should not enter the food chain - wasteful perhaps in some eyes. And secondly where on earth have they been getting the animals from did they just fall from earth from space??!

People are saying that this is a reason to buy from your local butcher which is great except a lot of people can't afford to do this - this is the point; it is the cheap foods that are being hit. Families that are struggling anyway are now being hit with the fact that the cheap food they can afford is not what it says it is and good be harmful to their families.

Also from an economic point of view it gets worse - people understandably will stop buying the products affected or a lot of people will. It has hurt the brand name which is good in same ways as it might well drive business back to the local farmers and butchers but... it could have a knock on effect resulting in all meat producers being hit.

Hopefully there will be an upsurgence in ethical farming practice and better food standards but how long has this been going on?

The people who investigate the food - Trading Standards have steadily had their funding cut so that they can't police everything the way they used to. And beef is not the only thing that is iffy.

I'm seeing lots of veggies going 'hahaha see you should all be veggi' - but how many of them really know what they are eating?

There have been instances of meat turning up in veggi processed food, as Alaric said - who's to say that your veggie mince doesn't have horse meat in it - has anyone checked?

But worse there is an entire swathe of counterfeit foods in this country ranging from cheese analogue (not cheese at all it just looks like cheese and though you may think this sounds good and vegan it is harmful).

And it is not just the cheaper foods that are affected, things like Extra Virgin Olive Oil are often fakes as well - not good if you are trying to control what fats and oils you are eating.

Ok so as I myself have said the only way to be sure of what you are eating is to make it yourself from scratch but more than that you have to grow the products on a patch of land that isn't itself contaminated by something. This is not realistic for most people - I wish it was, but modern life does not allow this.

My personal suggestion is give away free veg and put a tax on processed food. It is stupid that processed food cost less than fresh. Add in a policy to try and get as many people as possible growing rather than building on the allotments. Make more of them - people want them - there are huge waiting lists!

And yes I realise this would have an economic knock-on but then so does horse meat in the beef burgers.

Free cooking lessons at community centres and the such like would be good too so that people are not afraid of ruining the food they have just bought.

Also importing less food would be good for our economy, due to not having to convert our money to buy and transport costs and so on. It would be good for the environment too.

Poets Work (by sarah)

Saturday I went into Cheltenham to meet friends and write and what have you. It was great to see my friend Andy again who I orginally met at a writing group in Cheltenham back before the floods!

The postcards and stickers of my art work arrived for moo so I gave him some one of each which he seemed really happy about 🙂 He also told me I should be selling them.

Somehow three hours disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Then I went on to Centre Arts who are running an Arts Cafe on Saturday afternoons. I managed to fall off my chair - a prelude to passing out and stuff later in the day which was unfortunate but I recovered and they were very helpful and understanding as always!

I felt stupid but a cup of coffee and several poems inspired by the artwork later, I was having a fine chat with an artist/nurse who was in there drawing away.

I also managed to talk to my friend who runs the place about the Science-Art Exhibition we will be running in March which is very exciting and lots of organising needs to be done!

Alaric was concerned about me so bought me a four pack of irish stout which did seem to really help - he then made me lots of green veg for dinner and we discussed the bleeding problem :/

I've also had a neck spasm for the last week or so which is making typing and drawing and reading hard but I am steadily working my way through it. On the plus side the continual headache I've had for the past year seems to have disappeared with the coil 🙂

I finished the day off by sorted out my poetry mug - I love this cupcake tea cupe 🙂

It may not sound like work but with the aememia acting up it was very exhausting for me but it was definately worth it. I'd been in on Tuesday as well to watch a talk about The European History of Warewolves which was interesting by (Deborah Hyde)[http://www.jourdemayne.com/about-jourdemayne].

It was a narrowed down talk so covered a later bit of history than what I have been researching lately. However it did tie in with the time period of the first Punk storyline and I'd very much want to add in the warewolf, witch and vampire myths on top but within the context of actual history, science and the storyline itself. Well that was really the point of going!

From a writing point of view Tuesday was a very productive day - I spent it trying to get an overview of Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Tudor period but completely side tracked myself in disease history (as you do!).

This was all whilst cuddling Mary who was in one of her slightly grumpy I am teething moods so wouldn't be put down.

After the warewolf talk, I wrote a horror story based on real accounts of the Black Death - I should have been sleeping but had brain over load!

I freaked myself out slightly and ended up having to wake Alaric up - this is a good sign though - I feel my best horror stuff is written in this way - though poor Al was not amused!

I have a story idea that came out of the talk too but it is very disturbing so can't face writing it yet. It maybe shelved until GothNoWriMo or something.

The talk was good in another way though - I realised as I miss people who think and know stuff. I was sitting there and some makes a comment about us and chimpanzees and I know it's wrong and before I can say anything someone else corrects the guy! It just sort of felt like uni again and I have always really missed that atmosphere.

Writing wise this month is being hectic with me running WoPoWriMo too and I really want to donate some more poems to charity cause - one for the disabled and their fight at the moment and some for Freedom - a book shop that was fire bombed in London on Friday.

So I am chugging along with the work thing - never as fast as I want but little bits will build-up.

One Leg Longer than the Other (by sarah)

So awhile ago Alaric started having horrible lower back pain which we thought was initially a slipped disc as did the Dr and he got refered to physio and he seemed sorted but then it came back, this time with exploding knee and things. It has been getting worse and more frequent though disappears in the intermediate stages - he had to be tested for various other nasty things like bone cancer etc... especially as he was having the night sweats and things but these were all clear.

Further prodding and pocking reveals he has a wonky pelvis leading to inflamation of the thorasic joint - he has siattica basically. He is fixable - especially as it appears the wonk has been caused in the first place by one leg being short than the other. He says in hind sight there has always been an issue with him getting into trouble for 'tripping people up' as he naturally stands with the longer leg sticking out.

So he needs manipulation and special shoes, but the nhs wont fix him, they will prescribe pain killers and send him to pain management but wont fix him as it will cost too much. His Dr has given him the contact details for the person she went too as she had the same problem.

I just don't understand the logic of the nhs - left untreated he will end up a cripple and dependent costing them alot of money. I suppose it's why save money for a tomorrow we shall not see :/

But more than that - when I was at school we had a medical in secondary school where they measured everything and checked spins were straight and all sorts - he apparently didn't have this - I can't help but think the leg issue would have been picked up then - the amount of damage all ready done which could have been solved by made to measure shoes with different height soles :/

So the mission is to sort him out - we can't afford for both of us to be cripples. When his back is bad we have to work together in the most ludicrous of ways to get the most simple things done. Not too bad at the moment as I am walking again but there were a few dicey weeks when I was on crutches and he couldn't lift anything last year. We had to work in tandum to get the baby seat in the car etc...

Mary is 2! (by sarah)

Mary was two on Monday - she spent most of the day in nursery with her friends who made her a lovely card complete with scribble signatures 🙂

When she came home she opened her card from Uncle David and Aunty Michelle and the one Jeany had made her with a little drawn birthday story in it! Then there was one present from Al's mother - a ball pit which both girls had much fun with.

We sang Happy Birthday in four different languages - English (all of us), Lojban (Daddy), Polish (Mummy - or what I cold remember of it), and French (Jeany).

Due to Dad being ill and me having med issues too we have posponed the official celebration ie the party until the 16th of Feb.