Eve and May (by sarah)

It is May, the beginning of May, the beginning of Summer - for some the new year begins now, what ever it is a time of new beginnings... except it is also when Mum was dying, it was an end, a birth to the after life maybe... a something and definitely a transition.

Tomorrow it will have been two yrs, we are only just sorting out her room... only just removing the broken stair lift (it couldn't be fixed metal had sheared off of it), only just paying off some of the stuff that needed paying off. We have only managed any of this with help - we found the roof had been leaking and teenagers swarmed the house and like a little chain of ants took ruined carpet and matrices to a small skip we had out the front. We made them sushi and they stayed to play video games and craft things afterwards - I cried because the teddy bear calendar had been moved - it was still in the configuration my dad had set it too. It had to be moved.

The house moves forward, into a new era, it is once more a big house - Jean has wondered off to University... there are no small children... it is strangly empty and yet not as we have a house full of stray animals... but it is different. Mary likes being able to use the computer more - the entertainment centre is back in the living room and we watch films and play games.

My health has not recovered from miscarriage, covid or looking after mum... but it has gotten better just not as much as I would have liked. And if I was angry about womb stuff before hand I am livid now... we had to go private to get teenage periods that were heavy enough to cause passing out looked at treated in any sort of reasonable time frame... and mum... mum who made sure I knew about periods before I had them because she hadn't and had thought she was dying when her's started... was still too embrassed to tell me she was having some problems in her 70's because everything about wombs and sex and often boobs... problems conceiving, loosing pregnancies, still births, abortion, periods, STDs, AIDS, problems both physical and mental after having a baby and even not wanting babies or sex... all of it is taboo still - all of it is not talked about.

And well I confronted her about blood... she had stage 4 womb cancer... with everything else that was happening it was a drop in the ocean of medical chaos at the time but involved us having to make "interesting" medical decisions, she had already had two different types of breast cancer (no really) which she had beat with operations, radiotherapy and the lighter end of chemo. They told us that it would only be pallative for the cancer but that it was initially advancing quiet slow - the treatments for it in the state she was in would likely have killed her but she was still scheduled to go on the lighter side of chemo etc... as she fought off infections it became aggressive and very quickly spreading. It still wasn't what killed her.

There was genetic testing and a want to stop this kind of thing happening in future - for womb and reproductive system health to stop being shunted to the side. I am sharing all of this with my mum's permission including that though she would never sign a Do Not Resuscitate or ask for no treatment whilst there was hope... she did decided to only take palliative care and go for quality of life over more invasive cancer treatments. I know some people felt this was me allowing mum to kill herself but it really wasn't and all the decisions where talked over endlessly with her and medical professionals. It was also not her only active cancer - she had a slow growing tumour on the adrenal gland.

But all that aside the womb cancer could have been found sooner... and this is the case for many and we don't talk about it... lives are lost needlessly because we won't talk. Before covid I had a set of workshops I had created specifically to try and break these barriers down - the conversations can save lives. Even nurses attending the workshops told me they had suffered and talked about stuff with colleagues or gone to the drs. Stephen Kings mother died because this very thing and that is before we even look at how birth control has been used untested and has its origins in eugenics, or how pain is dismissed as hysteria or aesthetics denied because you managed a vaginal birth so you'll be fine with pain...

This was why I started The Glass Pelvis, and the more I looked the worse it got.

All of this and more is bumbling around my brain - and it is two yrs since mum died, five since dad died and mum basically gave up on life, six since I the miscarriages.

I am a mess, I am still on a crutch... but it is much better than it was... I like to earn medals - you know those race at your own pace type thingies and after mum died I did a Golden Heart challenge with Medal Mad inscribed for her. Then last yr I did the Fogetmeknot medal to remember dad - he always thought he'd be forgotten... ironically or the universe joking with me... I forgot to get the inscription done - Alaric says we can take it and have his name added to it at a shop in Gloucester. I also dragged the family into memorial walks for diabetes, cancer and dementia charities.

This year I have chose Get Lippy 60k in May from the Eve Appeal which is a charity that deals with gynea cancers of which there are five main ones. Womb cancer is of course one of them.

Walking is hard for me and oftentimes painful but there will be dedicated walks for this with live streaming from the me only ones and I am resurrecting my walking group but under the new name Wandering Stars who I plan to walk with on Friday's. I am happy to go visiting country parks and things with people too or do the odd evening if peeps want to join me.

You can of course sponsor me and help raise money for the charity - here is my just giving page:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/sarah-snell-pym-get-lippy--eve-appeal?utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=page%2Fsarah-snell-pym-get-lippy--eve-appeal&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=pfp-share

Gloucester Story Telling Cafe – Stories and Songs For May (by sarah)

After last months amazing first birthday bash The Gloucester Story Telling Cafe is hitting it's second yr running with the fabulous Cath Little as guest storyteller and Jessica Law as guest musician. It is very exciting to be able to bring such fantastic artists to Gloucester and to hear everyone sharing!

I can not express the joy it has given me, Jane and Deborah to watch the cafe grow and bloom in this way.

It is the fist Thursday of every month at The Folk of Gloucester a fabulous timber framed building that looks like it is from a fantasy story itself!

Doors open at 7 pm for a 7:30 pm start.

99-103 Westgate Street - just down from the Cathedral and it used to be the Folk Museum and then The Life Museum.

It is pay what you want and as well as our monthly guests we have an open mic - 10 mins max and welcome all forms of story telling within in that so bring you personal anecdotes. flash fiction, traditional tale, shaggy dog story, musical ballard and share!

Gloucester Story Telling Cafe 5 – The Summer Time Special (by sarah)

It's that time again already! July was hectic with end of term and beginning of summer holidays events including The Gloucester Festival of Archaeology!

Now its Augusts turn and we shall be starting off with The Gloucester Story Telling Cafe tomorrow evening at The Folk of Gloucester - this is our monthly story telling night and is open to many and varied different types of story telling from flash fiction, to biopic, to traditional tails, to Crankies and probably a whole lot more!

What you need to know to come and see the show!

When:

Thursday 2nd of August 2023

(It is the 1sr Thursday of every month except January)

Doors open 7 pm for a 7:30 start

It is a pay what you want system - we have no funding currently so could do with some shackles to keep the night running but equally if you have nothing or little to give just come along and enjoy the night for free

End time is around 10 pm (we are aware that one site says 9 pm it is an external site to us so we can't change it!)

We have an interval where you can buy drinks and cakes at the Cafe and Bar, it is also open before the show

Where:

The Folk of Gloucester, 99-103 Westgate Street, Gloucester (just down from the Cathedral)

It is the old Tudor style wooden framed building!

Who:

This months guest story teller is Nick Brunger - check them out even if it is just to see the awesome photos on their website!

And music from Ed B

You:

We also have open mic slots capped at one story, three poems or 10 minutes maximum. Please come and share your stories with us or just kick back with a beverage of choice and enjoy the night.

One, Two, Three… Blast Off (by sarah)

Before covid we were running a story telling night called The Moving Story Telling Cafe but it was derailed and not just by covid - we sadly lost one of our trio to cancer. So last month we relaunched but this time without the Moving - The Folk of Gloucester have kindly offered us a permanent home and also house one of the other Legacy projects of Chloe The Midnight Story Teller... The Story Telling Library.

Last month was a special launch and opening of the library with lots of guest story tellers who all knew Chloe personally - that means the this month is going to be the first actual Gloucester Story Telling Cafe and it happens to fall on May the Forth. One of the reasons the three of us... Chloe, Jane and myself worked so well was that we are unashamedly geeks but perhaps not so obviously geeks to those with narrower ideas of what a geek is. We love our sci-fi and fantasy and I had a request from the Gloucestershire Poetry Society to have an event that geeky poetry would be welcome... well how could we resist such a set up.

So we are blasting off with a Starwars joke and a sci-fi author whizz reading a poem from their sci-fi novel!

Chris Hemingway is a poet, prose writer and musician from Gloucestershire. His book “The Future” was published in 2016 and was described by Cheltenham Poetry Festival as ‘darkly witty, like “The Man Who Fell to Earth “ meets “The Office”’. He has also had published two poetry pamphlets ‘party in the Diaryhouse’ and ‘paperfolders’. That’s a lot of ‘p’s’…

I have used a picture of my dad dressed up an explorer of space when he was a little boy - my Granddad took arty pictures and with my Nanny loved to make outfits for my dad and I am so lucky that copies of this one still existed in Australia and that a cousin kindly sent a copy to me.

Doors open at 7 on May the 4th 2013 at The Folk of Gloucester 99-103 Westgate Street Gloucester, Gloucestershire, GL1 2PG

There is a cafe and bar. Entry is free but we will have a pay what you want pot out!

We are open to all story telling types from traditional to memoirs, to flash fictions, to novel extracts, to oral and of course narrative poetry!

Our Moto is "story telling for all/everyone" and as such not only do we have some fab guests lined up as well as music but we have an open mic were we would love people to come and share. Open mic slots are a max of 10 minutes.

This is the years itinerary - first Thursday of every month except January as lets face it - it is nearly always going to be too close to New Years Eve for most people and I can't be dealing with that!

Here is the Facebook event for tomorrows: One Two Three... Blast Off! and May the Forth be with you!

event

I am very excited about where this is all going - Story Telling and Gloucester have a long history and I hope a longer future!

Protected: Steampunk Drawing Resources (by sarah)