Stranded (by sarah)

Late Thursday night I got to the designated pick up point and discovered that dad was not there 🙁 So I phoned him and lo! he was still at the Mill and was quiet hypo (hypoglycemic - low blood sugar levels - dad is an insuline dependent siabetic) and I was stuck in Cheltenham at 11 o'clock with a car pulling up next to me - so being paranoid I legged it whilst still talking Dad into eating another buscuit. Barbara had just come back so I was sort of hoping she would make sure he eat the busciut and hung up and started to phone my writting teachter, but alas and alack... voice mail, I carried on heading towards her house anyway.

Phoned Dad again and convinced him to make himself a proper sandwitch, hung up and was about to panickally phone Ella in Wincester to get my friend Andrews number as he lives in Cheltenham so that I could then phone him if I didn't get through to my writting teatcher - fortunatly she phoned back at this point - informed me I was actually outside her house and let me in.

At this point I was wondering why on earth I had ignored my instincts - I had purposly gone against my cut instinct in order to not upset Dad who had been mantaining earlier that day that I keep checking up on him too much. I therefore did not phone to remind about afternoon snake and I even ignored the faint panicy feeling later in the everning to checked head eaten enough dinner. The worst bit was my writting teatcher had been being all panicky and thought I shouldnt go to the meeting spot on my own - ironicallly if I'd listerned to her I'd have simply had a lift home curtasy of a nice woman from the group but I didn't and so I found my self stranded at Anna's (the writing teachers) house.

I knew dad would be whiped out ofter such a bad hypo (it wasnt at coma inducing levels but missed them but a little tiny bit) so I told him to sleep in the Mill in my bed in the warm as I'd already been nervous about him sleeping in the Bakery which currently has no heating as I'm sure the temperature extremes where making his sugar levels go all over the place.

I slept on the setee at Annas flate watching for a good while some cute bloke on the TV going around the world via the Tropic of Capricorn, which was actually really interesting. I also spent half the night writting down story ideas and concepts and reading my New Scientist. For me it actually ended up being a very constructive day and is probably responsible for the only time I have ever actually read the whole of one New Scientist before the next one arrives!

A bit of a Catch up (by sarah)

As some of you may have noticed there hasn't been any blogging in Feburary - this was due to building work on the Bakery resulting in no power and no internet but I have been writing the posts off line - I have just sent them all live from the McDonalds in Stroud who turn out to have free Wiifi 🙂 I think I have just become a champion of drinking coffee very very slowely!

I will now endeverour to read about 1000 or so emials that have been waiting for me - also I abviously haven't been checking face book or anything. I have just a bit of work to catch up on here 🙂

Parafin Shower (by sarah)

Today has been stupidly hectic starting with dropping Jean off at nursery via convoys of cars due to the amount of road works going on enroute. Then to the shopping for food as I had forgotten several essentials such as more musili etc... Then home in time to discuess stuff with electricians and tunnel repairers, make lunch, I did start making dinner but somehow got distracted.

Then off to Stayte Services in Stroud to get our gas canisters refilled which was kinda urgant as at the moment its the only heating the Bakery has. i asked Barbara if she wanted anything and she said she'd like some parrafin from the Green Shop as they sell it 'loose' ie you can refill your own canister. So off we went - and after asking some confused people in the actual shop found that it was in the fuel part and was infact in the pump stand with the red diesal. This was where things really started to go wronge!

I don't drive therefore I do not use the pumps and therefore I managed to cover Dad in parafin getting the pump down from its cradle - it was alot heavier than I was expecting and I had trouble holding it. Still that wasn't too bad and we poked it into the canister and I squeezed the trigger and it thrummed to life - then I was fretting that I wouldnt know when it was full but Dad reconned it would have an automatic cut off - and sure enough it went thunk.

So....

I pulled it out of the canister and it was still glugging parafin - all over dad and all over the pump!

On top of that Dad had managed to park in the car lot where they where selling cars instead of in the shops car park and he dissappeared whilst I went to pay. I couldn't use my card as the transaction was under a fiver but I was apound short in cash so I had to leave the shop to track dad down. Grudgingly he gave me the quid and then it turned out I did have enough and now had about a pounds worth too much - this was becuase the lady had accidently told me 3 instead of 2 when I first went in as the sun was shinning on the display that told her how much too charge!

They let dad try and clean himself up in their toliets and then we had to chuck sand in the puddles of parafin and I was highly embarrassed especially as I managed to drop all my 'shrapnal' all over the floor - with it rolling under freezer units and shelves and everything and as it was all the money I had to pay with it all had to be retrieved - oh well!

I think I must have been over tired yesturday as I also managed to burn myself and blow the fuse box several times whilst attempting to cook dinner yesturday resulting in dinner being served about 9 o'clock :/

Of Bits Going Festy! (by sarah)

Unfortunatly though mum has mostly come through the radiotherapy ok the scar under her bust which had healed so fantastically has since become singed by the radiation and a thin uncomftable red wet line has taken over when the scar had been. This plus an absis has ment that she has had to go back on antibiotics and she is now at risk of cross infection 🙁

I am currently suffering from a bizar 'festy belly button' I am washing it out at least twice a day and yet it is still weeping a smelly liquid which I really don't like - it keeps happening and the pattern is wearing slightly tight trousers with a high nylon content :/ Everytime this happens and then it takes about a month to go away completely - so strange and probably not something you all wanted to hear about but never mind 🙂

Ella’s Visitd (by sarah)

My friend Ella visited this week which has been great fun - someone who is both scientific and artistic such a relief. I find that I am stuck between two words most of the time - those who think artistically not necassarily not what I call scientific in mind but just not scientifically trained and so emmersed in the world of arty creativity that it is hard to have a technical convosation with them as they don't know the lingo as it where. Or I have Alaric who can talk to me about how black wholes work and talk about scifi until the cows come home (which is normally abolut once a year when someone leaves a gate open round here!) but always responds with either - 'I don't understand poetic stuff' or 'its great wifey wrote it!'

I miss having coffee with Ella on an almost daily basis as we did in the latter parts of degrees and as part of her PhD and my stint at the Natural History Museum. We didn't get enough photography in nor anywhere near enough writting but this was mainly due to the whole issue of moving furniture from the house and the fact that I managed to be quiet sick on Tuesday and had a meeting on Monday night - sigh - everything just happened to clash this week.

I'm hoping that once I have the house sorted again she will want to come for more - this time proper - writting holidays 🙂