Muppet or Mr Men? (by sarah)

Yesterday Alaric awoke looking like this - well the hair not the face. The face came latter when he looked into the bathroom mirror and in horror began this conversation:

Al: ARRRRG!!!!! What the hell has happened to my hair? What have you done to it? You sprayed it in the night didn't you?

Me: It's boufont People pay money for that

Al: Yeah in the 80's!

I have since shared it on facebook a couple of times - the last asking the question Muppet or Mr Man?

I was already thinking of adding captions to this but serval people have suggest Lolcatz type captions and I also think he looks remarkably like grumpy cat who he happens to share a birthday with. For those who do not know who grumpy cat is check out the link.

If anybody has any caption suggestions popped them underneith in the comments section 🙂

May Day outing in the Docks (by sarah)

After the BBQ and excesses of the night before the day started slowly with some kitten snuggles and a Dr Who fest.

Eventually we headed into Gloucester for a late lunch - Pizza Express - we couldn't get a table outside boo hiss but the girls decorated hats.

Then Mary spent ages trying to decide weather dough balls were really food or not.

She decided they were.

There was a slight altercation about Jean sharing her food with Mary but Jean redeemed herself enough for desert.

Hmmmm.... Oh yes and of course she made Olly sit next to her!

Then we went for an explore in the docks area.

May loved the water so Aunty Becca had to hold her lots.

Jean was very surprised to find the word RANTS written on the wall - Olly attempted to explain it though he forgot to take phonetics into account - as you nearly always have to with under tens.

I found birds to photograph for the 100 Birds in 100 Days challenge.

Becca and Olly explained paddle steamers to Jeany.

I found more birds to photograph.

There were some lovely sites to take in in the sunshine.

See:

Jean with Aunty Becca's help found out that Olly's hair can be used as reigns on a horsey - I don't think he was impressed!

I found more birds to photograph.

In our explorations we found a dry dock with a boat in it and so we spent ages explaining to Jean how it worked.

I found a boat to photograph!

And more buildings and birds - Jean put her hands on her hips and said 'Mummy will you please stop taking photo!' She even rolled her eyes - which I think is unfair - I only took a few more!

Facebook Meme – A Question of Age (by sarah)

An interesting Facebook meme caught my attention - I was given an age an a list of questions which I had to answer for then and now. People who liked the update were given their own ages to do by me 🙂

When I was 21:

I lived: In shared rooms in Everlyne Gardens in South Kensignton with many other students discussing science and philosophy and art into the night.

I drove: myself on work, working harder and smarter for my degree - finally I felt I knew how to do this academic stuff.

I worked: at the student union stewarding events during term time with Tuesday afternoons given up to sieving out bats teeth from cave sediments at the Natural History Museum. During the holidays I was an Outdoor pursuit instructor and site mantance bod at Thriftwood Campsite -sometimes they left me in charge.

I feared: Failure, the dark and other people, but mainly that the Drs said I possible had two chronic conditions one degenerate and the other with a age cap of 30 on average.

I wanted: to change the world, be an astrobiologist or look at human origins.

I wanted to write stories that captured the imagination and be a TV science documentary person. I wanted to show the world the wonder of science, to sing and dance and perform on stage. I wanted things to work out with this guy I'd just met...

Now I'm 32:

I live: in Gloucester with that guy I met and our two kids and our cats and our rabbit... there is lots of purple and butterflies and books and rocks.

I drive: when the instructor calls but am finding it hard.

I work: mainly snuggling little ones but also blogging, writing fiction, performing poetry, running craft workshops, baking cakes, creating science-art and trying to save the world one bit of inspiration at a time.

I fear: loosing my family

I want: to be well, to have a body that works but failing that just to do as much as I can.

Poetry Riot (by sarah)

Unfortunately we only caught an hour or so of the final night party Poetry Riot of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival - but what an hour with Trevor Meaney (yes not good photos but light levels were really low by this point as was my energy!):

And the sadly hilarious Clayton Blizzard with his whispered poetry and folk/rap songs that you are either going to laugh or cry or both too.

It was great fun though we sadly missed Mark Neil performing though I almost crashed into him at the top of the stairs and said my normal hello and he responded with his (I can't remember who you are) smile like normal 🙂 - Alaric appears to have transmogrified into Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi.

No really look!

I took embarrassing photos of the interns 🙂 (who should start a comedy show up!)

And I took arty pics of people taking much better pictures than me!

Other photos of events can be found at Write Out Loud and Bilt Photography (which is where my current profile picture on FB comes from!).

You can probably tell that I really really enjoyed the festival 🙂

The Frist Salad of the Year (by sarah)

It's been hard to get the veggies going this year but yesterday thanks to turning our dinning area into a make shift green house, we had our first home grown salad of the year.

Mary has been helping me pot out seedlings most of which actually survived the lovings of a two year old!

I have courette and pumpkin plants planted out in grow bags - I am in dispare over getting an allotment at the moment, there just simply is not enough space to grow what we want. For a start I didn't want to really be growing stuff in the 'grassy' area, for a start it is supposed to be a nice garden area and secondly we can not make it look nice whilst I am growing things on it.

At the moment we radishes almost ready for first pickings and various salad leafs, there are peas and beans and root crops in various containers. The apple tree and blueberry bushes have all survived the winter though the new redcurrents and black current bushes did not survive a late frost much to my upset.

Jeany is being very good about watering the pots and has her own little butterfly corner developing, also I shouldn't moan as the salad was very tasty and Mary eat the bowl of it I was going to put in the fridge for today's lunch!

And also we have been enjoying the sunshine and having summer cocktails and everything 🙂 Still no BBQ this year yet though 🙁