Earshot 2 (by sarah)

Last night I took part in a poetry night this was the second Earshot that I have read at - there has only ever been two and it was also the second time I have read my poetry in public. I shook the whole time I read. I picked two poems one called Ice which discribes the life cycle of a romantic relationship using ice in its various guises as extended metaphors - this went down so well that I people coming up to me to say what they loved about it. The second poem was one for me and was my Programmers Lament which I think only I understood. I am going for the one scientific poem on arty deep one - I know that no one gets the scientific ones but I think they are my better poetry!

Anyway the upstart of this was that the judges where apparently divided as to who should get the trophy and as always I missed the top spot and Clare from my writting class took home the trophy for her darkly funny poems about Opps I killed My Mother/Husband/Children.

Again I was reading what is termed page poetry at an event which is trying to bridge the gap between performance poetry and page poetry - I consider poetry to be primarially an oral tradition so I find the distinct odd but basically I'm serious subjects in a non-comedic/dramatised style where the Performance poets are serious(or not) subjects done comedic or dramatically.

I'm not sure you can really compare the two styles and as the night contained prose writing too I didnt envy the judges. But then I am going to be biased having missed out so narrowly 🙂

Still I feel that this marks the beginning of the next major stage of my writting career - not sure how but I got to see and speak to people involved in glastonbury's poetry tent, various litrature festivals and those doing the creative writing courses at the University here. However I still feel a bit of a frued as I wouldn't say I'm a poet as I struggle to get most poetry - the 'poems' I writ are written becuase they appear in my head and I need to get them out of there.

TechAdventure 2008 (by alaric)

Sarah and I went to TechAdventure in Bristol on Saturday.

It was fun! We'd both been rather sad about the fact that we'd not really gotten into the local geek scene. Almost all our nerdy friends are London-based. So we were keen to go to a local geek event...

So we swapped some EPROM programming and erasing gear for some books and a patch panel at the swapshop.

I was rigged for motion capture:

We have a video of me moving around with the rig on. It's rather dark, so you need to turn the brightness and contrast all the way up to see it properly...

We saw John Honniball and a tiny subset of his extensive collection of ancient computers.

We saw a guy who'd made a plotter from a turntable and a horizontal carriage from a printer.

And we saw and participated in a whole bunch of other stuff...

And we met loads of people. Which is great, since we want to meet more tecchie people from this neck of the woods!

Back to the Pain Clinic (by sarah)

Today found me at Stroud Hospital again this time to see a pain consultant like the people I was seeeing pre-Jean at Chelsea and Westmister. I am getting a new tens machine and some acupuncture (after alot of rechecking that I wasnt still on blood thinners - not sure where they got that idea from) and my pain monitored by someone at Gloucester, there are alos more meds I can try but due to stomache issues etc... we decided to try non-drug method but it is good to know there are still more options open to me including a chilli cream and an medication usually used for epileptics (alters nural activity which can be useful in getting rid of pain as well as controlling epilepsy - they had to do the whole be laboured - we are not saying you are epileptic thing incase I was stupid wwhich to be far I was doing a good impression of being stupid as I found I couldn't remeber what I had been prescribed in the past for my back :/).

The anti-inflamitry I had been using is not ok to use long term even with the stomach liner and would make me sick. I am again on daily paracetamol though - they say as long as I stick to the max dosage or below I should be fine.

Again the death knell - they can not do anything about the 'crepitous' and I am stuck with these injuries for the rest of my life but they can alliviate the pain and reduce the muscle tension which is actually cuasing most of the pain.

My pelvis was examined too which including squuzing my hips together - this has since caused a reassurgance of the clicking and I thought my right leg was going to explode from the pain about 20 minutes after the examination. This is apparently my hormones fualt and how they are settiling down 🙁

My wrist, stomache and other sundry things are being considered low priority as I am mostly looking after Jean and we are not dependent on money I earn. Again concerns where voiced about going to London on a regular basis for my MRes so I explained that a)it would be part time and b)I can do alot of it via distance learning. Apparently they can't inject the shoulder as its not the actual ball joint thats affected but rather underneith the shoulder blade (as I have been saying for years) - the lack of injection makes me sad though as that worked so well on my upper spine and after being told they would not opperate was my one big hope.

I really really hope this acupuncture works but have to confess that I'm a bit scared as I think of it as lots of needles being stuck into the skin - I have no idea if this is actually the case and even if it is I shall give it ago.

In the mean time I am to carry on managing things as I have been ie my physio excersises and hot baths and pillows in odd places to help me sleep.

Sick again :( (by sarah)

I am sick again - headache coming up from the gland at the back of the ears, sore throat, joint pain and sort of a slicing pain along my muscles - it feels like the flu without the deep bone ache and funnily enough through my ears and throat are affected my nose is for once perfectly clear. I just feel rubbish I can't really say more. Glands are painful and my breathings a bit laboured and odd - like I'm in a steam room or something that sort of damp preassure 🙁

On the plus side my heat rash has dramatically subsided so no more nasty red blisters 🙂 and the itching sores on my legs are gone. I think my immune system just couldnt cope with looking after a Jean whos sick and having very little sleep.

Tomorrow I take Jean to the drs - I feel rough and am not entirely sure how I am going to be able to do this.

I keep getting a strange nusea and going right off of food too which doesn't help as I'm starting to feel week.

The really frustrating thing is though that I really want to sort the house out and feel that every time I turn around a new obstical has been placed in the way 🙁

We’re back! (by alaric)

We're back in our house! We just spent the first night back in it...

We've got upstairs cleaned out enough to move back in, but downstairs is still a pile of bags and boxes and furniture, waiting for us to put the furniture into place so we can unload all the stuff onto it.