R.I.P. Terry Pratchett (by sarah)

I wanted to blog about Sir Terry Pratchett the fantasy author last week but could not. I found out via his social media feeds and it struck to the marrow in away that I wasn't expecting nor prepared for. My facebook status read "Oh no frown emoticon Damn you upload tech you are coming to slow - we've lost another..." with a link to the authors page. With Leonard Nimoy's death as well I was hurting.

I'd known Terry's demise was coming, I've know since we went to his talk at the Cheltenham Lit Festival in 2007. There are sadly no photos due to the camera getting busted during the house flooding and there is no signed book either because I'd spent all my money on getting the tickets to the event and paying for parking and fuel.

It was an amazing experience and formative experience for me, but he announced he was having little strokes/bleeds and we knew what that meant. Watching over the years as he appeared at other things saying he could no longer read, or do many things was heart breaking. But he kept writing, he kept being inspirational and though opinions amongst my friends varies about the quality of those stories I've liked a lot of them.

I felt slightly awful as one of my first thoughts was... "I hope he finished the book for the autumn." It is also weird that a man I met/saw in the flesh once, just once in my life could upset me so with his death - I always used to think that people who morned for celebrates were stupid - I was wrong.

His books have been a big thing in my life. It all started with my GCSE Chemistry teacher who wrote in my leaving book to try his books out, she thought they would be perfect for me and she was right. I did not however go straight out and grab one, that had to wait until I was struggling with my A'levels, by this point I was doing a creative writing course at lunch times at the college and I was kind of getting sick of the accusations of plagerism especially on stuff I worked on jointly with my dad. Plus revision was coming up and I needed some distraction.

I used to go to Hornchurch library to procrastinate, I could be found "doing my homework" on the table by the geology etc... books not many of the wall of books around me would be anything to do with my homework. I rationed myself on the fiction books though as otherwise I would stay up all night, I had just written a story about falling off of a dragons back and puncturing reality and again been told it sounded like Pratchett. I went over to the sci-fi and fantasy stand (they did not have a book case - horror just about managed and was nearly all Stephen King), they had just put out some new books, one of which had a cartoony cover... I flicked it open having noted the name on the cover. It was Watchmen, it was about a dragon and sure enough it was like listening to me and my dad making up stories together.

I did not put it down, I finished it in three days - I am still a slow reader and was in the middle of A'levels - four A'levels when the normal was three plus lots and lots of extra stuff like the Geology Society, Creative Writing courses, Guiding and Thriftwood Campsite not to mention jobs and unsuitable boyfriends.

I hoovered up the libraries grand total of 3 discworld novels, Dad found me another two in a second hand shop in Brentwood. They however turned out not to be discworld but The Dark Side of the Sun and Carpet People. Throughout my A'levels I lent heavily on Terry to pace me through essays and all nighters, being slightly problematic in that there were rarely chapter breaks so I would have to remember to stop at ten page marks. Dad ended up reading them - he ended up a huge huge fan! I had to make him keep writing, assuring him that he is different enough (one day I will get his work out there!).

I learnt a lot during my A'levels and alot of the really important stuff like how to be myself and people can be dicks, came from his books. Of course they were not the only fiction I was reading but they were the only ones that I was saving up to buy models from - not that I ever managed that one 🙁

During the last leg of my A'levels I had a triple exam day, I had a clash! Not of two exams but of three and one of them was a long everything exam for Classical Civilizations - apparently it is not normally taken with with sciences. I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone and I was pushing the boundary of having to stay over night somewhere in isolation. I had to be escorted by teachers - I am in truth a shy person and found this highly worrying and embarrassing, I wasn't even able to go and buy food so had packed dinners. I also had Small Gods - I am not a last minute crammer, the dyslexia rules that out as an exam passing strategy, mainly I need to relax and not have panic attacks between exams. I read the whole book between the exams and felt like a complete zombie with brain over load - the book kept me sane, the book pointed out certain things that I was beginning to suspect myself already. I think bits of it may have accidently sneaked into my Clas Civ exam essay.

The summer between college (I was at a sixth form college and not at school for my A'levels) I worked at Thriftwood Campsite as an outdoors pursuits instructor, by the end of the summer I was the Duty Warden due to illness sweeping through our ranks. On of the boys (the guy who should have been in charge) lent me his huge, huge stack of discworld novels and a minidisc player. So when I suddenly found myself in charge (there was the actual Warden and Sub-Warden but they lived off site though not a thousand miles away and the next summer I was a Duty Warden from the start), the discworld helped me unwind.

The books were a mirror and not as distorted as people seem to think. I got to go to uni - I was sick, I was ill, Harry Potter and Vimes got me through. I had to repeat my first year of uni and when I had to go to the meeting for them to decide what was best, I had role models that didn't exist in normal lit. I had the witches which fitted me and my friends and my family, the Watchmen and the softest spot I reserve for Rincewind. Not to mention Imperial College is a rambling misfit of buildings with cellars that are linked and tunnels to various other bits like the museums etc. There was also the Queens Tower - I was blatently in a discworld novel.

I remember the thrill of The Fifth Elephant posters going up in the tunnel that goes to South Kensigton Station. And when I returned for my second and rather more successful bash at university I had scanned the book covers and printed them out A4 to be posters for my wall, this was how I then found the sci-fi, horror and fantasy library as they pretty much came and claimed me once told about my wall.

I was never competely well after that though and when stuck in bed, when unable to run and jump I turn to three book groups - Discworld Novels, Harry Potter and Philip Pullman. These got me through weeks of oxygen monitoring and bed rest during Jean's pregnancy, they got me through nights of breast feeds. They have been read so many times I am on second and even third copies of some of them.

For someone who couldn't read until I was 12 - books are increadibly important to me and none more so than Terry Pratchett's books. The stories curl around themselves so that I do not have stories in my head anymore but worlds, I feel such a sense of loss that the mind that produced these works is gone. They started as satire but became something more.

Poor Jeany has only just started reading his work and I have censored a little bit - she is 9. She went as Tiffany Aching for world book day - one of his characters. I gave her the book about the 9 yr old witch because she is struggling as we all do with growing up and being different and I knew that though I was never like Tiffany - Jean is. This was someone who could be a fictional role model for her but realistic, that make mistakes, some really awful ones and how you get through that. Jean loved the book. There was a horror on her face when I told her he had just died, "but I'll run out of his books now" - it was a genuine sorrow.

She made Nac Mac Feegles, and had a frying pan. She also declared that she NEEDED book 2 in the Bromiliad series (Books of Gnomes).

Part of the great ache is that though the world is missing him, no one had the right to ask him to stay, he was suffering and loosing him self a fragment at a time. The tweets on his twitter feed are loving and sad and that deep humour that is something more than comedy or tragedy.

And of course there is something else, Terry Pratchett always read to me like my dad's stories - the ones I grew up with and going to see him speak made this more apparent. It was like watching my Dad's ulter ego, the one who got on with writing the stories down. So it's also a stark reminder for me that my Dad is not immortal and worse, I've always bought him the latest Pratchett book when he's been ill etc... mortality what a fragile thing you are.

Which leads me on to the last bit. To conquer my own sadness I drew some pictures and I posted one of these to social media, it is not brilliant, it is just a sketch and it's not very big and it was done for me. But people have been asking to buy it. It is not for sale, I'm afraid, as my Dad has asked for it. However, when I said this, some of you have been asking for prints - there will be prints, it might take a while as I need to clean the image up and I'll also do some of my other pictures, there will also be a page with high res versions on for download. But I can not/will not take money for these, instead if you request one or download one then maybe think about giving money to a research or care charity. There is already a Just Giving page for Terry Pratchett supporting the charity NICE which is the one his daughter has asked people to give to.

And for anyone who knows me in the non-internet world, I am still doing a tribute party, I just need to find a free weekend which is being tricky! (the cake pic is from my dad's 65th birthday).

And for anyone wanting to see good tribute art I suggest you check out the Multiverse board I've started on Pinterest.

Last few bits - that's I've just remembered I wanted to mention:

The xkcd comic made me cry.

I felt a huge sense of relief when I first read about L-space and all libraries being connected through out time and space, this occured just after I'd started to discover all the book/libraries/museum burnings in our history.

When I was in labour with Jean everything was going wrong, dangerously so and I couldn't speak and was basically dying. I was very lucky but at the time death was no longer scary - taking my baby with me however was. Within me I knew death and it was a combination of the Aztec woman, mother, warrior, birth and death and Death from the discworld. A sort of cross between Terry Pratchett's Death and Neil Gaiman's I suppose.

It sounds hippy and I'm not saying it's not but I clung to life by thinking of the glow of universal power in deaths eye sockets, by remembering I was as much part of existence as everything else. I know doubt would have found some other imagery but it is always locked in my mind. And because I am me this appears in a poem and the poem has been on the radio and stuff, I always wondered if anybody would spot the connection.

This picture is one I started painting after I read my first discworld novel - I stopped when someone pointed out the elephants were supposed to be the other way around. I am now considering finishing it anyway.

And finally - my thoughts go out to Terry's family and friends because what I am feeling is but a shadow of their pain and remembrance. RIP sir.

Chillies in Feb! (by sarah)

Ok so I thought I'd have a go at growing my chilli plants through the winter so that they could be big and strong and go outside for our summer. I didn't use lamps and I got a bug infestation and my dad forgot to water them when he was in charge of them but I still have a few plants and in February they have started to produce chillies!

I am hoping to put them in bigger pots this week too 🙂

This is the first chilli from seed success I have had! The last lot I'd gotten as little seedlings.

Exercise and a Diet That’s Wise (by sarah)

Those who've been following will know that I am loosing weight - what is kind of weird is that I am still loosing weight even though I am now back up to the 1400 cals that I was eating before with binges of 1600. Of course it is not that weird, having lost a bit of weight, discovering in the process that I can't eat any wheat or barley etc... and having medication for headaches and what not and then the bleeding finally stopping. My pelvis finally settled down and most of the joint pain went so I can do stuff.

I've been running! Yes I know! Six months ago I was having to use the damn walking stick to walk into town and now I have little races with Jeany. I wish I could have done it before but I couldn't, I know because I was trying. Desperately. It took the combination of medication for under laying problems, getting equipment out of my own money that meant I could exercise without putting undue strain on the pelvis and could exercise at home so I could rest when needed, a 1000 cal diet for about 3 months during which time I was dizzy with white spots in vision, neaseatingly hungry and Mr McGrumpy Pants, and last but not least discovering that there was something else other than cow and soya that I was allergic/intollerant/having an immune response to.

To be honest I don't think I would have managed it without Al or the nurse or the money to eat properly and buy special equipment or if I'd had a full time job. In fact one of the things that became apparent to me was that everytime I have tried to go back to college I have become really ill again. It could just be the added strain but I don't think so because it was also taking me 2 weeks to recover from parties and the common factor was bread.

At home we didn't tend to eat it, but at parties there were sarnis and college there was packed lunches or bought sandwitches. I've done a couple of parties now without eating any wheat and it has not taken me two weeks to recover!

So this is all great, but you know I'm not actually that excited by the weight loss itself - what I am excited about is getting fit and doing stuff. So I am currently aiming to go to the climbing wall for a me climb once a month - and yes that is lame but it takes a while for my muscles to stop aching and being all fatigued enough to do a proper climbing session. It has been amazing to be able to climb again - I suck at it and it is frustrating because I remember being better but I think I'm doing well.

I have a Dr Who Walk/Run-athon which I am working my way towards and of course the exercise bike 🙂

Last night I did a 7 min work out with Alaric though I skipped a couple of the exercises though one of those was because I was still planking and this time I had to stop not because of my c-section scar or my stomach muscles but due to my shoulder! I did not even attempt the side planks but Al did.

(Shoulder is an old stunt biking accident - the same one where it turned out I'd broken my pelvis not that I knew it at the time).

Then we have the chin up bar - now I got this bar about 2 years ago and Al installed it and I was really trying with it. First off I couldn't even reach it with my hands, then I reached it and held on but couldn't lift my feet. Alaric on the other hand could bring his knees up to his chest but not do a pull up - we both wanted to do climbing again and it seemed like a good thing to train our upper body strength.

Eventually I managed to lift my feet off the ground - just a fraction. I was so excited though it really was nothing and it wasn't with my arms it was just trying to lift the legs using leg muscles and handing by my arms.

I am now 2 years later at the same point Alaric was in the beginning - I can pull my knees up to my chest and for the last 3 days I have been able to lift myself slightly with my arms. Yesterday I sung on the bar which was ACE, I lost my grip but did not crash to the ground but landed on my feet and my pelvis did not hurt! Stuff like this has been so painful for so long that mainly the last few months has been about testing limits. Amazingly I've only ended up with ouchy hip twice - though I am having a... erm... wee wee problem. I'm kind of just padding up and ignoring it and then showering as soon as I've had a run etc... TMI I am sure but I also know this is a problem a lot of women have and it needs to be talked about!

Alaric can now do 3 pull ups 🙂

I've caught up to him with the planking - now I need to do the same with the pull ups!

Also one day I would still like to do a full marathon - I had resigned myself that this was one life goal I could never reach but now very much I am starting to think it is back on.

Kind of should get some running shoes...

Cheese and Soap and Skillz (by sarah)

At the beginning of the year when we were setting down our New Year Resolutions, me and Alaric realised that we were still stuck with exactly the same stitches for kniting and crochet that we started with three years ago. All our projects have been variants on a theme.

We also wanted to move forward with the home stedding stuff, having added chickens and allotment since moving house. So here is my first cheese - it is a soft spreadable thing but I am very proud of it - I might also have accidently made a butter but that's cool too and is being used 🙂

The other skill we've been meaning to try has been soap making and we thought this would tie in really well with the yarn craft side of things. So the easiest way of learning the stitches is to knit or crochet squares but I have to be making something or else it wont happen - I've never been good at practice - learning yes but practice no!

Anyway we are basically knitting and crocheting flannels or face/wash cloths to go with the soaps. Here is my first crochet attempt - I think it is double with single as the edging - it is lumpy and bumpy and miss shappen but I am so happy - of course it took me like a month to create.

This is the current one - a single crochet - lets hope I can remember how to carry on with it now Mum's gone home - I really struggled with the double when she wasn't about.

I have also added on four different rag rug making techniques to the skillz I haz, recently, plus improvisational comedy and sketch writing so I am feeling quiet chuffed. I am also nerviously awaiting proof copies of a book which is more painful than I would have thought!

12 years… (by sarah)

So today I went to the Drs to see how the weight loss was going and stuff, I was convinced I had piled it on over Christmas I felt a lot stockier than before Christmas and to be honest I ate a lot reaching 1600 on alot of the days. This is about the 1400 stable and 1200 weight loss that I sorted with the nurse. 1600 is what I was eating before I went to the Drs, the amount I was eating and wondering why my weight was creeping up as everyone knows women have 2000 calories a day - unless you are me. I am short, had a boarderline thyroid for a decade or so and as it turns out have the lighter Asian skeleton like my dad (as well as the afro-carrabean spin from my mum) - add in the low mobility and I was screwed.

But between tablets and the discovery that I can't eat wheat and sticking to the low calorie counts to loose the excess weight, I have been loosing weight but I seriously ate some food over the holiday and then my birthday and so on.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I go and find I have lost weight, not much but I have lost weight still. The key being that due to pelvis being a lot more stable I have been out doing more stuff, doing running games with the cubs and even managing a 20 minute climb. And then they said my bloods were all good, all the tests were normal!!!

That is the first time that has been said to me, no not sures, or a bit high, or oooo that's not goods or it's boarderline or here's a tablet to help control this. So amazing!

And that is the first time in about 12 years possibly more.

One of the conversations I had with the Dr recently was that I don't know what energy level I am supposed to have - I've not had "me" energy since I was 18, I don't think 30+ normally have the same the energy as a teen so I have no idea if I am back to normal or not and to a certain extent I kind of don't care either as I am so much better than I have been for so long. I feel a little bit sad that that bit of life is kind of missing for me but at the same time I have the girls and though maybe I could have taken them to more things if I'd been weller I also know they love snuggly time watching films and colouring and stuff and I still took them to parks it was just some days I couldn't and when I did it was the outing for the day.

Interestingly I came home thinking about what I was doing last time it looked like I might get better with all the back treatments and exclusion diets at Chelsea and Westminster. That was like 12 years ago as was me trying to get a PhD place, the one I really really wanted was with the Open University, but it relied on Beagle2 landing and collecting data. It didn't happen, the beagle disappeared and today I watched the press-conference live of how they've found it sitting there on the surface of Mars. It made me smile, bitter sweet and poetically lovely.

Maybe when I have a cyborg body I can fly to Mars and say hi to it 🙂

Of course with hindsight I think it was for the best for me, I became so very sick and my friend who got the PhD funding did far more with the chance than I think I would have because fundamentally I am a shyer person and just not as good at Chemistry and form filling!

And anyway I am not sure I wouldn't be in a similar place to were I am now anyway.

2015 is kind of gearing up to be an amazing year.