April’s Challenges :) (by sarah)

This month is mainly going to be dedicated to Script Frenzy which I am really looking forward too! I am working on a comic book of The Punk (the main protagonist from my NaNoWriMo story). I'll be covering the progress of this on Purple Monster as it is all part and parcel of the same thing 🙂

I am also going to be doing another month of Poem a Day - this is NaPoWriMo 🙂 and as I was told last night of somewhere looking for specific science poems I think I shall be rolling on that one soon 🙂 The poems will be going up on Turquoise Monster as always 🙂

Of Monsters and Writing (by sarah)

I have managed to do the 30 + hour challenge I set myself for this month - I have spent the equivalent of an hour a day working on my Monster Inspiration game and have produced some interesting pieces of writing from the testing 🙂

I still need to type up the rules - fine tune timings a bit and find enough money to order in some timers, build the website and get some more dice but basically I think I am there with at least this phase of the game!

I would like to get some more colours of monsters up and going but as they would constitute as add ons/other games they are not urgent!

I'm afraid I slightly side tracked myself with getting to grips with the concept of Script Frenzy which is Aprils main challenge! I am foing a Comic Book script for part of the Punks story. I have been story boarding this and have about 10 pages sorted so far. For Script Frenzy I need to produce a 100 page script which I am taking to mean I need a 100 pages of comic 🙂

(Oh and there is a board game designed to go with the cards for a more involved game type of game - rather than writing exercise type thing - but that is going to be quiet complicated to pull off!)

Graze Box – Yummy Goodness :) (by sarah)

Due to my immune system and general health it was recommended that I might benifit from this company called Graze - they deliver healthy snacks to your house! It arrives in the post and is just there and wow - vanillia seeds!!!!

There are different nutrition plans you can go on 🙂 I'm on the immune system boost and the energy - they are low GI snacks meaning they are brilliant for diabetics and stuff (from my understanding of things at least!). You can select what you do and don't want to receive 🙂

Anyway I am really really impressed with them and they've given me a code to give out so people can get like a free sample thingy it's:

http://www.graze.com/p/KTV38LQ

Dino-Art (by sarah)

I'm 'live-blogging' the process of produce my next piece of Palaeo-Art on Salaric Craft.

Van calamity (by alaric)

Last Sunday, we attempted to go to Cheltenham in the van, as Sarah had a WoPoWriMo launch meetup to attend.

We're used to having to deal with ice on the hills leading out of our valley, as water from the farm fields tends to run off into the road; so if it gets cold, it turns into sheets of ice. There were a few patches of ice on the way up, but nothing like what I've managed in the past, so imagine my surprise when I turned a sharp bend onto a sheet of ice that spanned the entire road. The van promptly lost traction, so I stopped and attempted to gently reverse back around the corner to try a different route.

Sadly, the steering had no effect, quickly followed by the brakes; the van began a slow, graceful, unstoppable pirouette until it ended up like this, with the nose wedged into the bank:

That's looking down the hill from above. As you can see, I'd already done a bit of salt-spreading by the time that photo was taken; before I spread the salt, the ice was so slick that I couldn't actually stay standing if I got out the driver's side, I had to climb across Jean and get out the other side.

Sarah had a deadline, so headed off on foot to try and catch a bus, leaving me with Jean to try and free the van. I could reverse it as the rear wheels just span, despite me shoving some road salt underneath. I tried letting the rear tyres down, in the hope that a larger surface area in contact with the ground would help me get traction, but no luck.

So I proceeded to salt the ice sheet; if I could find somebody with a tractor of a 4x4, perhaps they could pull the van from above and get it free of the bank, then I could complete the turn and head off down hill. The salt began to melt the ice, and then salty water started to flow underneath the ice sheet, creating pretty patterns; and allowing me to wack it with my folding shovel to break it, at which point I found out it was a good half inch thick, even after being partly dissolved from beneath:

But the one tractor-owner I knew the number of wasn't answering, and another that a passer-by knew couldn't help, so I continued to try and get it free myself. I gave up on being able to drive backwards, so I took the folding shovel (it's actually a military surplus trenching tool. Good job I carry a military surplus trenching tool in the van, isn't it?) and dug the bank away to release it.

After making sure the ice was well gritted. I didn't want to be downhill of a tonne of van, working away at the one thing holding it in place, while it was on a slick icy surface.

After much digging (indeed, it was now two hours after getting stuck in the first place), with the steering wheel on full lock to the left and the rear wheels spinning, I managed to get the van out forwards, and set off down the hill. Surprisingly, the front of the van wasn't ruined, as I'd thought it might be:

Jean was surprisingly patient for a four year old strapped into a stranded vehicle while I worked away; I figured she'd be safer strapped in than running around on the ice with me, even if another car came and hit the van.