Silly Sarah (by sarah)

I think maybe I have been watching too many horror movies lately.

Last night I had miss placed my phone - this is quiet a normal occurance and as the BT guy had fixed the landline I thought I'd use that to phone my mobile.

So this is what I did and there in the distance upstairs was the jingle of my ring tone. Now I was doing this becuase I was slightly spooked - Al wasn't here nor was dad and it was dark and there had been a strange sound that was a cat and there had been a huge spider fall on me from the rafters and was currently sitting on the bedroom wall looking at me.

I picked the phone up and looked at the screen - Oh my God! Someone from the village is calling me! At this time of night something must be wrong! So I answered the phone whilst heading downstairs to put the landline back on the hook.

And there was an opressive silence that then begain to echo back my own voice. I went still with panic and then realised... I'd phoned myself! I laughed and hung up both phones feeling really quiet stupid. But I was still feeling spooked so I phoned Al and we set up a skype call.

He has a camera on his laptop so his image came up but it was distorting in a way that made him look like some pale alien - I screamed :/ And woke Jean up and Alaric was non plussed to here why I'd screamed.

I also think perhapse my pain killers are making thought processes a bit harder than normal to honest :/

It sounds really silly and I have no idea why I got so spooked at all but it really was a horror movie moment and then it was a spoof moment and yes as alwasys I'm a silly Sarah :/

Earshot Poetry Night (by sarah)

For anyone who's are Cheltenham this evening I'm going to be reading some of my poems at Slaks Comedy Bar on the Bath Street.

The Headliners of the evening are top poetry dudes from Bristol Byron Vincent and Angie Belcher.

I've seen Byron perform before and lets put it this way - its the only time I've ever seen Alaric truelly engaged whilst listening to poetry.

I am a bit nervous as I haven't read anything since like Febuary so feel a bit rusty!

I have selected four poems as requested:

The Break-Up

Summer Sales

Ana

The Markov Chains of Literature

Out of these only The Markov Chains of Literature has been read out at an event by me namely Tech Adventure earlier this year.

Not entirely sure what the secedule is for the night or how many of the four will be read but I will have on my nice red boots (I was going to wear my glittery heels but walking Jean to school has resulted in hurting shins and clicky pelvis so thought better of it - the boots are flat no heels!).

1000th Blog Post!!! (by sarah)

Yes that's right this is our 1000th blog post on this blog!

Imagine streamers and balloons and glasses of fizzy stuff and cake!

To the first 10 people to comment on the this post there will be a 1000th blog post limited edition Wiggly Pet! The only condition is that you actually have to come and visit us to pick the Wiggly Pet up though there is no time limit on this 😉

The Wiggly Pet will of course be glittery!

(@ndy you still need to claim the Wiggly Pet you won from me ages ago over Percival the mouse)

The blog is of course 5 years old as well so there will be a further 5 purple and blue sparkly Wiggly Pets with 5yrs of Snell-Pym on them 🙂 (tacky I know but hey its me!)

We origonally started this blog up as a notice board to say how the wedding went as we got frustrated having to keep typing the same stuff over and over again in emails then Al made it so it was easy for me to add photos and from here my blog empire has arisen! 🙂

I hope we are still an interesting read - it was actually a bit of a shock to us when we found that lots of random people read the blog but they do and it has provided useful information for them and sometimes they give us useful information about a problem or crisis we are having which is all good.

I at least am now addicted to blogging so will no doubt continue to bore you all with family events and Jean cuteness and musings and ramblings on philosophy, society, science and art, and I'm pretty sure Alaric will continue with all his technical posts.

I have the other blogs out of nessecity as I found I was creating too much content which could be split into various catagories plus I love setting up blogs and making/fiddling with themes making each blog look like its subject matter 🙂

As a chronic diary writer (thanks to Aunty Lizzy and a Christmas presant when I was like 12!) blogs are the perfect medium for me to whitter in and as for Al it is an over spill of his note books - somewhere he can share his ideas and the like 🙂

We hope to continue boring you for the fore seeable future.

Swine Flu? (by sarah)

Ok I have loads of nice happy posts half written and waiting to go live but I've been sick again 🙁

After Rob's 40th and Ulrike's birthday I was clearing stuff up when like a switch flipping I sudddeny got a runny noise, sneezes and coughing but most of all a damn great headache that felt like the mother of all storms was happening in my head.

Rob hadn't come up to set stuff for the party on Thursday as he was trying to make sure he hadn't could swine flu from work colleagues who are currently off work with it down in London.

But it turns out that the initial comments on incubation periods where wrong and are still unsure and could be more like 5 days than the 2 he was told.

I have to confess I did have a nightmare the night before people started to turn up that instead of it being the Masquerade of the Red Death written by Edgar Allen Poe, I was holding the Concert of the Swine Flu.

Not that it mattered holding a party for London people, and a nursey type person in a flu epidemic or pan demic or what ever it is, as all of this was negated by the fact that a grumpy, fevery Jean came home from pre-school brandishing a letter saying that one of the children in her group was down with suspected swine flu and here where the guidelines - they had the previous week sent out what the education board and health people were suggesting.

I also received a leaflet informing me I was a high risk category due to my general health stuff. Looking at Jean and feeling like a complete hypochondriac I went on the NHS website and there was a link through to the panflu site.

Al, it turned out, had already done their questionnaire and thought I should - he'd come out as fine so it's still his post-viral asthma from the last lot of flu he had acting up - poor thing's still on an inhaler.

I'd spent a lot of the day asleep in fevered dreams on Monday so Al was a bit concerned as he'd woken me up several times and I'd just gone straight back to sleep etc...

It was like being hit with a sledge hammer - I was clearing up and then wham! Sick - Monday night also saw me being sick sick in the tummy way of things and then the key thing my teeth started to hurt - this only ever happens when I have a viral infection.

Anyway I digress I did the questionnaire and it was - the patient appears to have complications contact your GP - sigh.

Jean was not in a good way Tuesday morning either so after some faffy medical stuff Alaric was dispatched to get us antivirals I'm on the 75 mg Tamiflu and Jean's on the 45gm Tamiflu along with instructions on how to make sure it gets into her.

Poor Jean keeps bursting into tears if you tell her off for the slightest things and she keeps having nightmares and doesn't want to be on her own - she reckons she's scared of everything which is a bit puzzling but, bizarrely, it was one of the symptoms asked about on the form.

Jean has a great way of describing things; she said she has fire in her bones and that she had shapes that hurt in her throat.

I suddenly had a back flare up but it turned out that its inflammation from the flu - I couldn't sit up by myself 🙁

Having said all this though - this is not bad flu for me - I only checked because I was concerned as I always get chest infections and stuff from flu and really don't want pneumonia again to be quiet honest and it coming from two sources and Jeany being sick meant I had to do something.

About the only thing I did when I came down sick was email high risk people from the party to tell them. I slept most of yesterday, too, and have only just woken up today, and - are ribs supposed to hurt?

I have had lots of people telling me I shouldn't be taking or giving the Tamiflu to Jean but I'm trusting the Drs with this one and am hoping they know what they are doing.

I was still quite surprised they where giving the antiviral out as I thought it was being rationed.

The Journey Home (by sarah)

"I've hard road to travel and a ruff, ruff way to go..."

Ok so Sunday did not see the smoothest of ways home for me - I started in Gants Hill looking out over London from Clare's gorgous flat. I had been unable to sleep - we'd obviously gone to bed late anyway having chatted half the night away and looking at her photos of Tia Land but more than that my mind raced with ideas of paintings to paint from the songs we'd sung during the day.

Anyway after a couple of cuppas she walked me to the station - I was sad that I still wasn't going to see the kittens that are in another friends house in the area but got to the station in plenty of time and felt good about going home to get stuff done.

The journey across London was fine with a cute little girl keeping everybody entertained on the Hammersmith and City Line and my train was on time at Paddington. But I had 2 changes instead of the none/one.

So making sure I had the correct seat reservation in my hand I moved with the crowd to the train and boarded - and there was bedlam - people arguing and being confused about seat reservations. A couple where confronting a man in orange and yellow robs with flowers around his neck and paint on the bridge of his nose. He moved once he understood it was their seat behind but they where still fussing and blocking things up so I explained it was on their ticket and on the seat and stuff and then it turned out they where upset the man had moved to another reserved seat.

But they had not told him this! And I wasn't entirely happy with how they had said it was their seats I know there was lots of people and it was busy and stuff but a little patients helps - they werent a hundred percent sure of how the reservation system worked either.

Anyway I could just see what was going to happen to this guy he would keep getting slightly annoyed people moving him on so I explained to him about the white tickets and he thanked me - he hadn't known and he went off to find an intagged seat.

Then a bunch of youngish Americans got on (the dude in the robes was from America too San Francisco) - I have to confess it was a very diverse group and I would not have thought they were all together but they where but obviously something had gone wrong one of their seats hadn't got its ticket sticking out of the top so an Austrialian had sat in it thinking it was free!

They were trying to sort this out when a shirty lady told them to move in no uncertain terms and I thought to myself - Aren't we British supposed to be polite? Aren't we supposed to be the nation of queuers? And why is it all the foriegn people who are being tourists and spending money here bulstering our economy are being a lot nicer over confusion of a system they can't really be expected to understand becuase - well its the British rail network and it doesn't work properlly.

Anyway - to my suprise I butted in again only a little bit and stuff got sorted - trueth is it was too many people for the space :/ As trains towards this part of the country were bneing few and far between.

Anyway I settled back for the 40 odd minutes only to find my head phones had broken so had no music.

At Reading it turned out there was a bus to Swindon and not a train and that my ticket wouldn't let me out of the barrier and the only staff memeber was the guy letting people in through the barriers and he wouldn't let me out. With 2 minutes to go and no idea where the 'front' of the station and the waiting bus was I was being to panic but a staff memeber appeared, let me through and looked at me like an idiot when I asked the way to the bus.

But I got there before they started letting people onboard. This was becuase it was slightly delayed.

I had not taken my pain killers due to the stomache pains I was getting but these turned out to be the standard womens thing which was one of the reasons getting to the bus had been so tight in the first place.

Bus sits hurt my back far worse than the train - this is why I don't take the coach - a lady was also sitting next to me so I couldn't stretch out.

When we got to Swindon and she stood up - it turned out she had sat in chewing gum - ooowe yuck! She hadn't noticed so I tapped her and gave her a tissue not that it helped much and then came the next bit of my strangly eventful journey.

I got on the train at Swindon though there seemed to be a little bit of confussion as to which plateform etc... and the train announcements where not coming out onto the plateform and so where muffled nonsense.

But everyone else on board was execting it to go to Cheltenham, Stroud etc... and I so I phoned Al and he set off to meet me in Stroud. And the departure time came and went and we sat there and sat there and sat there and there where no announcements and then about 40 minutes later when people had started shouting on the plateform at the staff they informed us there was no driver and it was going to a 45 minute wait until one arrived.

Then it turned out a little train was due to go to through to all the same stations in 15 minutes instead so with a bit of shoe horning and the upsetting of a large family who had sat in the bit where wheel chairs and that go where told to move so bikes could come on board - this ment some of the kids ended up sitting the opposite end of the train to the perants which the kids werent happy with.

Alot of the people had been on the bus and the over crowded Reading train and tempures were fraying abit - including my own though I ended up in a nice conversation with a girl from York.

And we sat and sat and then we were off and finiallly I got into Stoud where Al and Jean had obviously been for while :/

It is things like this though that make me want to bang everyones heads together - things would have been far more pleasent from the outset if there had not been pushy arogant people (or disgusting cretins who put chewing gum on top of coach seats!).

There isn't really a point to this post I just felt the need to write about the journey.