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Guests

An almost orderly queue, patiently waiting for some attention. If ever Cows were going to be domestic pets, these would be the ones.

The Gate definitely stopped us from being followed back home. Not sure we would have enough biscuits for our new guests.

In the UK, at the age of 18, any additional mental health, social and educational support has a habit of being abruptly withdrawn. After Hawklad reached 18, he was only left with some Educational support that would last until he left College. Now that remaining support has ended.

We’ve known that time was coming but when the official letter arrived, it was still a bit of an eye opener, I was kinda expecting a bit more. Maybe some questions about how Hawklad was doing, how he was feeling. Maybe a final review meeting. Maybe a final action plan. Maybe a transition contact point for a year or two at least. Maybe a list of potential help avenues, what to do if things don’t go well.

What Hawklad received was a brief letter saying all support had now ended, wishing him well on his next steps, whatever that might be. That was it. Nothing else.

A few weeks later I was taking to someone in the village whose Granddaughter had just received the same letter. The Granddaughter had been receiving support for years and then suddenly it was terminated when she reached 18 (even though she still really needed the help). She got the dreaded brief letter basically just saying GOOD-LUCK FOR THE FUTURE….

As one Psychologist told me years back, the UK system assumes that when you reach 18, you have either been suddenly FIXED or you have to FIX yourself on your OWN. It’s much cheaper that way….

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Treasure hunt…

Proper Summer Weather..

Before the rain set in, the garden called. But before I started, it was the Strimmer Treasure Hunt. I wonder just how many do this at some stage. A break in the weather, you get out the Strimmer and then you remember…..

I didn’t order a new bag of blades..

No blades, so the Strimmer Treasure Hunt begins. You search every corner of the shed and garden. And then, BINGO…. It’s Jackpot…… One previously enjoyed blade hiding in the undergrowth.

The gardening can now begin.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 35 Comments

Summer

Hot Summer lasted 2 days in Yorkshire…..

We headed to the coast on NOT one of those 2 days. Brave Souls still taking on the NOT so tropical North Sea.

Huge queues for the hot drinks, no takers for the ice cream. Perfect day for a stroll along the promenade.

A good place to recharge and forget the torture of A-Level exams, now it’s a waiting game until grades get published in August. The frustration is that two years of study, come down to exams scheduled over a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks that just happened to coincide with Hawklad battling a really heavy cold and rasping chesty cough. Just how many have to sit exams when they are not feeling well. Also not helped by the dreaded exam clash. Two exams scheduled at the same time, so feeling like crap, you sit one exam, then get a few minute break and then you dive straight into a second exam. But exams are the best way to assesses ability, that’s what we are told, so it must be true.

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Bees….

The village has its own population of bees, they help make the most wonderful honey. It’s amazing how those little chaps can get the honey into those jars…..

Every year apparently the Village Bee community splits into two groups. Well this year, one group has gone wondering. Having a temporary residence right next to the lane we walk the mad dog every day. The couple who are the official beekeepers, have provided a temporary home for them. Fenced it off, the Bees are very docile, but don’t want dogs sticking their curious noses too close.

It’s not a great photo, but there are lots of them to make honey….

Soon the Beekeepers are going to try to encourage this lot to move to a new palatial home, in the old graveyard.

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Old and New

This is a traditional village graveyard. Small, quiet, attended by sheep and very very old. Apparently there are graves here from the 14th century. It’s hard to confirm as many of the stones have had to survive way too many hard Yorkshire winters, the names and dates are lost in time now. Many graves are unmarked or missing stones.

Time moves on, newer graves are still added here, but the graveyard is filling up. The free ground left for new graves is only the size of a small garden now.

So New Graveyards are being opened up…..

The New Ones around here are still very beautiful, set in beautiful moors countryside. But they are in many ways, VERY different. Neat lines, immaculately well kept grass, symmetrical, concrete paths, tarmac roads.

I was running past one of these new sites recently and I had to stop, yes I had to chuckle. This new Graveyard had a new sign on the Main Entrance Gates.

“One Way System in force in this Graveyard.”

Oh the irony…….

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Strikes

Walking on the Moors and another childhood memory floods back in. Walking above the wonderfully named village, Chop Gate. In the distance the huge Bilsdale Transmitter. Before Satellite and Cable, that mast sent out the TV signal across North Yorkshire and Teesside and when I was a kid, to our little black and white family TV. Every Lightning strike here (and there was many) and we lost our 3 TV channels (Hawklad thinks I’m joking when I say only THREE channels). It was radio or nowt for days, sometimes weeks,until some poor soul, climbed this monolith and fixed it. It’s over 300 metres to the top. No internet back then to keep you constantly informed of service restoration, Dad just would keep the TV on, static relentlessly flickering across the screen, waiting patiently. I remember Dad setting off to the Working Men’s Club and leaving me on TV watch, with instructions to come and fetch him if it came back on. He didn’t want to miss the Horse Racing and Wrestling. I wanted it back on as well, they scrolled the latest football scores across the bottom of the screen while the likes of Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks lumbered across the ring. I lived with the faint hope that my so called football team would manage to actually win a match. Bilsdale got hit by lightning more times than that happened…..

Chop Gate, pronounced here as, ‘Chop Yat’ is a proper Moors Village. If we had been a day later, Hawklad could have seen his first Brass Band concert in the Village Hall.

A few minutes steep climb and you are in the wilderness.

We walked for 3 hours and only encountered sheep. Even walking through the village, we never saw another soul. It’s wonderful that we still have places like this in our crazy, mad world.

We so need places like this. Trump Free Zones……Quiet, Peaceful, Unspoiled.

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Easter Storm

Easter brought more rain, thankfully some Sun and a Storm. 90mph winds brought some trees, some poor folks lost their roof slates and chimneys. One household in the next village lost a large stone chimney, which crashed down conveniently perfectly between two cars parked 3 ft apart underneath. Not a scratch on either vehicle.

A common sight currently around here is Farmers walking around fields like this, checking just how wet the fields are. Like this Field, very very very WET indeed.

As one of the Farmers said to me, ‘Not Good, Way TOO WET. Over my Boots in places. Ducks have even moved into one of my Fields, I wonder if they are cheaper and easier to keep than Sheep.’

That took me back.

When I was a kid, my Dad decided to build a goldfish pond in the garden. I’m not sure Mum was entirely impressed by the eventual size of the pond, Dad had a tendency to get carried away with his plans. It was a big old pond in what was a not very big garden. Only problem was as soon as Dad had filled it with water, two ducks arrived from out of nowhere and claimed Squatters Rights. On and off, we had those ducks for weeks. These days, I would have shed loads of photos to show you those ducks but not back then. No photos, just faded memories. Thankfully I can still see those Ducks and the Pond, but only after the Farmer reminded me.

But without the aid of ever expanding data clouds filled with digital photos, I wonder just how many memories of my childhood are hidden from view. A few too many I FEAR.

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Holes

The Hole of Horcum. That’s a big old hole on the Moors, 400ft deep and over half a mile wide.

Some of the potholes on our roads feel almost as big…

There are so many potholes, thousands waiting to catch unsuspecting drivers or riders. The days of a relaxing drive in the countryside replaced by a never ending slalom, trying to avoid a suspension killing impact. Every week more and more appearing as the local Council has adopted a ‘no intervention policy’. Every week more and more getting deeper. On the way to our closest store there is one pothole almost in the middle of the road which is 6 inches deep and two foot wide. Drivers now resorting to leaving warning cones all over the roads to try and ward off more cars dropping into the abyss.

As currently there is no fuel in any of the local petrol stations, maybe it’s all part of a secret rewilding of the roads project.

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Raise your hand

Mid March and it’s still two jumper weather here in Yorkshire, definitely feeling way more like skiing rather than bikini weather. I would normally say, the kinda weather perfect for huddling round the fire however given the current price of home heating oil…. those two thick, warm, woolly jumpers will have to do.

It’s been quite a while since Hawklad hit 18, when he was officially signed off from the NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). As there are NO equivalent adult services here, any support he received, ENDED. His care was nominally handed over to the local Doctor service. But here’s the rub, sadly local Doctors are inundated with demands. In many parts of the country, available appointments are as rare as acts of modesty from the US Orange Nutter President.

It’s hard for local Doctors to be proactive, it’s mostly a call them service. Definitely no one has been in touch with Hawklad even to just say…

“Are you ok”

Here’s what really worries me.

So many kids like Hawklad are discharged from CAMHS and are lost in the adult health care system. The need for support doesn’t miraculously end on the 18th birthday, so what is supposed to happen next….. If they have any needs or require support they have to call the local Doctor. Firstly that usually means the dreaded 8am telephone scramble for an appointment. The record I’ve had on that one is

“You are caller number 57 in the queue….”

If you eventually do get an appointment, then mostly that will be a telephone call back by a Doctor. You get at most 7 minutes to explain what’s wrong and listen to the medical response. 7 minutes flies by, ends up feeling really rushed and pressurised.

Not exactly a welcoming experience.

Unless someone makes that call for him, Hawklad won’t. He won’t put his hand up if there is a problem. Just like at school, a large class would have a teacher and one teaching assistant. If someone needed help then you had to put your hand up and ask, support wasn’t proactive. As Hawklad used to tell me…

“I’m not putting my hand up in front of all the other kids and then announcing to the world that I can’t read something, or I’m struggling.”

School would assume if no hands go up, then everything is fine, no help needed. Hawklad ended up getting little or no in class support. The same will happen with support and the Doctor’s service. He won’t be the only one feeling this way. As a result, after becoming 18, how many miss out on the support they really need.

Way too many I fear.

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Signs…

It’s still looking like it’s Winter.

But if you look hard enough, Spring is coming….

Other signs of Spring include Tax Demands, eye wateringly humongous Utility Bill increases, Car spectacularly failing its annual Test, Postman wearing shorts and the first adverts for Christmas 2026. If only I could say Warm Weather as well…

Another sign of Spring is the start of revision for the May exams, Hawklad is definitely not enjoying that.

As he’s revising I must admit I do have a nagging thought. Hopefully the exams go his way and open up a path that will suit him. He’s super keen on University but is aware that there are many obstacles facing him on that way forward. My nagging thought goes beyond that point. What happens after University or whatever path he takes.

What jobs might be open to him, what jobs might still exist by then. A recent headline sticks in my mind.

“1.2 million graduate applicants chasing just 17,000 jobs in the UK”

And it’s only going to get worse. A friend’s daughter graduated over a year ago and after hundreds of applications, is still unemployed. AI is taking out more and more jobs that new graduates once started out in. Plus Graduates are saddled with huge student loans and when they do find a job, they then have the unnerving prospect of trying to find somewhere they can afford to rent or buy. Parents try to help out but here’s the trap. To help out financially parents face the prospect of working well beyond retirement age to fund this but by doing that, it means probably even less jobs available for young people.

I can’t help worry about the future for Hawklad. What career paths might be open to him, what might suit him and then just how many or few opportunities will there be for him.

It’s not always a particularly hopeful thought process.