Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 43 Comments

Christmas comes early

Another trip to the fracture clinic and our son is super happy. Yes he’s still in pain, yes he can’t use his right hand but the Doctor has said the magic words

“I’m afraid you need a few more rest days so it’s another week off school”.

So it’s no more school until 2019.

To someone who goes through so much anxiety because of school it’s an early festive gift for our son. Does cause problems for me but seeing our son more relaxed – it is a price worth paying. More work can be done at home (updates permitting). The car will have to survive a few more weeks without some much needed and overdue garage TLC. Tonight I will desperately check out which food stores can home deliver this week. Like many kids with Aspergers a visit to a busy supermarket is hell on Earth.

So I sit down with a cup of tea and the laptop. One eye keeps checking out the Harry Potter movie on the TV. The pets come to join me on the sofa. Then it’s return of Windows update madness again. Surely we can find a more convenient way of maintaining our Computers. One which doesn’t stop the world turning. So so thankful my ancient tablet is not Windows based.

I am reminded of a recent conversation with our son. He was convinced that computers should be completely redesigned and remodelled taking lessons from nature. Namely the shark. Some sharks that live at the depths of oceans and seas, for example the Nurse shark, can drop to the ocean floor and enter into something equivalent to our deep sleep. But other sharks like the Great White can’t do this – they need to keep swimming. Our Son reliably informed me that much evidence suggests that they effectively reduce brain activity down to a minimum in one part of the brain while the other part of the brain continues normally. It could be that the spine which is responsible for swimming may have some operational independence. In effect part of the brain shuts down to sleep and the shark continues to swim. So we should redesign the computer processor so that part of it can be updated while the other half continues to work. Dual processors should easily facilitate this. Sounds good to me sat here with laptop displaying an “out to lunch” message on the screen. But it does raise the question how much of our lives would be transformed if we let kids with a different take on life start designing our world.

Anyway let’s watch Harry find the Chamber of Secrets. Maybe at the end of the movie my laptop will grant me a couple of hours operating time.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 34 Comments

Q and A Tag. Come Chat with me

Somedays you just need to put the stressful issues to one side and just have a bit of fun.

Thank you to A Guy Called Bloke for the tag to take part in the fun Q and A. Come Chat with Me. He does have a blog that makes me think and smile.

The Rules

Answer the questions you receive (straight, funny, absurd, up to you)

Create three questions of your own for those that you tag to answer

Tag three people

The Questions

Hurly Burly or Wally Bolly and why?

Hate being busy or really busy places so scrap Hurly Burly. Been to too many metal concerts so expert in the pointless talking when no one can really hear anything routine. Some would say that I have been in a state of permanent Wally Bolly since I went to a Motörhead concert 30 years ago.

Blue underpants with green socks or pink boxers with yellow sandals?

Probably have to go for Blue underpants (have them) with green socks (have them). I do have pink boxer shorts but it would be a crime if I wore any type of sandal. My feet were stunt feet in the Hobbit Movie series.

If the letter A wsn’t in our lphabet wht would you plce in its plce or in other words?

Would repl👻ce with this symbol 👻. 👻dd 👻 bit of fun into the English l👻ngu👻ge.

My Tags

Cosmic Observation

Kristian

Functional Rustic

Your questions if you choose to take them are:

Pink and yellow dot sports car or an Alvin and The Chipmunks designed utility vehicle?

Who would you make world leader. Your choices are Shaggy (ScoobyDoo), Homer Simpson, Squidward (Spongebob) or Rico (Penguins of Madagascar)?

You have to sit in a bath of cold food. Which food?

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 33 Comments

30-Day Song Challenge pt2

Our second bash at the 30 Day Song Challenge. Again it’s a joint effort with our son.

Day 8

A song about drugs and alcohol

http://youtu.be/–AvCsh48bk

I had better take this one. Has to be George Thorogoodo – One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.

Day 9

A song that makes you happy

http://youtu.be/_lK4cX5xGiQ

Certainly a joint decision. Both going for the really funny Jack Black and Kyle Gass becoming Tenacious D and Tribute.

Day 10

A song that makes you sad

http://youtu.be/vmezIIrFQmY

This was one of my partners favourite songs. She used to say it was our song every time it came on the radio. Little did I realise the video was so apt for what was going to happen. I still can’t listen to it rather floods of tears.

Day 11

A song you never get tired of.

http://youtu.be/w9km01hvP4w

This one is our son’s choice. Europe – The Final Countdown. He could listen to this on loop all day.

Day 12

A song from your preteen years.

http://youtu.be/Nebe1zuEtbc

The Goons – Ying Tong Song. I can’t remember when I first heard this song. Maybe it was Dad (sorry Dad if you hated it) but for whatever reason I just remember it as a kid. As a toddler our son love its silliness.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 56 Comments

Liebster

Thank you to Kristian for the Liebster nomination from his great site Tales from the mind of Kristian. Very kind of you.

The Rules

  • Acknowledge the blogger that gave it to you and display the award
  • Answer 11 questions that the blogger gives you
  • Give 11 random thoughts about yourself
  • Nominate 11 blogs and notify them of their nomination
  • Give these blogs 11 questions to answer

Because these are good questions, people are tending to stick with them.

The Questions:

11 questions

1)What is your biggest pet peeves?

Why do pets have to pull the Christmas tree down every two minutes. At least the dog hasn’t cocked his leg on it yet. The angel on top of the tree is genuinely looking like it needs to go into rehab after what the girl cat did to it this morning.

2)Where did you get the name for your blog?

I came up with the single most rubbish blog name ever. Can’t blame anybody else except me. It just sort of popped into my head.

3)If you could change your blogs name, what would it be?

The perfect family still together.

OR

Whatever Will Smith calls his blog.

4)What was your favourite show as a kid?

Too many to mention. Captain Scarlet was number 1 ScoobyDoo was number 2.

5)Do you have any weird habits?

Too many. Won’t eat the ends of a banana. If I read a newspaper I read it Japanese Manga Comic style, back to front. Turn into a wolf every full moon. Always give my car a name then say hello and goodbye to it when I drive. If I’m concentrating I tend to stick my tongue out. Could go on for pages.

6)Do you like fall scents/tastes?

Yes favourite time of year.

7)What is your favourite holiday and why?

SWITZERLAND. 🇨🇭 Stunning scenery, beautiful food, lovely friendly people, worlds greatest public transport system, MEMORIES

8)Do you prefer writing it down or typing it up?

My handwriting is so bad it has to be typing. Having said that I still can only type with two fingers.

9)Netflix or cable?

Prefer to buy cheap DVDs than watch TV these days.

10)If money didn’t matter, what would you do with your life?

Become the Yorkshire Batman. Would probably have to change my name to something like ‘Rhubarb Man’ or ‘The Yorkshire Pudding’.

11)What is your favourite thing about yourself?

Absolutely Nothing.

11 Things About Me

  1. As a kid I had a 3 legged tortoise called speedy who walked round in circles.
  2. A few years back I apparently looked like Harry Potters Dad. Not sure if that was before or after Voldermort made a mess of him.
  3. When I played football for the university my nickname was Bagpuss.
  4. I worked for a while at the Forensic Science Service. No idea why but one of the office sites was slap in the middle of the U.K.s atomic weapons research site. Many years ago. But then it was the U.K.s highest security site. Mad old place. Probably just broken the official secrets act – sorry Theresa
  5. I was born in Yorkshire but a couple of years later the government decided that my town couldn’t be in Yorkshire anymore. It’s the stuff of revolutions.
  6. I used to go fishing with some of my friends. I hated the thought of hurting a fish so I never put a hook on my line. Friends never found out.
  7. When I was a kid one of my favourite shows was ScoobyDoo. Back then I desperately wanted Velma to be my girlfriend.
  8. I’ve seen the following bands: Deep Purple, Motörhead, The Firm, Whitesnake, Tin Machine, Ozzy, Black Sabbath, Scorpions, Meatloaf, Blue Oyster Cult, Rory Gallagher, Magnum, Gary Moore, Saxon, Mountain, Eric Clapton, Asia, Bad Company, Dio, Marillion, Runrig, Blackfoot, Kirsty Macoll, Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Neil Young, Extreme, Tina Turner, Brian Adams, Al Stewart, Suzy Quattro, Roy Harper, Hollywood Vampires, The Darkness, The Dammed, Iron Maiden. Plus because of my partner I have seen Ronan Keaton twice…….
  9. I got my first name from a famous American actor, who did a lot of cowboy movies and it’s not John Wayne.
  10. I was privileged to be in a crowd which was addressed by Nelson Mandela.
  11. I once spent time on a climbing wall with a someone who later went on to climb Everest.

Nominations

Open it up to anyone who fancies a crack at some of the same questions. It is ok to admit any lycanthropy tendencies – we are all friends here.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 46 Comments

Early morning

I decided to get up really early this morning to try and do a bit of work catch up. But the work gods are still against me. In my half asleep state I somehow found a way of opening up the laptop and switching it on.

“Configuring Windows Update. Do not turn off your computer”

Stumbled off to make a cup of tea (as Velma Dinkley would say – Jinkys) why did I choose this week to give up coffee.

“Configuring Windows Update. Do not turn off your computer”

Stumbled back into the kitchen to make a bit of breakfast.

“Configuring Windows Update. Do not turn off your computer”

Stumbled back into the kitchen to make another cup of tea. Clearly the last one didn’t wake me up.

“Configuring Windows Update. Do not turn off your computer”

Better sort out the smelly cat litter, like smelling salts, that’s woke me up.

“Configuring Windows Update. Do not turn off your computer”

And on and on and on. Two hours later it’s still in configuration meltdown.

So I can’t turn off the computer but it doesn’t say anything about using it as the new cat litter tray,

“Configuring Windows Update. For gods sake don’t let that cat pee on your computer”

So zero work done but I did get to see a sunrise and hear the stunning 🦅 dawn chorus. I had forgotten how magical this time of day can be.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 79 Comments

Pets feel

Our pets give us so much entertainment and bring much needed smiles to this broken house. They have really helped get us through the last couple of years. Yes they can be terrors but humans can be oh so much worse….

But I think one pet needs a special mention. They big boy cat. He is such a softy. Even when the cats could venture outside he was not really an apex predator. Never worked out how to hunt. The girl cat would frequently bring him some live offerings. But the boy cat would carefully paw them, then roll over – I suspect he was hoping the vole would tickle his tummy. Strangely the vole would scurry off into the hedge counting it’s blessings. The boy cat would frequently get stuck in the tree requiring rescue. He was petrified of the cat flap so we had to cover it up. He had a favourite type of toy. He would only play with our son’s Dr Who Dalek plastic figures – nothing else. You would see him searching the toy box in a desperate attempt to find the elusive evil masterminds. He has worked out how to open door handles so he gets free run of the house.

But he was also inseparable from my partner. He would follow her about and he always seemed to be on her lap. When my partner went out the cat would sit at the front window and wait for hours until she came back. Sadly you can’t explain bereavement to a cat. I’ve got no idea what the boy cat is thinking. I can’t confirm that he is grieving like we are. But I know one thing for a fact. Every night he sleeps where our partner used to sleep and you frequently see him at the front window. I suspect he’s waiting for her to return.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 2 Comments

Keeping Children Safe in Public Places

I have been asked if I would bring a blog post about keeping kids safe to your attention. The post is from a blog called When fit hits the Shan.

“what started as another blog post is more to me now. This isn’t about promoting myself or my blog. I am a mom too, and I can’t handle the thought of a child being taken from his parents like that. “
“I really think this trick saved that boy. I was so sad and scared to think that I had never heard of it. I would not have used this technique if it had been my child on the beach that day, and I would have lost her. What I want is to share this information with all parents because I think it can save families”

https://whenfithitstheshan.com/2018/12/06/how-to-respond-when-children-wander-away-or-worse/

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 44 Comments

Literally

Children on the autistic spectrum can often take words literally. Now most of this can be put down to the confusing nature of language. Why do we make it so difficult. Often English doesn’t even seem like my second language. It did take me three attempts to pass my English exam.

It is something we noticed with our son at an early age. I can clearly remember one time when naughty dad had eaten all the smarties. When our son quizzed the suspect I remember saying

“Must have been the dinosaur in the kitchen”

Five minutes later our son is ransacking the kitchen in a desperate dinosaur hunt.

Another time I remember saying “and Pigs might Fly”. A few weeks later at nursery our son began telling the other kids that pigs could fly. And given a lot of the kids realised how much he knew about animals – they all started believing it to. So if you ever hear someone like Coyote Peterson or Chris Packham talking about flying pigs on their nature shows – then you probably know who to blame. Sorry

We had to become more careful in what we said. We tried to make sure if a joke was told or any colloquial language used that we immediately pointed what had been done and why. Explaining that words can have different meanings. We also tried to stress the importance of not only hearing the words but also trying to listen for how things have been said. We worked on his body language recognition skills. One game which helped was watching the TV with the volume turned off and trying to guess which people were happy or sad or angry or being serious.

To this day he still quite often takes words literally. It’s a worry going forward into senior school. But he is learning. He now frequently asks “is that real” or “is that true” to try and confirm meaning and last week….. He was using my iPad in another room. He kept shouting that it wasn’t working properly. Me being a lazy sod I was trying to shout instructions back rather than going to look at it. After several minutes he shouted that it was still not working. Without thinking I replied “just flush it down the toilet”. Few seconds later the toilet flushed. I have never ran so fast. Fortunately I found a laughing son saying “got you there dad”. Happy Days….

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Bridges

Sunday seems such a long time ago. I just love the quayside area of Newcastle. Yes it’s built up. Some of the architecture is 18th century housing modern wine bars, restaurants, fast food joints and pubs. But it just seems to work and dovetail together.

But the highlight for me are the bridges over the River Tyne. All so different and just stunning.

Too often people look towards the famous Tyne Bridge and forget to look in the other direction.

Son was really brave and made it into the football stadium. He enjoyed the full Mr Men display from his dad. He even got animated with the pompous and bumbling referee (without prompting). For anyone who follows English Football – Mike Dean is infamous. Yes it ended up with my team losing again but that misses the point. It was one of those days where our son ventured into a world which is not his and rather enjoyed it.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 47 Comments

Monday Monday Monday

Monday finishes off with a visit from Santa. It’s about the only event the village has. Raising money for charity. Raising smiles with children. Sorry for the poor photo.

However we never get a dull day.

Nice dog walk completed. Return of the strange yellow thing. Coffee made. Laptop opened. Work commenced. PHONE RINGS.

As Captain Jack Sparrow would say – “Bugger”

So ten minutes after opening the laptop I’m on the way to meet our son at the hospital. Accident at school and a hurt hand. Few x-rays and it’s a visit to the fracture clinic tomorrow.

Back home for some needed TLC for our son. Work day has turned into a marathon movie day. Can we get through the complete Pirates of the Caribbean series in one day. It’s odd watching the movies having now seen Johnny Depp live – playing guitar.

Lord knows when I’m going to get some work done. Maybe a few all night sessions. But in the scheme of things it doesn’t really matter. Now back to Captain Jack and the third movie.