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Well that’s sorted then

I was conscious that this Christmas will be different for us, different for Hawklad.

No end of school term activities and parties.

No Carol singing in the city while drinking hot chocolate.

No Santa Train ride. Ok we are doing our own car version.

No Charity Santa coming through the village on a trailer pulled by a tractor.

No festive walks along the beach and finishing off at a little cafe for his festive ice cream.

No visits to friends.

No family meet-ups.

No trips to the Christmas Market.

No trip to the zoo in New Years Day.

No family Christmas meal.

No Boxing Day walk with picnic.

No festive trip to the cinema to see a blockbuster and then whatever festive film they have showing.

No carol singers coming round the houses on Christmas Eve.

Basically it will be just the two of us and pets. Sticking to the house and garden. Maybe only one trip out to do the Santa Car ride. I was feeling bad about that so I brought it up with Hawklad. I explained the differences to him

……. so it’s going to be really different this year. How do you feel about that Hawklad?

“So no family at all?”

None!

“Absolutely no visitors?”

None!

“No festive trips out?”

It doesn’t look like it.

“Dad, can we order in extra pizza over Christmas?”

Yes Son.

“Well that will be just fine then…….”

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Whitby

It feels like it’s been an eternity since we last took in some seaside air. I think it’s just under two years. TWO YEARS…. That must be my longest ever inland run. Especially not great when you are a seaside child, born on the North Yorkshire coast. One day with patience.

This is Whitby. Here’s a few random facts about this beautiful little town.

  • Captain James Cook lived here and his famous ship the Endeavour was built here.
  • Whitby has some of the best Fish and Chips on the planet.
  • The black semi-precious stone Whitby Jet.
  • Bram Stoker developed the idea of his Dracula book here. The opening chapters are set here. Also the idea of Dracula taking on the form of a huge black dog is based on local legends.

When I was a kid we would come here on a day trip by train. While my parents went about doing parenting things, I would be sent up the 199 steps to The Abbey which is in the background of the second photo. My job was to hunt for Dracula’s grave. I never did find it but maybe next time.

I’m not sure that time wasting parenting excuse would have any chance of success with our son. More chance of him convincing me to go. These days we come to Whitby for the chips, the ice cream, the beautiful beach and a bit of dinosaur fossil hunting. This part of the country has been named Jurassic Coast for the number of discoveries it yields. This is one of ours.

So let’s hope it’s not long before the fossil hunting is back underway.

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A trip many moons ago

I stumbled across a few old photos. From a time before parenting. Even before my first ever digital camera… A time when my body was still young and I could run up mountains. A time when the wind would still blow my thick long black hair across my face.

A trip to the West Side of Northern England. To the Lake District and to one of Englands most famous mountains. The Old Man of Coniston. It’s not a huge mountain standing at just over 2600ft. But it’s steeped in history. It’s positioned next to the beautiful Coniston Water. The walk to the top takes you through old copper mine workings. Alongside a couple of stunning little tarns. Then finally onto a summit with sweeping views.

Hopefully one day I will return to the summit. A summit climb with considerably less hair. Which will take much longer this time and feature many sandwich stops..

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Fashion expert

A mass of red from a plant that my big sister bought for us as a house warming present many years ago. Still so colourful, still so stylish. Unfortunately other things in the house are not ageing so well….

We have a school week holiday coming up. A week to give the kids and teachers a break. Let’s not forget parents, grandparents, guardians, support staff as well. We might be homeschooling but it feels like a break is much needed. A week without schooling to allow kids to be kids….

We call the week before a half term the T minus clock. T minus days before the school breaks up. Can we survive the T minus clock without holiday homework. Well….

It’s T minus 3 days to go and it’s not going well so far. So far Son has Art, English and Science holiday homework. Large projects. So much for kids having a break.

I clearly need a break or at the very least a fashion consultant.

“Dad are you seriously going to wear that“.

I thought it was a fine shorts and Jumper (sweater) combo.

“You hair is sticking up and you haven’t shaved today”

I’m calling it the Indiana Jones look.

“Maybe for Indiana Jones 6 when he’s about 110.”

Clearly Dr Jones has aged well then….

“The jumper is a bit big for you.”

It was a Christmas present and I never got round to changing it.

“And I’m probably taller than you now.”

Something strangely emasculating about when your son has edged passed you, when he is barely 13.

“How can I put this politely… Erm …. You look like a hobbit from Lord of the Rings”

Any cheap fashion experts out there?

Update: School are clearly joining in the fun. The class have been asked to watch a fantasy movie for the next lesson. And why movie are we watching. The Hobbit. The Shame never ends.

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Flight

Such a rare site these days. A plane…. According to the flight app it’s on the way to Houston. I wonder how many are on the flight? With so many unseen enemies I don’t imagine it’s a particularly pleasant experience.

I was never the greatest of flyers. I was always one of those who kept one beady eye on fellow passengers for unusual behaviour and the other on the structural integrity of the plane. Luckily I never had too many bad experiences.

  • A landing at Geneva which was a tad extreme. I heard one flight attendant say – that’s the co pilot, he drives his car just as bad….
  • An argument with English Border Security why they were body searching our 3 year old toddler who was holding a cuddly dinosaur and his 73 year old granny, yet waving through adults my age. I wonder if that got me onto the security watch list….
  • A last second aborted landing at Leeds Bradford. Sudden pull up with feet to go. Then 10 minutes circling at an extremely low height with no pilot update. Finally the pilot announced that the power had gone out at the airport during the landing.
  • A year later circling Leeds Bradford airport for far too long waiting for the wind to drop. The pilot didn’t help the mood by announcing that the plane was low on fuel so they could only circle one more time before they he would have to find another airport that was open.

But then you balance that out with great memories

  • That first glimpse of The Alps through the plane window.
  • On a flight to Amsterdam telling son a story about a talking mole who would sneeze so hard he would blow clothes off washing lines. People and other talking animals would stand in front of the mole hoping for a sneeze and a free journey. A mole whose best friends are an overweight tea drinking cheetah and a crocodile who was scared of everything. When I finished I heard the toddler behind us laughing her head off. Her parents asked if I would tell another one for her. Ended up doing stories until we landed.
  • Our toddler son telling the the flight attendant on a Lufthansa flight that the in flight cakes were the best thing he had ever had. Just before we left the plane, the flight attendant returned with a huge box of the cakes. Kept him going for months.
  • As we boarded a Swissair flight the pilot clearly took a shining to our son. Seconds later son was sat in the pilots seat with her pilot hat on. He was shown how to fly the plane. That’s an awful lot of things to look at.
  • Swissair was always so much fun. Just before you landed they would dish out free goodies for you to take with you. Free chocolate, free small wine bottles, free sweets and a free soft toy for the kids. Sadly they went bankrupt – I wonder why….

Back to that one flight in the air heading to Houston. It got me thinking about when I would fly again. The question rapidly changed into if I would ever fly again… Aspergers and modern flying are not natural partners. Too many people squeezed into confined spaces. In your face security. Never ending queues. Unpredictable timings designed around the planes rather than the individual. The sensory overload and lack of personal space or quiet areas. Maybe the answer is never.

If and when travel resumes for the world…. if and when travel resumes for us then we have options. Train journey is still not subject to many of the burdens that go with flying. Car travel can be so much fun …..just need a car that could make it out of Yorkshire. And yes air travel may still be an option.

Or maybe I can find a talking mole who has a talent for massive sneezing. Maybe mole sneeze induced travel is the eco friendly option for the future.

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What happened to the Bank Holiday

It’s a Monday. According to my cute animal calendar it’s Bank Holiday Monday. But apparently it isn’t. This week because of VE Day commemorations it’s going to be a Bank Holiday Friday. I must have missed that memo. So our plans for a late start ended rather abruptly. Feels like it’s going to be another odd week. Most of today was actually spent trying to get my head into school mode and convince son that he can’t really do the whole day’s schooling from the comfort of his bed.

Little success on either…..

“Dads whose to know that I’m going to school in bed today. It’s not as if the headteacher has a Eye of Sauron all seeing power.”

If the schools stay too much longer under the control of the current Schools Minister then I wouldn’t put it past schools adopting that form of teaching.

“I can effectively enforce social distancing during lessons. Apart from pets and my cleaner, no one would dare venture into my bedroom”

Somedays even his cleaner tries to avoid venturing into that place.

“If a bed is good enough for Lennon to have a peace protest then it’s definitely acceptable as a comfy classroom.”

Eventually Son was enticed out of bed with cookies. An impending attack by a dog returning from playing out in a sodden garden also focused his mind….. But I must admit I quite like the idea of bed at present. Maybe Bed Parenting might work tomorrow. So while I warm up the hot water bottle, I want to say thank you to Claire and Riya.

Thank you Claire for the nomination for the Liebster Award.

We’ve struck up a great blogging friendship over the last few months even though she keeps beating me at our daily balancing challenge. I’m sure she’s cheating…. So here’s goes with answering her questions.

  1. If you could have had any job/career what would it have been?  As a toddler I wanted to be a captain in Captain Scarlet. As a kid I wanted to be an Astronomer or Dr Who. Then I wanted to be a mountaineer. Then it was to be a goalkeeper for Newcastle and finally to captain Yorkshire at cricket. Ended up being an Accountant – figure that one out.
  2. If you were stranded on a desert island what three items would you choose to have with you? A helicopter. A person called Bear and a nice house. Guess that’s not the answer you wanted so…. A Swiss Army Knife. A fishing rod. The Lord of the Rings omnibus.
  3. What the thing you like most about yourself? My eyelashes.
  4. If you could relive one day again, exactly as it was before, what day would it be and why? Think it was in 2013. We caught the train up to Kleine Scheidegg. On a gloriousday we then walked down Lauterbrunnen. We played all sorts of games with our 6 year old. It was the best two hours ever. So much laughter and views to die for.
  5. If you could only see one more band/singer live, who would it be? AC/DC, never seen them.
  6. What is your biggest achievement in your life so far? Son…
  7. What’s your favourite way to relax (keep it clean please!)? Climbing, but I’ve had to ditch that. So now it’s running, exercise and blogging. Least favourite being watching Newcastle United.
  8. You can have a superpower for a year. Which one would you choose? Captain Marvel stuff so I could travel the Cosmos.
  9. What’s your favourite time of day and why? Friday 3.30. Schools finish so Son is off for the weekend.
  10. What are you most afraid of? Snakes. Wasps. Spiders. Drowning. My brothers old punchbag with a boxers face on it. Alvin and The Chipmunks.
  11. What are your ‘words to live by?’ Name the three most important for you. Chips, Crisps, pizza. OR love, laughter and listen.

Also thanks to Riya for the Vincent Ehindero Blogger Award.

1. What’s the best thing you like about blogging? And your advice. Making friends. At present I don’t get to socialise much these days. Blogging allows me inflict my bad and make new friends. And I do mean real friendships. My only advice is always have hope …. if I can do this then YOU certainly can.

2. What do you do to relax? Climbing in the pre parenting days. Now it’s blogging and running.

3. What is that one thing you are very grateful for? Three things. Our Son. Spending part of my life with such a beautiful person as my partner. Having been brought up by the best possible mum.

4. What is your happiest moment? Being handed our son after he had just been born.

5. Would you prefer a Cat or Dog? Got to be careful as we have both and gerbils. Let’s base it on this morning. The Cat missed the litter tray with his poo and the dog got excited and wee’d all over the kitchen floor. So it has to be the Gerbils currently.

I won’t nominate anyone as I have a rather bad habit of nominating blogs that are then deleted within weeks of the nomination. The last time I did, it was something like 5 of the 8 blogs were gone within the month. So best not nominate. I’ve been so grateful for the nominations over the last few months. I really have. But I think the time has probably come to do no more of these. Don’t want to risk deleting my own blog.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 85 Comments

Facts

Last night was one of those yucky sleepless nights. So very tired yet all I could muster was probably 40 minutes sleep. Annoyingly those 40 minutes came right at the end of the night and was brought to an all to abrupt ending with the morning homeschooling alarm.

During those zombie like hours I started writing a list of things to do this week. After getting stuck on item 1 for far too long, the list morphed into a more fruitful

What have I learned about myself during the last few weeks of this rather odd period in our history.

So here goes with my early morning facts

  1. I’m crap at writing To Do lists,
  2. Late at night I have a habit or writing LIST so that it looks like LUST,
  3. I can’t sleep properly,
  4. My old mobile phone has never worked better since it got machine washed with my clothes,
  5. My phone has a surprisingly good camera however it has the most annoying panorama function. The photo above took hours to do,
  6. I am so lucky to have that view from the garden. But what would I give for either a mountain or the sea in the distance,
  7. I quite enjoy most of this home schooling lark,
  8. Homeschooling and work are never going to be a good fit for me,
  9. Homeschooling and long distance running are never going to be a good fit for me,
  10. Homeschooling and my bank balance are never going to be a good fit for me,
  11. Homeschooling, my bank balance and holidays are never going to be a good for me,
  12. High petrol prices are not an issue when you don’t drive your car for 6 weeks,
  13. I can now make my own pizza bases as long as they are square shaped. Round is beyond me,
  14. I can fill a freezer up real quick when I start saving leftover food,
  15. A dairy and gluten free diet is a pain in the arse when the shops sell out of specialist diet ranges,
  16. I miss football on the telly,
  17. I miss alpine sports on the telly,
  18. I hate the news now. I miss the days of moaning about Brexit,
  19. I’m a barnpot yet I would do a better job of running our country than the clowns currently in charge. Apparently it’s ok for a Prime Minister to miss FIVE emergency meetings and have weekends off during a national emergency,
  20. My Son knows more than I do,
  21. Receiving a parcel from Amazon now feels as dangerous as trying to change a fuel rod in a nuclear reactor,
  22. Not being able to get Sons favourite Soup, Beans, Skinless Sausages and Pasta is one of the most stressful things in the world,
  23. I must be really vexing to live with,
  24. Cheap tea bags taste the same regardless of how many times I reuse them,
  25. Using Yorkshire Slang Words gets me put on the Spam Naughty List,
  26. At some stage I might have to physically talk to someone else than our son. I’m dreading that thought,
  27. You can still get colds if you are isolating from the outside world,
  28. When I’m carefully stood in my designated 2m queuing area why can’t I stop thinking about how long virus particles stay airborne for,
  29. I get so excited when I see an aeroplane now that I must rush to check where it’s flying to,
  30. I haven’t combed my hair in 6 weeks,
  31. Where does all the so called spare time disappear when I’m on lockdown,
  32. The more I learn German the less I can remember of French. It’s as if for every new German word entering my brain, a French one has to pop out to make space,
  33. I will even talk to slugs these days,
  34. Don’t set up a darts challenge with your son then at the last minute realise you don’t have a dartboard or darts,
  35. The Government and Chief Executives of major companies only email me when there is a pandemic going on,
  36. I still hate U2,
  37. I want to live in Switzerland
  38. I’m still a widow. Or as my Predictive Text tries to type – I am still a window,
  39. These days it really doesn’t matter if I put my pants on back to front.
Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 116 Comments

Random Tree

A random Yorkshire tree. When it snows, a random Yorkshire Tree positioned at the end of our sledging run. So a random Yorkshire tree with a very hard trunk which I have collided with on more than one occasion. It’s like a Rome. All the sledging runs seem to abruptly end at this tree.

So this morning’s fight with WordPress was a bit of a score draw. On the plus side it went remarkably smoothly and very quickly. On the downside my attempted fix – didn’t pigging work. So the app is still possessed. My comments on many sites just disappear. One explanation is that I’ve upset one of the Spam filters. I might have used a naughty word on a comment (or two ). See kiddies swearing is not big or clever. Anyway until it’s resolved I will keep trying to comment on your sites – a few comments are still sneaking through. Enjoy the peace and waffle free time while it lasts.

So the school version of homeschooling has ended for another week. It’s now the two week Easter break. A break which will probably look very like the last few weeks. Normally we look forward to these two weeks but this time it feels like just the same as the last few weeks. No real change except the school iPad can remain switched off.

But as everyday is FUN DAY let’s try to make the most of them.

It’s good to see school is getting into the celebratory mood. The kids have been set homework and have been given plenty of revision to complete over the holiday. After Easter it’s straight into online exams and YES the delights of spelling tests. Deep joy.

But we are not going to let school put a dampener on life over the next couple of weeks. So at lunchtime we reverted back to one of sons favourite games. Bouncing on a trampoline while holding a bucket filled with water. It’s amazing how even Son’s bucket of water ends up over his Dad. Maybe that’s why the game is so much fun. Then it was back to online lessons and trying to explain to a bewildered son the finer details of love poetry. You might have seen my sledgehammer writing style in Thursdays Terrible Poetry submissions. Me advising on poetry is like asking a pheasant to operate a pedestrian crossing. Some lessons are about personal growth and development. However this one was just about survival.

After the last lesson of the day the Easter break started with a dog walk. A walk to our sons self imposed world boundary. And a look over to a distant random tree. A tree beyond our little world. Let’s hope that when we get snow again, once again all our sledge runs will be able to meet this tree again.

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Hotel Window

Another cold start. I’m calling it an official three jumper day.

One of those cold starts that as hard as you work out, or regardless of how many warm layers you put on – your still cold.

The first week of schools version of homeschooling has now finished. Some subjects did embrace the opportunity. These offered the child a chance to be creative and to see where their learning interest would take them. Sadly that was not much of the week. Most of the lessons reflected the normal parrot learning teaching approach. What is the point of getting someone with dyslexia to translate page after page of French (without any context or help). What is the point of setting an online spelling test where the spoken words are so rare that I had to look every one up in a dictionary to see if they actually existed.

But he survived. The parent got through it as well. So that’s something.

Whether it was my lack of sleep, the unremittingly grim news or a week of homeschooling but last night I couldn’t get a thought out of my mind. Maybe, just maybe this is our world now. No more holidays. No more new lands. No more Switzerland. Certainly the financial shock of the next few months will take me a number of years to repair the bank balance. Generally travel may become more difficult over the next few years. Aspergers and the fear of social interactions is certainly not going away any time soon. So maybe that’s it with travel.

That’s sad but actually there is more to life than travel. So much to see and visit close by if it comes to that. Anyway we have not had a holiday since 2015 so we are used to it anyway. Doing virtual tours is a fun, safe, environmentally friendly and is so much cheaper. Then a thought crossed my mind. It was inspired by Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) while we watched Fawlty Towers. Basil was getting seriously cheesed off with a guest who was disappointed with the view from the bedroom window.

“Well may I ask what you expected to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically”

Actually could we scale the virtual tours up a notch. Why don’t I pick a window with a chair next to it. Then why don’t I stick a poster or large photo over the window glass. Suddenly my view of say the trampoline could be transformed into whatever I fancy. I’ve seen other people do this in the past. So tomorrow I am going poster hunting. Got a couple of belting posters of The Alps to find.. But in the meantime I’m hoping my bedroom window will look something like this.

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Long term project

Another grey day. Cheating a bit here. This photo was from yesterday. I never got that far today…

This morning the mist was much thicker. This time it was freezing fog. That awful stuff where all the dampness turns to ice as soon as it touches the ground. An invisible layer of sheet ice. Perfect running conditions. Not.

After two hundreds yards I had landed on my backside twice. The second including a beautiful slide into a road gutter. A third attempt ended 50 yards later as I went face first this time. Somehow I did a beautiful front somersault and landed on my feet again. Quickly looking round to see no one had witnessed my MVP sporting moment of 2019. That was it. An abandonment. A wise abandonment as I slipped over a couple of times on my short journey home.

It was so frustrating. With the Christmas School Holiday starting Friday I only had two more running opportunities left. After that the next run will be several days into 2020. But it is what it is. Hopefully a run tomorrow then I will make the best of home based exercises. At least for two weeks I won’t be running around like Bambi on ice. In my case that’s not a pleasant image. Especially as it’s from a time when Bambi has let himself go a bit….

While I was mind numbingly bored on the exercise plan b option. The exercise bike. I started thinking again about bereavement and grief. Looking back I recalled that for ages I was not able to talk about the circumstances surrounding my partners death. Every time it came up I broke down almost immediately. Now when I talk about it I’m almost very matter of fact. Almost devoid of emotion. In an hear a few cry so your over it now. Yet the other emotional triggers still set me off. Anniversaries. Special Days. A movie moment. A song line. Moments alone. Stressful times. An unexpected find.

It’s almost as if I have accepted her actual death but I haven’t accepted that she is no longer here. In reality I am so lucky. I have so many memories and her precious son – our son. I will gratefully run with them. Yes I’m going to fall. Going to fall often. But I need to pick myself up and treasure what is still left. This is a long term project.