Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 40 Comments

Are we really happy about this

It’s still not even midday on this stormy Monday and it already feels like it’s been a long week. Much shaking my head at the areas and topics Hawklad is having to learn. Really how will these facts and skills set him up for the future.

Then he listens to the news. It’s filled with talk of pandemics, nepotism and a country rapidly appearing to be an inwardly looking police state. Women having to protest because they don’t feel safe. A complete and utter Brexit shambles. Ongoing environmental disasters. Lots of waving the flag and saying we are better than anyone else. Look how much we can blame on immigration. Everything has a price. Profit is king. A world where the makeover of the PMs flat is more important than a pay rise for nurses. Leaders talking about bringing Victorian values back into schools.

Hawklad hears this. He talks about this.

Are we really happy that our children are being exposed to this. Being brought up in this type of world. Learning this stuff. Are we happy that the likes of these people are in charge of our child’s education.

Deciding exactly what they learn, how they learn it, where they can source there information from. What part of the economy they can be slotted in to.

Is it really about the children or is just about the economy. If it is really about the children then why don’t we ask them what they want. What interests them. What works for them. What world do they want to grow up in.

I bet it’s not this type of world….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 61 Comments

This time

I can’t blame him for these, this time. But it does explain why he keeps coming in the house with muddy paws.

I had a post yesterday about Autism. When I wrote it things seemed ok with it. But then something happened. I happened….

I’m still working through this pcurrent bout of depression. Won’t be the first or last time I do this. When depression becomes DEPRESSION with me I start to doubt myself. Question my worth. That’s what happened yesterday. I reread the post and didn’t like it. The words were wrong. Uncertain of the message. Why was I bothering. If people want to read about Autism and Autism Patenting then they would be so much better off going to other blogs. Go to a blog like Robyn’s wonderful one. Nothing I said could change my mind. The voices in my would not be satisfied until I deleted the post. Eventually that is what happened.

Today the voices are not so strong. I guess today the post would have had a slightly better chance of being published. With my depression it comes in waves. Bad days then better days. Will be that way until I finally get on top of this run of D. In the meantime I will plod on. Trying to not listen to the voices in my head too much. Focusing on those things in my life which bring joy and happiness.

I can do this

We can do this.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 89 Comments

Tired

There’s tired and there’s TIRED.

I don’t sleep much but even I struggle to function on one hours sleep.

I was trying to wash the bedding this morning. A task clearly beyond a ZOMBIE. I did remember to put washing powder into the right tray. Well kind of. I did pick up a box which was the same shape and size. It didn’t register that the powder was brown and biscuit like.

Yes the bedding was washed with Cat food. That’s TIRED….

Thankfully I don’t work on a Nuclear Power Station….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 47 Comments

Romeo

As dark as the view may seem if you keep looking hopefully you will eventually see a few rays of light. WE can do this.

I was stood outside surveying the grey skies. Definitely feeling low. Hemmed in and a bit beat up. Thinking about life’s many constraints. Then to the west I saw a few rays of light. That reminded me of just how fortunate I am. In my low moments I seem to be better at remembering the bad stuff. Yet I am so fortunate to have really special things in my life. That thought made me smile.

Then my attention switched to our two daily visitors. Our two lovebird pigeons. Everyday at this time they meet up on our fence and basically DO IT. They don’t seem to mind an audience.

Well today I watched Romeo and Juliet move slowly together. The big moment came and Romeo FELL OFF the fence. Landing in a heap on in the grass. By the time he had recovered his poise and flown back up to the fence ….. Juliet had flown off. If I could understand Yorkshire Pigeon I think I would have heard a loud cry of PANTS.

I think I know what Romeo was feeling. Many of us have kind of been there.

Feathered Romeo you have given me a much needed chuckle. You have more than earned some extra food scraps today. I think you could do with that.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 53 Comments

Truly shocking poetry

Running on empty last couple of days. Even the simple tasks are becoming complex. You know you are in for along day when you nod off during the first school at home lesson. The lights went out midway through a sentence explaining Factor Trees to Hawklad. All before 10am.

Here’s the ultimate irony. A tired muppet Dad who wasn’t even trusted to keep the score in Pub Darts matches now trying to explain maths to a kid who has just got 38 out of 40 in his term mathematics test. Talk about feeling out of my depth.

Which is how I feel when I venture into the world of poetry. Yes I’m sorry it’s that time again. Head to the panic rooms my friends. It’s poetry..

It’s poetry Jim but not as we know it…..

It’s really Terrible Poetry time. Time to have a go at Chelsea Owens Mused Poetry challenge.

***********

Phew! After last month‘s hilarious entries, I had a bit of trouble thinking of what our next venture should be. What to do, what to do…

  1. Let’s try an oldie but a goodie: A Funny Love Poem Inside a Greeting Card.

  2. Most greeting cards can’t hold a ballad, so a few stanzas ought to do us for the Length.

  3. I’d recommend rhyming. I mean, you are serious about this love interest, aren’t you?

  4. Yes, this is love (or something like unto it) but the Rating‘s PG or cleaner. After all, some kid might stumble across your offering while trying out all the musical cards.

  5. Only in stories do lovers say all the right words, remember every birthday and anniversary, and get just the right present. We are not writing a story, here, we’re writing a humorous poem. As such, make us laugh. Laughter’s the best way to a person’s heart; right?
    And, as a side note, whoever said this was a card expressing love to a person? What if you’re more fond of a juicy cheeseburger? Just a thought…

You have till 10:00 a.m. MST next MONTH (March 5) to submit a poem.

*************

When you lie in double bed all alone

Experiencing a completely love free zone

Feeling like a discarded out of tune trombone

Your only company is a smelly dog and farting cat

Feeling as popular as flea ridden rabid fat wombat

But maybe today that Hallmark card will land on your mat

Bringing much needed kisses and expressions of affection

Offering a few sweet moments of romantic misdirection

Which is always better than a bad case of fungal infection…..

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 45 Comments

Autism

It was such a grey day today. Couldn’t find anything to photograph so let’s see what happened a year ago. So back 2020 and guess what was back!!!! After a few really bad storms our lake made a brief appearance.

One of the questions I’ve been asked the most by other parents and a few teachers (but interestingly never by family and friends) is

‘Does Aspergers get better with age?’Even occasionally the question becomes ‘will he grow out of it….”

For every polite question I have trotted out the same answer

The condition will not change but the personality traits may well fluctuate over time. Some traits may become less noticeable while others may become more pronounced.

There is research in this area but I will leave others to discuss that. I will stick to my well trodden line of each child and adult is unique. With Hawklad it is very much on par with my standard answer. Some of the traits have become less apparent as he has got older. Some of his old repetitive behaviours like hand flapping are hardly seen these days. Where’s as some traits like fixation on objects and constant motion have stayed largely the same.

But there are also existing traits which are becoming far more pronounced. Verbal stimming (repetition of words and sounds) has dramatically increased with him. Phobias and social anxieties have increased but how I’m just not sure how much of that is down to the pandemic.

Aspergers is very much who Hawklad is. It’s his personality. It is him. Sadly there is still too often a fundamental misunderstanding of what being on the spectrum actually means. Not enough understanding of what it is to be Autistic. We have such a long way to go as a society.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 63 Comments

It’s cooking Jim but not as we know it

Warning this post contains some disturbing baking images.

This house had an idea. Some next level pancakes….

Not content with messing up normal pancakes let’s go a stage further. Pancake sandwiches. So what filling could we go for?

Chocolate biscuits. Carefully warmed chocolate biscuits. How hard could that be.

First Try….

Erm…. As Spock would say ‘it’s a chocolate biscuit filling Jim but not as we know it’.

After a number of other shocking tries we finally produced this….

We can officially call this a warmed chocolate biscuit filled pancake sandwich.

The message here. If keep throwing punches, you might be the worst boxer ever, but eventually one will land.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 41 Comments

Frustrating

The sun goes down on another school at home day. It was one of those days where it feels like for every step forward we took two giant steps back. Such hard work.the really frustrating thing is that it wasn’t the actual learning which was the issue today. No the frustrations came from repeated system crashes, missing content, confusing instructions, formatting disasters and online tests that will only work with exactly the right spelling and format.

We can make home schooling so much easier for the pupils than this…

So with the frustrations still ringing in my head another school communication arrived. All about the required Covid testing to support the schools reopening next week. Each family will be required to self test families using the rapid result kits TWICE a week. On top of that all pupils will be tested with the same kits once a week in school.

My one question is that if our schools are completely safe and not hubs for virus transfer (according to our PM) – why is this level of testing required…..

The school letter also apologised to parents for the confusing over masks in the classroom. A few days ago the PM told schools that masks had to be worn in the classroom. Our school wrote to parents to inform them of the new rule. Unfortunately the rule has now changed again. The PM has now said they are only recommended and school can’t enforce them.

More frustrations……

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 79 Comments

Daffodil

Look at this. The first daffodil. It’s always such a lift when they appear. The return of a bit of warm colour. Much needed. Can we now officially call it SPRING. For what it’s worth a quick and very unscientific check of the photos is telling me that they have arrived one day earlier than last year.

If only WP was that reliable. Scheduled posts not working. Finding it harder to post comments that actually appear. Random unfollows. Likes not working. Photos refusing to publish. Messed up editing. Yep I think the WP IOS app has beaten me. Need to get myself a better laptop and switch to the web based option. See if it works better with Windows.

But until then we will soldier on. Do what I can. Don’t get too worked up if it refuses to work properly. There a great quote from The Book of Joy. A quote which has Buddhist traditions but was also told to me bizarrely by a cricket coach who was talking about getting out of a bad run of batting form. Basically it says….. Pointless worrying about what you can’t control and why are you worrying about stuff you can control.

Ok let’s try to remember that. Forget WP and my troubles. Think about the things in my life that lift me up and that I love. That will help push the negative thoughts away for some precious moments.

We can do this.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 67 Comments

Cars

The Head Gardener seems to be enjoying his work…..

Don’t you just love cars. My car went into the garage to get its breaks fixed, the petrol tank made less corroded and then pass its annual test. The brakes and tank have been delayed since February due to parts being on back order. They can only be sourced from China for my car. Getting the parts was a tad difficult because of the pesky virus. Well a year later we tried again.

All good until the dreaded phone call. The petrol tank needs another part which is still unavailable from the Chinese supply chain. So the car has been partly fixed and partly patched up. It’s somehow fudged its way through the test. So I can drive it but not too far until the other part turns up.

Oh what fun. But as the car is doing about 0 miles a week at present. It’s not an issue.

However

What the Head Gardener is doing to the garden might be an issue.