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With one hand

August 2018

It’s been too long since I stood by the sea. Far too long. For someone born in a small north eastern seaside town, that’s tough. Genuinely don’t know when it will happen again. My gut feel is not in 2020. Our Government of Fools has now start reversing it’s rushed reopening plans. Yesterday it was perfectly safe to visit cinemas without a mask. Today you MUST wear a mask for your favourite movie. Yet kids and teachers are still expected to go mask free in classrooms. Last Friday we were being told to support the holiday industry and travel as it was safe. Just days later that all changed and more countries are being urgently added to the quarantine list with thousands of tourists now already out there. Even though those countries have much lower rates of deaths and infections than the UK.

Tougher lockdown regimes are being reintroduced into some areas with significantly rising infection rates . One such area is uncomfortable close to us. That is doing nothing for Hawklads anxiety levels. And now his garden consultation with his new health worker is in doubt. Such visits are now under review again. Somedays it feels like it’s one step forward and then one back. That’s at a time when his obsessive hand washing and fear of touching surfaces continues to mount.

But there is always hope and is it really one step forward, one step back…

When I first started climbing I hated having to retrace steps. One step forward, one step back seemed such a waste. A failure. Something to be avoided at all costs. But over time I learnt wiser ways. Things like climbing in things like pink compression tops and tight blue leggings is really not cool at all. Things like collecting rain water from rocky pools to drink might be a life saver but it doesn’t taste as nice as a can of coke stuffed into my climbing pack. Things like it’s not a great team building idea to lead a pitch when you have spilt asunder your tight blue leggings. I also learned that retracing steps is often a good thing. The times a few moments of retreat and sideways steps actually leads to a much easier and safe climbing way forward.

So yes things are tough and that garden visit would be useful but…..

The word BUT sounds to negative, maybe however is better.

However we do at least have access to the service still. That’s a huge bonus. The garden visit would bring stress currently, so if it doesn’t happen then it’s one less thing for Hawklad to worry about. It also encourages us both to try new things, see if we can find our own way through this maze. There will be things we haven’t tried. Maybe potential help has been there all the time and we just haven’t looked hard enough for it. Too much relying on someone else to find it for us. Maybe the only solution for Hawklad is to bunker down for a few more months until those clever vaccine people find something that works. So maybe retracing some steps is the best way forward.

There is always hope and yes I still have a pair of tight blue leggings…..

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Heatwave is here – kinda

Blue skies are coming

I have given the weather a hard time recently. A few too many rainy shots through the window. So let’s correct the balance. This is today through the window.

Summer

Blue skies, very warm but with a Yorkshire twist. Blowing a gale. The perfect weather for standing on flimsy plastic chairs looking like a star from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Only joking, I suspect my bruised rump would seriously object.

We’ve been doing a little routine which does help Hawklad put things into perspective. It’s so easy for him to get overwhelmed with the negative. I wonder who else that could apply to….. Basically it involves an empty sweet jar and some brightly coloured sweets. Here Skittles or Smarties work well.

Notice I went for the old Rowntree’s version, rather than Nestle. One day will tell you why. Anyway the secret is to pick a colour which is to represent good things and a colour to represent bad things. Then every time something happens Hawklad decides if it is good or bad. He then picks the appropriate colour sweet. The sweet then goes into the jar. Over time it’s an easy way to see what happens more, good or bad stuff. Thankfully for Hawklad it is usually a jar filled largely with good things. That would be mainly a blue colour then – assuming we can get blue sweets. Depending on who you listen to, blue colouring is either dangerous or difficult to source naturally. This little technique has helped Hawklad. Basically it shows him that yes bad stuff happens but actually more good stuff is out there. You also get to eat the sweets after the experiment has finished.

It’s strange that for such a clever little technique that works, I have never tried it on me. Someone who does have to fight negative thoughts. Someone who can see the world in a dark light. So here goes. This weekend this little muppet with his big bruised posterior is going to try this. Let’s see what happens and what it tells me about life.

Take care.

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Doubts

Much needed colour on a very grey and damp start to the day.

Some days are just greyer than others. Yes still smiles. Somethings just don’t fail. But then you come up to the surface again and it’s still grey. Crack on with stuff until you can immerse yourself in the good stuff again. Up and down. Swings and roundabouts.

Might have said that before. Sounds familiar. Sounds a bit like the lines ‘I’m going on a diet’ and ‘I’m going to have an early night’.

Another thing I’ve said over the last few hours – a one day heat wave is due on a Friday. Every time I look excitedly at the forecast, it just gets warmer. Now it’s supposed to be 29C (84F). That’s really hot for Yorkshire. Now I wonder what the reality will actually be. Let’s show you the current weather.

Wet, windy and definitely not warm…. Less than 24 hours until we are supposed to be hot then. Doubts definitely building.

I read some haunting words last night that brought tears. A really good person having so much to deal with in life. Honesty about the pain and sadness suffered. Yet unbroken with so much spirit, heart and love. Definitely made me think about that person and what a symbol of hope they represent. It also made me think about my life. Its too easy for me to take so many things for granted. I’ve been a bit up and down recently. A few too many down moments. Far too many doubts. Yet I have so much to smile about. Things which I far too easily take for granted. That needs to change. I’m not saying it’s going to transform me into a constantly smiling creature but maybe it will make me more balanced and honest with myself. I might believe my life is tough but looking at others, it really isn’t that bad at all. I’ve been so fortunate in many areas. I need to remember that and be more mindful of what others are dealing with. I’ve had opportunities which have been cruelly denied to others.

So it’s time to be much more thankful for what I have.

It’s a good life for me and actually it’s frequently a wonderful life.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 86 Comments

Hard life

It’s a hard life for some. Not sure if the hard life applies to The Cap or to that old sofa. The Cap is resting after a hard morning of causing chaos. This sofa is 17 years old. Over the last few years it has had to endure sustained cat and dog attention. Currently it’s covers are being washed for the millionth time.

It’s a hard life for my bottom as well. This morning I was blasting out a few miles on my equally old exercise bike when it basically fell to bits. It collapsed. One minute I was dreaming of summiting the Alpe d’Huez and leading the Tour de France. Three seconds later I’m sat on the floor surrounded by bits of exercise bike. Oh how the mighty fall. Now I know what it feels like to fall of your bike and forlornly watch the peloton scream past you.

Thankfully ten minutes later the bike was reassembled and the snapped retaining bolt replaced. The rest of the stationary ride was completed while I sat on an ice pack and a soft cushion. Bruised buttocks are not fun. But on the bright side, it’s much easier to ice pack your posterior than it is to ice pack your ego.

Bizarrely we were watching the Dora The Explorer movie last night. Yorkshire really knows how to live the dream. Near the start of the movie, poor Dora was dancing at a school ball. It was such a random odd dance that all the other kids were laughing and poking fun at her. Poor Dora, I really felt for her.

“Dad she dances like you.”

Really, I’m not that bad am I….

“In fact worse, much worse. At least Dora is coordinated. Your dancing is that bad, that if I’m within 50 miles of you, you are banned from any dance floor.”

The shame. How the mighty have fallen. I’m telling you that I once won a New Years Eve Blues Brothers dance competition.

“That was thankfully before I was born Dad….”

It’s a hard life……

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Heartfelt songs

Roman berries

Small and a beautiful berry. Not great to taste raw but apparently you can make great marmalade from them. I will leave them for the birds.

These 6 weeks tend to be tough for me. Your probably bored of me saying this but here I go again – me, me, me – in 2016 I lost my mum at the end of July, the week after the funeral I found out that my partner was dying and she died at the end of 6 week period.

Since then, this part of the year is tough. Best not make it any tougher.

I love music. It’s always been a special part of my life. Some would question my musical taste. I do like a bit of Leonard Cohen. Partial to a bit of classical music. Enjoy traditional Scottish music. But mainly it’s Rock. Often heavy Rock. Even some Mongolian Metal. But during these 6 weeks I have to be careful. It’s a fine line between smiles and tears. Let’s not have too many tears. With me music has the power to send me both ways. So for the next few weeks it’s a filtered playlist. No sad songs. Absolutely no sad songs. Zero heartfelt songs. No songs about death, dying young and lost love. Queens – ‘Who wants to live forever’ is just a big fat NO. The soundtrack to ‘Love Story’ is an even bigger, fatter NO. Don’t even start me on Terry Jacks – ‘Seasons in the sun’.

So it’s time for those songs about dragons, monsters, cars, highways, parties, card games, fun and high spirits. Yes love sounds but they have to be happy ones. That’s my playlist. Absolutely NO heartfelt songs.

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Money, money, money

Clearly the blueberry has given up on this Yorkshire Summer and just assumed it’s autumn already.

MONEY. Not listened to that Pink Floyd song in ages.

Get a good job with good pay and you’re okay….

That’s how the song goes. It’s funny that I love Floyd but this is the only song of theirs that I don’t like. The sound of the cash till just annoys me. It’s kinda nice that when I finally got to see them live, I can remember the concert so well yet I can’t remember them playing this song. It’s so good when the mind works like that.

MONEY. Before the world changed in 2016 we were doing alright. Finding a way to maintain two quite well paid jobs while making sure one of us was always there for Hawklad. It wasn’t easy and took a shed load of planning, but we found a way. We had a nice house, two cars (our jobs headed in different directions) and we could afford a trip to Switzerland every year. We tried to save for the future so we didn’t buy much. But it was a comfortable life and we could certainly pay the bills.

Then the world suddenly changed. I’ve just realised how lame that phrase sounds. Took me long enough. Seismic Rupture might be better. Need to think about that…

MONEY. The last thing you should be thinking about after a bereavement is money. But far too often MONEY quickly looms over you when you are at your lowest ebb. Bills still have to be paid. Food has to be bought. The government wants its pound of flesh, death brings the delights of Inheritance Tax. Two incomes suddenly became one. Even that one….. Single parenting, Single Aspergers parenting, Single parenting to a 9 year old who has just lost his mum. My job became impossible to maintain. Suddenly I was scrambling for a part time job which worked round Hawklad. MONEY became a very scarce commodity. Trying to get my head properly round these scary things is the last thing I needed when my world had just been shaken to the ground. Trying to look at a shrinking bank statement is bloody hard when it’s done through crying eyes.

That’s how it’s been with MONEY ever since 2016. I was so lucky to find a job which was flexible enough to fit round the single parenting gig. But I was still trying to pay the bills. Working out which repair jobs would have to be kicked into the future – which is most of them. Only trying to spend on the absolutely essential stuff. Funny thing is how often schooling costs suck up any spare cash. Holidays are just not happening – the last one was back in 2015. When we do have to buy items the first point of call is always the previously enjoyed or damaged sections. Our one extravagance, concerts, are always in the much cheaper – restricted view areas. We never turn down hand me downs. I’m currently looking at an exercise bike which was surplus to someone’s requirements and is held together with copious amounts of electricians tape.

MONEY. How needs it. With hindsight it’s clear that we are so lucky. So many are in a much worse position than we are. I’ve found a job that kinda fits our lifestyle. We have a nice house and garden. Live in a lovely area. Friends are wonderful. Financially it’s challenging but we are just about stable. Money helps but it doesn’t buy you happiness. Thinking of Hawklad, memories and friends – money doesn’t buy you those things.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 89 Comments

Guides

Nice weather

I needed to remind myself of some nice weather as the actual weather is more like this….

Wet, wet, wet. 20 hours of non stop winter weather. I do love a Yorkshire summer. I guess we should call it grand weather for the Rhubard…..

Work is similarly frustrating. Since the so called government (sorry trying to cut back on my rants…) announced the relaxing of the rules we had a number of events put on our books for September and October. But as fast as I start to schedule them and fill in the details, THEY GET CANCELLED. Unless we manage to run a few of these then our organisation will have to mothball and hope to hibernate through to 2021. No guarantee that it would survive that. Sadly like so many other places.

I keep saying this but I do need to spend some time on employment options. Find some other options that can fit round Hawklad. But what…

“Dad maybe it’s time to take those Dummy Guides further. Take them to a whole new level. Dummy doesn’t go far enough. Must be people needing the Full Muppet Guide to Life. Only one person truly qualified for that job…..”

Thinking about it, it’s an endless source of material.

  • Muppet guide to Government (Co author Dominic Cummings),
  • Muppet guide to Brexit (Co author Boris Johnson),
  • Muppet guide to Parenting,
  • Muppet guide to IKEA flat pack furniture,
  • Muppet guide to weapons grade baking,
  • Muppet guide to finding your car keys,
  • Muppet guide to poetry and making it so unremittingly awful,
  • Muppet guide to homeschooling,
  • Muppet guide to shouting at school,
  • Muppet guide to animals taking over your home,
  • Muppet guide to falling asleep during Avatar,
  • Muppet guide to getting lost,
  • Muppet guide to putting your subway (Tube) ticket safely in your pocket and then not being able to find it as soon as a Ticket Collector appears,
  • Muppet guide to trying to remember where you were going in the first place,
  • Muppet guide to losing socks,
  • Muppet guide to getting paper jammed in a photocopier,
  • Muppet guide to learning and then forgetting a foreign language.
  • Muppet guide to becoming a famous Mills & Boon author,
  • Muppet guide to ineffective house work,
  • Muppet guide to understanding Tolkien’s Silmarillion,
  • Muppet guide to juggling,
  • Muppet guide to singing in the bath so out of tune you end up sounding like Bono and U2,
  • Muppet guide to healthy weeds,
  • Muppet guide to arm wrestling and shin kicking,
  • Muppet guide to getting the cellophane wrapper off a cd with a kitchen knife and then not being able to open a sticking plaster with the one remaining good hand,
  • Muppet guide to growing old disgracefully.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 79 Comments

Two things

Two strange things have happened over the last few days. And NO it’s not that I have found sleep….

The two things are that clearly we have moved back into winter and I have switched to the new WP editor. I’m hoping both are short term changes.

Not sure the cover to my waterproof exercise bike cover is Yorkshire weather resistant

It’s winter. Very cold, very wet and exceedingly stormy. In fact the storm force wind has managed to shift the exercise bike a few feet since last night. I struggle to do that on a good day. It’s been that wet I’ve spent most of the morning trying to stop the rain from flooding out the Utility Room. Too bad even to exercise outside, so it was an indoor session. Problem with those are trying to find enough space and the PETS. The sight of me on my back trying to lift up weights is too much for a dog and cat. Suddenly it’s play time for the not so little hooligans. What chance do I have I’d focusing on posture and technique when I have various well chewed soft toys dropped on my face.

Using the new WP editor feels a little like having a soggy, well chewed pet toy repeatedly checked at you. It kinda works but only on its terms. It does like randomly reformatting posts, messing up links, deleting posts and generally messing up my blog. The deleting of my posts may well be seen as a wonderful feature amongst many. It’s basically as well behaved as our pets, which is not behaved at all…..

Unbelievably this little white flower continues to survive the buffeting. Clearly it was designed to cope with ‘its raining cats and dogs’ weather. I suspect it’s not designed to cope with mad pets although it might be able to design a more user friendly WP editor.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 49 Comments

Identity and Grief

So pleased to have another guest post for you from Katie and Evee. If you haven’t already, it’s so worth checking out their beautiful blog, twitter (@thegriefreality) and instagram sites (thegriefreality). They have a wonderful view on life and living with grief. Today you will find a new post from me on their blog.

Identity and Grief

Tell me about yourself. What makes you, you?

Grief strips you down to the soil of who you are. When you experience this, you may realize you don’t know who you are. The person who you miss the most has been replaced with this new awkward lump of emotion; Grief. That’s exactly what it was like for us.

When the nurses chatter has died down, and everyone has gone home to resume normal life; You are left with yourself, but who are you now?

This question was one we both struggled with at different times.

Grief forced us to not only walk without Mum in this life, but also to relearn who we were when everything was stripped away.

We used to hold a firm sense of self. We trusted that our identity was unshakeable; we knew who we were, and nothing was going to stop us from being us.

But nothing could have prepared us for how alien we felt when we lost our Mum. What made us ‘Katie’ and ‘Evee’ seemed to have run for cover when we experienced that crashing loss.

Certain aspects of identity are dependent on certain factors; the family circle being one. Your family teach you everything you need to know about the world, how to react and respond. Your family teaches you to love.

When a key member of this circle is taken away; you feel lost, bewildered, confused. How can you continue living as the person you were before, when all of the factors that created you are gone?

The crucial part of this is to know that that version of you is undeniably altered. It may disappear for a little while, but you will come back to yourself one day: just a little more beaten, and a lot more experienced.

This is not necessarily a bad or negative thing. When you cut open a tree, you see the rings of growth; your previous selves are concrete in these rings of growth. The rough patch you are going through is like the bark which will eventually grow into another ring to make up that tree.

No growth comes from being what you were, and staying stagnant in your identity. Growth comes from turning up for a new day, each day, no matter how weary you are. Becoming a new you with those previous experiences making up this new edition of you.

Your loss and your love will always be a part of your identity. Your loved one will maintain an inherent component of you. That is not going anywhere.

You may have a few more grey hairs, wrinkles or awkward branches sticking out, but your core will always be you. Whatever that now looks like. That is what holds you firm, and renewing your green leaves.

Stay hopeful,

Katie & Evee

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 78 Comments

Flying

Wouldn’t it be great to fly. To just fly. No need for a baggage check in, security and long waits in the Terminal. Just to fly under your own steam, when and wherever. Given the size of my bum during these lockdown days, that would have to me some mighty wingspan to get me airborne. Buttocks like mine are the reason that they invented super sized planes like the 747 with those massive engines.

“Dad have you lost that weight you said you were going to before the summer…”

Yes I did set a goal of shedding some weight.

“You actually said it would be 14lbs which is 6.3kg’s. So how are you doing?”

I am probably about 6.3kg’s short of the goal currently…..

“So what’s gone wrong?”

I’m exercising really hard but I’m just not getting any long runs. Without the runs it’s a real struggle to get my heart rate above 100 during the exercise. But the main problem is the food. I’m having to eat Soya and some Gluten products. These just make me blow up as if I’m pregnant.

“Are you sure your not pregnant?”

Pretty sure, although we have some of your old baby clothes somewhere – just in case. Those food types just make my abdomen and face puff up. It takes ages for my system to try and process them. When the shop gets a better range of things back in, then things will improve.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger became pregnant in that movie. Look how much money he has now. Just saying……Instead of soya and gluten stuff, Dad, why don’t you just eat salads and soups…”

*******

Yes we could all do with some more money but call me a coward, not that way please…. But Hawklad does have a good point. I’ve just switched to the soya and gluten alternatives without really thinking. Salads would be far better for me. I’ve become lazy, stopped making things like soups and stews. So from today my body becomes a temple. A well cared for one. Now I don’t have an excuse, that weight has to come off now. Either that or it’s a remake of the movie Junior….