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Letters

The sun sets on another glorious Yorkshire day. The burning sun cracking the marble walkways to our glorious palm tree avenues. Sunflowers swaying gentle in the warm, dry summer breeze.

Or

It’s all a tragic fib. Another grey, misty, damp, frigid Yorkshire winter’s day. Mud everywhere. Every dog walk, covering the floors and furniture with muddy paws. Bath, after bath, after bath.

Ok, of the 3 photos, 1 is most definitely not from today……

The perfect muddy day for writing Christmas Cards and finally picking up the courage for that job….. Reading that pile of photocopied Christmas letters that are increasingly coming with cards these days. Those ‘this is what happened since last Christmas’ review letters. Holidays, failed diets, a second cousin once removed getting married, new cars, changed jobs, kitchen refurbishment and countless family portraits. If only I had the faintest idea who some of these letter stars are. Someone gave a concise history of a virus which is apparently called Covid. Then there was that letter that was just odd. Literally no idea who that family was. As hard as I wracked my peanut brain, I just couldn’t work out who these people were. Then the penny dropped. The postman had dropped off a card destined for a neighbour. Oops.

That’s 10 minutes of my life I won’t get back.

No time left to write our own family review letter. Again…. What would I write. Maybe I could just copy the letter which talked about buying that time share in Marseille then still had money left over for a skiing trip to Austria. Yes that sounds like a year review I could get behind.

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Just my imagination

Is it just my imagination but has every recent Christmas movie featured at some stage a shot of a TV in the background showing It’s a Wonderful Life. Funnily it’s never Hulk Hogans Santa with Muscles epic opus in the background……

I use the term epic opus very very very loosely.

Is it my imagination but when I am down I reach for sad or melancholy music. Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen, Johnnie Cash. Wouldn’t I be better off putting on the magical Wonderful Life. Even in the middle of summer, I could get so much from that movie. But I guess I take after my mum. She would reach for the sad music.

There’s been a lot of music played recently. 22 months of lockdown and isolation. Now everything is pointing towards another national lockdown imminently. How can I help Hawklad rebuild those bridges when the world is this messed up. I guess it’s just about trying to help him ride it out until things finally settle down. But when will it start to settle down. I remember the talk of 2021 being so much better than the year before. How could it be any worse. Well that went to plan.

So tonight there is NO melancholy music being played. Tonight it’s time to watch James Stewart. I think it’s my imagination, but I need that movie tonight. Really need it.

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Club

A misty scene from a couple of days back. No morning walk today, otherwise engaged. Stood in a queue patiently waiting my booster covid shot. After two doses of AstraZeneca it was time to join the Moderna club. So stood in the queue about 50 deep. Three queues for three different group of needle waving awesome nurses. Everyone with masks on, carefully keeping 2 metres apart. Hundreds of people stopping their daily routine to get vaccinated. All this happening before 9am.

In the queue I stood pondering life. Does the young woman in front of me realise that she is still apparently wearing her pyjamas. I wonder what the chap in front of her has is his folder marked IMPORTANT. how life has changed since the start of 2020. Does the chap opposite me know that as he plays his game on his mobile he keeps making Mick Jagger facial pouts.

I wonder what people are thinking of me.

I pondered other things. How many of those stood patiently are struggling. How many secretly would love someone to strike up a conversation. Be social. This is a very changed world. A very more isolated and fractured society. As I watched those around me carefully maintain a sufficient personal gap, my mind wandered back just a couple of years. Remember birthday parties. Everyone tightly huddled round a cake with candles. A child or adult, probably with a streaming cold, desperately trying to blow out the candles. After failed 3 or 4 attempts, more people joining in, probably with a myriad of ailments, blowing until the candles were out. Then the much breathed on cake is quickly handed round, people sharing not enough cutlery, from person to person the cake is passed for immediate consumption. How alien does that concept sound now. Will we ever truly get back to those days. How long will we all be stuck in this endless cycle of variants and vaccinations.

Then remarkably quickly I’m back home. Back to the quiet, back to the isolation. Back to single parenting, cut off from much of this bonkers new world. It felt odd being amongst so many other people. Almost uncomfortable. Definitely not feeling like a normal experience. The world has changed. Have I changed?

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Too bright

Unbelievably it was bright sun for the dog walk today. Too bright. YES that’s a phrase you don’t here in connection with Yorkshire too many times. TOO BRIGHT. Not in terms of the usual weather and also not in terms of the competitors at the local Shin Kicking tournament. That’s going to get my Yorkshire Passport taken off me……

The light was too bright for my mobile. It produced some weird lighting effects. Normally I would just delete them but this time, no. The results are kind of rainbow cool

See it’s one of those Yorkshire Super Highways with rainbow special effects. Maybe we should keep them.

School sent an email out to parents this afternoon. In line with Government instructions, masks will still not be enforced in school as nationally schools are deemed safe. In line with national instructions , pupils will be issued with covid test kits to use over Christmas to ensure that schools are adequately protected when they reopen. Unfortunately the test kits are not available as supplies have run out. School understands that kits won’t be sent to them in the foreseeable future, potentially well after the next school terms begins. Any test supplies available will be prioritised to other areas.

Feels like the school holidays can’t come quick enough.

Well at least the sun is shining. Hopefully shinning for most of the holidays. Pupils in school and those at home deserve a great break. It’s been a grim and anxious time for all of them.

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Trails

Paths in the sky. Never thought vapour trails could be a thing a beauty.

A pandemic forced a change of education path for us. Classroom schooling became school at home. The living room became the classroom. Not true homeschooling as school still provided the lessons. Sometimes the whole class was off, often it was just Hawklad. That’s gone on for 21 months now. 21 months and counting.

Over that period the idea was ultimately a return to the classroom. That’s what Hawklad wanted. Repeatedly Hawklad decided he wasn’t ready to return.

He’s still not ready to return.

Deep down I don’t think he’s going to feel able to return anytime soon. That’s not just my view. The medical opinion is a return to school is now unlikely before his final exams in 2023. Hawklad is starting thinking of a return to the classroom but that might not be until he potentially starts college in 2 years time. If he returns before his exams then that’s a bonus. It’s when Hawklad feels it’s the right time.

The question now is what do we do up to his exams. It’s looking like the school at home project is a path with many miles still to walk.

So

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Sheep

The sheep are back. Must be time to dig out my old Pink Floyd – Animals LP.

The return of the sheep always makes me smile.

Memories.

A much younger Hawklad carefully feeding the sheep. Following the instructions from the farmer on which sheep liked which biscuits.

And yes that’s a puppy Captain Chaos.

Sometimes that wooden fence wasn’t keeping those sheep from those biscuits.

Sheep.

Then there was the first night in our home. My partner was watching the newly unpacked TV and I had come out into the crisp night air to look at the stars. Wow no light pollution here. No street lighting. Pitch black. So many stars. Then suddenly that sinking feeling.

I AM NOT ALONE…..

Somewhere near the fence dozens of eyes fixed on their prey. Me. I took it like a man. Screamed and ran inside, the door bolted behind me. As a modicum of courage returned, I tentatively ventured outside again with a torch and Slazenger cricket bat. I found dozens of sheep stood at the fence, all eyeballing me. Clearly saying ‘Where’s the biscuits..’ That was definitely the SHEEP OF THINGS TO COME. But I guess it was ALL’S WOOL THAT ENDS WOOL. I will shut up now. Don’t to RAM THE POINT HOME, I wouldn’t do that to EWE.

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Don’t matter

Looks like someone has been trying to draw clouds with a pink crayon. Very nice 😊

If only everything else was very nice.

Two contrasting messages from Hawklad’s school today.

We hope all pupils enjoy the well earned Christmas break which starts on Friday.

This contrasts nicely with messages from 5 subject teachers (so far)

Remember to revise for your important subject exams over the holiday. Exams happen immediately after your time off….

I’m sorry but I can’t ever remember enjoying myself while I was revising. I guess it fits in with the Government message that children must work harder and play less. But over the last few years children are increasingly seen as second class citizens in this country. Last night the CLOWNS in charge of the country announced an emergency campaign to give all adults a THIRD booster covid shot within weeks. NO MENTION OF CHILDREN. Currently only something like 50% of secondary school age pupils have received just one vaccine shot. Younger children aren’t eligible for even one shot. Most schools here have still not received any air quality monitoring devices or any air filters that were promised months back. Promised so that schools would be safe. Masks are required in all public places, all except the school classroom…. The government person in charge of schools went on the television to talk about covid – he never mentioned schools or children ONCE. Not once….. The Governments only education strategy currently is to KEEP SCHOOLS OPEN AT ALL COSTS, surely it has to be KEEP OUR CHILDREN SAFE AT ALL COSTS.

Sadly children just don’t matter to those in charge.

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Black Coffee

Today like the last few mornings has been wet and bleak. So let’s visit slightly brighter days. When do I ever look back….

So one week left of this school term. That’s another term of school at home. I think that’s something like 69 weeks worth of homeschooling. I quickly ran out of fingers and toes so don’t hold me to that. 69 weeks. Wow. Does that qualify as a teacher now…..

Sadly no.

Does that qualify me as someone who had the faintest idea what he was doing during most of those 69 weeks……

Sadly no.

Does that qualify me as a parent who is deeply regretting giving caffeine up just a few weeks before those 69 weeks started……

Most definitely.

If someone had mentioned that the days of school runs, trail runs, shopping runs, running around at the office, would suddenly stop. If someone would have whispered that suddenly my physical contact with the outside world would go on hold. On hold not just for days or months. But years. YEARS NOW. I can guarantee that black coffee consumption would never have ceased, if anything it would have gone through the roof.

So 69 weeks of caffeine free homeschooling. Who saw that coming. I didn’t. If week 70 is anything like week 69 then I will be hitting the espresso BIG TIME…….

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Unknown

A walk into the unknown……

As I’m typing this we should be in queue waiting to get into a rock concert in a busy northern city. As we are still 100 miles away, sat at home while Hawklad watches episodes of Parks & Recreation, I think we can call that a NO SHOW.

It was always more of a target for Hawklad to aim for, rather than a must see concert. A great band but The DARKNESS can wait for another year. Plus we have seen them twice already, in fact they were the last band we went to see before a certain pandemic hit. This concert was more about a potential marker to a return to a more normal, involved life. His return (and mine) into the real world. Six months to build bridges. In reality you can’t put a time on these processes, especially as yet another variant starts to surge through communities.

Hawklad isn’t ready yet. Those bridges are largely unbuilt. Certainly not ready to be packed in with a few thousand strangers.

The walk into the unknown continues…….

Much to ponder about life, the universe and homeschooling.

Time for a new target. Let’s call it a goal this time. A smaller step. Maybe not bridges built rather bridge building starting. Hawklad’s call is….

Go to the cinema to see a movie when it is really quiet. Almost empty cinema with no one sat near. More realistic as masks are enforced again.

Ok we can work towards that. May takes months (or longer) but it could happen eventually. Achieve that mini goal and then maybe THE DARKNESS might be more achievable.

The walk towards the known continues.

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Time

Poor Hawklad was trying to do a test paper at home today. Three long questions and 20 short ones in 90 minutes. That’s no fun at the best of times, especially when it’s a subject that he has zero interest in. But it’s so much harder when TIME is a mystery. He just can’t visualise time. He can’t get his head round it. It’s taking years but he can now tell the time from a digital clock but it doesn’t really mean anything. It’s just a number. He even says it as a number rather than an actual time. He can be doing things and he has no real handle of whether he has been at it for minutes, or for hours. That’s a huge problem in exams. Clocks that tell him nothing and so little grasp on how much time might have elapsed. It’s a common issue for many. It’s often cited as one of the most common problems individuals on the autism spectrum face in their daily life’s.

As a child I struggled with this. I would go out and not return home for hours, yet to me it felt like I had only been gone for moments. It was put down to my absentmindedness. But it wasn’t. Even when I tried I couldn’t get my head round time. The only exam I failed at school was in English. I took the subject a year earlier. 3 hours, 3 questions. As I finished the first question, in my head I was on track. 2 hours left…. That’s when the head teacher called out, ‘that’s time, please put your pens down’. Then a year later I had the reverse of the problem. I blasted through every paper and every question as if time was rapidly draining away. As I finished each exam I waited for the ‘times over’ call, but it didn’t come. I think I was finishing each paper within an hour with two hours to spare. I just couldn’t get my head round time.

As the years went on I have improved a bit. Mobile technology has helped. But I still struggle with the concept of time. Its often easier for me to see things in terms of events rather than timings. Thinking ‘just under Two hours’ doesn’t really help me but rather thinking ‘length of a football match’ does. I can feel that, I can visualise that. That is something Hawklad is now going to play with to see if it helps. Rather than thinking 45 minutes to do a question, trying to answer the question during say the first half of a football match.

Problem is that while he’s wrestling with understanding time, he’s not focusing fully on what he should be. Sometimes TIME doesn’t help at all.

I must admit