There’s a small garden which I like to visit every day on the dog walk. It has the most wonderful flowers. Never fails to deliver. Very relaxing.
Some visits are not so relaxing.
This is what happens when the bedroom door is left open. The pets pay a visit.
They sleep, humans not so.
One of those days for staying inside. Heating on. Welcome again to the Yorkshire summer.
No excuse then to avoid baking. So here’s my honey and sunflower bread. Dairy and gluten free.
I don’t know what happened to the sunflower seeds but it tastes not too bad at all. Will go well with my completely plant based Cream of Tomato soup when I get round to finding where I put the pesky red things. How can things go missing in such a small kitchen.
Talking about going missing. While I was getting stuck into the bread dough I was listening to the local radio station. I caught the back end of a phone in about people living on government benefits. It wasn’t the must sympathetic range of callers. Out of the 5 callers I endured, 4 came up with the same opinion. Single parents are living the life of luxury, they get shed loads of taxpayers money, do no work and spend the benefits all on, wait for it. Designer clothes, cigarettes, booze, nights out, restaurants and holidays.
I did try to phone in to get on air but the lines were closed. Shame as this single parent wanted to point out a few things….
a) I get pennies in handouts from the Government and I work…
b) I have never bought designer clothes in my life,
c) I have never smoked a cigarette in my life,
d) I have been tea total in over 5 years now,
e) I haven’t had a holiday since 2015. In fact since I have been a single parent I have not spent one night apart from my son. Strangely 2015 was also the last time I ventured into a restaurant.
PLUS some people should wind their necks in and stop prying into other peoples life’s. These people phoning in don’t have the faintest idea what it’s like for the vast majority of single parents out there. Just how tough a slog it is to keep paying the bills while trying to be the best possible parent they can be. Just how little support there is and just how isolating a life it can be. But you hardly ever hear that side of the story. Like too many things, it’s gone missing.
I had to go into the work unit for a few hours. Hawklad decided to come with me but to stay in the car outside. We are lucky as the unit is basically in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by farmland. It’s also down a small dead end lane. It’s quiet and I can park the car right next to the front door so Hawklad is never more than a few feet away and can see me. With the door open he can even chat to me. But not on this visit. He wanted to watch some movies on a tablet. So being the dutiful dad I filled up the storage with movies. You can guess the movies. Avengers, Lord of the Rings, Godzilla, Monty Python, Indiana Jones. Perfect for him…..
“Dad can you delete some of these movies so I can download the ones I really want to watch. I want to watch Victoria and Abdul, Robert the Bruce and Henry V. Historic masterpieces.”
Ok… Definitely will delete some of these movies. Just thought you might like watching them.
“I know Dad. You try 😂😂😂. But you are so out of touch with the teenage years now. 😂😂😂😂. And face it dad your idea of great historic movie is Jurassic Park….😂😂😂😂😂”.
HE KNOWS ME TOO WELL.
Sunbathing weather, Yorkshire style…..
Midday and it was fleece time.
It was definitely a day to dream. Dream of warmer lands, big adventures.
Hawklad clearly realised I was struggling. He said
“Dad treat yourself. What’s something you have always wanted to buy yourself…”
All I could think of was the Death Star Lego set.
“We’ll see how much it is on Amazon. You never know…..”
Well we did check. £750 for Lego. £750 smackers. Wow….
“Well Dad that’s silly money. Tell you what, buy me Ace Venturer on Prime Video and save yourself £745…it’s a bargain.”
I have just been hustled.
Definitely a moody day. Moody means ‘it’s about to CHUCK it down again…’
It’s now 6 weeks to the schools return. In 6 weeks the classrooms will be full and the Government has removed all social distancing. So in September no masks, no screens, no class bubbles, no additional sanitary facilities, no additional distancing. Schools are perfectly safe. Currently with some protection there are just under 1000 COVID child hospital admissions with an average of 52 new admissions per day. 64 have tragically died from COVID.
It’s within this backdrop that Hawklad is struggling with a potential return to the classroom. He is already talking about the social pressure to stop using his mask if the rest of his classmates and teachers aren’t. It’s just a mess. Some families are desperate to ‘return to normal’, some families are unsure and some are still trying to shield.
It’s just such a mess.
A quiet corner of the village church. There has been a church here since at least 1079AD. Over time it’s become one of those places where man and nature have merged together. Yes we can work together.
The UK’s so called Government believes that it’s not up to them to tackle climate change. Big Government is bad. It’s all about individual decisions. Micro steps. So they have helpfully suggested people should stop rinsing plates and freeze more left over bread. It’s up to others to sort out the environment.
In unrelated news the so called UK Government is set to announce approval for a new massive climate unfriendly oil field off the coast Shetland. Burning oil and nature clearly go hand in hand. Big Government is clearly good when it comes to making money. If only Government could think big when it comes to future generations. Problem is there is no money to be made now with the future.
It’s a weather kind of day. Lots of it…..
The irony. For a few hours the village had no water due to a burst water pipe.
I don’t know why but I’ve just thought of a bit more water irony. Back to when I played football at university. We played a game across in France. Both trips across the sea were a nightmare. Really stormy. Huge waves. I was the only one in the party who could not swim. They team would take great delight in pointing this out. One of the nicknames my team lovingly gave me was the ‘Drowning Flounder’…. Yet out of the 13 footballers on that ferry who was the only one who didn’t get sea sickness. I was happily in the restaurant indulging in the all day breakfast while my teammates were leaning over the side of the ferry for some reason. The Drowning Flounder mastered the waters that day…..
If I wander around a graveyard I notice the old headstones. The stones that have been weathered for centuries. The etched names now gone forever. .
My mum told me once “Just put me in a cardboard box and bury me. Then get on with your life. “
Bereavement and loss is an individual thing. Each grief journey is different. It took me a few years to figure mine out. I probably spent too much time living in the past and not enough time getting on with my life.
But now the balance feels better. Much more time focused on today. But each day I don’t let those names fade. Those that I have lost and yes I include pets. I find a quiet place, maybe the garden at night. Then I spend 5 or 10 minutes and recall great memories. I say those names out loud.
This way I don’t forget to live but I also don’t forget.
There comes a time when bread has to be baked. No gluten, no yeast, no dairy bread. Whisper it but it went without disaster. No need for nuclear decontamination. I didn’t creat Frankenstein’s monster. It kinda looks like bread. It kinda tasted like bread. It actually tasted ok.
Maybe I’m getting there.
Maybe I might be a approaching something like parenting competency.
Maybe next I might even figure out how the steam iron works 😂😂😂😂
M
It was only a matter of time. Somethings are set in stone. They just must happen.
So the Olympics is on. It just needs a major international sporting event to take place and the inevitable happens. Anyone with Yorkshire DNA immediately can only utter the following words for at least to weeks…
“See what would happen if Yorkshire was a country. We would show them….”
So here is the current Olympic Medals Table !!!!! The ‘reet properrr’ one.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 