Well after many many weeks its gone. Our own lake in the farmers field has finally gone. We’ve had many of these lakes in our time here but not one this big or so long lasting. It’s provided many photo opportunities and we have grown very fond of it.
It will be back. Hopefully not during the next few months. If I does then Spring and Summer have been monumentally bad.
Until next to our unnamed lake, enjoy the rest.
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.
I don’t know why but as soon as I saw our morning sky I immediately thought of two opposing medieval armies preparing for battle. Just waiting for the mist to lift before they crash into each other.
Our area has had so many bloody battles dating back to Viking times. Who is to say that these very fields have not witnessed that grim sight.
Today’s grim sight was restricted to this unshaven, unkempt Bloke with zero fashion sense leaning against the fence. Coffee cup in hand, exposing his partly covered hairy legs to potentially the ghosts of the past. I guess in years gone by I would have opted for the kilt look. Need to get the air onto those ‘airy knees.
Mist is an apt way of describing my current thinking this morning. After a year of lockdown (now just two weeks short of that anniversary), I still can’t see the way forward. No nearer establishing when (or if) Hawklad will feel able to return to the outside world. Is it school or permanent homeschooling. Will my job survive. When will be our next holiday or excursion. Are my dreams on hold or permanently cancelled. Will I ever get to where my heart desperately wants to go. Is that it for concerts or football for us. When will we see friends and family. Is that it for hugs. Is the world still out there. Has anyone even noticed that we aren’t part of the crowds anymore.
A pandemic year and I still can’t answer those questions.
Mind and hope mist.
That is not a great feel.
It looks like Yorkshire. It feels like Yorkshire. Its moody, dark, windy and cold. It is Yorkshire. Some places are perfect for growing olives, oranges, pineapples and coconuts. The climate in some places are just perfect for fantastic wine. Here in Yorkshire the climate is perfect for Rhubard…..says it all doesn’t it.
How difficult can a Science test be.
The answer – a nightmare.
40 minutes to complete 20 questions. Sounds easy. Questions about Pressure, Force, Springs and Moments. Not easy for Hawklad but seemed to get there. Worked stuff out in his head. But that’s only part the story. The real story is trying to get the answers to the teacher. He can answer the questions in his head but then struggles to record them. It’s such an effort to type or write for him that he losses the answers he has in his mind. He can confuse himself or just forget. Even trying to write and type as he goes along doesn’t work, it seems to disrupt his thinking. Ends up going round in circles.
The other option is a scribe. But talking out aloud makes him nervous and makes it harder for him to answer correctly. Often what he describes is different to the answer he has visualised.
How frustrating must that be.
So the Government has set out the way forward. A roadmap. Starting with all schools opening on the 8th March with parents able to play golf or tennis is socially distanced way as soon as the school buses have left the street. Ending with getting the bunting out just before summer with every adult having been offered at least one shot of vaccine and virtually all restrictions lifted. That’s the plan.
This time they have introduced some gaps between the various stages to check on the impact. It’s an improvement on the first lockdown release. Not great but an improvement on the last shambles.
I’m already hearing people talk about booking summer holidays, binning the masks, going to nightclubs. The message is ‘soon it will be over, we will have won….’.
Sadly I’m not convinced yet….
So no I’m not planning for a pandemic free future just yet. I hope we are fortunate and the plan does work. But when do things ever go to Plan.
And still it shrinks. I’m going to miss it when it’s gone.
Back to school at home and back to the daily fun…. Started with the usual happy pep talk from a teacher. To paraphrase.
‘Remember I’ve set some work before the week off. It’s voluntary but I can see what people have done and how long you have spent on it. I am checking….I’m about to do your assessment….”
Ok….
Then I accidentally phoned the school. Who hasn’t done the ‘put the mobile in your back trouser pocket just to see how long it takes for your bum to unlock the phone and dial a number’ trick. The mobile can’t have been in the pocket for 2 minutes before suddenly I heard a strange voice coming from my nether regions. How is it that it takes me hours to figure out how to unlock the mobile, find the phone app, then repeatedly fail to type in the number. Yet my butt can unlock the phone and successfully call someone in a fraction of that time…..
So after I had apologised to school reception it was back to the usual fight with submitting pieces of work and trying to find the class work on Teams. Fights with explanations, hidden meanings and unclear instructions.
Quickly followed by the ritual Dad humiliation.
“Dad apart from Andy Warhol what other Pop Art practitioners can you name.”
Erm……..
“Ok can you at least name a few famous Pop Art pieces and before you say it, NO Godzilla doesn’t count.”
Erm there was that picture with about 100 Madonna’s replicated.
“Dad. You mean Monroe and it was 50 times…”
That’s the one. Then there was the soup tin. Erm Andy Warhol was in Men in Black 3, does that count?
So basically no help…….
But maybe my backside could become Pop Art. Probably not. Not sure how big the canvas would have to be to get 50 replicas of my butt on. But if they could then I could literally be sat on an important piece of avant garde culture. Sat on a fortune.
Blink and it’s gone. Blue sky.
I remember back to my school days. Apart from living in caves and avoiding the dinosaurs, I was like most kids. Some stuff went in to my head easily, other stuff not so easily. Stuff about Physics, Mathematics and Geography went in. Subjects like History the dates would take a lot of effort to stick. Subjects like Chemistry I was ok. However French I was awful, it might as well have been a foreign language…. Biology I was not much better.
Today I was trying to help Hawklad understand Chemistry. He struggles to visualise chemical reactions. So trying to calculate reaction energy levels was a nightmare for him. Whatever we did he just couldn’t see it. That’s the thing with Hawklad, maybe that’s the thing with his Aspergers. He gets blind spots. They go beyond the dyslexia issues. With dyslexia if you read out the word then he can understand what he’s trying to learn. But these nothing seems to shed light for him. Some things he just can’t process and visualise. With a subject like French it’s a massive blind spot. History there are zero blind spots. But with other subjects he can understand most things really well but randomly encounters these blind spots.
Mathematics it’s decimals and volumes
Biology it’s cell structures and names
Design Technology it’s visualising 3D designs
Geography it’s grid references and grid lines
Physics it’s magnetism
Home Economics it’s cooking times
And Chemistry is chemical reaction equations
He can be going along swimmingly then encounter one of these areas and it completely stops him in his tracks. We kind of ignore them now. Blink and move on. Focus on all of the many areas he can make progress on. Hope that the blind spots don’t come up too many times in his main exams.
At the moment that’s our plan.
Wow how tired did I feel this morning. Definitely the Yorkshire Zombie. I just couldn’t wake up which is just perfect on the first school at home day for over week. I could just about manage walking into walls, nothing else. In a desperate attempt to wake up before I might be needed to check Pythagorean calculations I crawled outside. The fresh cold air and a coffee would spoon the business. It was only after a couple of minutes that I realised that the mug with the steaming hot coffee was still in the kitchen. I had brought out the jar of instant coffee……
Clearly under 3 hours sleep is not enough. The frustrating thing is that my mind is whirling too fast at night and virtually not at all in the morning. If only that was the other way round. As hard a I try sleep is will only come to me around 4am. Sadly on a school day the alarm goes at 630am.
That is a recipe for Parenting Zombies.
On Friday the UK Government and the Minister in charge of Health (Hancock) were found guilty of acting UNLAWFULLY. The real whiff of corruption. A few years back that would have been news. BIG NEWS. Politicians with principles would have resigned.
Not anymore.
It’s definitely move on, nothing to concern you here.
A check on the main BBC News website not 24 hours after the court judgement and absolutely nothing. Not one reference. Lots of news about Hancock. Lots of quotes from him about other issues but not a single reference to the giant elephant in the room. Even on the 10 must read news items the BBC thinks you need to read – nothing. Government publicity photo shoots, Kim Kardashian, Royal News and a bear attack in Alaska are more deserving of our attention. What has happened to a valued news organisation that was independent and respected.
Our news is BUSTED.
That’s more like a Yorkshire midday. Very dark and brooding.
The sky may be bleak but it’s actually quite inspiring. Makes the landscape feel full of character and emotion. In a funny sort of way I prefer looking at this type of sky to a blue cloudless one.
Did I just say that!!
I came inside freezing cold, jet blasted and very very damp.
I guess the point I’m making is that in an ideal world I would have a view filled with snow capped mountains. It’s a climbers thing with me. I feel at home with the peaks. If I can’t have that view then maybe a view of the Sea. That is down to someone being brought up in a Yorkshire Fishing Town.
That is just not happening where we live. A small hill top 40 miles from the sea. The view we have is open farmland and countryside. Lovely yes but not on the surface that inspiring for me. But it does have something special. The sky. As we are on a hill top with no surrounding peaks or high buildings or trees …. we have a big sky. So I look to that for my inspiration. Hence my liking for a dark, brooding sky. The kind of sky that really deserves the old Hammer Horror movie treatment. Doesn’t have to be horror. A sky perfect for Jayne Eyre or Wuthering Heights.
I remember my mum would listen to sad records to cheer herself up. My partner would watch sad movies to lift the spirits. Which is kind of understandable when you have to live with me. I guess a brooding sky does something similar with me. It sparks my imagination. Helps me dream.
So that’s another item on the list of things to be thankful for. For me it’s so easy to fall into the trap of just seeing the bad things in my life. Depression brings all the bad thoughts to the front of my nogging. They end up dominating my thinking. Doing all they can to bring me down. But the reality is so different. I am so fortunate. So many wonderful things are a part of my life. Yes I’ve known sadness and loss but that’s the human condition. We will all venture down that road in our life’s. So that’s not unique to me. Life deserves to be lived. And yes that can mean smiling at a brooding midday sky.
So let’s dream under that sky. Shall I be Heathcliff or Dracula. Let’s not kid myself, with my looks it better be the Bram Stoker character then.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 