Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 64 Comments

Love

The summer six week holiday of 2016 started and finished with loss. Since then I’ve been living with bereavement. Maybe a better way of saying that is to say I AM A BEREAVEMENT SURVIVOR. Probably always will be a Bereavement survivor. I’ve been very careful to use the word bereavement. Bereavement is that awful thing that we all must go through in life. It can’t be badged up in any fancy packaging and made it to be something nice. It is just awful, will always be awful. It means death, loss and the end.

Over those 4 years I have come to realise that GRIEF is something different. It’s not bereavement. Grief has an important extra component. Grief has one important word associated with it.

LOVE.

Grief and grieving is another word for love and loving. So grief is completely different to bereavement. Ok it’s intrinsically linked with bereavement and yes in a perfect world, it just doesn’t happen. But sadly it does and often far too early. However here is the key – Grief means Love and that is a beautiful thing. Bereavement is something you try to survive and live with. Grief is love, so is something you will always treasure. Yes it can be so very painful but that pain just reflects the depth of your love. That love will always be there. It will strengthen me. If and when I move onto loving someone else, it will make me much more appreciative of that new love.

So yes I am a bereavement survivor but more importantly I am a better person because of my grief.

K

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 83 Comments

Outside

It’s been a wet day. Very wet. The sort of day you only go outside for a really good reason. Which basically means just one visit into the garden today. The best of reasons took me out and I’m thankful for that. Smiles, fresh air and unexpected flowers.

It’s strange how quickly your house can become so claustrophobic. The walls seem to slowly close in. The rooms become darker regardless of how much artificial light you try to switch on. The atmosphere becomes increasingly heavy and foreboding. You cling on to those things that make you smile. Finally it’s has to be the time to brave the rain and breathe again. Quickly the mood lifts. Happy thoughts flood in more quickly. You feel alive again. Even in the rain it’s wonderful to breathe.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 80 Comments

Signature Dish

All the great chefs of the world have a signature dish. Gordon F###### Ramsey has his Beef Wellington. Thomas Keller has his smoked salmon crisps. Heston Blumehthal has his snail porridge. So clearly I need one. After much thought. Much ‘thought means’ looking at what I’ve got in the cupboards, I may have mine now. It needs tweaking. When I say tweaking I mean it needs to be made edible……

I give you the Pizza Cheesecake. Sweet base, Turmeric whipped cream, Tomato Ketchup and Yorkshire Cheddar Cheese. With a secret spice ingredient. Would tell you but the label has dropped off that spice, so I have literally no idea….

Remember to send in your Great Bloggers Bake-off creations to Mel (CrushedCaramel). Maybe your entry is not baking just something for a picnic like a sandwich, drink or salad….

crushedcaramel@gmail.com

Let’s see if we can literally blow Mel’s and our wonderful judge Jeanne’s (A Jeanne in the kitchen) socks off with our creations and monstrosities.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 77 Comments

Words

I’ve always wanted to be multilingual. To effortlessly switch between languages. To hold actual flowing conversations in another country. So far that goal has eluded me. But there is always hope. There has to be hope. Es muss Hoffnung geben.

At the moment German is my hope. I’ve found a memory technique which is for the first time allowing me to learn words and the tricky part – the gender. So my hopes have started to rise. So how many words do I actually know. So I counted them. Around 450…. Sounds good but apparently you need about 10000 words to be truly fluent. What’s the German for oh pants. Possibly oh hose…

Still it’s a start. Once I’ve mastered German, I’m going to move onto my next big challenge. Master English. Actually that might be beyond me……

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 60 Comments

Telepathy

Free Gardening Tip Number 1: Clearly if you leave the garden long enough it will sort itself out. You can just stand back and enjoy the results.

If I was listing my many wonderful features I might start with

  • Chiselled Features
  • Thor like body
  • Razor sharp intellect
  • Reactions of a cat
  • Chef supreme
  • Cunning linguist
  • Sporting Superbeing

And on and on. The list would be extensive but one word that does not appear is Telepathic.

“Dad we have a problem. Class have been working on a project for the last two weeks. It’s going to be used as this terms evaluation mark. The project has to be finished in one hours time. I didn’t know about it.”

The two week project period almost perfectly mirrored the time Hawklad had been off from school since his unplanned operation. Now in the normal scheme of things this would not be a problem. He had a valid reason to be unavailable for schoolwork. School was notified of this. Common sense would surely prevail……

Oh no……no, no, no, no, pigging NO.

It is the responsibility of the pupil and the parent to be fully aware of all assignments. These are clearly communicated via class lessons and the class notes. Failure to be aware of an assignment is not a valid exception to the rule. This applies to ALL parents and pupils. So basically if your sick and return to school then you should ensure you read all class documentation before your first day back. You can then immediately start working on any projects. This bad, bad, bad parent did not do this. So I never came across the assignment. That’s where the power of telepathy would have been most useful.

Free Parenting Tip Number 1: So clearly what any responsible parent should have done is read all the class notes, work out deadlines for the various projects and then return your child back to school THE DAY AFTER THE PROJECTS HAD TO BE HANDED IN. Job done and no need for a one hour mad scramble to cobble together a project….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 56 Comments

Mothballed

This is a mothballed Coal Power Station that is right on the furthest horizon we can see. We can only see that far as we are on top of a hill. It takes an effort to find it from here. Can only see it from one extreme corner of the garden. This is also at my poor old camera’s maximum zoom. I guess it’s a reminder of a rapidly receding age and will be getting demolished soon.

Last school week and it’s trying to end the year on a most vexing high….

Let’s see how many assessments we can squeeze into 5 days. The answer ….. TOO MANY.

I had spoken to school and told them that son was still not 100% following his hospital visit but would give the last school week ago. However he wasn’t firing on all cylinders. School assured me that they would go easy on him. ASSESSMENTS are clearly easy on him. That’s so how I remember school tests in my day. Then we come to English. He completed the online lesson and submitted a rather fine gothic story. I was impressed with the storytelling and especially the writing. It was grammatically very good. Whisper it, spelling was almost perfect. That is some progress for him. So I was a little surprised to receive an email from school at 11.30pm to inform me that his work in the lesson had been below standard and incomplete. Really. The teacher has not responded to my query as the email failed to provide any details. Well that’s helpful. Having reviewed the lesson material several times I can only assume that he failed to respond to one rather vague question. A hard to spot question requiring a one sentence answer. Son had actually answered it but forgot to upload a photo of the one line answer. Unsurprisingly not a mention of the story he had submitted. If I wasn’t already convinced about the failures of mainstream education then this has finally clinched the deal. Well stuff school. I’ve assessed his work as brilliant and he will be getting a reward for it.

Maybe it’s time to mothball our countries factory farming educational approach…

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 58 Comments

Live on the edge

This counts as excitement here in Yorkshire. We know how to live on the edge.

I don’t really celebrate my birthday anymore. It’s more associated with being the day that we lost our mum. But I did start a new tradition. It would almost become a second birthday for our son. If the Queen can have two birthdays then so can Hawklad. So I get him his favourite cake, that’s buy it not bake it (wouldn’t do that to him). He gets to eat his favourite meal which is probably pizza at the moment. We would normally have a trip out somewhere but not this year…. Finally he gets a present. So what present does he want this year.

“I’ve been giving it some thought and decided.”

My money is on either a computer game or maybe a wrestling figure.

“I would like Chilli Soup.”

What as your special meal?

“No as my present. That way I get two special meals.”

Well you can have two special meals this year and still have a present.

“No will stick to the Chilli Soup as a present. “

I’m not like the Genie in the Lamp. Not going to hold you strictly to three wishes. Plus I struggle to count past 2 these days. You can still have a present.”

“No that’s the deal this year.”

*******

Well he’s going to get his Chilli Soup. It’s either going to be Beef Or Pumpkin Chilli. He’s going to get his pizza night. AND yes he’s going to get a present, just need to think of one now. Maybe a joint present. One we both can enjoy. That would kinda work.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 86 Comments

Really

There was a time when you could put some faith in the UK Government doing the right thing and providing a modicum of truth…….

So the Government are instructing parents to send their kids back to school after the summer holidays. The clear message is that it is perfectly safe. No need to worry. In fact no need for schools to observe most of the current pandemic and social distancing regulations. Those things just complicate the return process. Parents who fail to comply will be fined.

On the other hand….

A number of areas are reporting spikes in Corona Virus cases particularly amongst the younger age groups. The Director of Public Health from Liverpool issued the following warning – “this is a really dangerous moment for case numbers and we need people not to let their guard down.”

When the Prime Minister’s Chief Advisor broke lockdown rules he was defended by our so called leader. Johnson said the following “he behaved responsibly and with integrity and followed the instincts of every father.”

I will happily see you in court Boris….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 61 Comments

Biscuit inspiration

Flowers never fail to take my breathe away.

Sadly on too many days, school has the same effect on me

I contacted school to let them know that son was still struggling but as it was the last week of school, he would give the online lessons a go. School said that they would let all his teachers know and would appropriately restrict his work demands. This week had to be a phased return. That was 8.30am on Monday morning. His first lesson went ok then it was time for the second to start. He was told to complete a one hour test (starting in 5 minutes) which the rest of the class has had a week to revise for. In fact some of the questions related to course material which was only introduced during the week he was absent. Apparently even if a child is sick, that child should still log into the school system and check all class lesson notes.

So much for a phased return to schooling.

This called for the inspirational powers of hot milk, digestive biscuits and toast. The test was completed with much common sense and quite a bit of creative guesswork. Looking at some of the questions – his Dad would have been as much use as air conditioning is in Yorkshire.

That was the first morning of the school week. This could be a long one. Good job we have many packets of biscuits and chocolate ready to go…

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 73 Comments

Inevitable

Well the Great Bloggers Bake-off is fast approaching on the 18th-19th July. Why don’t you join in the fun. Whether you can bake or not. Let’s have fun.

Remember to send in your creations (you can start early) to Mel (CrushedCaramel). Maybe your entry is not baking just something for a picnic like a sandwich, drink or salad….

crushedcaramel@gmail.com

Let’s see if we can literally blow Mel’s and our wonderful judge Jeanne’s (A Jeanne in the kitchen) socks off with our creations and monstrosities.

So in the spirit of baking, here we go then. Time to get serious. It’s Soufflé time. That’s a gluten and diary free version. Stand by your panic rooms. Extreme baking photo is coming…..

Ok it’s not quite High End Food. But as a certain broad chinned Marvel Villain would say. I AM INEVITABLE. So tomorrow we will have Round Two of the Soufflé Wars.