A particularly muddy walk through the local wood, but in the end worth it. Bluebells are always wonderful to see. Perfect timing for Hawklad, we had the wood to ourselves. And unbelievably, it wasn’t raining.
Bluebells
Dreams
What an odd night with two very different DREAMS. One really nice dream, but I can only recall snippets. One really weird dream and I can recall it vividly. With me I think the key is how I wake. Wake slowly and the dream is hazy, fading quickly. Wake with a START and the dream is clear, has a permanence.
The first dream felt like such a lovely, safe place to be. Based on real places. I know it was about Lake Brienz in Switzerland. The rest is hazy, no idea about any details, just that I was happy. I’ve been truly blessed to spend a little bit of time here, wish it was way more, such a stunning place. I woke slowly and quietly.
And then we come to the SECOND dream. Just an hour or so after Lake Brienz.
Even now, everything from that dream is so vivid. It started off in another real place, at my parent’s old house. I was in the garden and it was a perfect copy of reality. Little long forgotten details brought back, the gap in the fence under the hedge where my tortoise would go exploring, the crooked apple tree, the missing pane in the greenhouse, the lavender smell. So many details. The dream kicked on. A young couple had moved in next door. I talked with them over the fence, but quickly the guy had to go inside to feed the pets. He liked it here, she hated the new house. She hated the area, the people, the weather, her new home, everything. She even hated the plants in her garden. She bitterly talked about wanting to be anywhere but here, it was her husband’s bad idea. I felt really uncomfortable. As soon as she could get out, she would. She was even going to burn those two ugly Japanese shrubs in the pots, I asked if I could give them a new home. She shrugged and stormed off. So I headed inside to see Mum, to tell her that I had met her new neighbours and that she might get those two nice plants that she likes. The reality was actually my mum left that house nearly 30 years ago and although the garden in the dream was perfect, the other bits of the story had much fiction. That couple never existed, the inside of mum’s house wasn’t quite right, the neighbouring garden looked odd, but I do remember those two Japanese plants, they were definitely real, although I’m not sure mum ever noticed them.
Here’s where the dream slammed in a sudden handbrake turn…..
As I went inside I heard mum’s voice scolding my older brother. He was apparently sleeping his life away and his breakfast was still on the table….. now there was some reality to part. I can remember my older bro liking to party at the weekend and as a result he would stay in bed till nearly midday, that didn’t please mum…..
Back to the dream, my brother’s bedroom door opened and out came my bro. As he walked passed me on the way to the kitchen, he patted me on the back and said in am AMERICAN ACCENT ‘Hi Bro….’.
But that’s not my brother, he’s not American and hold your horses ….that’s Jack Black……
That jolted me out of my dream, and I’m sure I woke shouting ‘Jack Black ain’t my brother’.
Figure that dream out, not been back to that house in decades, haven’t spoke to my brother in months and no I have not seen any Jack Black movies recently.
Really odd and just a bit frustrating….. So many unanswered dream questions and really frustratingly, why can’t I remember all the good details from the nice dream.
Aliens
Another Spring trip to the TROPICAL Yorkshire coast. This time FILEY. Filey was once a really popular Victorian seaside haunt and on the rare warm day, still gets mobbed. Today, just one day away from the usually seriously busy Bank Holiday Weekend, it was a bit of a ghost town. The 1000 place Car Park, had 3 cars parked up. Yes Saddo counted them. It’s just TOO cold.
A few years back there was a newspaper story claiming that an underwater ALIEN base had been discovered, bizarrely off the coast of Filey….
The town is supposed to be an ALIEN hotspot….. Well I hope the little Green Men have a Base which has robust anti seagull defences and monumentally good heating.
PS… my helpful spellchecker tried to change underwater to UNDERWEAR. Now that would have been a story. An Underwear Alien Base, I’m lost for words.
Tropics…
It’s either beach weather or…
Frosts at night.
Maybe warmth next….
I think it’s getting to me, water and cold penetrating my wiring. Today went to the Post Office to buy some wrapping paper. Paper collected, I went to pay at the counter using Apple Pay on my iPhone. Easy enough, mobile in hand…..
Well not so easy as my mobile was still at home on the living room table and the thing I’m clutching in my hand, turns out to be the TV remote control.
There are no words…..
Still cold
An April trip to Scarborough. Time to put on the Simon and Garfunkel cover of the old English Folk Song.
Are you going to Scarborough Fair…
Well I hope they got wrapped up as it was seriously COLD, AGAIN. Beautiful but COLD.
The Scarborough song is about asking too much of others, asking impossible tasks, love fracturing. Well it would mess up if one lover was expecting a Caribbean beach holiday and they ended up on a long weekend in not so tropical Yorkshire.
We had been over here for an appointment, the last bit of formal support Hawklad gets these days. One 45 minute session every 3 weeks or so. From about the age of thirteen the support levels have shrunk rapidly. Get to 18 or 19 and they will have completely disappeared. Not because the need isn’t there, it’s likely to be there more than ever, but because nationally access to services are being restricted. Years of cut backs and efficiency restructurings have led to ‘streamlined’ services being overwhelmed with demand. So we get frustrated and angry with the lack of local support but unless mental health is given the priority it needs nationally, then it’s an IMPOSSIBLE task to support every need, it just can’t happen.
Or is it IMPOSSIBLE, at least could we do better, could we give some more support to those who need it. I guess it comes down to a couple of drivers…
– Maybe those in charge see more votes in focusing on tax cuts and immigration crackdowns,
– There are just not enough profits to be extracted by greedy hands from Mental Health Services.
The UKs so called Prime Minister will give daily speeches solely focusing on how he is being tough and proactive on trying to fly a few desperate refugees to Rwanda at a cost of £500 Million (plus…), yet he never seems to ever raise an eyebrow at the mental health crisis unfolding across the country. But what is clear.
The money is there, the money to fund services is definitely there.
This shouldn’t be impossible.
Who am I
Just a touch of blue sky and a shed load of cold. There are not enough layers for windy Yorkshire days like this.
Who am I….
Seems like an easy question. Not for me. My immediate answer is….
A single parent,
Or maybe
I could say widow.
Ask me that question say a decade ago and I probably would have answered,
A parent or maybe a working parent.
Ask me that question more than a decade ago and I think I would have answered,
An Accountant or my job title.
NO NO NO.
I might have well as answered a Newcastle Supporter. It’s not WHO I AM. My personality, my heart, how I think, my hopes, my loves, my , passions, my fears, my strengths, my many failings, what I believe in, what I believe is right and wrong. Surely I am not just a job or role label. But it shows that for too long I haven’t truly thought about who I am. That’s why when I’m thinking about it now, I’m struggling to really answer that question. Maybe I have for years just went along with what was expected of me, maybe I just acted out a stereotype or maybe I just avoided thinking about it. But surely who I am should be a key element when it comes to making decisions.
Much to think about, but on that walk through the woods, one thing I could definitely confirm…
I WAS COLD.
French Cartoon
It’s funny how those long hidden memories suddenly decide to reawaken.
We were on our way to Switzerland by train, a day after an incident on a train from Amsterdam to Paris. Armed police were swarming everywhere. Usually a wonderful, restful trip from London to Paris, then Paris to Strasbourg, then Strasbourg across the border to Switzerland. This time it was distinctly edgy.
Just out of Paris, a young mother got really spooked by soldiers patrolling up and down the train with a machine guns. This upset her young son. Step forward a French passenger who was clearly a cartoonist. Out of his bag came sketch books and pens. For the next three hours he drew wonderful cartoons and drawings for the child. Whatever the child asked for, he drew amazingly. The young mum smiled, the young child laughed, so did everyone around them.
That proved to be our last trip to Switzerland as a family of 3 and amongst the emotions around that, I completely forgot this wonderful cartoonist. Now thankfully I can see it all clearly again.
What’s the line …..
Heroes don’t have to wear a cape…..
Saltburn
Three…..
3…….
Stood on Saltburn Pier today and it was 3C. As the wind howled across the North Sea, I dread to think what the wind chill factor was. Apparently it’s still Spring here. Thermal T-shirt, thick jumper and a down jacket simply wasn’t enough. We were FROZEN. But then again as Basil Fawlty once said when told there was always someone worse off than yourself
“REALLY, I’d love to meet them as I could do with a b…..y laugh”
We weren’t those poor souls trying to SURF. We heard frequent bloody curdling screams as they entered the water and that wasn’t a monster JAWS shark causing that. I’m sure I saw an iceberg at one stage, or maybe that was a surfer who had spent more than a minute in those frigid waters. We passed one surfer sat in his car, with the heating full on, holding a steaming cup of something, who was uncontrollably shaking….
Yes good old Saltburn. An old Yorkshire coast childhood haunt of mine. Every year my so called school would do a sponsored beach walk from Redcar to Saltburn and back again. The teachers spent the child free day in the Hydro pub. Don’t tell them but quite a few of the pupils had curtailed the walk after 100 yards and were in the Dolphin Pub, a bit further down the beach. I usually made it to Saltburn as then I got to ride the little funicular up the cliff. Back then that was as near as this part of the world got to Disneyland.
Sadly last years Oscar nominated movie called Saltburn had nothing to do with this little coastal town. Shame that, it might have livened up the movie a lot. I would like to see them attempt a lot of the raunchy stuff they apparently got up to in that movie anywhere near Saltburn beach, in these temperatures. Maybe that surfer sat shaking in his car had tried to recreate some movie scenes and spectacularly failed….
Northern lights
More storms, more rain, more wind. The Farmer’s hard stacking efforts are now completely wrecked.
A cold often, grim, winter like day.
Not much fun, a day that felt like hard work.
But you never know what is round the corner. Forced ourselves and the very reluctant mad dog out for a cold, windswept, late evening walk.
The clouds cleared just enough for a few, brief light show moments. The Northern Lights never fail to be thrilling. If only my old phone could capture the beauty just a little better.
It can be such a wonderful life.
8 Years
This week I’ve got round to something which has been nearly EIGHT years in the making.
A few years back was the start of the world changing for us. Since then Hawklad has experienced losing his mum, two grannies, an uncle and a niece. Not to mention several pets. Hard enough for a grizzled, well weathered muppet like me, unimaginably tough for a child who was only 8 when the world started changing.
I’ve always tried to find the right words for Hawklad, being open to whatever he needs to get through this but being brutally honest, I’ve tended to skim over some really important areas when it comes to how I’m getting through this. Definitely putting off making sense of what death and loss truly mean, I don’t think I was ready for that. Now it kinda feels like it’s been put off long enough.
The hotel we stayed at in Switzerland had a beautiful reading room, filled with books in German, French, Italian and English. In the English section I noticed on our last trip a fine collection of CS Lewis books. Plenty of the expected magical adventures but amongst those was a clearly well thumbed little book. This was his diary on GRIEF, talking about what he was thinking and struggling with during the weeks after he had lost his wife. Even back then, I could quickly tell that it wasn’t an easy read and that was before our world changing. I remember carefully putting the book back, thinking ‘thankfully not yet…”. It soon would be….. yet I always put off visiting those pages.
Now in 2024, it’s time to read that book as it has a huge relevance to me, AND now I feel I’m ready to open some of those closed doors.
Images from that last Switzerland adventure when that book was still not required….
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 