Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 73 Comments

York is not the end of the story

It only takes us 30 minutes to drive into our closest city, the beautiful York. We are so fortunate to live so close to such an historic city. Such a rich pedigree.

  • It was founded by the Romans in 71AD,
  • The Emperor Septimus Severus ruled the entire Roman Empire from York for 2 years,
  • Constantine The Great was proclaimed Roman Emperor in York,
  • York was captured by the Vikings and named Jorvik,
  • Guy Fawkes (remember remember the fifth of November) was born in York,
  • York Minster is one of the worlds largest Cathedrals and took 250 years to build. It is the largest Gothic Cathedral in Northern Europe,

  • The Shambles is the best preserved ancient retail street in Europe dating back before 1086,

  • Dick Turpin the famous Highwayman was executed in York,
  • It has 3 miles of ancient City Walls still intact,

  • It is regarded as one of the worlds most haunted cities with over 500 recorded ghosts,
  • It has the worlds largest Railway Museum,
  • While other Northern British Cities built their wealth on coal, steel and textiles – York made it on Chocolate and Sweets. Rowntree’s and Terrys.

That was supposed to be the end of the post. Trust me York is worth a visit. Basically it’s a really cool City. Especially for a young kid with aspergers whose thirst for facts just keeps growing. He just laps up the facts. When I started writing this post I asked our son to supply me with the information. I completely trust his memory and haven’t bothered to double check the facts.

So it’s so upsetting when he came out with the following Statement a couple of hours later:

“I don’t want to be stupid, I would love to be clever one day”

So off we went for another late night dog walk. I try to provide reassurance. Try to build up his confidence and restore his faith in his dreams. But it often feels like a short term fix. Applying a temporary bandage to the wound. A bandage only protects the wound it doesn’t treat it. As Extreme would sing – I need to find more than words. I need to raise my game…..

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 53 Comments

Put the cat in charge

I was blog chatting (or whatever it is called these days) with a friend today and somehow politics came up. When I say politics I mean really silly politics. Our politics is grim. Very grim. One of the only fun elements is when one of our smallest parties enters the elections. The Monster Raving Looney Party. It’s almost as if Monty Python had entered politics. It was started in the 1960s by the musician called Screaming Lord Sutch.

This was the Party who had a real cat called Catmando as its joint leader for 3 years.

Some of its brilliant policy ideas have included:

  • Make the tax system more complicated so that it is harder for companies to find loopholes
  • Make it illegal to walk under ladders
  • To prevent global warming all buildings will have air conditioning units on the outside
  • All politicians should paint themselves permanently from head to toe in the colour of their party
  • All socks to be sold in packs of 3 in case you lose one
  • Introduce a 99p coin
  • To save money they would only operate our nuclear missiles at weekends
  • Build a really big wall (or hang on that’s not one of the Looney Parties policies).

The scary thing is that actually some of the ‘crazy’ policies they came up with have over years actually become rather sensible and have been adopted by the government. We have pet passports now and who was the first party to propose them. They jokingly proposed 24 hour licensing for places selling alcohol (had been very restrictive hours) and a few years later it became law. Back in the 1960s they campaigned to have the voting age reduced to 18 (now the law and how was this ever considered a mad idea).

Sadly they never quite get into government. Maybe because the looney vote is split. At the last election you had the Looney Party, plus you had a chap called Lord Buckethead, some guy dressed as a fish finger and some chap dressed as Elmo.

Some would argue that recent governments have been infiltrated by loonies.

What am I wittering on about. I don’t really know. I think the point is that when the world seems really bleak and sad. When you want to just stand outside, look at the heavens and scream. To hear your own tears raining down on this increasingly alien land. Just sometimes the only thing that keeps you going is a bit of silliness. It brought me back from the edge. Our dip into politics today certainly made our son laugh. It made him forget about his worries for a few minutes.

If the Looney Party has indeed a track record of starting sensible policies off then maybe they should come up with a policy of banishing sadness and anxiety. Maybe in a few years it becomes reality. I could vote for that.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 50 Comments

Walls

Looking at some photographs I had found from our last holiday. Always brings back those bittersweet memories.

“Dad I love Switzerland. I love the fact that many of the houses in the mountains don’t have walls. It makes the world so much more beautiful. Silly people forget that as high as you build a wall you can always build a ladder just a bit taller.”

He is so true. Walls can be climbed, tunnelled under, knocked down or just walked round. They however do have a habit of ruining a view. Some notable visual exceptions to that – Great Wall of China, Hadrians Wall. I wonder if the Romans realised when they built it that as a defensive wall it was a little bit rubbish but as a tourist attraction it was a winner. Maybe we could sell it. I wonder if anyone is looking for a slightly used big wall. Might be a winner if you don’t mind picking a few weeds out of it and it probably comes with a few resident sheep as well.

“Dad what really annoys me is that we build little wildlife sanctuaries then wall the animals inside. People don’t realise that we have to create connections between all the sanctuary’s to allow the animals to roam. If we did that then Wildlife would start to flourish again”

Again can’t argue with this. Does feel like the humans continue to sprawl out and nature is increasingly contracted. It’s lucky if it’s granted a few areas of protection.

“Dad better idea for walls. Let’s squeeze humans into a few small human sanctuaries then wall us in. Nature can have all the rest of our planet”

Only problem is that I just can’t imagine how I would cope with being confined in such close proximity to some of our politicians. Boris Johnson – please no, just no. Yes walls do have some major drawbacks.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 43 Comments

New Years Day

The New Years Day trip to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park is now a lovely tradition. A new one since the world changed. Life is about creating new memories and not being completely stuck in the past. New Year Day is also the perfect time to go. Get there when it opens and you virtually have the park to yourself for an hour or so. Takes the anxiety out of the visit. Leave as the crowds arrive.

My photos don’t do the Park justice. It’s time to upgrade from the camera phone. Keep filling the coin jar. Much scouring of the second hand pages is required.

So many animals. He loves the two Giant Otters. So playful. And so inquisitive. The Lion Pack. The Rhinos.

An elusive Amur Leopard.

Newly rescued and re-homed Brown Bears from Japan.

Unbelievably cute Squirrel Monkeys.

The Polar Bears are one of his favourites. Until you have seen one you don’t appreciate the size and power of these majestic creatures.

The final part of the walk round the park takes us through a small wood to the Baboons and Painted Dogs. If you remember the Jelly Beam Roulette Challenge was who could spot the elusive dogs first. My strategy was to take us down the wrong path then before our son realised sprint off towards the dogs. Unfortunately a perfectly timed peloton breakaway left me trailing. To compound the misery the elusive dogs today decided to sit right next to the fence nearest the path. Game over.

So we come to the main event. The Battle for Helms Deep. It’s the Jelly Beam from hell. Skunk Spray. 2 litres of water later and it finally stays down. If I ever meet the kind soul who invented that one……..

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 49 Comments

Sleepwalking

New Years Day brought the traditional trip to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park. It was a wonderful few hours – more of that in the next post.

On our return things seemed fine. Then steadily things started to deteriorate and eventually we had a full on anxiety vortex. Consuming so much energy and hope.

Our son started to think again about school. Like me he often tries to overthink problems. Visualise potential outcomes. And in a similar way to Dr Strange when asked by Ironman about the millions of potential scenarios to stop Thanos – “he could only find one option which had a chance of success”. In our Son’s analysis he could only see one option with a chance of success – leaving school as a solution to his anxieties.

  • Teachers who don’t understand him
  • Falling further behind in reading – he realises that although he is making progress this is not catch up progress rather this is at best slowing the widening gap
  • Friendships
  • Low school expectations
  • Little help
  • Sensory overload at school – too much noise, too many people
  • Too much homework
  • Constant fear of getting negative comments and falling foul of the penalty system. Even something like forgetting to button up your top button or forgetting to bring in your planner producing automatic penalties.
  • A school timetable which brings tight deadlines and logistics pressures to someone with Aspergers.
  • In a disruptive class
  • And on and on …..

Again today I couldn’t find the healing words. Just couldn’t stem the raging anxiety vortex. The vortex doesn’t just suck our son’s energy it feeds on mine to. Increasingly tired. Feeling broken. Mind keeps crashing back to those 6 weeks when I lost my mum and then my partner.

We try to get some sleep but the vortex continues to rage and our son is beyond sleep.

“Dad we need to do something, anything”.

Come on let’s take the dog for a walk.

“But I’m in my pyjamas and it’s nighttime”

Get changed quickly then.

Ten minutes later at 10.50pm we are walking the dog in the pitch black with one cheap torch to guide us.

The dark, the quiet, the spookiness – whatever the reason but suddenly the anxiety vortex is calmed.

Talk is now about the things we really wanted but never got as a kid. The things we love and hate about England. Favourite foods. Ghost stories.

Hopefully for one night our son is ok. He is asleep and hopefully has a good night. We dust ourselves down and go again tomorrow.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 31 Comments

Top Cat Trumps

Our son has always loved Top Trumps. It’s the same ritual every time. Before we play he loves to line the cards up in order for each of the categories. Clearly the girl cat is not a fan of straight card lines. Apart from the cat the other thing which frustrates our son with the game is that he has to rely on me to read out the text on each card.

We continue to try and work together on our son’s dyslexia. Some progress is being made. Although he still struggles in general he now can just about spell the player names from his favourite football team. He can spell my teams player names as well. ‘Loser’ covers that one.

But for all the progress he still can’t read the books he is so desperate to enjoy. This is made worse when he hears other kids talking about the stuff they have read. So I have bought him a reading pen. Basically it’s a pen shaped scanner with a headphone. It reads out scanned text. He has used them sporadically at school and they do give him a sense of independence.

We have opted for the C-Pen Exam Reader. Will report back on its performance. However today a very happy boy enjoyed reading a comic by himself. Plus the scanner works on Top Trump Cards. The signs are good.

Jelly Bean Challenge: How many ScoobyDoo movies and episodes have been made?

Different sites have different numbers but going to use these as our marking scheme

Shows (not including cross overs and stuff not including Scoobie) – 406

Films – 39

Specials – 11

Total about 456

My guess was 350. Son’s guess was 399. So again I visited the Jelly Bean Lounge. This time no bullet in the chamber – lucky to select normal apple flavour. However due to earlier attempted cheating I was forced to select a second bean. This time I can confirm blood flavour is revolting.

The next challenge was set by a random question setter we have found on the internet. The question is how many types of poisonous snakes live in Australia. Apparently the answer “too many” is not specific enough.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 43 Comments

Christmas comes early

Another trip to the fracture clinic and our son is super happy. Yes he’s still in pain, yes he can’t use his right hand but the Doctor has said the magic words

“I’m afraid you need a few more rest days so it’s another week off school”.

So it’s no more school until 2019.

To someone who goes through so much anxiety because of school it’s an early festive gift for our son. Does cause problems for me but seeing our son more relaxed – it is a price worth paying. More work can be done at home (updates permitting). The car will have to survive a few more weeks without some much needed and overdue garage TLC. Tonight I will desperately check out which food stores can home deliver this week. Like many kids with Aspergers a visit to a busy supermarket is hell on Earth.

So I sit down with a cup of tea and the laptop. One eye keeps checking out the Harry Potter movie on the TV. The pets come to join me on the sofa. Then it’s return of Windows update madness again. Surely we can find a more convenient way of maintaining our Computers. One which doesn’t stop the world turning. So so thankful my ancient tablet is not Windows based.

I am reminded of a recent conversation with our son. He was convinced that computers should be completely redesigned and remodelled taking lessons from nature. Namely the shark. Some sharks that live at the depths of oceans and seas, for example the Nurse shark, can drop to the ocean floor and enter into something equivalent to our deep sleep. But other sharks like the Great White can’t do this – they need to keep swimming. Our Son reliably informed me that much evidence suggests that they effectively reduce brain activity down to a minimum in one part of the brain while the other part of the brain continues normally. It could be that the spine which is responsible for swimming may have some operational independence. In effect part of the brain shuts down to sleep and the shark continues to swim. So we should redesign the computer processor so that part of it can be updated while the other half continues to work. Dual processors should easily facilitate this. Sounds good to me sat here with laptop displaying an “out to lunch” message on the screen. But it does raise the question how much of our lives would be transformed if we let kids with a different take on life start designing our world.

Anyway let’s watch Harry find the Chamber of Secrets. Maybe at the end of the movie my laptop will grant me a couple of hours operating time.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 34 Comments

Q and A Tag. Come Chat with me

Somedays you just need to put the stressful issues to one side and just have a bit of fun.

Thank you to A Guy Called Bloke for the tag to take part in the fun Q and A. Come Chat with Me. He does have a blog that makes me think and smile.

The Rules

Answer the questions you receive (straight, funny, absurd, up to you)

Create three questions of your own for those that you tag to answer

Tag three people

The Questions

Hurly Burly or Wally Bolly and why?

Hate being busy or really busy places so scrap Hurly Burly. Been to too many metal concerts so expert in the pointless talking when no one can really hear anything routine. Some would say that I have been in a state of permanent Wally Bolly since I went to a Motörhead concert 30 years ago.

Blue underpants with green socks or pink boxers with yellow sandals?

Probably have to go for Blue underpants (have them) with green socks (have them). I do have pink boxer shorts but it would be a crime if I wore any type of sandal. My feet were stunt feet in the Hobbit Movie series.

If the letter A wsn’t in our lphabet wht would you plce in its plce or in other words?

Would repl👻ce with this symbol 👻. 👻dd 👻 bit of fun into the English l👻ngu👻ge.

My Tags

Cosmic Observation

Kristian

Functional Rustic

Your questions if you choose to take them are:

Pink and yellow dot sports car or an Alvin and The Chipmunks designed utility vehicle?

Who would you make world leader. Your choices are Shaggy (ScoobyDoo), Homer Simpson, Squidward (Spongebob) or Rico (Penguins of Madagascar)?

You have to sit in a bath of cold food. Which food?

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 33 Comments

30-Day Song Challenge pt2

Our second bash at the 30 Day Song Challenge. Again it’s a joint effort with our son.

Day 8

A song about drugs and alcohol

http://youtu.be/–AvCsh48bk

I had better take this one. Has to be George Thorogoodo – One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.

Day 9

A song that makes you happy

http://youtu.be/_lK4cX5xGiQ

Certainly a joint decision. Both going for the really funny Jack Black and Kyle Gass becoming Tenacious D and Tribute.

Day 10

A song that makes you sad

http://youtu.be/vmezIIrFQmY

This was one of my partners favourite songs. She used to say it was our song every time it came on the radio. Little did I realise the video was so apt for what was going to happen. I still can’t listen to it rather floods of tears.

Day 11

A song you never get tired of.

http://youtu.be/w9km01hvP4w

This one is our son’s choice. Europe – The Final Countdown. He could listen to this on loop all day.

Day 12

A song from your preteen years.

http://youtu.be/Nebe1zuEtbc

The Goons – Ying Tong Song. I can’t remember when I first heard this song. Maybe it was Dad (sorry Dad if you hated it) but for whatever reason I just remember it as a kid. As a toddler our son love its silliness.