Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 50 Comments

Never the same

In the quiet my mind wandered. Watching and listening to the latest rain storm to crash into our little bungalow, sat on a little Yorkshire Hill.

How can I get Hawklad for a holiday somewhere. How to do it without ramping up his anxieties, how to fund it, where to go. I kept going back to previous holidays, holidays before our little world changed. Coming to the same phrase in my head.

Can never be the same again.

The logical approach is to go back to our former Swiss trip base, Spiez. I know how to get there, the ways that would work and not work for Hawklad. Ways to avoid queues, and crowds and anxieties. Familiarity is important to him, reassuring. Spiez would offer that.

Plus it is a wonderful base to explore the rest of Switzerland and even Northern Italy .

Plus it is one of Europe’s most beautiful bays.

BUT

Things have changed. It’s not 3 or maybe more now. It’s just 2 of us. So many memories there. Maybe so many ghosts round every corner…

Much to ponder, but it is one stunning place. Always will be a special place for us.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 43 Comments

searching for

The weather isn’t playing ball but the flowers have had enough, they are starting to bloom.

Just need the sun now….

It might be a bit of a wait for that ….

Excessive handwashing,

Excessive clothes changing,

Excessive need for reassurance,

Excessive need to order and arrange things,

Excessive need to check and recheck things,

Excessive hoarding.

I was told by a Paediatrician that OCD was one of the potential anxieties that we should look out for with Hawklad. As a toddler he was obsessed with lining toy animals and cars in increasingly long straight lines. Apparently that can be a forewarning of later life OCD and an early flag of Autism. The Paediatrician said for unknown reasons there is a link. I think he said that 2% of the population can experience severe OCD, for Autism the percentage jumps to 20%.

Whatever the reasons, whatever the numbers, OCD has a huge impact on daily life, it ramps up anxiety and stress levels. It does with Hawklad. If anything the OCD grows. Sadly up to now the advice and support with OCD can be best described by the phrase

Best of luck with that….

It’s often down to individuals and families to try to chart a path through these never ending storms. Trying to find ideas, anything to try.

The search is ongoing here.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 48 Comments

No Sun

Yorkshire is kinda stuck in weather, stuck in cold, grey and damp. It’s not just here that gets weather like this, even in my favourite place, Switzerland. Sometimes we would wake up to grim alpine weather, yet it didn’t stop the family adventure. Waterproofs on and off we went.

Happy GREY days.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 78 Comments

Bridge

A quiet old bridge on The Moors.

Spent about twenty minutes here without seeing another car. Bridges are so much nicer without traffic….

When we returned from our trip out, it was TV time. Hawklad selected a fine comedic movie….

Kramer v Kramer.

The comedy came as the end credits rolled.

“Dad, did you notice that Dustin Hoffman became a decent cook after 8 months. See single parent DADs can do it. You have had 8 Years and you are getting worse. It’s just not fair….”

Can a Dad sue his SON, it’s just over 7 years not 8…..

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 52 Comments

Time

Hawklad’s Mum had a bucklet list of places she really wanted to visit. She was blessed to tick off quite a few locations from the list but sadly a few still escaped her. One such place was in Switzerland….

A small lake called Blausee found near the river Kander in the Bernese Oberland. A deep blue lake set in stunning surroundings which is completely fed by underground springs. As a result it is crystal clear and you can clearly see the bottom of the lake, even though it’s 12m deep. It’s apparently MAGICAL.

Photo from My Switzerland

Frustratingly we were frequently in the area but never quite made to the lake. It was always one of those,

We will get there NEXT TIME…..

TIME does run out, so if you have those places to visit, don’t let time runout on them.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 51 Comments

Guard Dog

A fearsome Guard Dog.

Or a bit of a PUDDING….

The evidence is mounting on the latter.

At night he won’t go out in the garden unless someone goes with him. The times I’ve stood outside in the rain waiting for the 85 month old puppy to cock his leg….

At the weekend one of the houses down the lane was having a kiddies birthday party, the way to the mayhem being flagged by balloons. Our dog walk goes past that house and down that lane. I had to pick him up and carry him past every single balloon. He is scared of balloons….

He is also scared of tractors which is a bit of a pain in the rear end, living in the country, surrounded by farms. He’s petrified of the Vet, one of my sisters, scissors, washing machines, the coffee machine, next door’s wheelie bin and scalextric cars. But to be fair to him he is not scared of cats, some dogs, horses, sheep, cows, cars, fireworks, postmen and anything offering him cheese.

He’s a bit of a pudding really…

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 88 Comments

Sigh

That’s as bright as it’s been really….

But at least there are the first signs of this year’s flowers.

I recently bumped into someone we got to know at Hawklad’s first school and she asked after him with the following words…..

“Is he now over his Autism….”

Deep sigh…. Where do you start with that….

What’s really worrying is those words came from a Teacher.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 21 Comments

Weather

Another seriously damp and dark day in Yorkshire. After his morning constitutional walk, it was a fight with the mad dog for the best location nearest the fire. That kinda day.

Yes it’s not just Yorkshire that gets RAIN, Switzerland gets bucket loads as well. A wonderful Hotel Owner once told us with a smile ‘It rains somewhere in Switzerland every single day of the year. Switzerland always has Chocolate, Cheese and RAIN.”

Just like on the 23rd August 2015, it rained in Switzerland.

A dark and damp trip up The Niederhorn shows that the WEATHER can’t take away the wonder and beauty of some special places. I would happily take a bit more rain right now, AS LONG as I was in Switzerland.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 13 Comments

Sky drawing

Pilot having fun or maybe a pilot realising that a packed lunch was left back at The Terminal.

Lovely blue skies from a few weeks back, it’s been definitely not blue skies since then. The fields keep on getting muddier.

Perfect weather to reread Wuthering Heights, no wonder the classic grim tale was set in deepest Yorkshire.

I was chatting with a postman this morning and he talked about a man who lives near a surrounding village. At the start of January, he had moved into an old farmhouse a few miles away from the nearest housing. He told the postman that it had been weeks since he had spoken to anyone. He has no family, he didn’t know anyone in the area and was really suffering from the isolation. He had signed up to a local walking group but the walks have been cancelled due to the state of the paths. He had signed up to the local golf course, but that had been shut for weeks due to flooding. The postman was his only social contact currently. What made it so much worse was that when he went shopping to the local city supermarket, no one would ever make eye contact with him. He described it as being ‘invisible’, like he didn’t ’exist’. The supermarket only has self service checkouts so he couldn’t even chat to someone scanning his shopping.

That got me thinking. How often do I go shopping with my head down, with my walls up.

I strongly suspect that’s happening way more these days, a pandemic certainly hasn’t helped. What is clear, more people are feeling isolated and cut off. More and more people are struggling, feeling unseen.

Tomorrow I’m going to make an effort to keep my head up when I go shopping.

Eye contact, maybe a smile, maybe even saying HI.