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Longest

Sunset on the Moors, on the longest day, just a short walk from a Neolithic historical site. That’s almost Druid talk around here. I was also wearing some rather fetching brightly coloured shorts with a hint of a seventies bell bottom about them, That surely would fit in perfectly with modern Stonehenge Solstice dress code.

As the sun set we listened to those well known Druid bands, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys.

Hawklad likes to come to the same spot on The Moors, a little parking bay on a deserted road. Miles from anywhere. Few humans. Just a couple of isolated farmhouses and a not so secret, secret military base.

Hawklad loves the feeling of isolation here and the familiarity of this little parking spot. The more times we come, the more we get to know the free roaming sheep, the birds, the butterflies. We seem to see the same characters. Almost timeless.

We are going to see a lot of this place. There are worse places to visit.

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Almost out of the wood

Almost out of the deep dark wood. Isn’t it sad that even after all these years I can still recite The Gruffalo, word for word. Where did those years go…

One moment I’m reading out The Gruffalo to toddler Hawklad, and in the blink of an eye I’m trying to explain magnetic fields inside solenoids to him. Wow, bring Julia Donaldson back please.

Thinking about it, I look like The Gruffalo now.

Hawklad has done so well, 18 exams down, 2 more to go tomorrow. Then he is out of the deep dark wood, pesky school finished. The poor kid is out on his feet, sadly I bet he isn’t the only Year 11 feeling that way tonight. How is this supposed to be a true reflection of potential, skills, talents, character and personal accomplishment. IT ISN’T, in reality it was never supposed to be. It’s about the system rather than individual child.

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Plans

Dark Moody Moors.

Every time that I go to our local waste dump, a sign on the gates makes me smile. I know what they mean but…

If you can’t dump waste at the Waste Dump, then what is the point of it 😂😂😂😂😂

So Hawklad hits the last week of final school exams. 6 in 5 days. Then as Alice Cooper puts it

SCHOOL’S OUT FOR SUMMER

SCHOOL’S OUT FOR EVER….

It’s kind of such an unnerving thought. After about 3-30 on Friday, that’s it for Secondary School. After the world changed, so often I thought just in terms of the period covering mainstream schooling. Plans kinda didn’t go past this School. Plans didn’t go past 3-30 on Friday. Everything seemed so far in the future. Where did that TIME go.

So I guess it’s planning time again. Try to give Hawklad the best summer possible. See where the exams results leave Hawklad and then help him get on the next path which he wants to follow. Currently he would love to do college, focus on History. That particular Plan is very dependent on his exam results.

I also need to think about his Muppet Dad as well. Where does Hawklad’s next path leave me… Is it more of the same or new doors. That definitely sounds like a TWO COFFEE problem to sort out. Just need to get Hawklad through this last school week….

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Privatisation

I think I hit new BRAIN FUDGED exam heights this afternoon. Just driven back from school and for about 10 seconds I was stood bemused next to the house front door. The locked front door. Why wouldn’t it open. I was repeatedly pressing the car remote door opening key.

D’oh.

Once I had finally opened the pesky front door with its traditional key, I found a letter from a rather large public utility company which had been privatised a few years decades back. Customers were told that this would significantly improve service levels and keep prices down….

We are still waiting for those particular benefits to arrive.

The letter was addressed to Hawklad’s Mum. Over the 6 plus years since the world changed, I have repeatedly tried to get them to change this. Apparently the main database has been changed but other databases not linked to the main one keep popping up. Clearly the privatised company can’t afford to link all its systems. Got to pay those Dividends…..

Well back to the letter. A few years back, seeing my partners name on the address would have wrecked me. Things have changed now. The grief journey moves further down the road. This time I focused on the text next to the address.

We know times are hard, we are here to help. We want to do all we can, so open the envelope to see what we can do for you…

Well for a start you could stop fleecing your customers with ridiculously sky high prices and monumentally poor service levels. You could also stop your Chief Executive getting millions in performance related bonuses.

I dealt with the letter in the appropriate manner. Throw it to the mad Cat and Dog, let them rip it to shreds.

But the key point is that I focused on the contents of the letter rather than on the name on the letter. I never thought I could ever do that but when the time is right, the journey starts to become just a bit less painful.

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Rush hour

One of those mighty motorways that cut through the North Yorkshire Moors. This is rush hour….

It’s rush hour with Hawklad’s exams now. Two weeks of mayhem, 12 exams in 10 days. It’s an official slog now. That’s how it’s designed to be. Zero marks for coursework, everything on final exams. Exams squeezed into just a few weeks

Hawklad has officially got to the ‘hit the wall’ stage. He has really tried, tried to catch up on being out of the classroom for over two years. Tried to catch up that time, with let’s say ‘patchy’ support from school, over just a few weeks. Too much cramming, trying to force in so much information. And now, with two weeks of exams to get through, he is zonked out, brain fudged. He is still trying to learn, revise, but it’s not going in anymore.

It feels like running a marathon. At the starting line you stand with high hopes, focusing on running a great time. You set off and it feels ok. Then at some point, it all changes. It starts to hurt. After that it’s just about survival. The mind and body have gone. Any thoughts of a decent time have gone, it’s now about just trying to get to the finish line in one piece.

So one particularly bad day for Hawklad when he was tired, nothing was going in. He felt like he was going backwards. STUFF IT. We went for a drive on the Moors. Exams are supposed to be everything, but life goes on. Exam Rush Hour will never give you views like that.

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Break

I must have walked past this tree at least a 1000 times and yet today was the first time that I truly noticed it…..

So it’s 8 exams down another 12 to go. So much for Hawklad to learn and revise over the next three weeks. Currently he is ‘enjoying’ a week long revision school holiday before the exams come flying back at him. Poor Hawklad is mentally shattered, these exams are taking so much out of him, he is drained. Trying to cram in almost 3 years work into just a few weeks, across a number of subjects. Trying to do this while trying to cope with the stress which the revision and exams are placing on his hard earned reading skills. Trying at the same time trying to learn to type exam answers up without any speech or grammar assistance.

It’s unbelievable to think that just under three years ago school had decided that he would never be able to read. The fact he is doing these exams unaided is already the biggest of big WINS for him.

But he is drained. Really drained.

So we through out the revision playbook. He needed a break. So he is having a couple of days off before he dives back into the work again. Two days off will hit the revision but it was the right decision. We all need to recharge sometimes.

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Ok that wasn’t part of the plan

Routine and familiarity is so important to Hawklad. Change is best approached with planning and preparation. Especially when he is under so much additional exam stress. As a result we have been trying to map out a course that has been as smooth as possible but sometimes all we can do is whisper “REALLY…..”

Been so many instances just over these first few exam days that have put obstacles in the smooth path.

After the first exam, Hawklad getting stuck in the classroom for an hour due to a faulty printer and national rules. Then having his invigilators changed at the last minute. Then being given teacher tips on banker questions that always come up and then they don’t this year. Or finding the day before the exam that he hadn’t been given part of the course. Or the cat and dog having a fight for the first time ever, a proper full on fight, just before another exam. Or other things…..

And then we got those extra days. A day mapped out to just focus on revising for his weakest subject for the upcoming exam. Minutes into starting work and this happens to the conservatory where he was sat.

Yes a shimmering sheet of supported roof glass shattered in seconds. I think that’s a bit of ‘s’ alliteration – I’m clearly learning as well. The end result….

Randomly one inner roof glass sheets turned into a glass rain.

I have never seen so much glass pieces. On the floor, on furniture, in revision papers, in Lego sets, in clothing. Everywhere. Thankfully the safety glass did its job and no injuries, well apart from my hands trying to sort out the mess. Spooked Hawklad, Spooked Muppet Dad, Spooked Pets. We could have REALLY done without that. So his favourite revision spot is not so favourite now.

Don’t you just love exam time….

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Fudge

Week 1 completed.

4 exams.

15 still to go.

Back to back exams on Monday.

Brain fudge level, OFF THE SCALE and that’s just me.

The high point (🤯🤯🤯) of the week has to be poor Hawklad having to stay in the exam room for an extra hour after the first exam had finished while IT tried to fix a misbehaving printer. National rules state that if you use a computer to complete an exam then the student has to stay in the exam room until each typed sheet has been signed and dated. The teachers were really apologetic but they had to follow the rules.

The other highlight has to be me printing out what was a highly rated article on ASPERGERS and then sat scratching my head why the article appeared to be a cooking recipe. I did find out how to make ASPARAGUS creamy parcels.

What a monumental MUPPET.

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Dream

Not one of the local farming communities newer tractors…

Not yet had a Dream about a tractor…. YET.

One of the few pieces of information I can remember from University is that recurring themes in adult sleep dreams are likely to indicate unfulfilled need, a missing element or an unresolved trauma. I got that gem not from lectures (I was mainly asleep in those) but from an Irish girl who lived in the same student accommodation block as me. She shared this piece of wisdom while beating me at Darts in the Student Union Bar. Quite odd really as she was studying Robotics and usually only talked about stuff more akin to a Terminator script. However she did seem to know her DREAM stuff in that moment. I also remember that she had recurring dreams involving exploring a non existent cave system back in her Irish hometown of Wexford. Before I could ponder the deep meaning behind those dreams she pointed out that she was a keen POT HOLER and didn’t find this passion until she moved from home – kinda explains things……

Strange how you remember these odd events and yet almost instantly forget important things like names.

Anyway I also have recurring dreams. One is about my football team winning a trophy, I’ve had those for over 40 years. I think that is just down to me being a permanently delusional optimist.

But I do have another recurring dream theme. Don’t worry it doesn’t involve anything as racy as sticks of rhubarb, ferrets, Cricket Balls and other Yorkshire stuff. But it is a dream that is recurring more with passing time. In the dreams I’m usually back in my mid twenties and either in college or at work. The dream starts with just some routine work or day, something mundane but it always ends up with a group of friends having a nice restaurant meal together. Nothing exciting ever happens just that meal with friends. When I do wake up, always during the dream meal, I feel melancholy. I’m pretty sure this dream is pointing to how things that once kept me socially connected have over time dwindled away or just maybe it’s actually that I regret not having more opportunities to do these things in life. The last sit down meal I had was a family one back in 2016 and that was funeral related. I can’t even remember the last restaurant meal with friends. But looking further back, what is abundantly clear is that I really didn’t do much of this socialising ever. I didn’t realise this back then, I do now. I probably don’t need my dreams to point this out to me.

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One week

The daily dog walk is getting very yellow…

More farmers opting for this round here.

It’s less than a week before Hawklad’s first exam starts. It’s starting to feel very real now. Very rushed. Very unnerving. Not feeling planned, feeling very out of control. Not controlling direction, much more being bounced and pushed around.

No exam revision breakthrough yet but he is trying. The problem is that this statutory process suits the system, certainly not Hawklad. He works best when he can focus on one topic and then go deep on that. Switching between topics disrupts his thinking, his learning, unsettles him. So randomly sitting 20 exams, across 6 subjects, over just a few weeks is so counterproductive to him. To him it feels like any progress made is then largely lost as he switches to a completely different topic.

The last few weeks he has also been trying to build rapport with a Teaching Assistant he has worked well with previously at school. If he needed to use a scribe in the exam then this seemed like a good option. The Student and Scribe need to develop that understanding and confidence for the best chance of success. With Asperger’s this is even more important. But now the Exam Board has ruled out using this Teaching Assistant in his exams. New regulations prevent scribes having a direct teaching link with the student. The Teaching Assistant has been providing some one to one English help as part of the weekly school sessions. Back to square one on this, any scribe would now be a stranger to Hawklad, he won’t have time to build up a rapport with a new potential person. A scribe is now not an option. So he is committed to reading and typing up his exams without help. With the grammar and spelling assistants turned off – he losses marks for using these.

A week to revise.

A week to try to learn to type much faster.

A week isn’t long enough.

Less than a week to go.