It’s been hot here, well hot for Yorkshire. Touching 30C for day after day. On top of that, it’s been seriously dry this year. Our area was the first in the country to get a hosepipe ban. Hardly a drop of rain for weeks, the reservoirs are no more than a third full. We do need RAIN.
Some things are just written in Stone…..
Hawklad loves F1 motor racing, so this year he got his first taste of seeing it for real.
The British Grand Prix at Silverstone. 165,000 fans about to get VERY WET.
Even the Drivers getting very wet….
One support race Red Flagged and stopped as the track was too dangerous.
Talk about four seasons in one day. Blazing sunshine, fork lightning, sudden wind storms, torrential rain.
But thankfully there was just enough blazing sunshine and three of the biggest sponges ever…
It’s now over two decades living here in this part of Yorkshire. Those twenty odd years have added shedloads of wear and tear to me but I’m not the only thing looking increasingly weathered.
When we first moved here, the back lane was almost pristine. As I walked it today I noticed cracks, lots of cracks. Cracks all along its two miles.
I can vaguely recall some of the plans and thoughts we had for the future. Being here for that length of time wasn’t in the plans. But then again we envisioned a much smoother road ahead. The reality was way different, way more difficult. For long periods that road was a nightmare. I really don’t think that I would recognise the guy I was back then. Not only am I more weathered, I’m definitely changed as a person, some might say, cracked. How often the road we take does that to us.
As cracked as that road is I suspect it can still be repaired at least superficially way easier than I can.
Brough Castle, built around 1092 on the grounds of an old Roman fort.
Once a grand old well kept castle. Once an impressive, seemingly impenetrable fortress. Attacked by an army from Scotland, destroyed and rebuilt. Rebuilt to be stronger, even more impenetrable. It was for 250 years…..
Then it met its new destroying army in the form of a Christmas Party… in a desperate attempt to cook the Brussel Sprouts properly, a fire broke out, destroying much of the castle.
OK I’m guessing on the Pesky Green Veg Villain, but something went badly wrong with that Christmas Feast in 1521.
The castle was partly rebuilt in the 17th century, but within a couple of years, fire struck again. Maybe don’t have 24 fireplaces…..The harsh northern weather has subsequently taken its toll since then.
Far too many children in the UK never get the support they need from the health and education systems. Hawklad was fortunate, it took over two years but he finally started to get some of the support he needed. Over the years that support made a real difference.
Then the day he reached 18, it was pulled. There is no equivalent adult support service. It’s only been a few months since then but I have started to see some changes, not positive ones. Hard earned progress starting to slow, halt or even reverse.
There is a chap in the village. Seems a really happy chap, enjoying retired life. Always pleasant, probably smiles more than me. Easy to talk to. Seems to have plenty of friends in the village and always visiting. He walks with a stick, doesn’t walk too far but manages to spend a lot of time with his wife in their perfect, beautiful garden. They seem so relaxed.
This week I found out that he is really struggling with depression, has been for a couple of years now. He is deeply unhappy with retired life. Deteriorating Mobility issues forced him to give up his much loved job. He is unable to take part in his favourite hobbies now, golf, cycling, hillwalking, ballroom dancing, tennis. He feels like he has to spend far too much time in the garden these days. Even their holidays have changed. Once active, exploring filled adventures are now quite limited, quiet, sitting by a pool, in a cafe or on a patio holidays, plenty of time to read. The type of holiday they both always wanted to avoid.
Just a bit closer to the stage than the last time we saw BRUCE.
It’s strange how life works out sometimes. When I was much younger, I really wanted to see Bruce but the stars wouldn’t quite align. There was also quite a bit of that ‘shedloads of time in my pockets’ thing going on with me. No rush, plenty of time to sort stuff out.
But the years and decades rolled on. Bruce got older. I got older. That growing, nagging feeling, is there really plenty of time.
Then life hit the buffers. Bereavement. Single Parenting. Life felt like it had stopped. Permanently stopped. Bucket list stuff, things like seeing Bruce seemed like a million miles away and ever receding in the rear view mirror.
But slowly life started to spin again. A different life. Now a growing realisation that I won’t figure most things out in life, why things happen when they happen or don’t happen. That really clever, brilliant stuff is way beyond my pay grade. The other growing realisation, we really don’t have plenty of time in this life, but maybe, just maybe most of us will be given ENOUGH time to get enough done. Enough time to learn and grow. Enough time to experience enough in life, the good, the bad. It’s how we use that time, what guides us, our priorities, the choices we make, the doors that are opened for us, the doors that are closed to us, how we deal with the stuff of life.
No Bruce for decades and then wonderfully, unexpectedly, twice in 13 months. It’s a funny old life.
You read these epic driving blogs, taking days, weeks to travel across a land. Less so epic here. On a good afternoon you can get from North East to North West coasts, the biggest challenge being the never ending motorway roadworks.
This week we kinda did that mini adventure. A trip from our Yorkshire home to the North West edge, Liverpool….. Took just over two hours.
Then 2 days later we stood on the North East edge of England. From our home, just over 40 minutes….
122 miles apart. A famous old city port versus a small old fishing village. Vastly different accents, same WIND….
There is a lot of political and media focus on certain carefully framed questions at present in the UK…
Why are so many parents keeping their children from attending classroom education?
Why are there so many autistic children now compared to in the past?
Why are schools having to divert so many resources away from core teaching and into special needs support?
Why is there such rising demand for Child and Young Person Mental Health Services?
Why are so many young people unable to work and pay taxes?
Why are we spending so much on disability and carer benefit support? Why is it so easy to claim……
I will say it again, these are CAREFULLY FRAMED. All designed to support a narrative about the pressure this puts on businesses and hard working taxpayers. It’s like the framed questions and narrative which is being pushed about how immigration is causing unemployment, the lack of affordable housing, the breakdown in communities and public services. As a result many in our society now find themselves very much labelled as problems, a burden on others….
I find myself increasingly feeling at odds with the direction of travel the country is heading in. I guess I’m not the only one increasingly feeling like our voices are being drowned out.
Deep sigh….
In all this, in all the political, press, tv and social media coverage I’m not hearing three issues ever being discussed. I guess because they don’t fit in with the CAREFULLY FRAMED NARRATIVE. The large elephants in the room.
Just how difficult, stressful the process is, just how many hoops you have to jump through to try and claim any sort of financial help, disability and carer support. And when you get that support it is at best mo more than the bare minimum, it is NOT a life of luxury.
Child and Young Persons Mental Health Services are stretched to breaking point. It’s a service that has been cut back and underfunded for years. Huge delays in accessing services, services spread way too thin. Again it’s also a nightmare trying to get a young person registered for these stretched services. In our case it took two and half years. A process designed to discourage use. Far too many miss out on the help and support they badly need.
In the UK, as soon as a young person hits 18 they are signed off the support service. There is no equivalent adult service. With Hawklad his Care Lead wanted to hand him onto another service to continue the support after he reached the age threshold, but there was no service to hand him on to. So he was signed off. Support ended. To the number crunchers and spreadsheet decision makers, he is now classed as FIXED as he has been signed off from support. How many young people, how many families suddenly find themselves with no support, no help, no one to turn to. How many don’t even get the support when they were younger. The question shouldn’t be why are so many young people unable to work, why are so many listed as …… it should be why are we LETTING so many young people and adults DOWN.
Foolishly I listened into a radio phone in as I drove towards home. I think the show was supposed to be a discussion about the proposed disability benefit cuts but had rapidly become a ‘this is how you parent’ rant. Caller after caller jumped on a populist bandwagon. Far too many young people are receiving benefit payments rather than being FORCED to work. Mental Health issues, autism, adhd, you name it were modern day fairy tales allowing the youth of today to stay in bed, play games and be PAMPERED….. ‘In my day’ the rants continued, National Service and a good clip round the ear was the answer.
Not one young voice was aired.
Not one Health Professional voice was aired.
Not one parent voice was aired who had any experience in supporting a your person with daily, life affecting real needs.
I would have called in but strangely the show never gave out a number as the switchboard was jammed, I suspect with even more ‘in my day’ tirades….
After thirty minutes of this madness I switched off and drove the last few miles in stony silence.
This is supposed to be 2025 and it might well just have been Victorian times.
Clearly Precarious Cliff Fishing is popular in Yorkshire . Later in the day I was participating in another dangerous local sport.
Cowpat Dodging.
We were trying out one of those new, changing colour LED Frisbees. Problem is that our garden isn’t big enough to properly test out the spinning discs aerodynamics. So Hawklad stayed in the garden and I drew the short straw, jumping over the fence and into the Farmer’s Field. Now we had a proper chucking distance between us. Problem is that earlier in the day, that very field was festooned with Cows, Cows doing Cow stuff…. Lots of Cow Stuff.
Trying to catch frisbees amongst the billion fresh cowpats is real high stakes sport.
Especially high stakes for me, brings back bad memories. A much younger version of me was playing a village cricket league match. Many village cricket strips are beautiful, immaculate, pristine. Not this particular one. It was a farmers field with some well worn matting layed roughly in the middle. To be fair, this farmer had clearly tried to remove as many cowpats as humanly possible, but one or two had been missed. Trying to take an heroic one handed diving catch, I scored a bullseye, landing directly in the biggest and freshest of cowpats. Actually I didn’t land in it, I actually slid through it…..
Let me assure you, cowpat really really really stands out on cricket whites….
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 