Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 53 Comments

Pat

You get these days……

Hawklad was taking his science revision really seriously. We were in the garden playing football. Actually I was trying to show off. Trying to show Hawklad that I could curl a free kick around the sundial and nestle the ball into the top corner. All with my left peg.

Sadly I am no Messi.

The ball screamed into the farmers field. Like an Exocet missile it landed perfectly into a new and very deep cowpat. I jumped over the fence again landing perfectly into an even bigger cow gift. I wasn’t picking that ball up so I decided kick it. Have you ever kicked a cowpat. It explodes…… I was covered. It even went up my nose. Up my pigging nose. That’s emasculating.

The smell taking me back to days living near a sewage treatment facility. All very Nose-talgic……

Definitely one of those days….

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Flower

Came across this rather marvellous flower just outside the church walls. That good that even Captain Chaos opted against cocking his leg against it. The ultimate sign of respect. Unusually the dog only passes up on such treats if stinging nettles are in the immediate locality.

Stinging nettles in the locality.

Not an area you ever see Captain Chaos lifting his rear left leg off the ground to ….. Even the farmers cows avoid here…… But it is a great area for harvesting nettle tea….

It’s also a great place to drop something. This afternoon I was taking a works call. In a desperate attempt to stop falling asleep or going crazy, I went outside. Outside with the mobile, pen, paper and mug of coffee. As the work call dragged on the duel prospect of sleep and madness increasingly beckoned. To distract myself I moved to the fence adjacent to the mutant nettles. Why, I do not know…… Then the inevitable disaster. The pen and paper toppled off the fence and with unwavering precision they were consumed by the monster stinging jungle. Taking the notes I had made during one of the worlds most boring ever phone-calls into oblivion.

Two options

1) get seriously stung fishing the notes out,

2) own up and basically restart the dreaded work call again recapturing the facts and data.

Only one sensible option I could ever take. Neither….. End the call and just guess……

Does that make me a bad person 😂😂😂😂

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Hot air

It’s early. I should be sleeping but I can’t. The mad dog wants to go outside and have is morning constitutional….. So without bothering to get dressed I dragged myself out into the chilly garden. Don’t laugh but the dog won’t do what dogs need to do without having someone stood next to him. So I stood bear footed on the damp lawn, looked the other way and whistled.

That’s when I noticed the hot air balloon. Right over the top of me. The balloonists got to see what I wear in bed….. Sorry about that.

By the time the dog

had finished. By the time I ran inside to get my phone, the balloon had moved on a bit.

Well that was a different start to the day.

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Thoughts and dreams

In years gone by if I needed to think. Be with my thoughts. I would go for a run. Maybe go climbing. Those things worked best for me. But then parenting and then single parenting curtailed the climbing option. It was then running. Fell running to collect and process my thoughts. Often I would start a run then become lost in my thoughts. Only the alarm on my watch would bring me back to reality. I would be miles into the hills and it would be a mad sprint to get back home for the return of the school bus.

Then the pandemic happened. We went into our family lockdown. So far 16 months of a lockdown. I lost running. But I didn’t lose my need to think. So I discovered the joys of leaning against our back garden fence. Thinking while looking over the fields and scanning the distant horizon from a little hill top home.

It worked.

So this morning I was leaning on the fence. Thinking. Looking at a distant beautiful tree. Dreaming.

But then I was joined. Someone decided to invade my space and block my view.

I’m can’t really see the tree now. I’m having to stroke and feed this one. I’m telling this cow my dreams. She seems udderly fascinated. Or maybe she’s herd then all before. Definitely deja moo…

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No Surprise

It’s just rained again. No surprise there then….

I’m picking up the courage. The courage to go outside and do some gardening. I have pile of seeds that need planting. I’ve kept putting that off for weeks now. To wet, not enough sun, frosts at night. Problem is that April has gone. Now May is almost left us as well. Our short growing season is getting very short. I did plant some stuff at the start of April but even that has struggled. Plants appeared then stopped growing.

The only exception is one solitary potato plant in a bucket. That one is getting on with growing in this cold weather. I have high hopes for that plant. That plant feels like a winner.

It’s just about making the most of things I guess.

Next week is the school half term week off. Then it’s the school’s year exams. At present we just don’t know how they will work for us. With Hawklad currently being unable to get into school, it makes sitting exams problematic. We have no idea what the plan is. Do school send the papers to us. Does he do them online. At the same time as the other pupils. Or does he do them at a later stage. Does he even sit them. From what I can gather some of the subjects have been sitting practice exams over the last couple of weeks. Hawklad hasn’t…..

For Hawklad it’s just about making the most of things. Getting through to the summer and then it’s decision time. Can he return to school. If he can then is it best for him to learn in the school system or go it alone. Getting on with things regardless of the weather.

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Salvador Dali

A quick look at this mornings weather forecast sent me scurrying outside to cut the grass. Thankfully not cutting the farmers fields. I will leave that up to the cows.

I’ve heard of sleep walking but never heard of sleep mowing…. But it felt like I was doing that this morning. Today has been hard work. The body and mind have started to grind to a halt on the back of not enough sleep. Last night it was one our kip. Similar to the night before. And the one before that……

I won’t show you my attempt at nice straight lawn stripes. Think more Salvador Dali and his Persistence of Memory painting.

Add to sleep mowing, today I added sleep working, sleep parenting and sleep housework.

I have been barely functioning today. Not ideal when your trying to explain Double Replacement Chemical reactions. So add either sleep teaching or sleep chemistry. It’s odd what ever I did today resembled a Salvador Dali creation.

Maybe I’ve sussed out the secret of Salvador success. Maybe he wasn’t an artistic pioneer. Maybe he couldn’t sleep, he did sleep painting.

Salvador Dali, 1931
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Star

How bad must I be at table tennis if I managed to hit one ping pong ball out of the garden. Bearing in mind the next garden is about 5 yards behind where we had placed the table. AND there is an 8 ft hedge in the way as well..

Seriously this ball was travelling with such a trajectory that NASA gave it a spacecraft name and it had to re-enter the earths atmosphere on its way down….

“Dad, REALLY…….”

Sorry

“Dad are you going to get that ball from next doors then”

Yes I am

“I’m really worried. Some of my genes came from you”

One or two. You know who to blame if you get a hairy backside.

“Are you sure your not related to Homer Simpson….”

There is a striking resemblance. Especially from side on… Homer is way better looking and shades the intelligence

“If I ever get a DNA test it’s going to show 25% English, 15% Welsh, 10% German and 50% muppet…..”

And 0% table tennis star.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 51 Comments

Call

The mobile phone is leading a charmed life. Yesterday it found its way into the garden refuse bin. Today as I weeded suddenly the little bucket next to me I was filling with weeds started playing music. Never been so thankful for one of those nuisance marketing call.

With the mobile safely back in my pocket. I got back on with the job of weeding.

Then another call. A work call. 60 minutes worth of …… what’s the word I’m looking for. I can think of a few, some I can even safely write down…

Boring

Dragging

Tiring

Fruitless

Frustrating

Dull

Monotonous

Wearisome

Mind-numbing

Soul-destroying

Insipid

Stupefying

After 60 minutes I was so tempted to switch the mobile off and voluntarily drop it back in the garden waste bin. I’m old enough to remember a time before mobile technology AND today I vote for going back to then….

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Trying

Sunny but cold. Cold we are used to, sunny feels like a pleasant change.

Spot the photobombing bug.

How can hand stands be so difficult. I have been trying to do one in decades. As apparently I’m hundreds of years old well then that’s a lot of decades of failure. Today joined the long line of those. But what chance do I have. I can’t even balance on one leg (somedays two legs is even beyond me). I tried the old wall trick again. Slowly raise myself against a wall. Let the wall provide balance. All goes swimmingly. Well for about second. Then the gravitational pull on my excessively large bum takes over and I hit the ground. Somedays my backside feels like a villain in the Marvel movies. It is inevitable….

But I keep trying.

One day just maybe.

There is always hope.

I remember back in 2016 and thinking I’m never going to be able to do this single parenting gig. I’m going to collapse. And yes I have repeatedly fallen over. Can’t blame my inevitable rear ended for most of those….. But I’m kinda still here. Still trying. Still doing that parenting gig. You never know I might actually get it right one day. There is always hope.

Now let’s have one more go at a handstand.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 69 Comments

Smile generator

This little beauty came from my mums house. Many years ago. She had been given it as a present. Kept it for a few months, just long enough for it to be seen by the present giver, then it was packed up and ready to be shipped off. Mum had a habit of doing that. Presents would get aired just long enough then put away never to be seen again. When she left us and we ended up clearing the house it was like an Aladdins Cave. Me and my sisters playing a game of spotting which of our presents never got used.

Anyway this little plant was shipped off early to my garden. After all those years it is now not such a little plant anymore. But it’s still going strong. A wonderful reminder of different times. A smile generator. And we always need those.