A random door appeared in the village today. I wonder which world it leads to. I wasn’t brave enough to open it this time, maybe the child in me might have a few years back.
A closer inspection revealed a note, ‘free to a good home’. Is that referring to the wooden door or the world behind it.
Just over 5 weeks now until school reopens. A return to the classroom appearing to be a more distant prospect than the mystery world behind that white door. Constant hand washing, repeated clothing changes, inability to touch any alien surfaces, unable to be physically close to others, debilitating anxieties bubbling just under the surface. In a quiet, peaceful village with few people and much space, this is manageable. In a classroom and overcrowded school, definitely not currently manageable.
So let’s try to make this summer holiday time as fun and as relaxing as possible. Let’s see where the education door leads Hawklad when it’s time to open it……
“Dad at mum’s funeral, why did we sit nearly at the back of the church”.
Nearly six years have passed and I had forgotten that I had chosen to do that. Back in 2016, I wasn’t thinking straight. Two closest of deaths within 6 weeks had taking its toll. I wasn’t sleeping, I was lost, I was trying to sort out my mums affairs and house, trying to sort out my partners affairs and funeral, I was trying to be a single parent. When I needed to be at my best, I was a mess. So that was the first thing I replied to Hawklad.
You know I’m a bit of a muppet at the best of times, imagine how much of a muppet I could be at the worst of times……
He knows me so he completely understood that.
I wanted to protect Hawklad. A small, low key funeral had morphed into something much larger. My partners family and sisters needed something different to me. Many more people. Many more strangers for Hawklad to deal with. He was just starting his Aspergers journey and stranger’s eyes could really bother him.
I thought being at the back of the church would mean you wouldn’t feel like you had lots of strangers looking at you……..more space as well.
“Dad wouldn’t they just turn round and look at me…”
I know, I didn’t really think that one through.
The church only had one exit which was at the back. If you needed to get out quickly then we would have had to walk along the aisle past all the mourners.
I thought it would have been easier to get out from the back.
“Easier for me Dad”.
Easier for both of us. Easier for ME. You were dealing with everything better than I was.
“Can you remember who sat near us Dad”
Not a clue, it was just a confusing storm to me. I know my brother sat behind me because I remember unbelievably that he made me smile at one stage with a comment he whispered in my ear. That’s one of the only things I can remember from the funeral. I had even forgotten we were at the back.
Hawklad then described the funeral to me. It was like I wasn’t there, all this detail has just passed me by.
There are the words that no self respecting Yorkshire person ever thought they might have to utter. No it’s not saying ‘Lancashire is actually quite nice’. No it’s not saying that you can get ‘decent beer down South’. And no it’s not saying that ‘cricket is actually really really, mind numbingly boring…..’.
Here goes….. the words we never thought would be uttered here are.
Yorkshire has an extreme heat weather warning…..
Currently we are just about covered by a Red warning. That is ‘Threat to Life and Serious Risk of disruption to essential services.
WOW
This is Yorkshire. It damp here, it’s windy here, it’s a tad chilly here, often nithering here. It’s a two vest and thermal knickers kinda place. Never extreme heat.
We are the top of the purple bit under the top 42C. Ok it’s not the heat that many places regularly get BUT this is YORKSHIRE. The UK’s highest ever temperature is 38.7C
I know it’s a forecast and this is Yorkshire. We could still ignore the trend and pull out a damp, misty, chilly day but it’s a sobering thought.
A really good friend mentioned about not being able to see the stunning Switzerland glaciers in a just a few years time. They will be gone.
What are we blindly walking into. What are we losing for future generations.
I probably don’t do that much for Yorkshire Tourism. Actually I might even kill it off a tad. Face it, just how many times do I drone on about the dreadful Yorkshire Weather and rhubarb. Basically I’m screaming – “if you like Rhubarb Crumble with huge dollops of freezing horizontal rain, then Yorkshire is the place for you. “
Well let’s buck the trend. Time for a bit of Mr Blue Sky Yorkshire in the form of a very warm (YES I did say VERY WARM) walk around the countryside surrounding Castle Howard.
Now let’s rewind the Tourism Promotion clock, back to the mid 1970s. I was living in Redcar, a quirky Yorkshire seaside town, surrounded by heavy industry, it was a place that was sadly in decline. The town decided to run a competition amongst its various schools, let the pupils come up with posters and slogans to promote the area to tourists. The best ideas would get displayed in the town’s public art gallery.
Well guess what, this muppet, was awarded a ‘Runners Up’ badge. Looking back they probably awarded ‘Runner Up’ status to hundreds and hundreds of kids. I can’t remember the winning entry but mine is engraved on my mind. It was a really bad painting of the sea front with my catchy catchphrase painted in black across the top. I captured the essential essence of Redcar in B’s.
“COME TO REDCAR – BEER, BINGO AND BEAUTIFUL BEACHES”
How did that not win………
Yes maybe I do need to work on my Yorkshire Promotional Skills. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Here’s a little known fact about Redcar. The Oscar nominated movie Atonement was partly filmed here. One of the movies most iconic scenes is of the troops waiting in Dunkirk to be evacuated. That part of the movie was filmed on Redcar Beach.…..
I was just a few steps away from this sea of purple. It’s was warm, yes Yorkshire can do that sometimes. Deep Blue Skies, rare but yes it can happen even here. So I decided to do the morning yoga (yep I’ve gone full on hippy) under the shade of the apple tree. I found a small patch of grass which hadn’t been dug up by our active tunnelling Mr Mole and off I went twisting, bending and groaning.
A few moments later the helpful yoga instructor blasting out of the iPhone encouraged everyone to undertake a form of torture. Wrapping one leg around an arm, doing the same on with the other leg and then balancing on what limbs remained still free to move. I might have misheard her….. Anyways it wasn’t a pretty site. I felt like an iPhone which had just been permanently bent out of shape. Funnily enough we have a story on that one to come…. I thought yoga was supposed to be relaxing, this is just brutal.
Is yoga out to get me….
Yes it is….
A few hours later we were walking the mad dog down one of the narrow village lanes when a car headed our way. Hawklad went one way and I headed towards the other fence. I recognised the driver and waved. Unfortunatelyat the very same moment I stepped in a rabbit hole and suddenly entered into an out of control stumble, culminating in me trying to fall nose first over the fence. I clearly gave the driver a really good giggle. And here’s the thing. The driver is a yoga instructor. I’m clearly on the yoga naughty list.
It’s been over 2 years of Hawklad being off from school. Over two years of trying to replicate what is going on in the classroom, from a living room 12 miles away. In all that time the link with school has been hit and miss. But this week was the first time we had no contact from school. Absolutely no contact. Yes we tried to see if any files had appeared on the online school system, but absolutely nothing was sent from a teacher or teaching assistant. Where he found work, Hawklad submitted it but it always remained unmarked. He was due to sit a couple of exams at home but nothing arrived. Hawklad could have been sat playing computer games or walking round Disney all week and school would not have realised. There was a time when school asked each day for evidence that Hawklad was following the classes, an online register, but that was dropped.
I was getting stressed out about school, on top of getting stressed out about work, on top of all the stress which seemingly has become such a part of this currently mad world. Definitely stressed out. Going round in never ending stress circles. I had to break the circle so I found myself walking across a wild meadow. Still stressed out. Now the walk was stressing me out. I couldn’t stop worrying about stuff. Living in a world full of stress. Then a realisation, this is kinda like how Hawklad gets. Stressed out about everything. Not being able to break out of the entrapment. This isn’t healthy. So what do I say to him. Be happy. Remember the important stuff, remember the good things. We are NOT at home if Mr Worry knocks on the door. If you can do something about a worry then do it, don’t let it eat away at you. Find things you like doing, distract yourself from all the stuff you can’t do anything about and try to breath and have fun.
As I stood in that field, stressed out, I thought….
I really need to come up with catchier advice….
I do talk some rubbish…..
Easier said than done……
Why did I give up caffeine…..
But eventually I did actually follow my own advice. I drafted a work ‘I quit email’. I drafted a ‘Hawklad quits school’ email. That helped. Knowing I can just press one send button and two big headaches disappear. Ok it might create other other issues but at least they would be our created ones which we could better control. I also agreed with Hawklad that if school can’t be bothered then STUFF waiting for them. We might as well do some day trips than wait in school if nothing is coming from them.
Now I’m a lot less stressed out. Yep, I should listen to my own advice occasionally.
This post was started about three months ago. Back then I had found an odd argument raging online about a Google Maps Image. One particular object on the satellite view was of much interest. It was either seen as a crashed UFO, some secretive Military Weapon or a Garden Trampoline. As it was clearly in someone’s garden then we might have the answer….
Frustratingly I didn’t save the Google Image, which kinda wrecks the point of the post. I know it’s not the same but here is another crashed UFO I have found in a garden. Why did it take Mulder and Scully so many series of the X-Files to find hard evidence of the an alien invasion when it took me 5 minutes on Google. Looks like every town and city has many of these crash sites.
Had to laugh today. One of Hawklad’s teachers has not sent him anything all year. We have made do by finding stuff on the schools online system and just hoping we are looking at the right things. Anyway, unbelievably that teacher sent Hawklad some stuff today. It was the marking scheme and answers to a mock exam that Hawklad is waiting to sit (still waiting for the questions to arrive). I always thought the questions came before the answers. School has changed since my days.
But many things puzzle me about school these days. Hawklad has had four other mock exams marked which he sat at home. The marks 85%, 75%, 66%, 65%. Clearly he takes after his mum as my exam scores often never exceeded my school age. Here’s the bit that puzzles me. School is still reluctant to move Hawklad from the bottom set, as that’s ‘the group they feel reflects his current attainment level’. Why do many schools as standard, pigeon hole pupils as low attainment purely on the basis of a term like dyslexia or autism or ADHD or ……. What happened to the idea of treating each child as an individual and seeing how high they can soar. No I don’t understand this, so I’m going back to something I understand far better. Crashed UFOs…..
It’s BARLEY believable that I told that one. Might be the last STRAW for many.
Sorry….
10 weeks. Just 10 weeks before the start of the new school year. Hawklad’s last in this school with the delights of the final exams. Just 10 weeks now. Deep down, I realise it’s not enough time. Yes he has made great strides, even a concert. BUT. He’s so on edge when people get too close (within yards). He can’t touch alien surfaces. That’s outside, inside the issues are ramped up so much more. He can’t even stand in a shop for more than a few moments.
He’s a million miles from returning to the cramped classroom, sitting there for hour after hour. Probably too many miles to cover in just 10 weeks. If that’s the case then where does that leave us. Starting another school year at home with exams that he might not be able to sit. The antiquated UK school system just has no flexibility or desire to cope with that.
At least this pesky school year will be done in 4 weeks time. That’s 6 weeks of freedom from schooling. 6 weeks to be free to wander the fields. Good weeks but never enough good weeks before it all starts again.
How did that old Stealers Wheel song go – Stuck in the middle with you…
Hawklad has done fantastically to start to overcome his dyslexia. He had found a way to read to the point that he now only occasionally asks for help but he still really struggles with handwriting and keyboard skills. He was due to get some help with that but the service was pulled basically because of national governmental changed priorities. School can’t provide any help as they don’t have the resources and the local education authority has drastically cut back special educational support. His Doctor thought about putting him on a health programme for support but the waiting list runs into years. Rapidly rising demand meets budget cuts…. Definitely feels like we are STUCK IN THE MIDDLE. Like most things, Hawklad and his muppet Dad will wing it ourselves.
Things are getting worse in this country, far worse. Special education and the support systems have become an easy target for budget cuts. For example the local council had to find a few million of savings so it slashed the Special Education Transport budget. On top of this health and schools are being stretched to breaking point with Covid. Many families are really struggling financially, they just don’t have the money to go private for support.
What worries me is just how many children with real pressing needs are just being left to fend for themselves. I had wrote ‘Forgotten about’, but that’s not strictly the case. Sadly they aren’t forgotten, they are just not a priority. That is unforgivable.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 