Soon the autumnal colours will be gone for another year. Time to batten down the hatches for winter. But there is still just about time to get out there, be a part of one of nature’s great shows.
It is a wonderful world, so many adventures still to be had.
But here’s the crazy thing. Why if it’s such a wonderful world, with endless possibilities, have I found so many excuses in the PAST to stay INSIDE so often.
That needs to change.
So much on our doorstep. So much to see and visit on a daily basis.
I was going through a box of maps, trying to find one covering part of our area. Why was it at the bottom of the box, buried under all the other maps….. Why was it as good as new, almost unused…….
As I searched through the other maps I found various handwritten notes. The notes, an insight into my former days. Route maps, climbing plans, camping sites, potential itineraries. One note caught my eye. A 4 day plan to climb 12 mountains on the Isle of Skye over one extended weekend. A real challenge for me, something to work to.
For years it has stayed a plan, gathering dust in that box.
It’s a different world for me now. Single parenting happened.
I smiled at that 4 day climbing plan and then carefully put it back in the box – maybe I can still use that one day. But at present my plans need to be much closer to hand. So the local map I was looking for was found. What can be found on my doorstep. That’s a start.
A Sunday in a very quiet part of Yorkshire. A good place to think.
It’s now over 5 years since I became a widow. Where did those 5 years go. Some days it feels like a lifetime, then there are times when it only seems like yesterday. Whatever it feels like, a lot has changed over those years. I’m a changed person with a changed outlook on life (and death). There were times when I thought that was it, life was over. It was just a matter of survival. But I made it through those times and I’m ready to start experiencing what this world has to offer again. I am dreaming again. Different dreams and whisper it, bigger dreams. Maybe that’s a surprising thought. Grief has taught me how to better LIVE. Looking back, to the run up to my partner dying, my priorities were far too often skewed. Maybe I was just surviving. Taking life for granted. Going through the motions. Not looking for adventures. Already personally hemmed in, struggling. Then everything changed within two weeks. Suddenly life’s safety net was removed. I was a single parent with the established script ripped up. I didn’t realise it but I suddenly had to face up to life. Over those 5 years I had to make changes, reappraise everything. Finally decide what was truly important to me.
So as I stood looking across that peaceful graveyard I could see something which I had missed. Grief was about coming to terms with loss, coming to terms with regrets, trying to be the best parent I could be to a young child who needed me AND a process of coming back to life again.
Whisper it. It’s Sunny in Yorkshire.
Sunny with the hint of rainbows.
I wonder what lies in the direction of that rainbow. Is it a pot of gold or just maybe its the best dreams ever.
That rainbow took me back several centuries to when I was at school. School had set off on a school outing. Given the rather robust nature of some of the kids at our school, we should have had a police escort to keep us in check. The trip was described as a ‘Mystery Tour’. You get on the bus and have no idea where you are going. They were popular in Yorkshire and I remember mum going on a few with her bingo chums. Dad would do his own mystery tours but usually always in the local pub for some reason.
Anyway the 4 coaches set off just after the morning roll call. One coach for each year group. There should have been 5 coaches but one complete year group spectacularly all got banned from the trip. Something to do with the Headteachers desk being set alight and the words ‘Year Group 3 waz here’ graffitied in the vicinity.
So the bus convey set off with our rust bucket at the rear. All went well for an hour until we got stuck in traffic and lost touch with the other vehicles. Here is where the plan started to unravel. The young reserve teacher had as much idea of the our final destinations as we did. Unfortunately the bus driver was equally in the dark. Apparently he was a very late substitution as well and assumed the teacher would know. His instructions had been to follow the other buses and if he lost touch, one of the other drivers would wait for him or just ask the teacher……. They BUSES DID NOT WAIT……
So we aimlessly drove around the countryside for a couple of hours. No sign of the other buses. This was an era in human history before mobile phones had been invented. The only Red Public Phone Boxes we encountered were out of order. When we did find one that was working the teacher ran out of coins waiting for the person who had answered the phone to go and locate the headteacher.
Eventually the complete mystery trip was abandoned and we headed back to school. Unfortunately soon afterwards the rust bucket bus broke down in the middle of nowhere. A kindly passing farmer helped fix the poorly bus. But it took a couple of hours. So we all sat by the side of the road and ate our packed lunches. As a rain shower passed through, a beautiful rainbow appeared over the hills. The young teacher asked the year group if they could remember the colours of the rainbow. Unfortunately some of the kids were long since past caring about education. I remember a young angelic voice booming out across the landscape.
‘F### Knows, I’m cold, I’m eff*** bored and Tommy has just tipped Vinnies Tizer all over the floor’
A fight then broke out as the chastened teacher kept his head down and ate his sandwich.
We did eventually make it back. Strangely our year group was banned from the next outing. Can’t say I was exactly upset about that when we found out where that was heading to. The beach in winter. Saltburn, otherwise known as The Yorkshire Winter Siberia…. At least we didn’t have to turn the headteacher’s desk into ashes to get out of that tropical delight.
It’s autumn and it’s about to rain – AGAIN.
Maybe it’s just Hawklad’s Secondary School (11-16 age) but what happened to School Trips. Ok a Pandemic hasn’t helped but even before that kicked in, where are the school outings. At his last school they would go out once every term on a school trip. Always to places that supported a current learning objective. Trip to places like castles or Viking sites that fitted in with History. Trips to churches and mosques to support RE. Trips to plays to support English and Drama. Trips to the countryside to look at Geographic Features. Trips to local science labs to foster interest in Science. Trips to Sporting Venues to encourage PE. It’s been so different at his current school.
Before the Pandemic kicked in NOT ONE educational school trip out for Hawklad. A few pupils got the chance of a trip to France to see war sites, but spaces were limited. With so much available on the schools doorsteps. So much History, Geography, Science, Religion. Why don’t the school use it. One of the best learning tools is surely to put the textbooks down and actually experince what your learning about. To see, touch, smell the subject.
Why am I always so at odds with modern schooling in Britain. Surely there is more to education than just trying to increase the length of the school day and reintroduce Victorian discipline into the classrooms.
One of those frustrating school at home days. Four lessons and zero work provided by school. No communication from teachers. Radio silence. Is it a Covid testing day. Is it a vaccination day. Is it a trip out day. Are the school systems down. Is it a revision day. Has Hawklad just been forgotten about….. Surely he is not the only pupil working from home.
I will let school know, AGAIN….
I wonder if the problem is a lot to do with a big school mentality. Maybe it’s what happens in the UK when you have school with over 800 pupils with a sixth form college bolted on for good measure. You have a teacher (maybe with a teaching assistant) trying to teach 30 pupils in an overcrowded classroom. Not enough time for individual teaching. That only happens when a pupil puts their hand up and asks for help. At home you can’t do that. What do the teaching staff do when many hands go up at the same time.
And here’s the other thing that makes a difference. Each subject has a different teacher and assistant and they change every school year. So it feels like all the time spent building up a relationship with the teaching staff is lost every summer. Working from home means that hardly any of the teaching staff have ever met Hawklad. None of the teaching staff have tried to speak with him (or me) since the pandemic started. Initially it worked better as one member of the team knew Hawklad. She had worked with him. She got him. She made the effort to ensure he was looked after and catered for. But she left. The current team don’t KNOW HIM. Maybe he is just seen as additional workload, an inconvenience.
So today Hawklad did his own learning until lunchtime then I called it and that was the end of the school day.
Let’s try again tomorrow.
Halloween has been and gone. A tremendous excuse to watch proper Halloween movies. Scooby Doo and The Muppets. Can’t go wrong with them.
I’m pleased to report Vampires, Werewolves, Ghouls, Goblins, Boris Johnson and U2 where all put off from trick or treating, by the tropical Yorkshire weather.
It’s also a good time to see if those outside Christmas lights which I forgot to to take down 10 months ago, have survived the Yorkshire weather.
So the next school term has started. Sadly without much enthusiasm from either Hawklad or his Muppet Dad. No return to the classroom looks imminent so we continue the school at home project. At least some of the lessons had work supplied. No sign that Hawklad’s work is being looked at but at least there is something for him to do. But what he is looking at is of so little interest to him. Learning for learnings sake. I bet it doesn’t stick in his mind as well as his real interests do. That’s life. That explains why I can remember every line, word for word, in Scooby Doo movies yet I can never remember where I put my car keys. How I can unerringly locate exactly where the chocolate is yet I can’t remember the diet I’m supposed to be sticking to.
Total Selective Recall.
Too dark inside and out for the old iPhone camera, it did its best…..
Rain, rain, rain with some added rain today.
Roads starting to become streams.
After a super wet walk it’s time for most definitely indoor exercise. Time for yoga. But as I have shown you before indoor, yoga, a yoga mat and a big boy cat don’t really go well together.
First of all, how can one cat take up the whole mat. Second how am I supposed to perform any sort of balletic move with that fella between my legs…..
But today that feline apex predator was distracted. His focus drifted from the ‘funny chubby chap who feeds me’ to the yoga instructor on the iPad. That was it, he was hooked. I think the boy cat likes Adriene. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
As Winter fast approaches, there is still so much colour around. Just need to keep looking, it’s too easy to assume that colour has left for the year.
A venture inside a small shop for Hawklad. Maybe 8 other shoppers and a couple of shop staff. It took all his strength to survive 2 minutes inside. But here’s the thing, his anxieties in there weren’t just focused on Covid thoughts. Yes those fears explained his refusal to touch any alien surfaces or objects. But those in the shop all had masks on (strict shop policy). He just felt uncomfortable in that relatively small space. Too hemmed in. Too many faces. A space to small for that number of strangers.
The Covid vaccine might help will some anxieties but not with all the ones circulating in his world. A small village shop is a world away from an overcrowded classroom in a school with 900 pupils. His well-being is paramount. It has to be the basis of any decision going forward. Life has to fit for him. That’s the only way he will be happy.
That feels like a roadmap to guide the future.
The week walks on.
Another walk for Hawklad. Autumn is such a beautiful time. The colours and the moody skies. It’s also very quiet here. Hardly a soul on the trails, maybe the occasional farmer. Perfect for those seeking the reassurance and safety of solitude.
That’s such a distance from crowded classrooms and bustling school corridors.
Let’s just keep walking and see where it leads.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 