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Deep

That kinda day, just grim….

This afternoon we drove to a city on the coast, to Hull, visiting its large £50 million pound aquarium, The Deep. So many memories flooded back walking around the maze of tanks and glass tunnels.

The last time we had ventured here was when Hawklad was about 4. The three of us came with his Dutch friend and parents. Life was way different then, preschool Nursery was working out really well, Hawklad was flourishing with loads of friends. A never ending succession of meet-ups at various houses, parks and attractions. On top of family and work contacts, it felt like a socially full and connected world. Aspergers was still a year or so away from really knocking on our front door.

So many thoughts now…..

Piggy backs looking at the fish now replaced by someone towering over me. That bubbly child who would run up to anyone and excitedly tell them all about the sharks, now we carefully pick the moment to look at the tanks, waiting for the crowds to part and plenty of space to appear. Now we are a family of two (four counting mad pets) with a barren social diary. All the families and friends from Nursery have long since dispersed, including the Dutch family. Home based Work and College is proving socially isolating. Our Family Photos seem to feature fewer and fewer loved ones.

It’s a sobering thought, just how quickly life can change, just how easily people can become cut off and isolated within this increasingly noisy world. The other prevailing thought came from watching the various sea creatures effortlessly change direction in the large, populated tanks. At times with me it definitely felt like rudderless sailing, buffeted by the storms of life. Definitely not feeling much like effortless and intentional changes of direction of my part. But who’s to say that my planned direction would have turned out any better than the reality. Plus, in this life I’ve not yet ended up stuck behind glass windows, being gawked at, swimming round in never ending circles. I wonder how the fish feel, in control, socially connected with all the other creatures in the tank, immune from the storms in the real world or boxed in, constrained. Without the storms of life, stuck in one place.

THE DEEP ended up making me think way too DEEP.

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6.30PM

Summer poses its own set of challenges. This season’s weather hasn’t been great with few warm weather days. Yes there has been sun but it’s often felt more like late October than high Summer. But the weather hasn’t deterred the crowds. Try to go anywhere around midday and the car parks are mobbed. Hawklad doesn’t do mobbed car parks….

But leave it until the evening and suddenly the car parks are empty. Ok that usually means the venue is shut but not everywhere. Just like Dalby Forest. A few hours earlier this walk would have been rammed with hikers, dog walkers and mountain bikers but now at 6-30pm it’s all change. It’s quiet, we are the only car in the car park. A 2 hour walk and we didn’t see another soul.

Or just like 6-30pm on the North East Coast. A couple of intrepid surfers enjoying warming drinks on the beach. A couple of ball chasing dogs with well wrapped up owners. That’s it. Solitude.

Yes 6-30PM cuts down the places open but it opens up so much space and peace. It works for us. Just don’t forget the Woolly Hats, it is Summer here.

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Sky drawing

Pilot having fun or maybe a pilot realising that a packed lunch was left back at The Terminal.

Lovely blue skies from a few weeks back, it’s been definitely not blue skies since then. The fields keep on getting muddier.

Perfect weather to reread Wuthering Heights, no wonder the classic grim tale was set in deepest Yorkshire.

I was chatting with a postman this morning and he talked about a man who lives near a surrounding village. At the start of January, he had moved into an old farmhouse a few miles away from the nearest housing. He told the postman that it had been weeks since he had spoken to anyone. He has no family, he didn’t know anyone in the area and was really suffering from the isolation. He had signed up to a local walking group but the walks have been cancelled due to the state of the paths. He had signed up to the local golf course, but that had been shut for weeks due to flooding. The postman was his only social contact currently. What made it so much worse was that when he went shopping to the local city supermarket, no one would ever make eye contact with him. He described it as being ‘invisible’, like he didn’t ’exist’. The supermarket only has self service checkouts so he couldn’t even chat to someone scanning his shopping.

That got me thinking. How often do I go shopping with my head down, with my walls up.

I strongly suspect that’s happening way more these days, a pandemic certainly hasn’t helped. What is clear, more people are feeling isolated and cut off. More and more people are struggling, feeling unseen.

Tomorrow I’m going to make an effort to keep my head up when I go shopping.

Eye contact, maybe a smile, maybe even saying HI.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 31 Comments

Moments

Yorkshire has its moments on the peaceful walk front….

This walk had a definite start and end, the Car Park. Some journeys don’t have that luxury so how do you ever know when it’s nearly over.

It’s odd, I usually love this time of year. The AUTUMNAL colours, the freshness, the tranquil peace after the packed summer crowds – the new season arrives and we had this beautiful location virtually to ourselves.

Yet this year there is also a feeling of unease and melancholy. The shorter days, longer nights and yes, the feeling of increased isolation. Even family and friends seem just that little bit further away. I definitely feel significantly less prepared for that isolation this time around AND ITS NOT a surprise. For over a decade the focus has been on Hawklad and School. It brought purpose, provided goals to aim for, even provided a few too many battles to fight. Plans all had a set date, Summer 2023. All this was way more pressing than any feelings of isolation but now that date is history. The Plans worked but are now completed.

What happens next for Hawklad is taking longer to sort out than expected.

Currently life without Plans or more accurately, life while new Plans are still yet to be formulated. Without that immediate focus I’m kinda feeling in limbo. With me LIMBO is letting the mind wander off into feelings of isolation and melancholy. At this rate I might even have to sort out some stuff about my future, it’s been so long it feels like I have forgotten how to do that. At least when we know what Hawklad’s path is, focus will return.

But this time around, I also need to work on some plans of my own.

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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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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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76 months

It’s still muddy.

In fact a bit more muddy.

Very tempting to 76 month old puppy.

76 MONTHS. This PUP was born in the week Hawklad’s mum passed away. Isn’t that a sobering thought. Why does 76 months sound so much longer than 6 and a bit years.

Stuff has changed in those 76 months, yet other stuff is still the same. Still walking these same muddy tracks. Still trying to figure out the parenting gig. Still trying to juggle things while still trying to pay the bills. Still spending far too much time having conversations with myself. Still not get enough sleep. Still fighting the school system. Still getting post addressed to Hawklad’s mum. Still getting those feelings of guilt. Still getting those pangs of anger. Still feeling like life is on hold.

But yes, some stuff changed. 74 months ago a Mad Pup walked in and that is just about the best decision I made in those 76 months.

Any excuse for a puppy pic….

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Autumn….

You can almost feel the nights drawing in.

A conversation today with Hawklad’s lead Clinician kinda confirmed the Plan A course. It’s been increasingly the likely path. Support which now comes his way from the NHS will not focus on a return to the school classroom. It will shift towards trying to get him ready for sitting exams in 10 months time, but sitting them away from the main group of pupils. A neutral, non school location. Plus the long term goal is to see if they can help him start College after this year is finished. They will issue a ‘can’t currently return to classroom note on medical grounds’. That is a relief as The Government is pressuring schools to start fining parents for keeping children away from school, even when the parent believes it’s in the child’s best interest.

So another year of school at home beckons, maybe it’s will end up being a full on homeschooling approach. Better stock up on the coffee then. Oh hang on, I’ve quit caffeine. Better stock up on Donuts then…..

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Heritage 2

A trip to a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire. It’s a seriously atmospheric and stunning location.

It gets really busy here in the summer so it was an early start. Do as much as we can until the crowds get too much for Hawklad and then it’s a quick exit.

The trip went well. Almost first in the queue when the site opened and for a couple of hours, Hawklad had his much needed space. Precious moments in the 11th century Cistercian Monastery. Precious moments spent without touching anything, spent maintaining distances. Hawklad spent the time dreaming and instructing me on history. Well mostly…

Stood under this amazing rood structure and I asked Hawklad to enlighten me, to teach me something. He instantly described some interesting facts about Starfish reproduction. I must have had one of those slightly confused looks that parents develop increasingly to which he replied.

“Oh you wanted some information about the monasteries….”

History comes alive when you can see it, touch it, smell it. We have so much history on our doorsteps. Bronze Age, Roman, Viking, Saxon, Norman and onwards, all within a short drive of the schools. So why is school history exclusively learnt via textbooks. Not one single school trip to a experience history. What a missed opportunity.

Then the crowds started to arrive, scores of family picnics breaking out everywhere. Time to leave. Time for our picnic but ours is taken away from view, a remote road lay-by with a view. Then it’s a scenic route home.

Definitely a decent trip out but still a million miles from returning to the classroom. I think we can safely say that won’t be happening in just over 3 weeks now.

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Door

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……