It’s become a Christmas tradition for us, a trip to see the Lights at Doncaster Wildlife Park. Takes about an hour to walk around and it’s so worth it. Definitely starts to get us into the Christmas spirit. The odd thing is that although the music and the atmosphere is very festive, the actual lights are mostly NOT. But it definitely works
A little bit of a Northern Lights Storm….
Need to keep remembering what a staggeringly wonderful world this can be.
The Government has started a formal review into the rising demand for ADHD, Autism and Mental Health services. But here’s the problem about that….
It’s the starting point for the review.
Setting up the review The Government has already stated what they see as being the key problem, ‘way too much over diagnosis’. Is this political opinion based on clinical or finance advice. Is it centred on a concern for individual welfare… sadly NO. The starting point isn’t about the families who can’t access the help and support they need, its not trying to help those struggling because they can’t access help, it’s definitely not about expanding and extending services . Rather it’s about a budget line on a spreadsheet which the Government wants to make much smaller. It’s about saving money. You can see what the end goal is….. Cutting the Special Education Budget by reducing which children can access services, cutting benefits paid to adults and reducing NHS services in these areas. THEN the Government will try to come up with a PR campaign to make it sound like it’s anything other than a budget cut. But it WILL be a budget cut probably dressed up as ‘helping’ those written off’. ‘Too many’ will be said to have been ‘written off’ by Doctors when they diagnose patients with ADHD and AUTISM, ‘allowing ’ too many education, benefit and support claims. And thus the Government will say that the best, and kindest way to help children and adults will be to just cut their benefits and services, ‘encourage’ them and families to help themselves. Remove more tailored education support and force more adults back into work regardless of their fitness to work. The last Government tried to do this, sadly this Government looks like they might do it this time.
Where are all these thousands of additional ADHD and Autism friendly jobs…..
What happens to the children who can’t access the Special Educational Services they need, have Teachers the training and spare capacity to pick up the pieces…..
Who’s best placed to make a clinical diagnosis, a Doctor or a Politician…..
Deep Sigh. It really shouldn’t be this way.
Yorkshire between the rain storms…..
Talking to a fellow Yorkshire Citizen this morning and as he tried to navigate his possessed General Waste Wheelie Bin passed his brand new electric car. Very Carefully passed as the Wheelie Bin looked like it would win in any head to head contest. I asked him how is new car was and the reply was
“Sound as a Pound”….
Instantly I was taken back to my old Dad, that was one of his favourite sayings. Sadly since Brexit, even Dad would have to concede that there are way more financially stable currencies than ours.
But it did make me think about all those old sayings that were such a part of the cut and thrust of Yorkshire life back then. Most are now probably not best said before the children are safely in bed. But a few just about ok for polite conversation. I have also tried to write these in English rather than in Yorkshire. Trust me people in deepest Yorkshire don’t speak like those folk in that quite famous Yorkshire posh house, Downton Abbey.
“Where there’s muck there is brass”
As an Accountant I can confirm that is true.
“Back in my day”
Hawklad will confirm that I’m saying that one more and more along with the Danny DeVito line ‘Getting Old Sucks, don’t let anybody tell you any different’.
“Eat your crusts as it will make your hair curl”
Dad would say that one even after he had gone bald and now I’m getting to that stage where I would happily settle for curls, settle for any hair really.
As we continue the food health advice…
“Eat your carrots, you never see a rabbit with glasses”
That’s very true but unfortunately I’ve eating a shed load of carrots over my many centuries and it has done nowt for my Lazy Eye.
“I’m off to see a man about a dog”
That one is easy, Dad would say that when he was off to the pub for a drink.
“There’s no accounting for taste”
Our old headmaster would always say that to any child with a new haircut. Plus as I became an Accountant then clearly there is no accounting for taste…
“As fit as a butchers dog”
I’ve never seen a butchers dog so can’t confirm and deny that one.
“You would make a better door than window …”
Basically get out the way I’m trying to watch the TV.
“You don’t get owt for nowt…”
Never trust anything that is given to you for free. Strangely although Dad would say this one, I also never saw him turn down anything for free.
The best one I can remember was a favourite one Dad would say down his allotment. You can explain this one to me…..
“Never trust a man who doesn’t know his Leeks from his Scallions”
A trip out to the beautiful Lake District, a three hour drive from us. Carefully chosen to be a safe, uneventful, Hawklad adventure.
Originally we had planned to park up by Lake Ullswater, well that was the plan. We made it to within a couple of miles of our parking spot and we hit road works. The road was closed and we were sent on a signed magical mystery diversion tour. This part of the world there aren’t ever too many alternative road options. We later found out that this diversion was over 50 miles long and given the windy, narrow roads, would have taken absolutely ages to drive. Thankfully the diversion went past another stunning lake, Thirlmere and we parked up.
You can see why Wordsworth was inspired to write here.
The trip back was an adventure…
A motorway tyre blow out driving at 70mph, two hours stood on a roadside bank waiting for a recovery truck. That wasn’t the place to try and change a tyre. Thankfully a very nice Highway Patrol parked behind our car to ward off any collisions.
Here’s the thing, Hawklad was perfectly fine with the breakdown but really struggled when first the Highway Patrol Officer turned up and then the Recovery Mechanic. It’s the fear that he could be seen, will stand out, will get noticed. Thankfully the tyre was safely changed and off we set again.
Another reminder that as much as you try to plan or micromanage a day, life still happens….
A late October trip to another Yorkshire Castle. This time Richmond Castle.
Richmond is a beautiful part of the country and it’s definitely a Castle With A View.
And here, in this cliff that the castle is perched on is where the legend can be found. King Arthur and his Round Table Knights are said to be asleep in a secret cave below this wall, waiting to come to save the Country in its hour of need……
That’s a proper carpet.
This is one of our favourite walks, just so very peaceful. It’s a great place to find that stillness we all need sometimes.
Mostly peaceful.
A family meet-up here a few years back. A beautiful family get together, all apart from a wasp sting, one twisted ankle and my only case of fleas….. A friendly squirrel interested in being hand fed some carrots and grapes. We shared our food, he shared his fleas…..
Most Hallowe’ens we have a night trip here, it’s a great place to tell slightly lame scary tales. Completely pitch black, silence punctuated by the occasional owl hooting and unseen creatures moving in the undergrowth, probably covered in fleas. Torch Beams crossing paths with the ornate wood sculptures definitely give seriously good jump scares.
At night these sculptures genuinely do seem alive, almost like they move, expressions change.
Would you come for a torch lit walk here…..
Another grey Yorkshire day, just a bit stuck under this blanket of greyness. It’s also still very green for this time in Autumn, usually it’s way more yellow and red. Definitely feels like it’s been a longer growing season here. We also still have a handful of Swallows still hanging around, these fellows are usually back in Africa by now. They clearly are not hanging around because of the sun…. Maybe they are just putting off trying to get through the chaos and queues that is UK Passport Control these days. One of my neighbours foolishly tried and failed to get out of the country a couple of weeks ago to go on holiday. Apparently she didn’t look sufficiently like her passport photo anymore. In her words “you try looking like you did 5 years ago when you hit 84…”
Made me check my passport photo. I’m ok, still looks like me, still looks like Shrek.
I remember going to a fancy dress themed party years ago at University. Themed around cartoon characters. I went as Fred from Scooby Doo, back then I could rock an orange ascot….. A friend of mine put in way more effort to go as Shrek. He was mortified when the first couple of people thought he had come as Alfred Hitchcock.
Hitchcock was famed for talking about “always make the audience suffer as much a possible”. My so called football team have clearly been following that principle for decades now….
Another thing Hitchcock talked about was ‘DRAMA is life with the dull bits cut out’. I always think you could take out DRAMA and substitute that with SINGLE PARENTING. I’ve had a few people tell me they were sorry I was a single parent. Don’t get me wrong, it happened for tragic reasons, but actually being a single parent is such a wonderful privilege and experience. Being a parent has been the best experience and it feels like because of circumstances I got the chance to get just a bit more of that wonderful experience. It has been a wonderful experience.
I have a confession, a secret deep inside that haunts me. Something deeply embarrassing and just rather sad. Yes I’m an ACCOUNTANT. A pretty bad one, but still a BEAN COUNTER. I have no idea how I managed to first qualify and then subsequently fool several employers with financial skills that never really progressed much past counting the fingers on one hand, even that would need to be an estimate. I’m one of those FINANCIAL WIZARDS who as quickly as possible moves the conversation away from those problematic and eternally perplexing numbers.
But recently there is some mathematics that I can’t seem to move on from.
I don’t know why it popped into my mind suddenly, but it did and now it’s THERE….
Hawklad’s Mum who passed away in 2016 has now missed well over half of his life. She missed out on well over half of his childhood. I just find that thought so deeply sad and tragic. Definitely for Hawklad, I so wish no child had to ever go through that trauma. But also for his poor Mum, she has missed out on so much, so many experiences, so many years. Too many years, I do keep hearing a variant of that sad Clapton song in my head, would she even recognise him now.
Castle Bolton in the heart of Yorkshire. Set in Wensleydale, yes the home of Wallace & Gromit’s favourite cheese…… A castle with a stories to tell. Damaged in the civil war, Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned here for 6 months.
The castle really comes alive when you climb towards the top battlements. The views are stunning. Quite unusually you can still get right to the top.
It definitely tests your head first heights, some parts feel a little too precarious.
Every year we get the return of these little monsters….
Stand on one of these and you know it, wow you know it. Try picking one up and it’s like those dreaded Covid vaccine jabs all over again, just this time 50 jabs for the price of one.
And yes, for a month, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. All these have to come down……
The other night I was listening to someone from one of the exam boards on the radio. Not intentionally, I was waiting for my so called football team’s match to start, it was the next programme. Anyways this exam person said something that worried me a lot…..
One of the big complaints about the UK school system is that it is too inflexible, almost like a factory production line. Pushing too many children, regardless of individual need, regardless of if it’s working or not for them, through the same education channels. A one shoe fits all approach. Then the kids get to exams and then often 10 years of schooling comes down to 10 or more written exams, crammed into a couple of weeks. Written exams just don’t suit every child. They often don’t allow the individual child to demonstrate what amazing talents and skills they have. Don’t get good grades in those written exams and you can be way too quickly written off.
Thankfully things started to change a little. More course work counting towards final grades in some exams, allowing scribes and allowing typed answers. Hawklad got a bit more time and was allowed to type his answers, two fingered typing on a school laptop. Surely more flexibility is good for our children, it must be about making schools work for each child.
Back to this exam person on the radio. He was talking about the spread of AI and the problems it’s causing. AI has apparently got so powerful, it is just too professional at writing top answers to whatever you ask it. He was saying that he’s been in meetings nationally were there has been real concern that the treasured school exam integrity is being undermined now. It’s too easy for pupils to use AI to write top mark coursework, producing complete essays in just a few seconds and because AI is developing, it’s way harder for exam boards to pick out those pupils who are ‘cheating the system’ . It is also way harder for exam boards to make sure those pupils sitting exams via a laptop are not also using AI to cheat the system.
So one option being considered is too go back to old school exams. Absolutely no coursework counting to marks, no use of laptops in exams. Pupils sit old school exams using just a pen. That way the exams reputation and integrity is protected……
I never heard him mention the needs of the children once. It was all about the needs of the schools, the exams and the economy. No consideration of if AI could allow for more individuality in schooling, provide more options for teachers to find what works for each child. If they did go back to just old school written exams, it’s going to hurt way too many kids, all to just protect an outdated system. What a huge mistake that would be.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 