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Ketchup

Joey Chestnut has apparently declared himself the greatest athlete of all time after breaking the world record for eating as many hotdogs as you can in 10 minutes. He ate 76 in 10 minutes. 76…. Jody was clearly not eating hotdogs from outside my so called football teams stadium. It takes at least 10 hours to get served and I dread to think of the chemicals and additives entering into the body after just 1 of those monstrosities never mind 76 of them. Only shed loads of tomato ketchup is saving that.

Yesterday food delivery came with 18 missing items and various random substitutions. Brexit is going really well………

So as I we picked through the damage. No favourite sausages – ok Hawklad can live with that for a week or so. No favourite salad and fruit – again he will make do. It went on and on in a similar vein until. NO Tomato Ketchup. To many amongst us that will just not fly. To Hawklad that’s worse than a zombie apocalypse. So today we go out ketchup hunting.

Needs must…..

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DEFCON

Guess who has been baking again. Yes NORAD have raised the threat level to DEFCON THREE.

Years ago I worked in a Police Force as a civilian. I was based at an old country mansion which acted at the Police Headquarters. At the front desk there was a sign on the wall saying THREAT LEVEL. It had a slide in colour board. Usually it was Green (it’s all cool dude), sometimes yellow (it’s not so cool but no need to panic dude) and rarely Red (it’s time to assume the crash position dude). We also had white which meant ‘everything was cool, but the government audit team is in so put on a tie, dude’. One day the threat level went brown. No one had a clue what that meant. Even granite chiselled veterans had never seen that colour in decades of work here. Much confusion and speculation ensued. The receptionist was not there so we couldn’t ask her. She was like Thor’s Heimdall. The Gatekeeper. No one got in or out without her approval during the day. She also maintained the threat level board.

Finally she was located. Apparently Threat Level BROWN was ‘she had put the board in back to front’. If just one of us muppets had bothered to look on the other side of the board we would have found that it was in fact GREEN…..

And yes DEFCON THREE was wrong. Apart from the earthquake cracked crust it was a rather fine gluten and dairy free loaf. Time to lower the threat level.

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Don’t do this

Kids don’t try this…..

Lack of sleep does strange things to the mind and body. It took me 30 minutes into a yoga session before that the odd sensation I was experiencing was attributed to me putting on my compression shorts back to front. If only it stopped there.

I decided I needed a milky and sweet coffee to get me going. The sugar is next to the kettle. So what sleep induced madness sent me to the cupboard. Made me reach out and grab a large bag. Open that bag. Carefully add two spoonfuls of the white powder into my drink. Then stir and stir. Rather puzzled at the enfolding congealed mess. Then taste what was clearly something approaching wallpaper paste.

Only a lack of sleep ends with self raising flour being added to coffee.

Well at least it cut down on the calories…..

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Deadline

The one thing we have been careful about is not putting deadlines on the way forward. Somethings can’t be rushed. They have to happen in their own time frames especially as there are so many roadblocks out there. Especially when you get days where it’s one step forward and two back. That applies to my life just as much as it applies to Hawklad’s.

But it feels like a deadline is forming. The start of September. That sees the beginning of the new school year. But it’s different this year. His subject options have been picked. He is starting the final 21 month push towards his main exams. Fall behind now and it’s tough to catch up. This school year is hard enough even without anxieties and fears. Hard enough without having to worry about if it’s homeschooling or the classroom. Delaying a decision to return to the class adds so many complications. Hawklad would face the stress of returning to classes midway through the year. New classes. Different from the ones he left. Different faces. Established relationships and dynamics. That’s a real challenge for anyone but to someone with social anxieties, a nightmare.

Ideally September brings certainty. This is the start of how the learning and schooling goes until the exams. There shouldn’t be any sudden changes of approach. That’s why September feels like a deadline. A really tight deadline. Too tight. So many hurdles still to climb, so many bridges still to be rebuilt. Walking quiet country lanes although great progress is a million miles away from sitting without anxieties in overcrowded classrooms. Just under 8 weeks to do all that.

It’s also not much time to organise a full homeschooling approach leading to something meaningful for him.

Yes it feels like a deadline approaching fast.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 40 Comments

My country

“You don’t get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as ‘Gesture Politics’ & then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we’re campaigning against, happens.”

That’s Tyrone Mings, a member of the England Football Team standing up to the Government. That’s the thing we have a national Football Team that has players who have principles. Who are prepared to stand up for what is right. And a Government without principles or any moral compass. A manager of the England Football Team who makes a stand for multiculturalism and inclusiveness. Yet we have Prime Minister whose language is frequently racist, sexist and homophobic.

There is so much ugliness, intolerance and hatred in my country. It starts from the top. A Prime Minister who fuels hatred and division. Feeds off it. Happy to back the extremists and bullies yet so quick to attack those taking a stand.

But it’s not too late. It can change. People can change it. Good people who care can change it for the better. We have to take a stand for what is right. We have to support those taking a stand. We have to reclaim our country from the bullies.

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Plan B

So our most viable plan of getting Hawklad out into the big bad world went up in smoke. And I mean up in smoke.

We are kinda back to the drawing board again. There isn’t another BK drive through in the area. Yes there are a couple of small BKs but they are a nightmare to get to, miles away and as he has never been inside them. So they aren’t really a viable option. He dislikes the other big burger restaurant chain. That’s definitely a Big Fat MacNoWay. He once went to a KFC but asked if they had anything else apart from Chicken. He likes pizza but has never found a pizza restaurant he is comfortable in. He will use the Taco Bell drive through but even before the pandemic hated the feel of the inside seating setup.

So we just don’t know what the new plan b will be. What’s that thing we can aim for. The benchmark to assess progress. We do need something, just don’t know what is now.

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Didn’t see that coming

We pass that tree everyday on the mad dog walk. Actually it’s the mad dog pull. Near that tree is a gate that has a hidden wooden stake that trips me every couple of days. It’s been doing that for years…

We are slowly trying to reintroduce Hawklad back into the wider world. Trying to encourage him to build bridges in his own time. It’s not easy at the best of times but when a pandemic is still raging…….

One regular trip out has really helped. A trip to his favourite fast food restaurant. Before the pandemic it was the one place he would be comfortable eating inside with others. He is nowhere near ready to venture inside at present but he has built up the confidence for us to use the drive through. The plan was to keep coming here. Maybe more regularly during the summer holidays. It was the big hope for that first indoor adventure, a meal inside. Get to that stage and a classroom return might start to be in reach for him.

It’s that important it’s built into his health plan.

So we ventured there on Saturday afternoon. To find this.

The photo is from the local paper. The York Press.

It had burnt down on Friday. Thankfully no one was hurt but apparently it’s 60% to 80% destroyed . WE didn’t see that coming. Plan A out of the window. Plan B …… not really sure.

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Music

Sometimes all you can do is shake your head and sigh.

I was searching online for some new noise reduction earplugs for Hawklad. He needs these in settings with lots of background noise, like school classrooms and dinner halls. It’s not really about loud noise, just lots of competing sounds. His old ones are too small for him now. Problem is that he struggles with the feel of most of those you can get hold of.

So I did a search on if any particular brands of earplugs had been used successfully. See if any of the review sites had any tips. And here’s where I sighed.

The search brought up this little gem of a question on Quora.

“Why do people with Aspergers not like music……”

There are no words.

Well I bought a few earplugs which Hawklad can use when hopefully he sees the following bands in the next year or so.

The Darkness, Hollywood Vampires, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult, Ozzy….

And for no particular reason here are Hawklad’s favourite songs that he listens to virtually every day.

David Bowie – Space Oddity

Black Sabbath – Paranoid

ELO – Mr Blue Sky

Alice Cooper – Poison

Iron Maiden – Can I Play With Madness

Kiss – I was made for loving you

Europe – Final Countdown

Bonnie Tyler – Holding Out For a Hero

AC/DC – TNT

Frozen – Let It Go

And his most favourite

Alter Bridge – Metalingus

Yes music. Lots of people love music.

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What went wrong

While I was rummaging around the loft I came across a box from mums old house. Inside I found all sorts of things. Decades old bus timetables, shopping lists, out of date vouchers, instructions from long lost video recorders, random keys and coins from long defunct foreign currencies. My mum had a philosophy – you never know when you might need this. Actually the answer was invariably – NEVER.

But as I still have the box I must clearly have signed up to mums philosophy. But I did find and one of my old school reports. All pretty boring apart from the Home Economics page. I quote

“He shows some talent in cooking. He has mastered a number of baking recipes. He has produced some very good bread loafs and cakes.”

Wow. What went wrong……

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Pokemon

Parenting is usually long spells of embarrassment interspersed with the occasional chance for the parent to shine. In my case very very occasional shines. But when they come, it’s such a sweet smell of awesomeness.

Now in an ideal world the awesomeness is when mum or dad breaks a sporting record, climbs Everest or manages to discover a new chemical element or wins The Great British Bake Off.

But in my case I will gratefully take any win.

Hawklad was doing a Pokemon Quiz on TV and getting every answer correct. Doing better than the contestants on TV. I sat there quietly. Then it was my moment.

A question the contestants were struggling with. A question Hawklad had clearly got wrong. Muppet Dad stepped in….

“I think you will find that is in fact a Poliwhirl as you will notice the direction of the swirl on its tummy. It is reversed in it’s pretty evolution state…..”

Staggeringly Dad was right. Where did that come from. Clearly too many Pokemon shows playing in the background have secretly seeped into my brain through subconscious learning. But for a few glorious moments I basked in the rays of success. All too short lived as in the next minute I had managed to miss my mouth while drinking tomato soup. Basking in manga success doesn’t work so well in a soup covered white T-shirt.

But I will take that….