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Autopilot

Autumn definitely breaking out everywhere….

The day started with me sat up in bed trying to get my head round one of those bizarre dreams. This dream jolted me awake just before the story played out.

A right racket coming from my neighbour’s garden had me heading outside. I bump into the disgraced wrestling promoter Vince McMahon who he is clearly dressed for manual labour also carrying a hammer and chisel. I ask him what on earth he’s doing in the next garden and get a one word reply “Stonework….”. Bemused at why a Fallen American Wrestling Billionaire is doing stonework in a small Yorkshire Garden, I ask WHY… The growled response “I can’t tell you”. The dream ends….

The day ended up being like so many other days, seemingly sleepwalking through the day. Basically functioning in autopilot mode. Doing things like I always do them. Doing things without thinking. Never stopping to ask

What am I doing?

Why am I doing it?

Am I doing the right thing?

Am I doing it for the right reasons?

Is it working?

Are there better ways of doing it?

But I just switch off and plod on. All the more worrying is that in reality I am deeply flawed. Too reliant on my questionable judgment. I make mistakes, I get lots of things wrong. I have little faith that my autopilot mode will safely land the plane. So why do I way too often just switch off and let it randomly fly. Maybe it’s the reason I so often feel like life is drifting aimlessly, the bucket list of must do adventures keeps on growing without any items getting crossed off as completed.

Back to that weird dream. I initially just assumed that Vince McMahon didn’t tell me why he was working in my neighbours garden just because he was being secretive, protecting his business. But hang on, maybe “I can’t tell you” means he is just as bemused as me, he doesn’t know why he’s doing it. Is he flying autopilot as well.

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Boarded up

A few hardy souls braved a distinctly cold and windy Yorkshire beach.

Definitely felt like Autumn.

Definitely looked like Autumn. The small rides, the cafes, the ice cream vans had mostly all closed down and boarded up for the year. No more intrepid crazy golfers until next year.

I wonder what it feels like to be a resident here in Filey right now. Sadness that the summer season is over with the crowds departed OR relief to get their seaside town back again. The chance to walk quietly along the seafront again, to breathe.

I guess it’s a similar feeling that this time of year brings to our little hilltop village. With no village shop or school or pub or cafe. A church with only one service a month. It’s not unusual to not see another village soul for week upon week upon week. The short days, bleak weather and zero street lighting all ramp up the feelings. So what’s it going to be this time around. Peaceful solitude or suffocating isolation…..

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 22 Comments

Destination

I don’t know just how many times I’ve driven past this reservoir and never stopped. Decade after decade of driving past here, always wondering what it’s like. Well finally, with Hawklad, Scaling Dam became the destination. Now I know.

It’s one of those reservoirs that looks natural apart from one side which is a bit too artificial.

I once knew someone who bought a sailing boat here. Apparently he saw an advert for it in a newspaper. Yes that was in the time before THE INTERNET….

He had no interest in sailing, I mean ZERO interest. To my knowledge he never once sailed his craft, it just sat tethered to where he found it. Yet virtually every Sunday he would drive here and spend hours sat on board. He would do nothing apart from eat his packed lunch and just relax. It worked for him. Maybe it saved him. I know that he had suffered from mental health issues for years. I remember at least two breakdowns and one suicide attempt. Nothing seemed to work for him. But suddenly on this boat, he found a place he could relax. A place he could actually enjoy. He talked about finally having something to look forward to, something he could rely on. This made such a difference to him. The last time we spoke he had even started to plan his next unmoving boat purchase. This time somewhere warm, maybe The Mediterranean.

I wonder where his boat is tethered currently.

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Space

For a relatively small land, Switzerland often feels like it has so much space.

Sometimes we can have too much space….

When Hawklad was at Nursery and First School he had plenty of friends but things change.

Aspergers, going from a Tiny School to a huge Main School, Covid Insolation, Home Schooling, Rural Life, LIFE.

Currently Hawklad now finds himself self with only one Friend he has contact with, and that is only sporadically. Been like that for over 4 years now. No sign that position will change imminently.

Too much space.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 52 Comments

Dad

An evening Yorkshire Forest walk.

A thought struck me as we ambled towards the light. I would have loved to have done something like this with my Dad. Don’t get me wrong, we occasionally had trips out, but they were pretty rare. Looking back to my childhood I can still count the trips. I remember Dad taking me to see the 125 High Speed Locomotive, back then it looked like a Space Age Rocket rather than a Passenger Train as it passed through Darlington Station. I remember a trip to a Train Museum where I found an old ticket machine that dished out things that looked like raffle tickets. As we walked around the museum he eagerly checked out each steam train while I trailed a few paces behind. There was another trip to see a charity cricket match featuring the sporting legend Fred Truman. That was the trip Dad sent me into the players showers to get Fred’s autograph…. Not sure that’s happening these days…. A few trips to the coast to see a storm, sat in Dad’s banged out car, I’m eating chips while Dad is silently smoking.

The whole family would have an annual trip to Scarborough. Dad would frequently disappear for most of the days to do his thing. I can remember seeing him sat on a bench some distance away from the rest of the family as they tried to stop me from falling off the Donkey Rides on the beach.

That’s it, I can’t remember any other trips with Dad. Definitely no walks through a Forest….

To be completely fair, back then in our northern working class town travel was way less accessible. Few cars, even rarer aircraft tickets…

At home there was similarly limited Dad time. Dad might be briefly pulled away from reading the newspaper to talk, I might get a few words before he buried his head back into the racing and obituary pages. As Dad listened to his radio on an evening I would clearly annoy him with interruptions, you just know when someone wants you to shut up. Volunteering to take him a cup of tea to him while he sat in his Greenhouse might yield me a few minutes being told all about how to grow tomatoes or raspberries. Even when I was sent on a Sunday to the local Pub to tell Dad that his meal was getting cold, I would be lucky to get a brief nod before I was pointed in the direction of the door. On the way home again I trailed a few paces behind while. We just didn’t talk that much. So few chats with Dad.

Those times were so frustrating to me. I would have loved ME TIME with DAD, yet in reality MY DAD TIME felt very distanced. I’m sure it wasn’t the case but it just felt like I was often a nuisance, a bit in the way, an interruption to Dad’s routines.

The end result was I always felt distant from him. He didn’t understand me and I didn’t really know him. I knew he liked trains, liked cricket, he liked fishing, he liked gardening, he liked beer, he smoked, he was in the army. Looking back, I now realise that he wasn’t happy, probably chronically depressed and I still don’t know him. I will never know him.

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Donuts

Another late evening trip out for Hawklad, this time a couple of hours drive to the beautiful Peak District. It might well have been quicker but I managed to get lost in the dreaded Yorkshire Twilight Zone, otherwise known as the city Sheffield’s road network.

On the bright side, while lost we discovered a Dunkin Donuts store. One of those occasions where I happily ignore any gluten issues I may have for the GREATER GOOD….

The downside of evening trips is that you can far too quickly start to run out of light, BUT for those couple of hours, having somewhere as amazing as this place basically to ourselves, absolutely wonderful for Hawklad.

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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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What did it cost them

I ended up with way too many missing pieces from the jigsaw which painted the life of my parents before they had our family, before me. I never took the time to ask for those missing pieces when I had the chance…..DEEP SIGH.

But I can sketch some details with the pieces I do have.

Dad loved playing cricket, loved to go and see Yorkshire play. He would go for long bike rides, go fishing, loved to ride on steam trains. He was also a bit of a party animal, putting on his suit and heading to the dance halls. He liked to look after himself, liked to be fit. Apparently he was also a bit of a comedian, very gregarious.

Mum loved to dress up and go dancing with her friends. Way too much dancing for her parents liking. She loved music, especially the likes of Crosby, Martin and her always favourite Sinatra. She also loved the cinema but only to see musicals or romance. She also really wanted to travel, wanted to see Paris and New York. In a word, apparently she was FUN.

Then they had three daughters and two sons.

Dad never talked about it, but looking back I’m convinced he fought depression for years. Boughts of heavy smoking and drinking. Hours sat in his chair, pretending to read the same newspaper page yet eyes fixed on a blank wall. Volcanic eruptions of anger, followed by days of silence. Those eyes, eyes filled with suppressed tears, frustration and anguish, was that why he frequently avoided eye contact. Some days he seemed unable to function, rooted to his bed, did sleep bring some temporary relief. Maybe he opened up at Work or at the Pub, not to his family. At home, one word summed the mood, UNAPPROACHABLE. Maybe DISTANCED is better. One word definitely didn’t fit Dad, HAPPY. I can’t remember him smiling or laughing. He worked, he gardened, he went to the pub.

Mum was more open. She said she struggled. She would apologise sometimes simply saying something like she wasn’t feeling like herself. Yes I can remember Mum laughing and smiling, but I can also remember way too many tears. She often seemed so sad. I remember a doctor visit, mum rooted to a sofa, talk of a nervous breakdown. She soldiered on. She had never touched alcohol but started to drink some sherry to calm her stomach. She went shopping, went to see her parents, went to her part time job, went to school evenings when school needed to see a parent, she looked after the house and US. She never went out socially, never met friends, never seemed to listen to music. She never put on a dress, she never made it to Paris or New York.

What did life, marriage and parenting COST THEM….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 29 Comments

Moors

Summer on the North Yorkshire Moors.

Just a few clouds make such a huge difference to the mood here.

Did I ever really grieve, TWICE

Back in 2016, almost to the day. I was sorting out mum’s funeral, broken yet my mind was on my seriously ill partner. It felt like grief had been put on hold. Then a few weeks later I’m sorting out my partners funeral and again …..

Was I really grieving, how much was I allowing myself to grieve.

My focus was on our son, trying to keep my head above the single parenting waves. Looking back I was living through Hawklad. If he was happy, I was happy. If he struggled, I struggled. Did I ever really think and meditate about what grief and death truly meant, how it was changing me.

Probably NOT.

Probably figured out way more about me as a PARENT.

Maybe the Mood will change one day and I can start to seek a little more clarity on grief and how it’s changed me, still changing me.

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Powers

There comes a stage when our kids start to develop superpowers as a direct result of trying to live with their strange and ancient parents. It’s the power of second guessing, otherwise known as the power to interpret muppet parents. Maybe it’s the result of too many sleepless nights, too many family crises, too many additions to the ‘to do list’. Maybe it’s not enough caffeine, too much mind numbing tv but often parents function with only 90% of the words they know, the other 10% is either randomly lost or corrupted. The end result is we often don’t make sense and yet our kids can somehow make sense of the rubbish that sometimes comes out of our mouths.

Example one of those superpower from our house…

Asking Hawklad what he wanted for tea… “do you want thingy and chips”. Seamlessly he replies “yes I’ll have an omelette but maybe with vegetables…”

Example two of the superpower….

Asking Hawklad “have you seen the erm, you know”. Without taking his eyes of his book, he points to the sofa, “the remote control is there”…

Example three….

In the car, we were talking history and Hawklad mentioned Theodore Roosevelt. His muppet dad immediately butted in with his Einstein like intellect….

“Theodore, wasn’t he one of the hamsters in that tv thing…”

Almost without blinking Hawklad replied

“You mean Chipmunk…. Theodore from Alvin and the Chipmunks..”

I was surprisingly close, Theodore was a rodent. As we don’t get chipmunks here, maybe we need a British version of that show. Harry and the Hamsters. Rather than singing pop songs badly, The Hamsters could recite Shakespeare really badly with annoying high pitch voices.

Example four….

“Erm, you had a {…. mumbling as I fight with the vacuum cleaner, …}, erm Whatsaface {…. more mumbling as I’m distracted by the vacuum cleaner bag emptying its contents onto the floor…}, don’t forget”

Hawklad somehow understood what I was trying to say and he went to phone a friend who had called him earlier….

BUT here is the thing, it’s a selective superpower that our children wield. The power seems to fail if the parent starts talking homework, housework or personal grooming…….