Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 55 Comments

Leaning

One of the first things you notice living in the hills is that you don’t get many poles that are straight up. There is always a bit of a lean to them. Nowt wrong with that. It feels like I’ve had a bit of a lean for years.

There is a really apt song line that Roger Waters wrote a few years back.

You lean to the left but you vote to the right.

This morning I read a work email exchange. One guy was saying that he had voted for Brexit because it seemed cool but hadn’t voted for higher food prices and more expensive import taxes. He certainly hadn’t voted for the nightmare it had become to own his time share in Spain.

Ok…..

Maybe its just me. šŸ˜³

But I guess we all do a bit of that lean to the left but vote to the right thing.

I’m not immune to that. As a kid I fell in love with football. What an exciting game it could be if I picked a great team. I then picked Newcastle United to support. If I liked football so much why did I pick that bunch of numpties.

Then there was a time when I was a fully paid up member of CND. Proud owner of the ban the bomb T-shirt. I picked what look like a really interesting University option. All went well until I found out where my option was based. The National Atomic Weapons Research Facility…… I’m not making that up. How on earth did I get through the vetting.

But it goes much wider. I wanted desperately to be a parent but not sure I would have initially voted to be a single parent. Definitely not this way.

So I guess there are times when things are out of our control. Life happens. But there are times when it is down to our decisions, our actions. If that happens you just have to own the consequences….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 64 Comments

Warning

Warning. In some countries the self absorbed, moronic idiots are still in charge.

Photo from The Guardian

Remember this PRAT. He is in Secretary of State for Education. Yes the idiot with a horse whip on his desk. A bloke who has been recently described by a respected former member of the Government as a ‘venomous, self seeking little s**t’.

Well the Prat has spoken again. Apparently ‘a generation of children have lacked discipline and order during the pandemic’. So he will be launching a crackdown on behaviour in schools……

Is he going to bother revealing his evidence for his claim. Or as usual is he just getting his views from the a couple of extreme right wing political lobbying groups that he follows.

It’s odd as every teacher and parent I have heard have been praising just how good school children have been, how well they have reacted to the pandemic. They have been brilliant. An unprecedented time of disruption. Schools open and closed. Exams on and off. Exam results messed up by the actions of this prat. Not being able to meet with friends. Holidays cancelled. Sports and leisure activities curtailed. Living through such awful times. AND TOO many going hungry as families struggle.

But this prat thinks they need discipline. Has he forgotten that he was sacked by the last PM when he was the Defence Secretary for leaking official secrets. He broke the Official Secrets Act, behaviour that ends up in prison for mere mortals. Clearly someone with high personal behaviour standards.

How did my country go so wrong. So wrong that someone like him ends up running our schools. Now people will vote for him, it’s currently still a free country. They might agree with him. Fine but if that is how they view our younger generation then I have the same contempt for them as I do for this prat. The children aren’t the problem, it’s the people who think the way this prat thinks who are the real problem. The children are the future, the hope, the solution to this corrupt mess.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 101 Comments

Fan mail.

It’s been a while but I seem to have upset someone again. A couple of comments from my own country. So to my new fan I am certainly not thankful for everything Boris is doing for us. I hear you, I think.

Our schools are open again. Brexit is the best thing we have ever done, We are free of Europe. We control our borders again. We are safer. We have beaten Covid. Apparently I’m a ‘trumped up lefty’, ‘a European lover’ and ‘I need to get my head out of my ****”. IF I don’t like it then ‘I should sod off to France’.

Sadly if you hadn’t of sworn I might not have accidentally blocked you.

Ok I’m probably a bit left of centre. Definitely think of myself as European. And I probably would sod off to Europe if I could. Unfortunately your beloved Brexit has just made that virtually impossible. So I’m actually kind of with you so far. But sorry I don’t share your view on anything else. Thanks to Boris we have the most corrupt Government we’ve had in centuries. We have some of the highest Covid death rates in the world. Our care homes were forsaken by his government in their our of need. Thousands died. We’ve had spikes in death rates directly correlated to decisions from Boris. Brexit is a shambles and killing off large parts of the economy. Our countries civil rights are being undermined because of Boris. He’s turned his back on the Grenfall Tower survivors. He’s refused to take action on all the other dangerous High Rise buildings. He’s repeatedly turned his back on the family’s in this country who are in food poverty. He’s slashed the overseas aid budget.

So no I don’t think we will ever agree. We shall continue to dream for really different countries. I’m never going to sign up to yours. That’s never going to happen.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 40 Comments

Are we really happy about this

It’s still not even midday on this stormy Monday and it already feels like it’s been a long week. Much shaking my head at the areas and topics Hawklad is having to learn. Really how will these facts and skills set him up for the future.

Then he listens to the news. It’s filled with talk of pandemics, nepotism and a country rapidly appearing to be an inwardly looking police state. Women having to protest because they don’t feel safe. A complete and utter Brexit shambles. Ongoing environmental disasters. Lots of waving the flag and saying we are better than anyone else. Look how much we can blame on immigration. Everything has a price. Profit is king. A world where the makeover of the PMs flat is more important than a pay rise for nurses. Leaders talking about bringing Victorian values back into schools.

Hawklad hears this. He talks about this.

Are we really happy that our children are being exposed to this. Being brought up in this type of world. Learning this stuff. Are we happy that the likes of these people are in charge of our child’s education.

Deciding exactly what they learn, how they learn it, where they can source there information from. What part of the economy they can be slotted in to.

Is it really about the children or is just about the economy. If it is really about the children then why don’t we ask them what they want. What interests them. What works for them. What world do they want to grow up in.

I bet it’s not this type of world….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 38 Comments

Splendid

The return of the white stuff. Not much but it does so change the mood of the landscape.

Looking across the farm land to the distant hills it kind of made it seem like we were miles from civilisation. Ok if I turned round I would see the other village houses – but you know what I mean. It certainly felt that way this weekend. Apart from Hawklad I didn’t see another soul. No one on the single village road. No one in the fields. Splendid isolation.

It’s odd how isolation can have such differing impacts on me. Somedays it feels like solitary confinement. A poison chalice. Suffocating. Completely draining on my soul. Too much time to overthink my life. Missing physical company.

Yet other times it’s so different. Much more positive. Reassuring. Safe. Peaceful. Uplifting. A time to think positively. At ease with isolation.

What was the mood today. It was definitely more the latter. Part of me did want to break out and experience being physically amongst civilisation again. But outweighing this was the need to be as far away as possible from the reality of living in England these days. Shutting the door on some of my fellow citizens. A small minded, bigoted, self centred, corrupt, lying, racist, moronic, elitist and throughly shambolic group of numpties as you would ever be unfortunate to bump into – and that’s just the Government. 40% of voters would still vote for them. That thought is staggering and deeply unsettling.

So looking over the deserted snowy fields today felt unusually reassuring. Seemingly so far from the growing madness. Yes definitely splendid isolation.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 32 Comments

Mused Poetry Challenge

I haven’t subjected the masses to my really bad poetry in quite a while. So yep it’s time to stand by those panic rooms. Terrible Poetry beckons and this time it’s potentially my worst ever.

Still time to have a go at Chelsea Owens’s wonderful Mused Poetry challenge.

“Lifeā€™s not been great for quite a few humans recently, myself included. If I were a mature, serene type, Iā€™d likely suggest a mature, serene acceptance and a moving forward with healing. ā€¦Iā€™m not really that type, though, so this monthā€™s theme is:

  1. Snarky Rant. Thatā€™s right: a jaded, sarcastic, fed up, perhaps even nihilistic poem in an ā€œI stick it to you, sucky events!ā€ manner.
  2. The Length is your call. This is something you get to call the shots on, after all!
  3. Rhyming is also up to you.
  4. The Ratingā€™s still PGish to keep general audiences happy, but there are always asterisks or near-fudges for situations like this.
  5. Despite the he** you may have endured, make us laugh. As we lay, prone, in the minefield of calamities, help us hold our bruised ribs in a knowing and painful release of the bad times we all relate to.

You have till 10:00 a.m. MST February 5 to submit a poem.”

*****************

Brexit completely messed up

Government has gone corrupt

–

Contracts given to party donors

Paid for by bigger bills for homeowners

–

100000 covid deaths

They couldn’t even care less

–

A nation scared forever

No virus tracing whatsoever

–

Care Homes lambs to the slaughter

Country becoming an second rate backwater

–

School system in utter disarray

While Johnson moans about his own pay

–

Massive backlogs at the ferry ports

Backing Ministers subject to damming bullying reports

–

Empty supermarkets shelves

Ministers looking after themselves

–

U turn after U turn after U turn

Economy in a massive downturn

–

Leaders downing the finest wine

Yet free school meals must be declined

–

Desperately trying to remove worker rights

Refusing to make safe dangerous high rise sites

–

All this just in one year of Johnson being in charge

A dangerous dishonest charlatan at large

So before he gets on with having another affair

Will someone please comb this numpties hair.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 53 Comments

Am I missing something

A bit of a return to the white stuff again..

Do you get those times when you look at something and you get a completely different answer to the official one. According to the Government the vaccine programme is going so well that it’s time to get ourselves in shape so we are ready for our normal holiday filled summer. Think warm beaches and the sea. The virus apparently is back under control again to such an extent that schools can be potentially fully reopened at the start of March. So that’s the official line.

So why am I seeing a completely different picture.

Vulnerable groups are getting vaccinated but many of those have just only received one of the two doses. The second dose probably not being received until at least 12 weeks after the first one. What happened to the 3 week maximum gap. Even if everything goes to plan by the summer well over half of the population will still not have had any vaccine. The young are not even scheduled to get the vaccine even though they can catch it. The vaccine is not 100% effective and it doesn’t stop vaccinated people still spreading the virus. We don’t even know how long any protection will last and it will be different based on the individual, the number of shots you have had, when you had your last shot and on which vaccine you have had. We have mutations occurring and spreading. We have a health service beyond full capacity, with its professionals beyond exhausted and at breaking point. They can’t run like this for much longer. We haven’t used the time the lockdown offered us to make the required changes to crowded places like schools. They places even the Government yell us are vectors for transmission. So basically schools are in the same position as they were when they were deemed not safe. But this time we will be trying to reopen them with pupils, parents and staff not vaccinated at the time we are desperately trying to control the spread of mutated covid.

Sorry I’m seeing a different picture.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 40 Comments

Them

The sun continues to shine down on the school at home project. Sun shining down – is that the right phrase. Maybe not.

Those lines may not be grammatically correct.

Maybe the sun would shine if the teachers, parents and children could be left to get on with the process. Unfortunately we are not trusted. The current so called government needs to be in control. Apparently they know best.

So maybe this is a more apt photo.

The government wants to control what subjects are taught, what material is used and what material can’t be used. But it doesn’t stop there. They try to control how lessons are taught. Dictating the methods used by teachers.

That has become even more clear during these last 10 months.

Free thinking is to be avoided. Teaching must be prescriptive and follow the required process. Children must learn the same steps in the same way. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work for the child, at least they will remember the basics. It’s more important that they learn to spell a prescribed set range of words perfectly rather than acquire a wide vocabulary. It’s more important to learn the set rules of grammar than to develop a love of writing. Mechanism over creativity.

From the age of 5 to 12 Hawklad went through the education production line. The net result was that he couldn’t read. Teacher reports listing him as low attainment and unable to keep up with the curriculum. Ten months of working from home and now his reading is progressing so well. Ok he might struggle with many of the set grammar rules. He will get marked down for that. But he has found his own way of reading. A method that works which goes against the set governments reading method. That’s something teachers are not allowed to try.

The education of our children is too important to be left in the hands of self absorbed pillocks like Williamson and Gibbs. It’s time for a schooling revolution. It’s time to let teachers teach and to let our children really learn. Learn the way that best suits THEM.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 74 Comments

Costs

And finally the rain stops. For the time being….

We needed something for the house. Where we would normally buy it from is out of stock and is unlikely to be getting any new ones in any time soon. It was a similar story in the other online UK stores. Amazon was a similar story. Finally I found an option from a German Store. But here is the new post Brexit reality.

The store were most helpful. If I had ordered the item before we left the EU delivery the store would have added Ā£20 delivery to the Ā£300 item. Now the store had to warn me that another UK customer had just been charged an additional Ā£140 in Customs Duties and Tax. The store had also had to increase the delivery charge to Ā£40 to cover the additional bureaucracy they had to deal with.

Well I’m not paying that….

So we will just have to do without it until some UK stores manage to source some stock – eventually.

Please tell me just one benefit we are getting from Brexit. So far the best one I’ve seen is from the pompous moron who is the Leader of the House of Commons. He said that apparently “The key is that we have our fish back. They are now British fish and they’re better and happier fish for it…..”.

This is the politician who claimed he had more common sense than the victims of the Grenfell Tower Disaster. Our PM kept him in the Government……

What a monumental prat and what a monumental mess….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 65 Comments

Itā€™s back

So much for the ‘warmer’ spell. The white stuff is back.

This is a message to the Brits amongst you. Are you enjoying Brexit? Here its been a great trade off. Losing my right to travel freely across Europe. Increased cost and admin trying to get stuff from the EU. Nationally industries like Fishing are facing bankruptcy because they are struggling to get products out of the country and are sinking in a sea of additional bureaucracy. But on the PLUS side the supermarkets have many empty shelves were fresh food items can’t make it into the country. So yes all the billions spent have been so worth it…..

The shopping was a wonderful experience today. No carrots, no grapes, no oranges, no bananas, no onions, no corn on the cob…….. Hardly any frozen vegetables and fruit.

So it’s a week of processed foods, chips, pizzas, soups and chocolate. How many different things can I make with a bag of grotty looking sweet potatoes.

So here’s my excuse for potentially coming off my diet. I blame it on the PM and Brexit….