Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 31 Comments

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.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 59 Comments

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…..

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 20 Comments

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 · 29 Comments

Bread making

A few weeks back I was in the loft trying to find some old papers. In a corner I found the old bread maker neatly packed away in its old box. No papers but I did decide to bake some bread.

So a few days later I bought the gluten free bread ingredients and went back into the loft for the machine. Wow it was heavy. So I opened the box. Pants…..

Ok, no it wasn’t full with pairs of my big pink pants. But no bread making machine. A box full of papers. The papers I was trying to find. My plans had gone a RYE. Homemade bread was now TOAST. What was I thinking about, I’m BUTTER than this. But at YEAST I found those papers.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 41 Comments

Uranium jam

This morning I mentioned that school were kinda hoping that parents would help with a homework task of forage jam making. I was not hopeful as basically I am the culinary equivalent of an accident prone Lemming.

But I had missed the obvious. Much wiser friends than me came up with the idea of just substituting some shop bought Jam. That’s a plan we can sign up to. That’s a worry. A couple of years back Hawklad would have been mortified at the thought of breaking the rules. But now not he is not so principled. That is my influence.

So we ransacked the cupboard. Can you believe it. No Jam. Not even any deeply hidden years out of date jars. The nearest thing was jar of Mango Chutney. Needs must. We steamed the label off and we had forage jam…

But we had a problem, the first home label said ‘Mango Jam’. Ok Mango isn’t a fruit you often find foraged in Yorkshire 😂😂😂😂😂 So we now just have Fruit Foraged Jam. Hopefully the colour and the lumpiness of the Jam won’t be questioned.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 13 Comments

Thorns

A rose with thorns. Big ones as well….

Parenting is filled with so many highs but wow does it come with some mightily sharp thorns. One of the peskiest of those thorns being the lack of sleep. As much as you kid yourself, you never seem to catch up with those missed closed eye moments. So far it’s 14 years of sleep deprivation and more to come I suspect.

BUT whisper it. Just like those roses with the thorns. Parenting is so worth the thorns.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 44 Comments

Logistics

One of those massive Yorkshire rivers. The bridge has collapsed so there are signs up saying the path is closed. Does that mean I’m not allowed to step over the river……

One of the downsides to lockdown is things like opticians and hairdressers have gone out the window. At some stage they do need to start again. Well apart from hairdressers – not much point now 😂😂

Well as the UKs COVID case numbers are rising at an alarming rate again and with those patients requiring ventilation treatment up by 41% in a week, things are opening up again. Time to try and catch up. Made more difficult with Hawklad’s anxieties and with no one to cover for me.

Tomorrow morning I have a pass out granted by Hawklad. Only granted following my second vaccination. So I booked the first dentist appointment of the day. But with cases going up is this maybe my only shot at catching up for quite a while. Can I squeeze in an opticians trip as well….

Here’s tomorrow’s logistical nightmare.

Set Hawklad off with homeschooling. 30 minute drive to the dentists (as homeschooling only goes live at 830am, I will have less than 30 minutes to make the 30 minute drive) arriving for my dental checkup at 9. Then 9.30 it’s the dental hygienist. After the 30 minute appointment I have 15 minutes to make a 5 miles drive (on a busy road) to the car park and then run for 5 minutes to arrive just in time for my Opticians appointment. Hopefully without overheating so I fail the entry temperature test. I then have 30 minutes to fail my eye test and pick out some new glasses. I then have to drive back home, stopping off to fill up for petrol and arrive back at 11.15 to help Hawklad with his Science class which he us struggling with.

What could possibly go wrong 😂😂😂😂

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 71 Comments

Safe list

The 6 week summer school break is only a month away now. Not long. 30 days. Lots to do in that time. Even more after today.

Hawklad has decided that he wants a stress free as possible summer. Summer is difficult as he can remember the summer of 2016. First day of the summer holidays his granny died and then as the school returned he lost his mum. So summer can be tough even without his current anxieties levels.

Stress free means reducing exposure to those triggers that can escalate his worries. And what is one of the most common triggers. Movies and TV shows. I’ve frequently talked about how often story lines involve death, illness, broken families……

So I have a task. Compile a list of movies and shows that Hawklad can watch which are SAFE. No sadness, no illness, no bereavements. 6 weeks is a long time, so it’s going to have to be some list.

Here’s my list so far

Pokemon

Scooby Doo

Smurfs

Alvin and the Chipmunks

Paddington

Yonderland

Madagascar

Ice Age

Banana Splits

Wallace & Gromit

Kicking and Screaming

Herbie

Willie Wonker

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Shrek

Space Jam

Frozen

The Incredibles

Home Alone

Night at the Museum

The Lego Movie

Fantastic Mr Fox

Big Mommas House

Cool Running

Red Dwarf

The Office (US) but avoiding a couple of episodes

Inspector Gadget

Pink Panther

Three Amigos

Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Remember no triggers. For example The Guardians of the Galaxy – top movie but just NO to the start…. For example Mary Poppins Returns – great movie but mum dies…. For example the Disney movie I’ve forgotten the name of at the weekend , really good apart from the one line about a serious illness.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 13 Comments

Gaze falls

How far does my gaze stretch this week. Far and to big dreams let’s hope. Just got to get through the next couple of hours. Sleep still not here and it is light.

In two hours the alarm will go off and the week will commence. A week of homeschooling, home working and housework . Not the time for being tired. So why am I still feeling so far from sleep.

So maybe one more attempt. Close my eyes and see where my gaze falls.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 89 Comments

Rare

It’s been over 5 years since I sat down in a restaurant….. That’s as rare as a start to the morning like the photograph above. That’s as rare as my football team winning something. Oh hang on the last time that happened was 1969. So hopefully not that rare….😂😂😂

A bit like my so called football team and silverware, the next restaurant trip is not looking particularly imminent. Hawklad isn’t keen. I can’t think of the last time I went with my family to eat out. Maybe a couple of picnics or a garden bbq before the world changed. It’s well over a decade since I went for a meal with a friend. The height of culinary excellence with friends has been limited to the very occasional grabbing a bag of crisps on the way to see my team get beat again. And the other side of the family is understandably very much more distant now.

But here’s the thing. I’m not missing the food. I’m much happier with a bag of chips , sat on a sea wall and fighting off the mad seagulls. I’m not in a mad rush to expand my social circle again. Do you know what I miss about restaurants. That feeling of being grown up every so often. Having to smarten myself up, even combing my hair…. To sit properly. To feel like I’m doing stuff that other people are doing.

That probably makes no sense at all and anyway it’s not happening anytime soon.