Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 58 Comments

Memory tricks

You get sone days when running is particularly tough. Tough physically and certainly tough mentally. On those days I need to set mini goals to tick off on my run. Memory tricks to convince the body to keep going. On this route it’s to reach 9k. At 9k I get this view. Doesn’t matter how many times my little legs take me past here, this view never fails to deliver. The view is lost way too soon and it’s back on the slog again. A couple of hill climbs are fast approaching. I’m not the spring chicken I once was. Those hills hurt. Currently the only thing that works (apart from using a car) is to count. When the climb starts it’s about counting from 1 to 100. The deal is that I can only stop running up the hill at 100. So far every time I have got to 99 I have reset the count back to 1. Don’t say 100 or skip past it really quickly and I must keep going for a while longer.

These little tricks help me. Now we are searching for another one.

We all have blind spots.

One of mine was historical dates. I’m normally good with numbers. I can memorise phone numbers really well yet I just can’t remember dates. As hard as I try those dates just won’t stick.

Son has a few blind spots. He’s good with numbers but can’t get his head around decimal places. Ask him to work out 24×37 and he can do it ever so quickly. Yet ask him to add 1.3 and 3.8 and it’s impossible. Whatever we try just doesn’t work.

He can remember dates with ease yet times are a different matter. He struggles with the concept of time. He struggles to tell the time. Digital clocks are problematic while analog clocks are impossible. Everything we have tried has basically failed. So now we come to this Sunday.

It’s the Year 8 French Exam tomorrow. One of the areas which is bound to come up is telling the time in French.

“Dad if I can’t tell the time in my own language what chance do I have in telling the time in something which probably isn’t even my second language.”

Everything we have tried has failed. In the end we settled on an educated guess approach.

Learn parrot fashion il est ….. heures ….

Then assuming he can’t work out the right time in English he will put the first number he sees (converted to French) after heures and the second number before. If he can only see one number then that goes before heures. That gives him a chance. Ok it doesn’t work with every time but it’s the best he can manage. He’s found his own way of trying to get through this challenge. It convinced him that if he’s sees time questions then he still has a chance. It’s worth having a go. Gives him hope and belief.

So tomorrow at the same time he is enduring his exam I will go for a run. I will suffer with him. Let’s hope both our memory tricks work.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 78 Comments

Five Things

Its been one of those days. About 24 hours of work to be done but I only had a window of opportunity between 8.10am to 4.30pm – extra hour of school on a Thursday. On top of that I needed to clean the house, change the bedding, complete a review form, clean out the Gerbils, mend a pair of jeans, Iron, try to stop a utility firm from sending adverts addressed to my partner and pay some bills. Never going to happen.

Especially when

  • The school bus left early so we missed it. So an unexpected car journey took place,
  • Captain Chaos found a new escape route out of the garden. So a full search and recovery mission had to be launched. Once the dog was safely back in the house I had to repair a new hole in the fence,
  • The hoover drive belt snapped. Luckily I had a spare but it took a while to find it…
  • Two unplanned urgent ‘drop everything’ jobs came in,
  • I couldn’t find my bank card to pay the bills. Mad panic and frantic searching. Eventually located bank card but in the process of searching I came across my car insurance policy. It’s about to expire so needed to reinsure urgently.
  • Couple of hours later Captain Chaos escaped again. Clearly the repaired hole was not his escape route. So another search and recovery operation had to be launched,

Halfway through completing the review form and our son came back from school. The window of opportunity snaps shut for another day.

Anyway at least the Gerbils are in a clean cage now and Captain Chaos has had two new adventures.

In the UK it’s Mother’s Day soon. It’s a good time to give a shout out to all the mums out there. I struggle to cope with one day of this – you do this everyday. Thank you for being brilliant.