Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 57 Comments

Tired

Back to dark, moody weather. Apparently it’s warmer that’s why I’m wearing a wooly hat, gloves and 38 layers….

You know your tired when you function without using your brain. You make a drink with the coffee machine but forget to put a cup in the holder. You drop a full toilet roll into the bowl. You put your shirt on inside out and back to front. You give the cat dog food and the dog gets cat food. The washing machine programme settings are several pay grades above your abilities. And you microwave a tub of mint chocolate ice cream rather than a frozen cottage pie.

Yep getting a few of those days recently.

And then I just have to raise the brain fail stakes….

Cutting hair while tired. Starting to trim without putting the No2 guard on. In fact NO guard. End result a rather fashionable shaved area. On the plus side it’s a national lockdown so no-one outside the house is going to see it for weeks. Plenty of time to grow back. And as my parents would say ‘a rider on a passing horse won’t notice..’. They would also say ‘only 2 days between a bad hair cut and a you need to comb your hair cut’ – in this case make that a few weeks…..

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 65 Comments

Break in the storm

A brief break in the storm.

A lack of sleep is just a pile of pants. So many of us know the feeling. For me it’s like being a walking zombie. A zombie with dodgy knees and dreadful dress sense. The last few days the zombie state has been growing. So I’ve made an effort to sleep. Earlier to bed, no distractions, calming tea. Unfortunately the fates are just against me. First night the cat escaped out of a briefly opened door at 11pm. The cat is not allowed out under Vet orders. Son would have been mortified. After much searching the cat was recaptured at just after 3am. It’s amazing how such a big, overweight cat can be so fleet of foot.

The next night I was again in bed at 11. Unfortunately that was perfectly timed with the arrival of a massive thunder storm. No sleep was possible. In the end I got up and watched the storm until 4am.

Last night again I was in bed for 11. Then an annoying knocking sound from outside. Knock, knock, knock. Like Chinese Water Torture. Eventually too much. So outside with a torch in the rain and the wind. Time and time again a potential knocking source was found and disarmed. But every time I went back inside. Knock, knock, knock. Finally after a couple of hours the culprit was found. A metal hanging basket. But now I was cold, wet and at 1.30am, most definitely not sleepy.

So let’s hope for tonight’s sleep. It will come eventually. But let’s just embrace my inner zombie and the immaculate dress sense. Where’s my pink T-shirt and green shorts…..

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 85 Comments

Facts

Last night was one of those yucky sleepless nights. So very tired yet all I could muster was probably 40 minutes sleep. Annoyingly those 40 minutes came right at the end of the night and was brought to an all to abrupt ending with the morning homeschooling alarm.

During those zombie like hours I started writing a list of things to do this week. After getting stuck on item 1 for far too long, the list morphed into a more fruitful

What have I learned about myself during the last few weeks of this rather odd period in our history.

So here goes with my early morning facts

  1. I’m crap at writing To Do lists,
  2. Late at night I have a habit or writing LIST so that it looks like LUST,
  3. I can’t sleep properly,
  4. My old mobile phone has never worked better since it got machine washed with my clothes,
  5. My phone has a surprisingly good camera however it has the most annoying panorama function. The photo above took hours to do,
  6. I am so lucky to have that view from the garden. But what would I give for either a mountain or the sea in the distance,
  7. I quite enjoy most of this home schooling lark,
  8. Homeschooling and work are never going to be a good fit for me,
  9. Homeschooling and long distance running are never going to be a good fit for me,
  10. Homeschooling and my bank balance are never going to be a good fit for me,
  11. Homeschooling, my bank balance and holidays are never going to be a good for me,
  12. High petrol prices are not an issue when you don’t drive your car for 6 weeks,
  13. I can now make my own pizza bases as long as they are square shaped. Round is beyond me,
  14. I can fill a freezer up real quick when I start saving leftover food,
  15. A dairy and gluten free diet is a pain in the arse when the shops sell out of specialist diet ranges,
  16. I miss football on the telly,
  17. I miss alpine sports on the telly,
  18. I hate the news now. I miss the days of moaning about Brexit,
  19. I’m a barnpot yet I would do a better job of running our country than the clowns currently in charge. Apparently it’s ok for a Prime Minister to miss FIVE emergency meetings and have weekends off during a national emergency,
  20. My Son knows more than I do,
  21. Receiving a parcel from Amazon now feels as dangerous as trying to change a fuel rod in a nuclear reactor,
  22. Not being able to get Sons favourite Soup, Beans, Skinless Sausages and Pasta is one of the most stressful things in the world,
  23. I must be really vexing to live with,
  24. Cheap tea bags taste the same regardless of how many times I reuse them,
  25. Using Yorkshire Slang Words gets me put on the Spam Naughty List,
  26. At some stage I might have to physically talk to someone else than our son. I’m dreading that thought,
  27. You can still get colds if you are isolating from the outside world,
  28. When I’m carefully stood in my designated 2m queuing area why can’t I stop thinking about how long virus particles stay airborne for,
  29. I get so excited when I see an aeroplane now that I must rush to check where it’s flying to,
  30. I haven’t combed my hair in 6 weeks,
  31. Where does all the so called spare time disappear when I’m on lockdown,
  32. The more I learn German the less I can remember of French. It’s as if for every new German word entering my brain, a French one has to pop out to make space,
  33. I will even talk to slugs these days,
  34. Don’t set up a darts challenge with your son then at the last minute realise you don’t have a dartboard or darts,
  35. The Government and Chief Executives of major companies only email me when there is a pandemic going on,
  36. I still hate U2,
  37. I want to live in Switzerland
  38. I’m still a widow. Or as my Predictive Text tries to type – I am still a window,
  39. These days it really doesn’t matter if I put my pants on back to front.
Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 90 Comments

Poets Society

The feeding zone has been active today with the usual characters. Yes the characters are making a mess of the lawn but it’s always so good to see them. We don’t get too many human visitors these days so who is going to notice the rugby pitch of a lawn and I don’t think non-human visitors are that fussed.

Another largely sleepless night. One short dream, a viewing of the stunning yet grim Everest movie and a bout of late night blog catchup. While reading a friends post a thought entered my zonked out brain. How many other souls are struggling with sleep currently. We really deserve our own secret club. Maybe the name should be The Dead Tired Poets Society. Dead Poets Society is a truly stunning movie. If we want to be selective we could be the Dead Tired Parents Society.

But why stop there. We could have so many subgroups.

For the financially challenged – The Dead Broke Poets Society,

For the puzzled amongst us – The Dead Confused Poets Society,

For the bad cooks – The Dead if you eat this cake Poets Society,

For those feeling happy – The Dead Chuffed Poets Society,

For those who can regenerate – The Deadpool Poets Society,

For the rubbish Fortnite players – The Dead in five seconds Poets Society,

For the rubbish negotiators – The Deadlock Poets Society,

For the strong amongst us – The Deadlift Poets Society,

For the gardeners amongst us – The Deadheading Poets Society,

For the Monty Python lovers – The Dead Parrot Poets Society,

And for the impassive people – The Deadpan Poets Society.

Today was another fun day. Fun but with son’s anxieties bubbling just beneath the surface. I have emailed school to tip them off but deep down I know they won’t do anything. The teachers won’t be informed and if they were – what would actually happen. Not much. I’m not sure how much training this group of teachers have had in dealing with anxiety. They certainly have had little specialised training in areas like dyslexia and autism. Maybe that’s why my first questions to the teachers tends to be

You do know he has Aspergers and you do know he has Dyslexia and you do know he has Dyspraxia.

The look I get back with the generally vague replies suggests either they don’t or they do but given the 1000 things they are dealing with this is never going to be a priority. So my parenting anxieties are mounting again. That’s why having fun is so important. It’s great for my son and it’s such a release for me. A release which is even more important when sleep fails you. Can you guess what tonight’s insomniac movie is. I’ve dropped enough clues.

Dead Poets Society.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 67 Comments

The river

Plenty of water flowing under the bridge. The water seemingly never ending.

In the run up to Christmas I was worried that it would bring sadness and hurt. Anniversaries and big holidays do that. As it happened yes one or two wobbles but son seemed to enjoy himself. That’s the only thing that matters these days. So it’s late on Boxing Day and soon Christmas will have gone. Job done. I survived.

But the flow of grief never stops. It’s ebbs and flows. The calm often masks the arrival of a raging flood.

Unknowingly my attention for weeks has been focused on the goal. The goal of giving our son the best Christmas possible. A real focus. A real direction. Caught up in the growing excitement of a child looking forward to time off from school and still hooked on most things festive. That rubs off on the parent.

Now it’s the end of Boxing Day. Heralding the coming end of that special time. The end of the focus. Suddenly it hits me. A new year. A year of more school strife. Son spending so much time in a place, an institution (sadly seems a more apt term to use than school) which goes out of its way to constrain, belittle and make him feel without worth. Hence another year of soul destroying fights with the authorities. Trying to squeeze more work into those hated school hours. Failing to find a way to rebalance the books to allow for home schooling. Adjusting to a world of increasing isolation which currently is the path of our sons Aspergers journey. Sleepless nights and tired days. Living in a country which is becoming increasingly alien to me. All wrapped up in another year without my beloved partner.

Tonight that is a truly haunting feeling. Son is in bed so no distraction from these worries. Suddenly I feel low. Very low. Feeling so unprepared for 2020. For all my fears Christmas provided a much needed boost. Something positive to focus on. Something tangible which I could have an impact on.

This haunting feeling will pass. It must pass. No one to step in if I shut down. Like most parents I will do what ever it takes for our children. A few tears tonight I suspect but tomorrow let’s make some more laughter for our son. OUR SON as it’s still our son. Yes I’m carrying the baton but he’s still our son. I just can’t drop that baton now. So after January 1st I will find a way to go again. Maybe it will be the year of progress. Maybe I will end up reposting these words next year as nothing has changed. Like the river I’m sure the bouts of sadness and loneliness will keep flowing. Constant stream of perpetual tiredness. But the good times and smiles will also flow. Yes remember that river – it keeps flowing – I keep going.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 53 Comments

Garibaldi

When I was a kid I loved a Garibaldi biscuit. Not had one in years. Sorry rubbish connection but beyond tired at present.

It’s been one of those days. Constant motion. Housework, Pre School Routine, Work, Dinner, Work. Lots of action, no sitting down yet achieving absolutely nothing. Even the dog walk up the hill lane just seemed to take longer today. The days culmination was forgetting about tomorrow’s school uniform. So panic washing cycle started at 11.30pm. Waiting for it to finish now. Then we are going to crank up the Tumble Dryer to its highest setting – equivalent to splitting the atom. Hoping I will get a semi dry uniform to iron by 2am. It’s been one of those days…..

Anyway back to my rubbish connection.

When we went to see Kiss the support act was a performance painter called David Garibaldi. Have to say he is definitely gifted. Frankly it’s just showing off just a bit too much when you can paint Elton John brilliantly, before a Rocket Man finishes and doing the painting upside down. But seriously the guy is a genius.

“Dad he could do my bedroom like a modern Sistine Chapel during one Spongebob episode. It’s taken you a year and it’s still resembles a building site.”

I bet Garibaldi isn’t trying to paint a masterpiece at 1am while he waits for what’s left of a school uniform to dry. But maybe the secret is to take the painters approach to time management. Pick a song then try to finish the painting job before it finishes. I wonder if that could work with housework and washing.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 81 Comments

Frazzled

Frazzled that’s a good word. When I was younger I used it to describe the dreaded over heating meltdown the early laptops would often descend into. These days my laptop is that old and slow that it can’t even get warm – except for when the fat boy cat decides to sleep on it.

But now I have adopted Frazzled as my most common state of mind…..that’s even before school holidays start.

School holidays are fantastic as I get to spend even more quality time with our son. Yes I would prefer to sit with a cup of coffee in the happy knowledge that he is having wonderful adventures with friends. But this is a great backup option.

But one downside of school holidays is an outbreak of acute Frazzlement.

I start from a point of parenting fatigue. Then from breakfast until bed time I engage continually with a mind that operates on a completely different level to mine. One that runs at a speed way beyond the capacity of my really outdated brain. So many questions, so many different facts, so many different logic constructs. No outside world to help reset the brain. Rapidly my brain overheats and becomes frazzled. Son calls it Zombie Parenting. I’m there but the brain has shutdown. The simplest tasks become impossible. By the end of the day I am spent. Then you wake up even more tired and the cycle continues.

A blogger far cleverer than me talked about the desirability of having a backspace button options in life. I so so want a brain reset button. That would be fantastic. The chance to press reset then sit 5 minutes while the brain clears out the crap and reloads itself again. I would then be good to go again. Rather than wandering around for hours with an overheating and completely useless brain. System error messages pinging around the head. That’s my excuse for the poor level of my parenting currently. Today’s highlight has to be peeling a banana then handing our son the banana skin. Yes the actual banana had been binned. Not far behind that was trying to unload the bag from the Hoover … while the Hoover was still switched on… had to clean the ceiling.

Bring on Frazzled Friday.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 91 Comments

Tired

I’ve never really been much of a threat to the great thinkers of our time. This is especially the case when I’m tired. Today I’ve tried to function on 2 hours sleep in the last 24 hours. The results have verged on spectacular:

  • The picture above was mini cake attempt 3. No idea why they refused to rise this time. The first attempt I used Pea Protein Powder rather than Self-Raising Flour. The second attempt had the right ingredients but not necessarily the right ingredients for a cooking time of 2 hours – completely forgot about them.
  • Took the dog out into the garden for his morning constitutional. After a few minutes he was missing. Had a 5 minute panic until I realised the poor dog was still in the house..
  • Put dog food into the cat bowls.
  • Poured orange juice over my cornflakes.
  • During my early morning workout I actually fell asleep for a few seconds while trying to do floor presses.
  • Had to go to a meeting but put the wrong postcode in the sat navigation so my 15 minute journey took 50 minutes.
  • When I did get to my meeting and took my coat off. T-shirt inside out.
  • The final straw was opening a tin of Tuna to make our son a Tuna and Sweetcorn Sandwich. Funny looking Tuna more like sliced peaches in syrup. Can’t remember buying them…..

So today has been one of those days. Plenty of mistakes but no damage. In fact it’s been quite a lucky day. I posted a while back about stupidly booking two different sets of concert tickets for the same night. I spoke about our son deciding to see Ozzy rather than Thunder, but asking me to wait until the last minute as “this is Ozzy we are talking about”. Well today we found out the Ozzy concert has been put back a few weeks due to a bad case of Ozzy flu. So next week it’s Thunder. So yes I’m tired, very tired but kinda happy. Bring on Tuesday…..