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Aliens

Another Spring trip to the TROPICAL Yorkshire coast. This time FILEY. Filey was once a really popular Victorian seaside haunt and on the rare warm day, still gets mobbed. Today, just one day away from the usually seriously busy Bank Holiday Weekend, it was a bit of a ghost town. The 1000 place Car Park, had 3 cars parked up. Yes Saddo counted them. It’s just TOO cold.

A few years back there was a newspaper story claiming that an underwater ALIEN base had been discovered, bizarrely off the coast of Filey….

The town is supposed to be an ALIEN hotspot….. Well I hope the little Green Men have a Base which has robust anti seagull defences and monumentally good heating.

PS… my helpful spellchecker tried to change underwater to UNDERWEAR. Now that would have been a story. An Underwear Alien Base, I’m lost for words.

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Tropics…

It’s either beach weather or…

Frosts at night.

Maybe warmth next….

I think it’s getting to me, water and cold penetrating my wiring. Today went to the Post Office to buy some wrapping paper. Paper collected, I went to pay at the counter using Apple Pay on my iPhone. Easy enough, mobile in hand…..

Well not so easy as my mobile was still at home on the living room table and the thing I’m clutching in my hand, turns out to be the TV remote control.

There are no words…..

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 34 Comments

Saltburn

Three…..

3…….

Stood on Saltburn Pier today and it was 3C. As the wind howled across the North Sea, I dread to think what the wind chill factor was. Apparently it’s still Spring here. Thermal T-shirt, thick jumper and a down jacket simply wasn’t enough. We were FROZEN. But then again as Basil Fawlty once said when told there was always someone worse off than yourself

“REALLY, I’d love to meet them as I could do with a b…..y laugh”

We weren’t those poor souls trying to SURF. We heard frequent bloody curdling screams as they entered the water and that wasn’t a monster JAWS shark causing that. I’m sure I saw an iceberg at one stage, or maybe that was a surfer who had spent more than a minute in those frigid waters. We passed one surfer sat in his car, with the heating full on, holding a steaming cup of something, who was uncontrollably shaking….

Yes good old Saltburn. An old Yorkshire coast childhood haunt of mine. Every year my so called school would do a sponsored beach walk from Redcar to Saltburn and back again. The teachers spent the child free day in the Hydro pub. Don’t tell them but quite a few of the pupils had curtailed the walk after 100 yards and were in the Dolphin Pub, a bit further down the beach. I usually made it to Saltburn as then I got to ride the little funicular up the cliff. Back then that was as near as this part of the world got to Disneyland.

Sadly last years Oscar nominated movie called Saltburn had nothing to do with this little coastal town. Shame that, it might have livened up the movie a lot. I would like to see them attempt a lot of the raunchy stuff they apparently got up to in that movie anywhere near Saltburn beach, in these temperatures. Maybe that surfer sat shaking in his car had tried to recreate some movie scenes and spectacularly failed….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 44 Comments

Northern lights

More storms, more rain, more wind. The Farmer’s hard stacking efforts are now completely wrecked.

A cold often, grim, winter like day.

Not much fun, a day that felt like hard work.

But you never know what is round the corner. Forced ourselves and the very reluctant mad dog out for a cold, windswept, late evening walk.

The clouds cleared just enough for a few, brief light show moments. The Northern Lights never fail to be thrilling. If only my old phone could capture the beauty just a little better.

It can be such a wonderful life.

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Muddy paths

Muddy paths everywhere.

At this time of year this should be a nice, dry way through the local woods. Not this year. In fact part of the path is closed off as it is flooded. Early morning runs through here are currently a slide FEST. Hopefully it can dry out as the bluebells will be out real soon, maybe they can swim.

As my muddy legs got even more muddier this morning, I was pondering on something a work colleague had said in a meeting.

‘Daughter will be going to University September next year. That’s it, most of my full time parenting will be definitely over. She wants to go to St Andrews, then travel for a few months, then get a job in London. So in 17 months we get a spare room and maybe I can finally get that pool table….. Just need to get her through her driving test in November.

A clear timescale. Yes things might change, but still plans. It feels quite ordered with clear milestones.

I don’t get that feel, never have with this parenting gig. The way forward is hopefully full of so much potential, but it’s filled with so much uncertainty, so many unknowns, so many complications. When will he be able and willing to leave home. How much support will he need, where can he get that support from. Even have no idea about if and when he will be able to start driving. So much uncertainty, I’ve given up trying to plan or put in milestones. Just got to keep being there as best as I can for Hawklad and see what the future brings.

And YES, I ain’t ever buying a pool table. It will just end up being another shredded, pet hair disaster zone. I can definitely predict that fact.

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No Sun

Yorkshire is kinda stuck in weather, stuck in cold, grey and damp. It’s not just here that gets weather like this, even in my favourite place, Switzerland. Sometimes we would wake up to grim alpine weather, yet it didn’t stop the family adventure. Waterproofs on and off we went.

Happy GREY days.

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Sigh

That’s as bright as it’s been really….

But at least there are the first signs of this year’s flowers.

I recently bumped into someone we got to know at Hawklad’s first school and she asked after him with the following words…..

“Is he now over his Autism….”

Deep sigh…. Where do you start with that….

What’s really worrying is those words came from a Teacher.

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Weather

Another seriously damp and dark day in Yorkshire. After his morning constitutional walk, it was a fight with the mad dog for the best location nearest the fire. That kinda day.

Yes it’s not just Yorkshire that gets RAIN, Switzerland gets bucket loads as well. A wonderful Hotel Owner once told us with a smile ‘It rains somewhere in Switzerland every single day of the year. Switzerland always has Chocolate, Cheese and RAIN.”

Just like on the 23rd August 2015, it rained in Switzerland.

A dark and damp trip up The Niederhorn shows that the WEATHER can’t take away the wonder and beauty of some special places. I would happily take a bit more rain right now, AS LONG as I was in Switzerland.

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Sky drawing

Pilot having fun or maybe a pilot realising that a packed lunch was left back at The Terminal.

Lovely blue skies from a few weeks back, it’s been definitely not blue skies since then. The fields keep on getting muddier.

Perfect weather to reread Wuthering Heights, no wonder the classic grim tale was set in deepest Yorkshire.

I was chatting with a postman this morning and he talked about a man who lives near a surrounding village. At the start of January, he had moved into an old farmhouse a few miles away from the nearest housing. He told the postman that it had been weeks since he had spoken to anyone. He has no family, he didn’t know anyone in the area and was really suffering from the isolation. He had signed up to a local walking group but the walks have been cancelled due to the state of the paths. He had signed up to the local golf course, but that had been shut for weeks due to flooding. The postman was his only social contact currently. What made it so much worse was that when he went shopping to the local city supermarket, no one would ever make eye contact with him. He described it as being ‘invisible’, like he didn’t ’exist’. The supermarket only has self service checkouts so he couldn’t even chat to someone scanning his shopping.

That got me thinking. How often do I go shopping with my head down, with my walls up.

I strongly suspect that’s happening way more these days, a pandemic certainly hasn’t helped. What is clear, more people are feeling isolated and cut off. More and more people are struggling, feeling unseen.

Tomorrow I’m going to make an effort to keep my head up when I go shopping.

Eye contact, maybe a smile, maybe even saying HI.