Mother Issues!

This is a copy of a post I have posted elsewhere but felt there was a relevance to it being here, please forgive the lack of personalisation in it but I don’t have the energy and patience to go through re-wording and personalising this item. I am interested in any comments that you might have on this post.

I have said in the past that my blog posts are a little like busses, none for ages and then loads at once, well I have not written much for ages but feel that there are a few blog posts coming for one or other of my blogs.

So, where to start, well a good place to start is with my mother! Always a topic to get me wound up.

I will input into this post some stuff I chatted over with my counsellor today about this subject, spent my whole session chatting round issues related to my mother.

OK so a few weeks ago my niece was staying with my mother, my niece is 15 and it was a surprise that she had wanted to spend some time with my mother, as they have never really got on together, mind you my mother doesn’t really get on with anyone.

We felt a little sorry for my niece so decided that we would invite them both to join us on an afternoon at a local country park, our son was in respite so it was only our daughter with us, my mother was her usual self, very self centred and whenever the conversation went to discussing anything other than her, e.g. when I asked my niece how school was going etc, she rapidly brought the subject back to herself, this happened several times.

Anyhow, whilst there, our daughter wet herself, as you will be aware she has learning difficulties and, at the age of 8, can still be a little unreliable with her toileting, but usually pretty reliable, my wife got on and change her and I alerted members of staff who cleared up the mess, with no fuss or problems. No more was mentioned and we didn’t think it was a big deal.

Right, now fast forward a couple of weeks to Saturday just gone, I had a phone call from my mother asking if I could check her oil and water on her car as she is due to go away shortly, during this conversation she asked whether I had heard from my sister, which I hadn’t, she then went on to say that she had fallen out with her, why? Because my niece has decided that she wants to change her name from her birth fathers surname to my sisters maiden name, you will need to read this carefully to follow it all, my sister is a divorcee, her ex, my nieces father, was abusive to the kids, and continues to be (verbally primarily) so there are good reasons why my niece might want to have little to do with him, my sister being a divorcee has taken her maiden name back, this is the name she acquired through her father, my step father, although I use this surname simply because its what everyone knew me as all my life, anyhow, my mother and step father split up about 22 years ago when he had an affair with a younger woman, he now lives somewhere abroad, America or Australia, with his second wife and their 2 children.

OK so my mother was upset that my niece has decided to take his surname because of the hurt he has caused her, now the only hurt he has caused my mother is to have an affair with someone, I do not mean to belittle this BUT it happens all the time! In-fact I have a suspicion, although my mother would deny it, that her relationship with my step father started as her having an affair with him whilst still with my birth father.

So, again considering the fact that my niece has suffered at the hands of her father I can understand why she might want to take the surname that her mother is currently using. Anyhow, my reaction to my mother was pretty swift and unusually assertive with her, she usually makes me feel like that little boy again and I find it difficult to be so assertive, but anyhow I simply told her that it was a silly thing to fall out over and my niece has the right to make this decision herself! My mother was hurt by this but I stood my ground and she swiftly turned the subject back to her car, I said I would get back in touch, but was already not very keen on doing anything for her.

Anyhow, I then rang my sister to discuss with her, I have found it pays to get her story ready for my next encounter with my mother. And had an enlightening discussion. Yes my niece did want to change her name and yes my sister had told my mother this was her decision and hers alone, so my mother put the phone down on her!

Ok so the relevance of the wetting incident? Simply that my sister, informed me that my niece really didn’t enjoy staying with my mother, surprise, surprise, but mainly because my mother was so critical of so many people, including apparently telling my niece that my daughter wetting herself was embarrassing! As was the fact that my daughter is so clearly over weight! Now this just about shows the level of my mothers selfishness ignorance and arrogance and made me see red! After all the times we have gone out of our way to take my mother out and al the hours spent with her saying how ‘lovely’ & how ‘sweet’ our daughter is and all the time she was embarrassed by things like that! Yes our daughter does have a weight issue and she does have bladder (and bowel) control problems, but that’s all part of the disability, as our niece pointed out but my mother apparently dismissed it and said it had nothing to do with it! Presumably she blames the parents!

So now I was faced with a real dilemma, do I go and sort my mothers car out or do I throw my dummy out of the pram and refuse? And if I do go, do I mention the matter or not?

Well, for the sake of good relations I choose to go, although we made pretty sure we didn’t have to spend long there, went on the way back from being out and had some dinner in the oven! So the kids and my wife stayed in the car as I sorted her car out, I also choose not to raise the subject although would have had a thing or 2 to say if she had mentioned anything along those lines!

Basically I am at the point where I am considering severing ties with my own mother because her attitude is totally unacceptable, we have chosen to give life and opportunities to 2 children with special needs and they do NOT need this kind of attitude from their own grandmother.

This raises again the whole, honouring your parents issue, which would be easy to do if she were keeping the commandments too as she wouldn’t be so awkward and difficult to be honouring to.

Anyhow, in chatting with my counsellor today we discussed some of the issues and reasons why I find it difficult to tackle issues directly with my mother, on this occasion it wasn’t that I found it difficult to tackle it I deliberately chose not to raise the issue myself but generally I always feel as though she turns me into a little child again, primarily because she has always, for as long as I can remember belittled me and run me down, she has always treated my views and opinions as if they don’t count and actually she pays very little attention to anything that I, or my sister say, as if our views are unimportant, also through my childhood she has pretty much made me feel as a small child, not allowed to have a view or opinion of myself, I have to listen to what my parents say as they are always right!

Another part of this is the whole honouring issue, how can you disagree with your parents and still honour them? Well I have good cause to disagree with my mother, she is so often wrong, and bigoted and ignorant and doesn’t listen to another persons opinion or point of view! But that doesn’t mean I don’t honour her, and respect her, as another human being that is! As my mother, no, all she did was to give birth to me and accommodate me for a few years, she has never earned the right to be honoured as my mother.

Anyhow, some of you might think that I am being rather harsh on her, well if that’s you feel free to contact me and you can take her as your mother! Lets see how long you survive!

Basically my mother falls out regularly with all sorts of people, for all sorts of silly reasons, this issue with my sister is just the latest (that I know of) in a long line of issues over which she falls out with people.

At the moment she is away on holiday (kind of!) with her sister but she has regularly fallen out with her too, my mum has said several times that her sister ‘always has to be right, she can’t accept that she is ever wrong’ sounds familiar to me!

Another example of how awkward and stubborn my mother can be is also connected to names, my sister has chosen, since leaving home, to be known by her middle name rather than her first name, I have to say I can’t blame her because in my view her middle name is much nicer, this again is a decision that she is entitled, as an adult, to make, its all part of her stamping her own identity and personality on her life but my mother refuses to refer to her by her middle name, this leads to a lot of confusion especially when my mum was living not far from my sister, everyone there knew my sister by her middle name so got pretty confused when my mum called her by her first name, changing your preferred name in this way, either using your middle name or abbreviating your name or taking on a nick name etc is pretty common place in society, but my mum just wants her little girl to shrink away and conform to her mums standards and expectations. In fact I think I am going to make a conscious decision to call my sister by her preferred name, at least when addressing her in person even if my mother is around, regardless of the consequences because this is what my sister WANTS! And she is old enough to make this decision, it might be difficult for a while as I am so used to her being called, and me calling her, by her first name.

Anyhow, at this point in time I am having to make a conscious decision that I will NOT be sucked into my mothers games and manipulation that I WILL NOT allow her to control me or to turn me into that little child that I will act as the adult and address the issues in an adult and grown up way, without loosing my temper and without allowing myself to be turned into the little child again, regardless of how she reacts, even to the point where I can make the conscious decision to NOT tackle an issue if I feel it would not be constructive, or would even be detrimental to do some but this would be a decision would be a conscious decision made in my adult self rather than one made because I have become the weak child that she wants me to become.

Fortunately for us we have always made a point of refusing to allow my mother to have any stronghold over us in the form of having given ups money to help us out, there have been times that she has offered to help us financially with some significant expenditure, most recently the cost of re-wiring the house, but we have always turned down these offers because we do not want to allow her to be able to use this against us. A good policy and one my sister wishes she had adopted but she has taken money from my mother at various times and always regrets it.

Anyhow, I do feel that, in the right time and in the right way I need to tackle some of this stuff directly with my mother, addressing her general attitude towards other people and telling her that her attitude is only going to result in her being very lonely into her old age, certainly myself and my sister feel that we are reaching the end of what we can tolerate from her. But also addressing directly her attitudes and prejudices about our children, telling her that if she is that embarrassed by our kids then she best not come out with us! But timing and wording will be crucial, I need to ensure that my attitude and actions are from right motives and done in a right way but also being prepared to accept that this MAY result in the severing of relationships, for at least a time, depending on her response, this is obviously not an issue I can tackle with the kids present either, so wisdom beyond wisdom is needed to know how best to tackle this.

I think that’s about all I need to say on this, the post is a lot longer than I expected but that’s not unusual, as I said at the beginning there may well be a couple of others to follow this if I can get my head round it all.

core belief's and evidenced based belief

OK so that sounds quite a heavy title for a post but hopefully it won’t be as heavy as all that!

Over the past couple of weeks in counselling we have chatted around issues of ‘core beliefs’ some of my core beliefs being that I am useless, stupid, ugly, no one likes me, unable to do anything, the list could go on! Pretty much all my core belief’s are negative. As if you needed to know that!

She said that core beliefs are really set during childhood, we develop our core beliefs through what our parents & other influential adults tell us and then they are set and it becomes difficult to change them.

So what about the evidence based belief part of this? Well my counsellor was saying that when we have core beliefs we always look for evidence that supports those core beliefs and dismiss evidence that doesn’t support them, so for example, I see myself as stupid, I build this belief up by looking for all the evidence to support it, when I don’t know the answers to the things people ask or I cant solve a problem etc and dismiss all the clever things I manage to do, when I manage to solve problems or sort things out for myself or for others. Yep that about sums me up!

How else can someone who as a Transport Manager was head hunted on more than one occasion because they thought I was good at the job manage to decide that he is stupid? Quite simply, I dismiss others belief that I am pretty good at it by saying they don’t really know me, etc.

Anyhow, you can see how this whole issue swims round and round in circles, for me I am working very hard on trying to correct some of my core beliefs because I know that others do not share the same view of me that I share of myself, as has been evidenced by some of the things they say and the way that they have spoken about me, I must dig out that list of positive things people spoke about/over me a few months back.

Having gone through my childhood believing that I was useless, ugly, stupid etc I have carried those beliefs into adult life and perfected the belief in my own mind so it takes a lot to over come those beliefs and I need to constantly look for and validate the evidence that supports the opposite views to those that I have thus far believed. After all, as my wife regularly says, do I want to believe the things that my parents said about me when I was a child (and my mother continues to say to this day) or will I believe the things that those who are nearest to me and who love me most say about me? Well there is no contention really when you put it like that BUT life is never quite as easy, its not a matter of flicking a switch and hey presto your mind set has changed.

OK now for the other part of this post, hadn’t intended to write most of the above! What I really wanted to say was, it occurred to me earlier today that the vast majority of people, even those who are highly educated and respected leaders in the field of science, can and do fall into the trap of developing core beliefs then looking for evidence to support their belief rather than looking at all the evidence before forming a belief, indeed it would be pretty impossible to do the latter as the evidence sometimes changes over time.

So, for example, many years ago people believed that the world was flat and the whole of their world view was based in the belief that the world was flat, they never challenged this because all the evidence (that the found) pointed to the world being flat, it took a lateral thinker to challenge this assumption and re-define the whole way we saw the world when he discovered that the world was actually a globe, can you imagine what it would be like if we still thought the world was flat?

There are still those who don’t believe that smoking causes any health problems, these people will point to the evidence of great uncle bob or granddad who at the age of 90+ is still going strong and has smoked 40 a day fro most of their life, indeed if you look only at this evidence you can see why people come to the conclusion that smoking cant be that bad for you, but that is to dismiss the huge number of deaths each week from the effects of smoke, lung cancer etc.

Another example might be the pro & anti Europe camps in this country, those who are anti Europe will look for all the beurocratic decisions all the stupid rules, the costs to us as a nation of being a part of the community whereas those who believe we should be in Europe will look at all the benefits, the grants we receive the good laws that come out of Europe (at which point the euro sceptics say what good laws?) the investment and security the EU offers us, oh and before you ask, I am pretty neutral on the issue of Europe!

When is comes to faith, religious beliefs, we all have a faith, whether we acknowledge it or not, and our faith usually provides the basis of our world view, for some their faith is a belief on God, in some form or another, for others it is a belief that there is no God, whichever camp you fall into I can guarantee that you look for the evidence to support that belief rather than looking at the evidence that exists to see what it tells you, your thought patterns are affected by your belief system.

As a Christian I freely admit that I look for, and see, evidence of God’s creative work in every day life, I can see the way that he has created and written DNA into every living thing, the way that he made the planet to be such a beautiful place, the way that he made everything good.

Of course those who are evolutionists will point to the glaciers and carbon dating and various other aspects of the world to show how clear it is that the world was formed out of a big bang and we are all evolved from microscopic beings, or whatever is their particular conviction of how we came to be.

The evidence on any side can and will be overwhelming to the people who hold to that particular belief.

So, who can claim to have THE answers and know the truth? Well I believe that the truth can only be known separate from the ‘evidence’ and comes out of an inner evidence, as a Christian I have had a personal encounter with God and know from my inner evidence that he exists and that there is truth to be discovered, however I can not provide you the reader with evidence that will sway you because you will filter all the evidence based on your pre-conceived views and beliefs.

Many people who have grown up with an abusive father have struggled with the concept of God as Father, until recently, well the past couple of years, I would have denied this was me, I could relate to the concept of God as father, but the truth is that I still had a wrong perception, I have always believed that I pretty much sneaked into the kingdom, I wasn’t actually chosen, at the meeting where I went forward to give my life to God I was just one of a number of people and I have always felt that when I stood there God looked at me and just said ‘oh you came forward too did you? OK I will let you in’ this view was really due to the relationship I had with my parents in growing up, always feeling as if I was just tolerated rather than loved, not wanted but there, not being kicked out but still not really being welcomed as a valued part of the family. This mind set has been really clear in the way I have felt about going through the depths of depression over the past couple of years.

Are there issues where you filter evidence through your own belief system rather than filter your belief system through all the evidence open to you? I know that there are still definitely areas that I need to work on, areas where I still believe things and stack the evidence in support of that belief. Mainly for me in relation to my perception of myself, but bit by bit I am dismantling my belief system in an effort to rebuild it on the security of all the evidence available.

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The following is the text of an e-mail I have received in response to this blog post, Mike (the author) is a photographer who's blog I have been following with some interest over the past few months, He lives in the same area as me and I am hoping to get out with him so that he can teach me camera techniques and help me improve my photography skills. As he says, his response is too long a comment to have left directly on my blog so he chose to e-mail it to me, I am copying it into the end of the original post because it adds soem very thought provoking ideas to my original post, if you wish to find out more about Mike he can be found on his own website here.

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Hi David

Well, as you'll have now discovered, I've stumbled across your blog.

That's what you get for posting a link to it on Twitter! Heh heh.

Anyway, I wrote this *huge* comment to one of your posts only to find that blogspot wouldn't accept it cos it had "too many characters". A bit reluctant to then just consign it to the recycle bin, thought I'd email it to you. Do with it what you will.

Here 't is...

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Well, I've now returned the favour and bookmarked your blog ;)

Discovered through one of your tweets, and rather pleased about it I am too for this is a fascinating post. Most thought-provoking. And one with which I can only too easily identify. That's to say, the opening paragraphs.

I don't think I've ever phrased it to myself in quite such terms but for as long as I can remember I've always had an awareness that my perception of myself is very frequently at odds with the perception of me that others appear to hold. And generally the latter tends to be rather more positive than the former.

Which in effect, if I've understood you correctly, is pretty much the same as you're saying.

Perhaps I should qualify that for I'm not entirely happy with the terms "positive" and "negative", in the sense that "positive" could be taken to imply "good" or "nice" or whatever, and that's not quite what I meant.

More accurate perhaps would be to say that others' perceptions of my abilities and competencies frequently appear kindlier than my own.

What I'd not connected this disparity with however was the influence my early years viz parents etc may have had in the forming of my self-perception.

Its a fascinating and persuasive notion, and one to which I can see myself giving considerable thought.

But leaving that aside, you then go on to talk of people falling "into the trap of developing core beliefs then looking for evidence to support their belief rather than looking at all the evidence before forming a belief" and, as you rightly observe, in some circumstances it would be almost impossible to do otherwise.

This too set me to thinking. About the statement itself, and about the assumption implicit in the statement, which becomes much clearer with your closing remark. An assumption, moreover, that I suspect we all tend to make... that "evidence" is in some fashion more valid than "belief".

Particularly if we're equating validity with "closeness to the truth".

("Closeness to the facts"? Hmm. Even a statement as apparently simple as this raises profound questions.)

But I wonder if such an assumption is justified?

Here's a few random thoughts...

Can "evidence" be said to exist "in isolation" as it were? Or does it not, rather, derive its status from the interpretation we put upon it?

Even to the extent of deciding which factors are relevant and therefore constitute "evidence" and which factors should be discarded as irrelevant?

Is it not possible that the whole notion of "evidence" is little other than a product of our own perception of "reality"? And if so, would that not actually render it, paradoxically, a product of belief?

It seems to me that the attraction of restructuring (or attempting to

restructure) one's life upon "the evidence" in preference to core beliefs resides in the assumption that in some way "the evidence" is more accurate, more truthful, or more representative of "reality" (or however you wish to express it) than belief may be.

Yet, as you so rightly observe, "evidence sometimes changes over time".

Thus, how would we know, were we to structure our lives upon the evidence available today, that such evidence wouldn't change (or, more pertinently, even be proven wrong by the discovery of more complete evidence for example) tomorrow?

And if there is an "absolute reality" and the evidence available to us at any given time can only ever be reflective of our circumscribed knowledge and/or understanding of that absolute reality and therefore (and inevitably) incomplete, how wise can it be to structure our lives upon such an incomplete (and possibly completely mistaken) basis?

(Bringing this principle right back down to "our own doorstep", how can others' perceptions of us constitute any form of reliable evidence when their knowledge of us is far less complete than our own?)

Is it even possible to attempt such an undertaking? How would we know, for example, that we have all the available evidence at our disposal?

Could it not be that actions based on partial evidence may be more erroneous than actions based purely on belief?

And in fact would those actions themselves not be based upon belief...

the belief that we have all the available evidence at our disposal?

Dilemmas indeed!

I think the thing I find most worrying about this is the sense that an "evidence-based life" (for want of a better term) hints of a very mechanistic (one might almost say materialistic) approach, and seems to allow little room for "movements of the Spirit".

And that, so it seems to me, goes against the available evidence of what humans actually are, or how they live their lives in reality.

There's another paradox for you!

I doubt if any reasonable person would argue with the notion that certain things are susceptible of being decided upon the basis of the evidence. One example you've used is that of the harmful effects of smoking.

I can't imagine any reasonable person (even smokers) disputing that smoking can be (and generally is) seriously injurious of health. And such a conclusion is based purely upon the available evidence alone.

However, such examples don't (so it seems to me) necessarily or even logically lead to the inference that everything should be (or needs to

be) evidence-based.

Let's return to the matter of perceptions of self... one's own and those of others.

In my own particular case, were I to "buy into" the evidence offered by other peoples' perceptions of my abilities in certain areas then its distinctly conceivable that my efforts to improve in those areas would be significantly less than efforts based upon my own perception of such abilities.

In other words, its entirely conceivable that one's own lesser perceptions of oneself can be the motivation to strive to improve. And surely that is a good thing. Isn't it?

My own "spiritual path" (which, as you may have realised by now, goes by a somewhat different name to yours... though I tend not to place too much significance upon mere labels) demands of me a constant striving, which effort can only ever be based upon my own perception of myself and my shortcomings. Were I to allow it to be otherwise then its entirely conceivable that such striving wouldn't be anywhere near as rigorous.

Or so I believe ;)

And (returning to an earlier point) should validity even be equated to "closeness to the truth"? How can we ever know what such "truth" is (in any absolute sense) when it must forever be filtered through (or coloured by... whichever you prefer) our exclusively human perceptions? Would it not then make more sense to equate validity to relevancy?

And if relevancy be that which has the greatest potential for impacting our lives, or actually does impact and motivate us to the greater extent, then it seems to me that belief is far more valid than evidence.

Hmm. I've just re-read everything I've written and it strikes me as sounding somewhat challenging. Its not intended in that way. Its all just speculation reflective of my own virtually constant uncertainty about... oh... almost everything. Apart from my core beliefs of course

;)

fotdmike

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all the best

mike

Decorating

It’s a few days now since I did it but at the end of last week I achieved something that I am really proud of, I decorated Nat’s bedroom, Ok so maybe not the most earth shattering achievement you might think! And to some its nothing special.

Originally when we got the paint the idea was that we were going to take up an offer, by Chris & Hannah, to decorate her room for us, it was a very generous offer on their part and we were grateful for it, however when it came to look at obvious dates etc to do the decorating it became apparent that we would do well to take advantage of Steven being in respite the back end of last week, to decorate, as we could put Nat into his room for the duration, we would have used the weekend but it turned out to be a busy weekend, with a BBQ on the Saturday afternoon and a church picnic on the Sunday afternoon so there was no way we could do it then! That meant that we couldn’t take Chris & Hannah up on their offer as they would be at work when we needed to decorate, or at least Hannah would for definite, which is why I ended up doing the decorating, whether I liked it or not.

I spent basically all day Thursday and Friday morning painting and a couple of hours Friday afternoon putting up her border and then I spent 3 hours Monday putting together a bed that was supposed, according to the instructions, to take just 1 hour! OK I wasn’t rushing but I wasn’t moving that slow.

I am pleased partly because we have given her room a completely new makeover, with paints, curtains and bedding all that she chose, and all complementing the lamp shade she chose the other week.

We also got her a new bed a space saving ‘Cabin Bed’ and are awaiting delivery of her new, matching wardrobe, before we can complete the job.

OK so still not got a clue why this is so earth shattering? Well in short its because I managed to paint her room, and I have had a pretty acute paint phobia! The reasons for the phobia are complex and it would be inappropriate to go into details on here but believe me this is a real achievement which goes way beyond the physical effort required to decorate.

So, in short yes I am pleased at the results, Nat loves her new look room and rightly so because it looks great, IMHO, but also I managed to face one of my big phobias to tackle the job.

So I am sorry that I deprived Chris and Hannah of the opportunity to do the decorating but at the same time I am really glad that I did manage to do it myself because it has given me something to be really proud of, being able to say that I managed to achieve it on my own gives me a real sense of achievement and ‘moving on’ in life.

Skegness by the sea

I am starting to write this post quite late at night just to occupy my brain (what brain I hear you say!) for a while but will drop off to sleep soon so will have to pick up from where I left off tomorrow.

OK so 4^th July might not be a special day in the UK, but for our US cousins it certainly is, it’s the day they celebrate their independence (from us I believe, so why we wish them a happy independence day I am not too sure!) anyhow, we spent this 4^th July in Skegness of all places!

We went for a trip to the seaside! Normally these days we go to Felixstowe if we want a day trip to the seaside, because it takes just over 2 hours to get there, Skeg is about 2hr 45 minutes, we used to go to Cromer a lot but found that was too long (at 2hrs 30m) now we have kids, we have also been to wonderful Hunstanton but never been to Skeg, would not have normally considered it but we have a good friend who resides (hope you like how posh I make it sound Sue!) in Lincolnshire, we got to know her at Grapevine many years ago and have seen her there every year except for last year (she normally stewards) she had a wedding to attend last year so was not able to make it, this year we have made the decision not to go ourselves, personal reasons largely centred around my health and the fact that we just feel its too much to cope with for us and the kids now they are getting that bit older, maybe in a few years time we might give it a try again, but then we were also not impressed with various aspects of the event over the past couple of years, except that as we stop going they seem to have started gearing up more for disabled facilities! Ironic I know!

Anyhow, having not seen Sue for almost 2 years and no signs of when we might see her we had arranged to meet at Skeg, which we duly did, the journey there was a little frustrating because the roads are pretty slow anyhow and it wasn’t helped by 2 major roads along our rote being closed, requiring fairly lengthy diversions on slower roads, and the re-awakening of my navigation skills with the map (Sat Nav works fine until there are unexpected road closures and it certainly had not expected this one!) just as well I can still read a map!

Anyhow, we got there in one piece and meet up with Sue, pretty easy to do actually, and headed onto the beach, the beach is flat and sandy, gritty sand but sand none the less, it was a beautiful day with lovely weather, it was a little cooler than it clearly has been inland but that’s no bad thing, some of us still managed to get sunburnt, we had a long time on the beach, punctuated by going off the beach for some lunch. And the kids have been so well behaved today, Nat was thoroughly entertained.

It was great to see Sue again and we chatted a fair bit, when Nat would let us!

Skeg was very busy but seemed to cope with the crowds, there were loads of takeaway kiosks and the like along, and just off, the front, as well as plenty amusements but there was little point in going spending money on amusements when the kids were happy to be on the beach.

We were impressed with the prices of food and drink in Skeg, large ice cream (probably the nicest whipped ice cream I have tasted in a long time) for 65p! would have cost about 1.30 in Bedford and other places we go!

Although we were less impressed with the car parking charges, £1 per hour and we were not even exempt from it because of the blue badges (disabled persons parking permit, as opposed to disabled badges, to the uneducated!) and the cost of spending a penny has been seriously impacted by rising inflation and credit crunches, it now costs 20p in Skeg, 20p come on what is that all about? They didn’t even have gold plated taps. There is no way that we do 20X as much wee as we used to when it only cost 1p, although I did my best to get my moneys worth when I did use the facilities, it was a bit of a surprise though for Joy who took Nat to the toilets, from our location on the beach, leaving her handbag with us, only to have to treck all the way back to get her 20p and go back again!

After our afternoon beach session we ‘bribed’ nat off the beach with the offer of a donkey ride, yes that’s right they have donkey rides on the beach, she was scared at first but by the end of the ride she was loving it, thanks in no small part to the way that Sue was in encouraging her to enjoy it, she has a real gift with our kids, or should I say she is a real gift for us with our kids? Time she relocated to Bedford I think J

Anyhow, after a very good day we drove back, much more straightforward this time as we were able to ensure our route didn’t take in the closed sections of road and there seemed to be less cars too.

We are please with both our kids, they did us proud today, being so well behaved and a real pleasure to take out for the day, we even got away with nat not askign to go on lots of rides during the day.

So, over all, Skeg is a really good seaside resort, there were plenty of things to occupy the kids had the weather not been so fantastic, the beach is level and sandy, which is ideal for us, although the sand is that fine gritty (sharp sand) type which isn’t quite so nice and its colour made it look a little dirty, but other than that the beach was good, plenty of space for the crowds.

Parking, well over priced but seemed to be plenty of it although with our 'cavy mobile' which is like a Transit van sized vehicle, the car park nearest the beach wasn’t accessible as there was a height limit, 1” below our height, didn’t want to chance the barrier, and the one we did go into the spaces and layout made it very tight so difficult to manoeuvre in and out of space and quite tight to get the kids in and out of the side door, we managed to get on the end of a row which made it easier. When will they learn that generally cars need more space these days than they did back in 1960 whenever it was that the standard car parking space was invented? There was also a totally inadequate number of disabled parking spaces so these were all taken by the time we got there.

Toilet facilities, done enough on that, the disabled toilets would have probably been too small to meet current regulations and were very tight, fortunately we do most of Steven’s changes in the car, the access to the toilet, turnstile barriers where you pay also mean that mums with buggy’s cant use them so I think most of them have acquired a Radar Key which didn’t help the length of queue at the disabled toilet.

Plenty of food outlets and places selling beach good and they all seemed reasonably priced and clean. And access generally was very good, didn’t like the wheelchair accessibility at McDonalds because they only had one route to the front door wide enough for wheelchair access and that was right next to the bike park so when, as happened, someone lays a bike down instead of standing it up the wheelchair access is totally lost! That’s a real bad point.

We would definatelly consider going back again some time but only really if it was too meet up with Sue or someone else as it is a bit of a treck from us, also nto realy suitable if yopu want a quiet and isolated beach, the amusements are located convenient to access but not in your face if you want to keep the kids from begging to go on every ride on offer.

I didn’t start writing this as a ‘report’ on the resort but perhaps I should have done, I might take up reviewing places we visit, particularly from our disability issue perspective, as it might be useful to other folk as well.

A busy day, 2 school fete's

So, today was always going to be a pretty busy day, both Steven’s & Natalie’s schools decided to hold their school summer fetes on the same day, except that neither of them were actually school fetes!

Fortunately the weather has been pretty reasonable otherwise it would have been a bit of a washout all round.

First off we had Steven’s school fun day, from 11am, this was a good and well attended event, they had Boogie Pete from Boogie Bebbies on the CBebbies channel so he managed to get the crowd worked up and dancing with him, Nat enjoyed joining in but Steven was most disgusted at the thought of being in school on a Saturday, as the photo shows! He didn’t want to join in much and spent most of the time trying to escape or sitting on a chair with his back to the activity.

Natalie joined in with the dancing and we chatted with a few other parents.

We had to leave the fun day early to grab some lunch and then get Nat changed for the village fete and school open day, the school is only a very small one (14-ish in a year group) and they always try and get as many kids involved in the fete as possible, by doing some dances, sadly I couldn’t manage to get any video or photo’s of Nat doing her dance as she was about as far from where we were stood as is possible but she did do really well, the whole school always does do a fantastic job at events like this, for a small school, even for a larger school, they have a really dedicated and committed staff who do get the very best out of the kids and they so obviously and clearly breed some really talented kids too.

It is with a slight tinge of sadness that we watched Nat dancing because this is the last time we will see her take part on any such activities at this school, from September she moves on to a school for children with moderate learning difficulties, this is a bitter sweet thing, we are pleased that she has got a place there, especially as we had expected to have to fight to get her in, but we are sad that she will no longer be at the school she currently goes to because it is a fantastic school and we shall miss the staff, parents & kids, it really is a wrench but we do need to consider what is best for Nat and our (and the schools) overwhelming feeling is that now is the right time for her to move into special school.

Nat also enjoyed having her face painted and having a go on the bouncy castle.

We then headed to the local Garden Centre for a drink before heading off home, although by the time we were getting in the car to go home Nat had got over tired and was really stroppy and difficult so we decided to take a bit of a drive round and see if she went to sleep, which she did, we went past the road where Steven’s old school was, this closed down a couple of years ago now, so we decided to take a drive up there to see what was happening to the buildings, which apparently is not a lot! Obviously someone is looking after the playing fields and grounds but there are no signs up to indicate any purpose the buildings are being used for.

Anyhow, that’s about the size of our day, for me very draining! I had a rather emotional and difficult time yesterday and then to have such a draining day today has been rather tough, not least because of being around so many people and having to cope with socialising with people, something I often find difficult and draining these days. busy days are never going to be great whilst I still suffer depression BUT considering all this hasnt been as bad a day as it could have been, especially follwoing on from yesterday.

The finished product.....

Natalie roaring like a tiger after her face was all made up, at her school fete, you can see the full video of the makeup going on:

A busy weekend

Saturday morning, in our house, started way too early, did you know its daylight at 5.30 this time of year? Well I have know that for some time but could have done without having confirmation of it this weekend!

So yes it could have been worse, if Steven had a seizures (or seizures) as bad as he did Saturday morning, if he had one that bad whilst we were away that would have been so much more difficult and stressful altogether.

Yes Steven had several Fits Saturday morning, the first, rather short one at 5.30, followed a few minutes later by another one, this went on for a total of 25 minutes, including having been administered Bucal midazolam after 5 minutes, so we had to call the ambulance 10 minutes into the seizure, he had just about stopped by them time they arrived.

So Joy went with him to A&E whilst I stayed back and got myself and Nat organised, it was the In-laws to the rescue again, I rang them and arranged to drop Nat round there, which I did about 8.30, about the same time as Steven had another fit in A&E, this one also went over the 5 minute mark so they ended up administering some medication to stop the fit.

Anyhow, after dropping Nat off I joined Joy & Steven at the hospital.

Because of the second fit and the second dose of medication he had to stay in for ‘observation’ so was sent, after a long delay, up to the children’s ward, they couldn’t take him straight away as they were allegedly short staffed!

Granted once we got onto the ward there were very few nurses on duty BUT it also has to be said there were also next to no patients there either! So we are a little puzzled why they had such a problems, especially as we are the ones who do most of the observing.

Anyhow, Steven did pick up during the morning and we got out just before 3pm, not before I enjoyed the delights of the restaurant a couple of times.

So we headed off home, I dropped Joy & Steven off then went and picked Nat up, she had a great time having been out with Grandma and Arnie and then at the kite festival with Grandma & Grandpa.

Anyhow, it was time to fulfil my commitment to her, the Friday evening I had promised to take her shopping for a new lampshade, the old one had gone with the light fitting over the re-wiring works, she had remembered this promise when I got her up in the morning and was a little upset about not being able to do that, although she was more upset and concerned about Steven it has to be said! So anyhow, I took her to Homebase and we bought a new lampshade and matching bedside lamp, Disney Princess set, along with the Disney princess picture that Hanny pants and CJ had bought her for her birthday we now have a theme going on in her room, just need to get some new curtains and bedding to match and paint the walls, they need a coat of paint anyhow, pink to fit in, pink is her favourite colour anyhow! In-fact I did look at sample colours for decorating the living rooms and Nat insisted that we pick up a sample of some pink paint! I guess she has her room in mind.

So having done this we were pretty shattered.

Sunday morning started normally enough, we got up and went to church, Nat spent quite a bit of the time with Richard & Ursula, her adopted grandparents!!! After the service we hung about a fair bit then went to head off home, only to find the car wouldn’t start!!! So we unloaded again back into the church, we had some church keys with us so at least we could stay there and lock up afterwards, it was way too hot for staying in the car for too long.

I call the RAC and was really impressed with the service, the guy was with us inside of half an hour from calling them, it took about half an hour to get the car going and then we were on our way, it was a problem with earthing on the engine apparently! Whatever that means.

So that was the weekend pretty well interrupted, Sunday afternoon was good though went out and had a good time with the kids. I have to say the kids have been really good this weekend.

OK so today was good, the kids packed off to school, we then meet a friend for lunch, this is a friend who we have got to know through Facebook, this is now the third person who we have meet in real life following initial contact only via Facebook! Any children reading this don't try it yourself, we only do so after very careful assessment of the risks and knowing the person on line for a fair bit before meeting them also we always meet in a public and neutral venue for first meeting, well almost true when I meet my good friend Graham he came to the office to pick me up! But hey I wouldn’t do that with everyone.

So we meet this lady today, I wont name her here I shall refer to her as Tilly, she is someone who I have got to know through a support group on Facebook, and is a fantastic young woman, she has overcome so much to be the person she is today and I admire her so much, she lives not too far from where we live so we arranged, myself and Joy, to meet up with her today, I think we shall be seeing more of each other in the future.

Tilly, you know who you really are, you’re a great friend and we both consider it a privilege to have you as our friend, hope everything works out for you and hope to see you again soon.

Anyhow, that’s enough from me for now, will write more some time soon.

i was going to go for a fruit salad but my willpower isnt too great so skipped that and went for this instead! Still at hospital btw.

Half Term

OK so Half term is now all but finished, it’s Friday evening and we have the weekend to get through and then the kids are back to school.

As you will know we have has electricians in over half term and we escaped to a seaside sanctuary, we went to Southwold (in Suffolk) and stayed in a bungalow (here are some pictures etc) the property was well decorated and ideal for our needs although the garden wasn’t ideal as it was all tiered paving with loads of pots.

Anyhow, after we moved the Buddha and the breakables out of the way it was fine.

The whole week was really relaxed, the kids were pretty well behaved and we found an ideal spot to park and have access to the beach, Tuesday & Wednesday morning were not great weather but we had really nice days other than that, even those days were not exactly wash outs.

Holidaying that little bit closer to home did mean that we were able to have friends come and join us for the day, Joys parents came across on the Bank Holiday Monday and Meryl & Family joined us yesterday, which was fab.

Whilst we were away the electricians were working away, the original plan was for them to do the job in 2 phases, phase 1 over half term and phase 2 in August, when we would move into Joys parents to allow them to get on with it, as it turns out they managed to get the whole job done in 1 week, all except for half a days work having everything tested and certificated.

So we came back to a little disruption but nowhere near as bad as I had expected and they have done a fantastic job, the reason we had to have them in was because the wiring itself was the old fashioned rubber coated cabling and the rubber was perishing, meaning the whole, thing was pretty dangerous but we have taken the opportunity to have a few bits done to make it more suitable for us whilst we are at it, the whole thing has not been cheap but the end result, a safer house and a lot of improvements as well, is worth it.

Anyhow, hopefully we are in for good, and restful, weekend, I have promised to take Nat shopping for a new lampshade for her bedroom tomorrow.

I was going to upload photos with this blog post but they are on the camera which is in the car and I cant be bothered to go and get it so you will have to wait until I get around to uploading them.

Electricians & Seaside Holidays

Yesterday we had the Electricians move in for the week for phase 1 of our house re-wiring job, so we have moved out, we are in Southwold for a week.

We were around a bit during the day yesterday and it was good to see how well they were getting on with the wiring and electrics, attached are some photos of the work they have managed to get done in just 1 day, the lights are their first objective.

As you will be aware if you know us, we have some particular issues with our children, or more specifically Steven and pretty much everything we do has to be designed around his needs/demands, for example we don’t have anything within his reach that we don't want him to ruin!

The complication when it comes to lighting is that normal pendant lights and wall lights are a magnet for him, he loves trying to swing on them or knock them, our ceilings are a little on the low side and now he has grown a bit he can reach eh pendant lights without too much effort, with the aid of a short stick, in the dining area he just climbs onto a table and swings from the light! So we have had to go for recessed lights in most of the house, this has entailed a lot of holes being drilled into the ceiling for a number of lights.

The place we are staying in is very nice, we are really pleased with it, its nicely decorated, yet without loads of ornaments that needed moving on arrival and there is plenty of space, the garden isn’t exactly Steven friendly but that’s the only negative we have found so far.

Today we went down to the beach, I spent most of the morning playing with Nat and Joy was walking up and down the beach with Steven, we were on a really nice but relatively quiet beach, near the river estuary, and had a great time, it was warm and the sun was shining so it was quite pleasant.

After our beach session we went onto a place on the banks of the river, it’s a working harbour with loads of fishermen’s shacks, several places selling fish directly from their shacks and then this chippy, really nice food.

Then we headed off to the seafront, parked near the pier and got coffee on the pier, the wind had picked up by this time but there are some really cool wind shelters on the pier which are so effective.

I wont go into the whole of the day in detail but we have had a really good day, Steven has been a little pinchy so we are wondering whether there is a seizure on its way but other than that its been a good time.