Just pleasantly floundering around.....

I found this and I thought it was a powerful metaphor. I know it's odd to use a post to just exhibit someone else's work but I include it to show my respect for how it provoked my thinking, not having a disabled child myself.... Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a disabled child. To try and help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel....it's like this..... When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, Michelangelo's David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland." "Holla...

I have given myself some careers advice and have decided you need to employ me to create the most exciting, entertaining and unusual theme park in the UK. I'd make back the money you invested in no time - I promise! Within the grounds of the park would be the Museum of the Imagination in which, because I have too many ideas to include, we would need to rotate the exhibits regularly. There would be physical challenges (cross this terrain using the given equipment), murder mysteries - no actors needed!, add to the alien scape, moveable marble runs, a large (but miniature) treasure island around which children followed clues to find the treasure (different levels of difficulty), combat games that people could join in and leave at any moment, work out the one possible route puzzle, whole spaces that were visually and sensorilly spectacular, stream modelling, construct-a-fountain, 'cards' that I create for kids to collect -as prizes at various points in the park (they'll com...

This week we visited Dungeness in Kent. It really isn't at all what you'd expect to find in a home county. It's basically a remote and bleak shingle bank cluttered with 'shacks', a couple of pubs, a miniature steam railway station (we arrived by train), a cafe, a nuclear power station (!) and a couple of lighthouses. I could see how someone could visit and decide it was an absolute dump, but for me it was strangely captivating. This was the view from the top of the old lighthouse.... There was also plenty of evidence of Dungeness' 'Bohemian' population. Several houses had arrangements of weird and wonderful 'clutter'. Washed up debris.... Shoes..... Posts....(?) A nuclear power station always makes for an interesting backdrop... And of course, there was Derek Jarman's garden at Prospect Cottage.... Even the road looked artistically shabby!

Every time I read something about Native Americans my thinking is always provoked! I know there were many different tribes and I suspect their 'collective' wisdoms and philosophies varied but everything I have read has mostly not stated anything other than 'Native American'. Anyway - here is what I like: 1) I remember reading a story about how when 'whites' first arrived on the American continent, the Native Americans asked what it was that they were looking for. They did not mean what they were actually looking for, they were referring to a look in their eyes as if they were always looking for something. That something that the Native Americans knew you didn't go looking for because it didn't exist outside you. 2) In Raising Boys by Stephen Biddolph, the book refers to a rite of passage for boys. At about the age of thirteen, they were left on a mountain to fend for themselves (they were actually watched over all night but they did not know this). Upon ...

We have a game in our family called 'red car.' It's extremely simple. All you have to do is be the first to shout, 'red car' when you see one and you score a point. Obviously this is an outdoor game. Last Thursday we were playing red car when the rules were changed. First my son suggested we play 'red anything' so we shouted 'red thing' when we saw something red. He then went on to say, 'how about we play anything anything, but in our heads silently!!!!!' Of course when you play it that way, it doesn't look like you're playing at all. My suspicion is that he has grown out of the game! Anyway today I informed him that I had been playing it for three days and had seen a huge amount of things first and therefore I must have won. He asked me to prove it. Dang!

Today my six year old son and I built a robot..... that made it a good Friday for me.

We had impromptu April Fools' Day actions that started with me wondering what I could do while I was lying in bed first thing and Andy was fetching a cup of tea. It's amazing how many sick ideas come into your head; ideas that could actually cause distress if my acting were maintained and not destroyed by succumbing to the urge to giggle. The sick ones were rejected and I came up with jamming my hand in the gap between the bottom of the radiator and the futon. 'Help Andy, I don't know how I did it but my hand has become stuck, I think I need you to move the futon down if I have a chance of getting it out.' I had him showing concern for all of three seconds. Then he said, 'April Fool' and I wasn't sure if it was an accusation or an indication that he hadn't been fooled. Still - it had worked a tiny bit. Then we plotted to trick our ten year old daughter. We brainstormed and came up with this idea: it is performing arts week in her school, so we claine...