Along The Canal To Trafford - Photos From June 24th 2016

As promised, here are a set of photos from part of a happy day out with Blob Thing.

As you join us we have headed from Deansgate in Central Manchester to the calm of a canal and we are now starting our trip along the canal.  At some point I want to walk much further along the waterways than we did that day.  The canal is calling to me.  Walk me!  I have to admit that there are quite a lot of places in Greater Manchester calling to me to walk.  And there are places a little further afield too.  On my last visit to Manchester we took the train to Glossop which is a Peak District market town just over the border into Derbyshire.  The train fare was very low so it'll be easy to return to.  I've just found this walk to Bleaklow which looks very appealing.  A walk needing good footwear and a walk which includes the most easterly point in the British Isles above 2000 feet.  It has to be admitted that a canal towpath makes for easier walking.

Glossop also had a cafe - Glossop Cafeteria - with a marvellously large cooked breakfast which of course, being greedy, was what I wanted.  For an extra 70p the three slices of toast were covered with a large amount of melted cheese.  Another excellency about that breakfast was that the baked beans and tomatoes came in separate pots so the sauce and juice did not mix with the other elements of the meal and worryingly taint them.  I thought that was an excellent idea.  Plus they turned down the radio a lot for us.  It was like the place was set up for autistic people deliberately.  I'm guessing it wasn't but those separate pots were a brilliant touch that all purveyors of cooked English breakfasts should introduce.  The toilet was also interesting.  One little room only, with a lock.  But in addition to the toilet, and just to the left of the toilet, was a urinal.  The two next to each other in one room.  I admit that I have never seen that before.  Enough about the cafe.  There's a canal to show off.

I'm not going to comment about these photos.  If you have any questions, ask.  And there's a possibility I can answer you in a useful manner.  There's also a possibility that I won't have a clue.  And a possibility that I'll make up a story that's as good as the right answer apart from it being the wrong answer.

I look at these pictures and smile.  A happy day.  There are many happy days.

A Three Way Rant About Donald Trump, Religion, and Autism Service Provision

Note:  This post was meant to be about walking along a canal in Manchester, just as Blob Thing wrote about it this morning.  It turned into a three pronged rant about Donald Trump, religion, and the lack of help available for autistic people.  So it's not about the walk at all.  It just keeps mentioning the walk.  Like this:

Blob Thing blogged about this already today.  He did a good job in describing the walk although I was a bit astounded at the way he managed to complain about Donald Trump so much when describing his day.  Trump was not a participant in our day and he does not have a tower in Greater Manchester.  I didn't know that a small soft toy could have such strong views about an American politician.  John Pavlovitz this morning noted that Trump was prophetic about himself when he said that his followers would still follow him even if he was to murder someone in broad daylight.  Someone could write a fascinating psychological study into his followers and how they are similar to fundamentalist religious believers.  Many of them are such believers.

In both cases, evidence does not knock the belief.  They believe Donald Trump is wonderful and they want him to rule them.  No evidence seems to knock their evangelical fundamentalist Trumpist faith.  And no evidence knocks the fundamentalist religious either, of whatever variety.  Science and reason keep knocking blocks off fundamentalist religion and keep showing why it's (almost certainly) nonsense.  A rational person either gives up the religion totally or finds ways to adjust the beliefs so that their God fits in with human knowledge and slides into the cracks where we lack full knowledge.  A fundamentalist ignores the evidence or creates words and arguments that attempt to show why evidence is wrong.

So whether it's evolution, a young earth, the existence of Satan, the inerrancy of the Bible or Koran or Gita or whatever other scripture, or the glories of Donald Trump, the fundamentalist will not be budged.  They are not rational.  They cannot reason about their faith.  I don't condemn them.  It's just a sad thing when someone falls into such a system in their own heads.

I know.  Because I fell into it myself.  We are sorting part of the house at the moment and I found the sheets of paper on which I wrote brief notes before starting to write my life story.  It was to be my spiritual story and contained all the wrong turns I made and how I discovered the truth of the Catholic Church - the "best" version of Christianity and the "only" one to be truly and completely one, holy, catholic, apostolic and sacramental.  I was writing all this.  How I now KNEW the truth.  How I praised God for showing me the best way.  And how I was convinced that now I knew the truth I would remain a faithful Catholic for ever and ever and ever.  Well we all know how that plan turned out!  I read it now and I am a little embarrassed - and I am even more thankful that I moved on.  It's not that I hate the God of my past or think anyone with a similar God has lost a grip on reason.  There are some very reasonable believers out there, ones who accept doubt and accept that faith sometimes has to change in the face of evidence.

It's a hard road away from fundamentalism and the certainty of a religious system.  It might be just as hard for people to turn away from Donald Trump when they have pinned so many hopes and dreams on the man.  Especially when some of those people share many of Trump's despicable attitudes and beliefs.  As was said the other day by a Christian pastor,  "Better a pussy grabber than a pussy in the White House."  Yep.  I don't want to call a human being a little piece of shit.  But.  His views are big pieces of shit.  And they arise from an antiquated, horribly patriarchal religious system that may once have had a place but has now gone rotten and putrid and smells worse than a big piece of shit.  Plenty of churches teach it though - a woman should not have authority over a man.  They say that God said it.  In his book.  Which is infallible and God breathed.  Some churches are explicit in that.  So Trump might be a disgusting sex criminal but to have a woman?  No.  Nay!  Never!  That's banned in the Bible.  They're right too.  It IS banned in the Bible.  It's quite explicit.  A woman isn't even allowed to speak in church and if they have questions have to wait until they get home before asking their husband.  As for authority, well man is head of the woman.  The Bible says so.  To go against that is to go against God - at least according to some believers.  But even to others to go against it is just one part of noticing that the Bible is wrong about God.  And once a believer reaches that point they have a lot of soul searching to do regarding what value both their holy book and their faith have.  There are multiple answers to that soul searching.  Some lead to atheism.  Some to a form of progressive or liberal Christianity.  Some to hiding one's head in the sand and holding on to a form of faith that a believer cannot bear to allow to die.

I'm not going to talk much at all about the walk.  I've talked enough already.  It was a walk along a canal.  Simple.

In any case.  I just that moment had a phone call.  Not my favourite thing.  This was to tell me - and I had to chase people to find this out - that the NHS people I was referred to for help with my mental health problems cannot help me because I am autistic.  Basically because I have a neurological difference the NHS tells me to fuck off whenever I ask for help.  Great isn't it?  No.  It's another big piece of shit and at this moment I feel pretty bloody bad about it all.

I am autistic.

I need MORE help.  Not less.  More.  I've been fighting over and over again for the past year and yet again another service waves me away with an "Oh yes you need help for your mental health but all of us people who spent years training in mental health can't deal with you because you are autistic."

Aaaargh.  If I had severe learning difficulties - if I was "low functioning" - there would be lots of services almost falling over themselves for me.  But I am "high functioning" - which means that I function very well, in certain areas, some of the time and I have a nice high IQ  (I am officially a genius).  And that means there is no help.  None.  Fuck all.  And even the help anyone else with a nice high IQ could get is stolen away from me because of my diagnosis.

I am bloody glad to have my diagnosis.  It helps.  And self understanding helps greatly.  But right now it stinks.

Anyway.  The photos.  Nice aren't they?!  I'm not going to talk about them at all.  Not today.  My head isn't up to it now.

Oh well.  Life goes on.  I'm out tonight with some of those progressive Christians.  They're very nice but still a little too much into the old old story for me as if they still need psychologically to grasp onto a tale that they know doesn't make that much sense.  That might be unfair.  But they know the Bible is just the record of a bunch of people trying and often failing to find the divine and that much of the Old Testament contains a lot of nationalist propaganda.  They look to Jesus for their guide which is fine.  But even there they have to be very selective or interpret in a way that surely the gospel writers didn't mean or else they have to cope with all the things he said about unbelievers and Hell.  So in effect they love the nice bits of Jesus and leave the rest because those bits aren't right.  I don't know exactly what's left that is worth basing a 21st century life on.  But maybe the speaker tonight will enlighten me and leave me wanting to read all his books - of which I own five, four of them bought in the last year.

The photos.  Because life contains incredibly wonderful days with or without an autism diagnosis and with or without help from an NHS with funding and training and service provision gaps.

Maybe I will just have to sort myself out, as I would if the NHS didn't exist - and who knows, under our caring sharing Tory government its future isn't safe.  I've done a lot of self work.  It's just that a bit of help wouldn't go amiss.

You know what?  The photos can wait until the next post.  They are too good to be combined with my woes or musings about people believing beyond the point of rationality.  Just one photo.  Because life is good.  Life is a wonderful thing.

From Deansgate To The Canal - Photos of Manchester, 24th June 2016

Blob Thing is currently writing about one of the days out he had with me.  It seems like a long time ago.  That's possibly because it was quite a long time ago.  I've been enjoying looking through pictures as he's been choosing photos for his blog posts and I wanted to post some of them myself.

These were all pictures taken on 24th June.  We had already visited the John Rylands library which was enjoyable - although I prefer the relaxed atmosphere in the Lit & Phil Library here in Newcastle.  At some point I want to visit the Working Class Library in Salford too, and perhaps combine that with the main Salford art gallery, staring at paintings by Lowry until I get bored with them or get thrown out of the gallery for singing the number one hit by Brian and Michael.  Trivia:  That record featured backing vocals by the St Winifred's School Choir who (unless the feat has been repeated) are thus the only act ever to have been a one hit wonder twice.  Trivia two:  Spirit in the Sky has been a one hit wonder for three different acts.  I used to love my music trivia and it is a great relief to everyone that I have forgotten most of it.

It was a great day out, including plenty of surprises.  It's easy to get surprised when you walk in a city you don't know well and have very few specific plans.  If you're visiting a museum you know that you're visiting a museum.  If you intentionally get lost you never know what you might find.  My only plan that day was to wander to the canal and walk along it.  Bookshops weren't planned until I was on the bus - and I totally failed to buy books of Greater Manchester walks.  The library wasn't planned either but it was there.  Roman ruins weren't planned.  Just the canal.

So here are a few pictures of the first part of the post-library wandering undertaken by Blob Thing and myself.  The first picture is chronologically the last in this post.  But if I put it first I know that people on Facebook will have to put up with seeing my face when I share it.  A picture of me with Beetham Tower behind me, rather than Deansgate with Beetham Tower behind it.  Sometime I want to go to the top of that tower.  On a very clear day.  From there you can see Snowdonia and the sea.  I'm quite amazed by that because it's a long way from Manchester to the sea.  One day I will find out whether the claims are true.  Maybe the owner will let me into his penthouse suite.  Or give me a chance to walk on the roof.  Maybe not!

I'm not going to talk about these pictures at all.   They're self explanatory.  Here you are:  Part one of the day, from Clare to Pukeko.  Really.

To Look Back on Writing. To Look Forward to Writing. Both Bring Smiles.

This morning I went to a 2 1/2 hour writing session that billed itself as an introduction to creative writing.

 

Image grabbed from http://www.lokalart.com/handmade-diary-joy-of-writing-yellow

This afternoon I look back on the results:

a. Another confidence boost. Because the words and images flowed. Freely if not with the skill of a profound wordsmith who has written each day for decades. My own skill will follow from freedom and commitment.

b. Enjoyment. Truly, that's the most important outcome for me in anything I write: That I enjoy it. I am writing for myself primarily.

c. A shortish story all seeded and ready to go in my head, which may never be written.

d. The urge to expand something I have. We were given a photograph of a person and a phrase as a seed. We wrote some character notes about our character. In three minutes. We then wrote whatever scene or story or anything else that arose from our notes. In less than ten minutes. Not quite long enough for a full novel. I read out what I had written and then nobody else wanted to read theirs because they wouldn't be as good. (Not true of course) But it IS good. I truly believe that. It's an excellent beginning and there is enough that I could flesh out story, character and write something worth writing. And now I want to write it properly as a full scale monologue and then take an acting lesson or ten to get me to a level at which I could perform it myself. That's not a job for this evening or even this week.  To be honest I am developing a pile of half-decent beginnings that may never develop middles or endings.  I find it very exciting to know that material exists.

e. A furthering of my inner acceptance of doing what so many people have asked me to do recently: Write my life story. I think it might be even more fun to write it but to intersperse scenes that didn't happen and thoughts I didn't have, placing them as alternative autobiography in the main text.

f. A rather gorgeous book on alchemy bought in Oxfam in Sunderland afterwards. Many pretty pictures - and probably much that will help me with writing at a later date.

All in all I can say I'm glad I made the effort to be there. Staying at home would have been easier and by the time I got home I was pretty overloaded and drained. I am very glad to be able to sit quietly now. I am proud of myself for getting there.

Hey, this writing thing is a thrill at times!  I have found something to bring me joy.

 

Image grabbed from http://www.hanloncomm.com/?p=563

I found it years ago but was never able to enter into it.  That's a tale for another day.  A tale of the madness of feeling shame for wanting to create something beautiful with words.  A sad tale, now being replaced by a happy one.

Tomorrow, penciled into my diary, is a writing workshop.  During the week there are four more workshops penciled in that take place in Newcastle and Sunderland.  Because I want more of this joy.  I like joyfulness.  Please sir, can I have some more?!

Days Of Gratitude - Happy Times in Salford - Reservoirs, Religion and Relaxation

October has begun.  At the end of last year the challenge was set by the Sunday Assembly Newcastle to post something for which you are grateful.  Every day.  Nine months later and I have missed a total of nine days.  The group description reads:

Sunday Assembly Newcastle is all about finding ways to #livebetter, so our 2016 challenge to you is to photograph something every day that makes you feel grateful and share it to this group. 

Every day.  Every day.  The group currently has 129 members some of whom joined recently.  Sharing every day?  Well, no.  Not every day.  Some days there will be three posts.  Including mine.  Some days a couple more.  Sometimes there will be just two posts.  And on a couple of days I have been the only person to follow the challenge.  Even the person who set the challenge only posts sometimes.

But this is me.  It says every day.  And I want to post every day.  It's good for me.  On the days that feel rubbish I can find something.  And on the days that feel good I can find some amazingly, wonderfully, spectularly, beautifully positive things to be grateful for.

Cases in point.  The six days below.  After a couple of weeks of real struggles it was very good to have days like these.

September 30^th

Grateful to be able to hear great talks at an autism event before leaving for Manchester. I hope people listened and will act.

Grateful that the coach driver let me sit in the quiet seats behind him when I was struggling and getting melty while waiting.

Grateful that a side effect of being so delayed was that we detoured across the Saddleworth road which is gorgeous.

And very grateful to be back here in Salford with Amanda.

October 1^st


Grateful for a great day out with Amanda.

We enjoyed Glossop and my lunch was massive. I will go back and find walking routes.

And then we rowed across and around a reservoir.

They just gave us a boat and pushed us away from the jetty without checking to see whether we had ever rowed before.

In the evening we were at the theatre and managed to get two tickets for five pounds - a student and a carer.

October 2^nd


Grateful for a good morning with Amanda before she went to work.

Grateful for some car boot sale and charity shop bargains.

Grateful to have decided to explore a sign I have passed on the bus here quite a few times: Schoenstatt Shrine.

Loved it. I will go back one day just to sit in the peace of the shrine and the community garden.

Sorry. (A lie!). There are far too many pictures.  [There were many more posted in the gratitude group.] And they're all of a Catholic place where they do God quite a lot. But I really was very pleased to have explored.

October 3^rd

Grateful for a lovely day out with Amanda. We played crazy golf, went on everything in the playground, and ate too much ice cream. Happy times.

I only took one photo all day. Here it is. You get quality graffiti in the toilets of amusement arcades in Southport. Or at least in one cubicle.

October 4^th

Grateful for time spent with Amanda.

Grateful for getting some ideas at an autism event in Manchester in the evening.

Grateful for a pretty walk in the day that ended with buying Amanda a unicorn.

October 5^th


Grateful for the days away.

Grateful to be home and to have life here to look forward to.

Grateful to have been greeted by family and my trusted warthog friend.

Also grateful that Blob Thing managed to post on his blog today.

Days Of Gratitude - It Was The Average Of Times It Was The Worst of Times

That's a misleading title.

The average of times these days is pretty good.  But it certainly hasn't been the best of times and so I had to mangle the famous sentence by Dickens.  Is there a sentence by Dickens more famous? Perhaps we could shout out "Bah! Humbug!" if indeed Scrooge said that in the original story.  I am not going to read the works of Dickens and find out.  I confess to not finding his writing wildly exciting, which is why we no longer own our inherited set of his complete works.

The Pickwick Papers was quite fun for something that rambled so much.  And that story is tangentially related to my day.  For part of that story appeared on the back of the Bank of England ten pound note when Dickens appeared on the front.  I can't remember the story at all but know it included a cricket match at one point because of the design of our money.  That note was withdrawn in 2003 to be replaced by the note featuring Charles Darwin - and a hummingbird, which might be pretty but wasn't one of the birds which inspired Darwin in his work.

The Dickens note is long gone but there is a new and plastic five pound note and I received my first one this morning.  It doesn't feel like money and feels a strange sort of odd on my skin.  The transparent section is particularly weird.  And there's a picture of Churchill, a variable man.  Yes, his leadership helped British morale and contributed towards the allied victory in the Second World War.  But we mustn't forget his racism, and how strongly he defended the British Empire, sometimes at great cost to the inhabitants of what was the empire and sometimes at great cost elsewhere - from India to Palestine, Afghanistan to Iran.  So often he is held up as a saint, a man to be worshipped.  Words about him could come from a medieval hagiography telling myths about these supposedly near perfect saints of Christendom.

Anyway.  There he is on the five pound note and there he will remain until he, like Dickens, is removed from circulation.  And there he is on my five pound note.  I will not treasure this note.  It doesn't have a code staring AJ01 so is worth five pounds not fifty.  I will not mourn its loss like Paddington mourned at the thought of his note being burned.

To be honest my five pound note is uncomfortable to touch, especially on the side with the queen - who for some reason has dyed her hair and removed all her wrinkles for the purpose of the note.  I don't think it looks much like the queen at all.  And that feeling on the words "Bank of England" and across her crown.  Ugh!

Where was I?  Ah yes.  Some days in my life and finding things within them for gratitude.  These were tough days though.  One on which I struggled to go out and wrecked my head further.  And then two on which I couldn't leave the house at all.  And then a return to a head that feels better, a head that can smile, a head that can begin October on an even keel and be enthusiastic about the possibilities of wonderful things.

September 25^th

Grateful for smiling people before the Sunday Assembly

Grateful to have survived being out - and for self caring enough to leave SA and sit outside on a sofa after the first song - and just about been able to get myself home safely.

Grateful for quiet, and dark, and having a tidy room to retreat to.

Pretty horrible day after wrecking myself on Saturday. Much shaking. Many tears. And massively painful. I shouldn't have gone to SA. I wanted to, but shouldn't have gone. I should have returned home the moment being in the street near home hurt, or at least the moment the overscented man and woman got on the Metro at West Jesmond.

Grateful that crap days aren't all days. As a friend says, "There's no such word as never, and forever is a load of crap." She's wrong of course. There is such a word as never. In my dictionary it's between névé and new. The word after new is Newcastle disease.

Grateful that I just learned how to type é with an acute accent.

Picture is not connected to the day - it's from my parents' garden. I will never visit there again as we have a buyer for their house. Grateful that's happened quickly once we got it on the market. [Apologies to people with good memories who may remember this photo from another day.]

September 26^th

A rubbish head day. Very rubbish!

But grateful that I was able to not stay under the duvet all day.

I wrote an important letter, tidied properly and for a happy thing booked places at several events in this festival next month. I am looking forward to it all. 

September 27^th


A second day of not being able to leave the house and a particularly stunningly bad time.

Grateful though for learning something most people would have learned long ago:

My camera on the phone has some kind of zoom function.

One of these (with window reflection because I couldn't think of standing outside on the back step) becomes the other.

September 28^th


Grateful for an improved day.

Grateful that although it was difficult I was able to do jobs in Gosforth in the morning and fun things later - meeting a friend who had never been to Heaton Perk and then singing with the new choir.

Life is sometimes massively hard for my brain to do.

But life is good.

Pictures are of a 25p charity shop find and a dubious product for which the ingredients just say "mixture of herbs". I will try it!

September 29th

Grateful for lots of ticks on the job list.

For the clarinet, for sign posts, and for this magazine that they keep sending me for free. I don't agree with everything by any means but it is always interesting. And they are pacifists which is good. Homophobic and sexist at times, but pacifists!

Grateful too for the opportunity to return to Manchester tomorrow for some days.