The Little Things

When I awoke one morning last week, my first action was to dress in cold porridge.  Well okay, not really, but that is what dressing in the previous night's discarded clothes feels like.  Porridge. Cold, clammy and  slightly distasteful.  The reason I needed to grope for pre-worn pants was Emilie had taken a dislike to my dressing gown. It had gone 'in up' - or for non-regular readers, Emilie had insisted it lives in the garage, where it remains. Not the end of the world, I grant you, but I like my dressing gown, its easy to put on and fluffy. It provides instant comfort in a harsh world. It gently allows parts of me to wake up unconfined by tight fitting....porridge.

This set me thinking about other little nicies autism means we do without.

Cleaning ones teeth without worrying what Emilie might have done with the brush. Finding it not where I left it means I have to make the sort of cliff-edge decision air traffic controllers or surgeons make. To brush or not to brush? Trembling with indecision, whilst standing there in my clammy porridge.  Has it just slipped from the shelf, or has Em been using it to clean the loo with.....again?

Car journeys listening to MY music. I miss that too. Lucie insists on Christmas sounds from about August onwards. Sleigh bells and bloody Cliff Richard (Mistletoe and Wine is surely the most insipid piece of music ever) do not go with eighty degree heat.

Being able to keep keys in accessible places.  In other words, places that do not require the code breaking skills of Bletchley to find. Even Jehovah's Witnesses have been known to get bored waiting whilst we unlock various key pads and clamber up to hard to reach places. Oh and letting the meter reader in and locking the door behind him is a good way to ensure he never wants to visit again. I'm sure our house has a Bates Motel kind of vibe with the local utilities.

So yes, little things but still.

Big things are similar. We have just come back from our first holiday in 20 months. It lasted four days and we returned to York twice (only from the coast 40 miles away). Once because respite didn't cover the whole period and another time to collect Lucie who had a seizure (epilepsy) at school. Oh and it snowed. And Helen's mum became ill. And respite rang four times because they feared a gas leak in the night and might have had to shut (false alarm - leak was farm type smells).

Do we feel hard done by?  I am not sure. I miss being able to leave Yorkshire - my hobby used to be travel in my bachelor days, now I make your average agoraphobic look like Alan Whicker! But then I no longer have to be behind a s'boring insurance desk by 8am each morning and at least we get to spend time with our children. They will also never leave home and Helen and I will never need to feel the humiliation of going to 'Navigating the Empty Nest Counselling' . The only sobbing over our children's empty bedrooms we will experience will be because the little blighters won't go in there to sleep!

So, perhaps little things and big things are all the same really. Not a blight or a bonus. More how we choose to interpret them. At the moment, we are still managing to do that with a smile. After all, one can always put jam in one's porridge!

Thanks for reading,


Mark.