Hey ho, welcome to the new look blog.  I started to fall out with the old design and felt this was more me

So, Saturday daytime is drawing to a close and what a be – a – utiful day it has been.  In honour of the weather, myself, my girls, two of my besties and their kids went for an afternoon in the park.

The park is a stunning example of an Edwardian park that was revitalised with much needed money from the Lottery Heritage Fund.  Like everything else in this town it had fallen into disrepair during the devastating industrial decline of the 90′s that hit Barrow with fury, up until that point, Barrow had relied on it’s industrial shipbuilding backdrop as the town’s employer and wealth generator; although the shipyard still operates and dominates the town’s fortunes, it does so with less than half the workforce it used to.  I’m extremely proud of the historical town I live in and if you’d like to read a little more about it click here, this link will take you to the Visit Cumbria site and you can find additional links there for the many exceptionally beautiful assets and fantastic history that Barrow and this area have to offer.

Here are a few photos of our day and more can found on Flickr using the widget on the bottom right, enjoy!

Hi ho, hi ho!  Thanks for visiting the periodical.

Today’s post is a return to writing.  I haven’t been doing enough of that recently but have really enjoyed putting this together.  It is a work in progress and at 441 words is a tad on the short side so there is still a way to go.

Hope you enjoy and please leave a comment with your feedback if you’d like to.

Johnny’s unhappy.

Our story begins at a quarter to two

with Johnny still trying to tie up his shoe.

“Hurry up” his Mum calls, “we can’t be too long”.

“Aw Mum I can’t do it, it keeps going wrong”.

Mum hunches over and helps him to tie

“You’ll get there in time, as long as you try”.

With shoes fastened up they head into town

but Johnny’s unhappy, he’s wearing a frown,

“I should like to be able to do it myself,”

he mutters and grumbles and moans to himself.

They get to the shop at a quarter to three

to pick up ingredients for Johnny’s tea

but a tin that they need is way up out of reach,

this makes Johnny mad and he lets out a screech.

So Mum, she comes over and offers to help,

poor Johnny goes red now he’s starting to yelp.

Mum stretches up and brings the tin down

but Johnny’s unhappy, he’s wearing a frown,

“I should like to be able to do it myself,”

he mutters and grumbles and moans to himself.

They’re back in the house at a quarter to four

and Johnny, now stomping, shoves open the door.

He takes off his coat to hang on the pegs

but he knows he can’t reach, not with his tiny legs.

Mum tries to cheer him by playing the clown

but Johnny’s unhappy, he’s wearing a frown,

“I should like to be able to do it myself,”

he mutters and grumbles and moans to himself.

They sit down to tea at a quarter to five,

yes, a quarter to five is when teatime’s arrive.

There’s food that needs cutting upon Johnny’s plate

So he slashes and slices, it makes him irate.

“Why can’t I do it?” He gulps down a tear,

now mum strokes his cheek, “let me help you my dear”.

She cuts up his steak into small lumps of brown

but Johnny’s unhappy, he’s wearing a frown,

“I should like to be able to do it myself,”

he mutters and grumbles and moans to himself.

The pots are all washed at a quarter to six,

Mum fusses, all flustered with laundry to fix.

Johnny feels sorry and makes her a card

to thank her for helping with things that are hard.

She tells him he’ll get there, as long as he tries,

Mum really is lovely, she’s kind and she’s wise.

He tugs at her sleeve, she turns to bend down

“You did this on your own? You deserve a gold crown!”

“I drew it and coloured it all by myself,”

Jonny cried as Mum put it high on the shelf.

So that’s it for today, thanks for reading

Another quickie to keep the posting momentum going!

After darling Mr Pokapolas got yours truly an iPhone I started taking pictures of everything!  So, on a recent day out with my friend and her daughter the phone and it’s camera were out in force.  Going through the pictures at home though, they were nice but not dramatic.  I like big, bold, striking pictures (my hallway and landing are covered in frames containing anything from iconic vinyl sleeves, political cartoons, photos, homemade collages of old advertising slogans to the kids artwork).  So, I settled down last night and started to browse through the photo apps and came across two absolute corkers.  These are the results – enjoy!

N.B I have uploaded these photos to my laptop and have trialled printing them onto photo paper.  The results are so good that this phone, along with the dizzying array of effects apps, may just cause my digital camera to become defunct!

Created using the ColourSplash app to drain the colour and then painted back in to pick out the girls and their shadows.

Love this photo! Matthew hanging from a swing. Given the look of 1960's black and white crispness with the CamBag Lite app. My laptop screen is distorting the brightness a little and I don't know if this is the same for you, but trust me, it looks great printed.

This isn't just any B & W.....this is 60's B & W.....

So pleased at how these turned out. Colour drained and then strategically painted back in using the ColourSplash app. This one looks particularly good on photo paper.

Today’s post is a quickie about my earlier charity shop rummage (a couple of the pics of the spoils below).  Charity shops are places I’ve been shopping in for oh, about 20 years now, since I was about 14.  Back then it was kind of a necessity, I was poor and they were cheap, of course it also helped that the crowd I hung out with were goth/beatnick/grunge types and we took great pleasure in not conforming (apart from to and within our own perimeters…ahem, yeah, rock hard…but enough of that!).

Over the years I’ve amassed quite a collection of bric a brac, some that turns out to be worth a bob or two, some financially worthless but dear to my heart all the same.  I’ve always loved the thrill of finding something pretty or funky or kitsch, or all of the aforementioned, in amongst a load of tat.  It’s a hedonistic buzz!

And now I’m not alone.

Vintage fashion stalks the red carpets, stares waxily out from within the pages of a glossy; retro has become a byword for anything so hip it can out shake Elvis.

Charity shop chic is so today, it’s virtually tomorrow.  But at the same time there is a cynical edge to it that I find as tasteless as the tat I don’t buy.  I’m talking about the ebay types, and you know who you are.  The types that will buy something in a charity shop and then sell it the next day with a 300% mark up.  Is that fair?  There is a reason these shops are called CHARITY shops.  I was actually having a rummage once when I overheard a pariah of a man attempt to haggle a £4 price tag down to £2…presumably to make sure the p+p cost was really ‘free’ when he sent it to it’s new owner…the owner that will have paid thrice the price…unfortunately leapfrogging the donation portion of the transaction.

Personally I have never sold something I’ve bought period, let alone for a profit and if I ever did, I would be sure to go back to the shop I got it from and make a donation.  I don’t buy things for that reason, I do it because I like the things I own…and I’m savvy enough to not have paid over the odds…and I made a donation.

Maybe I’m being smug or high minded, but it just seems a fairer way to go about owning that illustrious retro cool that so many of us hanker for these days, below are a couple of bits I picked up today with another of my favourites, I urge you to have a scamp around charidee shops yourselves, go try it and see

A cute 1950's pin/ash tray by Hornsea Pottery bought today for £2.50 and an extra £1 in the donation tin.

3 neck scarves fit to grace the necks of any Aggy wannabe...or just to look nice in, bought today for 30p each and an extra £1 in the donation tin. Incidentally, the hanging basket chair was a junk shop find that cost me all of £40.

A gorgeous 1950's domino design trio by T G Green. I have another like it and they are one of the cutest finds of the last couple of years The two sets together were bought for £3.50 and, as I knew that these were worth more, I topped the price up to £7 with a matched donation.

Today I wanted to try and concentrate on the issue of Aspergers Syndrome.  My eldest Micheal was diagnosed at 7 and we have all come a long way since those early days of trying to penetrate the insular world of this eccentric and difficult child who didn’t speak til he was 3.  However, lately (especially this year) we have found ourselves once again having to overcome the obstacles that this syndrome deems to throw our way.

Namely that it steals away my funny, intelligent and communicative child and replaces him with a monosyllabic robot I barely recognise.  We are in the midst of such a phase.

In line with recent studies about Aspergers and puberty/sexuality (about which there has been woefully inadequate information for many years, however now there is a short article here and an excellent book, written for parents and teens, can be bought at Amazon ) we are having to deal with aggressive tendencies, tantrums, resentful feelings towards what he terms as NPs (neural perfects i.e us and his siblings), the frustrations of a sexual awakening that lacks the social acuity to find a context, and the beginnings of what looks like teen depression.  As with all other phases that we have gone through on this journey this is most likely a temporary, albeit stormy, transition into young adulthood.

I tell you this to ensure that you understand that this syndrome, even when sensitively accounted for, will be there at all times. It will always and forever need management; but there is fun, understanding and reciprocated love in the eye of the storm and this is something that is fundamental to the early management.  I know that my son’s recent behaviour is a transitional phase because I ‘got’ him in childhood, because I interacted with him, owing to the connection we forged then, I know that I’ll ‘get’ him again.

I am no expert on this so the best I can do is recommend ideas for you to try (3 of our old favourites below). One thing I do know though is that a close 1-2-1 relationship with your young Aspie child is rewarding to the point that it far outweighs the frustration.  Crucially, it is the very thing that will protect and conserve your Parent/Child relationship against the later ravages of your child’s Apsergers blighted puberty.

Face Flash Cards. An example of these can be seen and purchased using the following link. These weren’t around when Micheal was little, we did do something similar together though.  I would draw lots of circles on paper and we would draw different faces in them, then make the faces at each other.  Once he was receptive enough to this activity I would match the appropriate face to the emotion it conveyed, e.g I would draw a child with a broken toy and match it with an unhappy face (I am useless at drawing, so when I say draw, read stick figures!).  Eventually this progressed into a full on matching game with laminated pictures and was a huge help in facial language recognition and development.  It was also an activity we could do together without the added pressure of verbal communication skills.

Sticky Tweezers. I couldn’t think of anything else to call this!  Many kids with Asperger’s also experience fine motor deficiencies (often this is due to hypermobility, as it is in Micheal’s case) and this activity was originally suggested by his Occupational Therapist to strengthen his fingers.  Basically it’s making sticky pictures (dried pasta shapes/lentils, beads, matchsticks etc) but using an oversized pair of tweezers to pick the pieces up and put them onto the paper.  I expanded on this by drawing letter shapes for micheal to follow.  As the hypermobility made the pencil holding tripod grip a tricky thing to master, I was worried about his writing development; it was clear that Micheal wasn’t going to go through the standard stages of mark-making and emergent writing so, using the tongs to strengthen his grip and letter shapes to encourage him to recognise and copy them, we were able to do some work in this area that I would’ve struggled to get him to understand before.  Another 1-2-1 activity that doesn’t prioritise verbal communication skills.

Hard or Soft? This is a game that arose one day when I was going through a phase of narrating everything!  It was before anyone had mentioned AS as a possible diagnosis and we were desperately trying to get verbal utterances going.  Micheal was about 2 and hearing difficulties had been ruled out so I decided to talk to him constantly!  I was trying to get him engaged in a jigsaw but he was just throwing things around so I rapped on the hard floor and repeated “hard, hard, hard” and then on the carpeted section and said “soft, soft, soft”. I just didn’t want him to throw breakable things on the hard floor anymore!  But he took to it.  So from then on we would play hard or soft virtually anywhere, the park, the beach, on the bus, at the supermarket….  He eventually learned to verbalise the words and he gained an appreciation of texture differences and the natural world.  I later learned that many kids with AS can also have sensory function impairments whereby the sense of touch is heightened or decreased (the same can happen for hearing, taste, smell, temperature perception and even eyesight in the case of colours and light) so maybe this was why the game had meant so much to him, all I know for me is that we were communicating a mutual understanding and that meant the world!

Whether you choose to try these 3 games, or others that you may have been shown by your Doctor, Health Visitor or Educational Psychologist, please remember that it is the interaction that counts.  Try not to have distractions in the background and don’t worry if it seems that they aren’t acknowledging you; it may take time to bring them out of the haze.  Use this time as an opportunity for you to connect with your child and forge an enduring relationship that will eventually go beyond words.

This post is the round-up of poems that I have written over the course of the week.  These are for last week (usually I do this on Sunday but I’m a day late!).  Hope you enjoy them and please do read to your kids.  I’d love to know what they think too so feel free to include them in any comments, better still in their own words if they can!

Poems for the week 25 – 31 May 2009

May 25th

Bake a cake

I want to bake a cake in my oven here today.

I want to bake a cake and then I’ll give it all away,

cos cakes are icky sticky and they make you huge and fat

but I want to bake a cake and so I’ll give it to my cat,

but my cat likes fish

he likes his fish upon a dish.

If he sees a little fishy

then his tail, it goes all swishy,

but I want to bake a cake and so I’ll give it to my dog,

but my dog likes bones

he likes his bones amongst the stones.

If he sees a thing that’s bony

then he prances like a pony,

but I want to bake a cake and I can’t leave it on the shelf

so I’ll go and bake a cake and then I’ll eat it all myself.

May 26th

F F F Fly!

Oh me oh my, Oh me oh my,

I want to be that butterfly.

I’d like to flit and float and fly,

and then I’ll flitter, flutter by.

May 27th

Poor Worm

Hello worm on the ground,

wiggling round,

creeping and crawling and clambering bound.

Will you be my friend?

My toys you can lend,

when I go on holiday, postcards I’ll send.

I liked you dear worm,

so I held you, quite firm,

it’s just such a pity you started to squirm…

May 28th

Misbehaving, Miss Adventure

I wont go to bed, I will not go to sleep

I have books to be read and I hate to count sheep.

I wont brush my hair, I will not get dressed

I will sit on this chair and I’ll stay in my vest.

I wont get my bag, I will not go to school

behind I will lag and I will play the fool.

All these things I once did for a bit of a lark,

but then I missed out on a day in the park.

In future I’ll do as I’m told, yes for sure,

A day in the park’s a fantastical cure.

May 29th

Grumpy Boy

There once was a boy,

he was a killjoy,

he just wanted to revel in trouble.

He wore a huge frown,

and stomped up and down,

until the pavements were rubble.

He then met the girl

who could shimmy and twirl,

she was graceful and light as a feather.

She made him feel soppy,

and no longer stroppy,

as they skipped off together forever.

Grumpy Boy has an audio reading attached.  To hear myself, Matthew and Hannah read this poem just click on the title.

May 30th

These Words

Bibble blubble spuffle splot

These words sound good, but words they’re not.

Kibble kumble strumble spod

and words made up can sound quite odd.

Arckle barckle gnarckly gnoo

but making words is fun to do

So, mickle snickle drinkledee

Come sit and make some words with me!

That’s all for last weeks folks, thanks for reading and look out for more on Sunday.

Hello and welcome back to the Periodical.

So to the end of another week off school for the kids.  The sun is splitting the trees today but unfortunately I am stuck in waiting for deliveries.  Nevermind, the perfect time to experiment with some voice recordings.

I think I may have found the perfect host in Evoca so have subscribed for a 30 day free trial.  If it is going to be as good as it seems then I may just take it on after that too.  If you are looking for something similar then I heartily recommend it!  The link below will take you straight there so once you’re done listening perhaps take a look around.

Myself, Matthew and Hannah have recorded a newly penned rhyme for your listening pleasure.  Hope you enjoy!

Link – Grumpy Boy

As with the last reading it seems fair to include the written version, not just because it looks better, I’m sure there are some who will struggle to understand the accent

There once was a boy,

he was a killjoy,

he just wanted to revel in trouble.

He wore a huge frown,

and stomped up and down,

until the pavements were rubble.

He then met the girl

who could shimmy and twirl,

she was graceful and light as a feather.

She made him feel soppy,

and no longer stroppy,

as they skipped off together forever.

Thanks for stopping by and please do comment if you’ve enjoyed, bye for now.

Hello there and welcome back OR, a big slap on the back and a shake of the hand if this is your first visit.

Have literally no time for blogging this week as British kids are entitled to more time off than the queen unfortunately.  The upshot is that mine are currently languishing on various chairs moaning at me for not giving them my undivided!

My reason for being here today is simple.  It noticed on Twitter earlier this evening through the lovely and informative Tara Lazar, that there is a competition running over at children’s book author Justin Matott’s blog site.  More details are available at Terra Emerson’s blog site These are pretty damn fine sites to visit in their own right anyway!

So, the competition is to write a kids poem about a gross food combo, 4 – 8 lines max, that would be inserted into Justin’s latest chapter book.  The passage the winning verse will appear in is on his blog to read and concerns a “GROSS-RIE STORE DARE OFF” between a group of boys.

I’ve decided to enter so here is my contribution (food combos are courtesy of Holly, Matthew and Hannah – thanks guys!!).

Ketchup and cornflakes

and horrid fish bakes,

stir them and mush them

and give them two shakes.

Now let’s scoff it down,

and see how long it takes.

Hope you’ve enjoyed!

Hi there, these are all the poems written between Monday and Sunday this week.  Hope you and your kiddywinks enjoy.  Please comment as I would love to hear what kids make of them!

More next week x.

May 18 2009

Alligator Stew

Alligator, alligator, alligator stew,

chop him up and mash him up and grind him into goo.

Season him with pepper and a pinch of salt or two,

alligator, alligator, alligator stew.

May 19 2009

My new friends

I know a rinky dinky place

where the raindrops have a race

and the cows out in the field

have had their feet all specially wheeled,

and the birds up in the sky

wear umbrellas as they fly

cos with the drizzle they all grizzle that their feathers start to frizzle.

So this is a friendly town

and if you go there, please don’t frown

at the people and the ways

in which they choose to spend their days.

See when you’re chipper and you’re free

say “you are you and I am me”

then these amazing friends you’ll earn

and to this wondrous town return.

May 20 2009

KAPOWIE

I looked out the window and what did I see?

My brother my sister were climbing a tree

they’re both only young so they’re tiny and small

but once up that tree they’re tremendously tall.

They begged me to join them, to climb really high

but I just can’t do it, I try and I try.

So I’ve found a way now to join in the game,

stretch rubber bands round a huge Y shaped frame

I’m firing myself from this catapult now

So stand back and watch me and shout out KAPOW!!

May 21 2009

Aw Ladybird

Ladybird ladybird you were so cute,

remember you wriggled and crawled on my boot,

but my boots are clumpy and stumpy and that,

so sorry that you jumped and I caused a splat.

May 22 2009

The boy at the back

The teacher droned droned droned

about the work work work

so the boy at the back

began to smirk smirk smirk.

The teacher wrote wrote wrote

on the board board board

so the boy at the back

loudly roared roared roared.

The teacher turned turned turned

to face the class class class

and told the boy at the back

he was a jack jack ass!

Hello and welcome back to the Periodical.  Apologies for the lack of activity here this week, it has been one of those weeks (poorly kids, poorly Husband) and time has marched relentlessly forwards.  So here I have put something together in the hope that I might tempt you back

We all love cartoons, at least we do here.  My siblings and I like them, my kids do, my friends do and we in Britain have been thoroughly spoiled by the sheer versatility and imagination of those that created and commissioned them.  One of my very early memories is trying to force down the dreaded string beans on my plate quick enough to go and join my two brothers in watching Willo the Wisp, which I could hear starting in the next room.  I stuffed them under the rim of the plate, thinking I’d fooled my Mam into believing that I’d eaten them, lord knows what she must have thought when she lifted the plate up!

I would wax lyrical to my kids about these cartoons of my childhood, never thinking that they would get to see them.  Then something happened which often happens  -  the nostalgia of my generation becoming potently charged with earning potential, and a seismic shift towards cult, collectible status for so many of our childhood possessions (or, in most cases, previously financially out of reach possessions).  So these cartoons and their paraphernalia were, in most cases, re-released, thus we were able to buy and fall in love with them once more.

Here are 2 of the best, with a wild card 60/70′s cartoon (before my time but watched as reruns).

Button Moon

Those of you on Twitter may notice my background picture is a bright yellow button moon, this is the show that had it all!  It first aired in 1980 after it’s original incarnation as a stage show created by puppeteer Ian Allen, who remained a principal writer, set designer and puppeteer throughout.  The first series ran for 13 episodes and a further 5 series took it to 1988.  Totaling a hugely enjoyable, engaging and extremely child friendly 91 episodes in all, new characters and sets were added along the way but always with the Spoon family and the ever present Button Moon at the forefront.  The show is a master example of black costumed puppetry, from the sets (made from the newly curriculum endorsed junk modelling method) to the characters to the story telling.  More info can be found here at Playboard Puppets home.  There are DVD box sets available at Play and the original plush toys are selling on ebay along with other items, such is the cult, iconic status of the show and it’s images.  Delighted to see it back, now taking it’s place among one of the most innovative kids shows of the past 30 years.

The Trapdoor

A now favourite of my sons, this show found it’s audience quickly on account of it’s irreverent humour which managed to entertain children and adults alike, without ever crossing a line.  It is a genius (if a little rough round the edges!) example of clay animation from the mid 80′s explosion of the technique.  Co-created by Steve Box, Terry Brian and Charlie Mills, the show ran for 2 series, amounting to 40 episodes of under 5 minutes each.  Incidentally, Steve Box later went on to Oscar stardom as part of the Aardman Animation team behind Wallace and Gromit and later Chicken Run.  There is a site dedicated to the (sometimes obsessional) fan base for Trapdoor and anything I could tell you here would pale next to the vast amount of information and links to be found there so check it out.  As with Button Moon, the plush toy characters and other merchandise (including DVD box sets) are selling on ebay.  There is a lot to be found there in different categories so it is best to search yourself, although I may be outbidding you at some point!

The Clangers

And finally, from way back in the formative days of British kids TV, is this absolute gem.  A show that is close to the heart of many Britons around the world, not least our vary own national treasure, Stephen Fry.  Wonderfully soothing and calming, it has become a perfectly glorious antidote to the often noisy and brashly coloured programmes that kids see today.  One of the things that I loved about this show is that it regarded its audience with great respect, and never made assumptions about what they could or couldn’t understand.  It took the imagination of a star gazing generation of kids and simply ran with it!  Co-created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin and first shown in 1969 (a significant date for star gazing kids!).  It was narrated by Oliver Postgate in a charmingly clipped Queen’s English that simply adds to it’s nostalgic charm.  As a mother of a child with hyperactivity and another with Aspergers, I highly recommend this program to other parents in this situation.  It quells a tantrum, can assist in stimulating imaginative play (be and talk like a Clanger with them, if they struggle to talk, this provides a welcome relief to communication barriers, a bit of fun in an often dark world) and could be a life saver to any parent that needs a distraction!  As with the other shows here, The Clangers have their very own site so a visit here is a must.  DVDs are available at Play.

Thanks for reading.  I hope those of you who are unaware of these shows explore the links and maybe even purchase a DVD to see for yourselves how wonderful they were.  Those that know them already, take a jaunt round the links and find yourselves looking again through the eyes of your inner child