NEWSFLASH

This blog will now continue here.  There will be no more posts at this site.

Changes are afoot

I could have blogged about my daughter trying to break her toe/foot by kicking my college bag but there's no point as this is not an unusual occurrence - she is dyspraxic and her propioception is a little off.

I could have blogged about starting back at college but, although it's all new stuff for me this year, it's just as easy as last year - so far.

I could have blogged about father-in-law's (FIL) move down to be near us and the extra workload on us but I won't because most of the issues are to do with his health rather than the bureaucracy and, therefore, personal.

This extra workload means I have even less time to keep 3 blogs running, as you will no doubt have noticed by the shortage of posts on any of them this month.  Therefore I intend to amalgamate them all into one blog.  This is very much a work-in-progress as I have yet to decide which of the 3 titles to keep, and which of the blog-hosting sites to use.  Each has their pluses and minuses.  So, it will be a week or so before I get to it.

I do have a new hobby that is eating into my spare time.  I've switched off the AUTO functions on my camera and am learning to do-it-myself.  This is a lot of fun, especially when friend J comes with me and we spend time over tea/coffee and cake going through the day's efforts.  So, I'm going to end this post with some of the shots I took on Wednesday at Swanwick Nature Reserve.

More crazy days

The last couple of weeks have seen us running about the country - to Nottingham, place of us grownups birth - on family business.  Father in Law has been offered a sheltered flat in Park Gate, after being on the local council waiting list since March.  So, two weeks ago, we had to go up to Nottingham to fetch him to have a look at it.

Fortunately he approved, so the council and the Housing Association whose property it is have also been busy getting the paperwork filled in.  Last weekend (a bank holiday) I took him back to Nottingham to start packing and generally closing his life down up there.  K came with me to help, and came back with some new bruises due to failing to use the door way as an entrance to a building.  Dyspraxia rules!

We then spent all week packing up what he wants to bring with him, and taking piles of rubbish and old magazines/newspapers up to the tip.  There's still plenty of tip work for us and a few more things to bring down but that will happen over the next few weeks.  On Thursday I realised that K was due on scout camp at Thorpe Park this weekend (as in the following day).  Needless to say, it didn't happen.  I sent many apologies to the leader and explained what had happened.  K wasn't overly distressed, especially after I promised her a day out at half-term to make up for being a sieve-head.

Father in Law seems to live 'in the now', with very little sense of urgency to plan ahead or remember chronology, so it has been very interesting.  I left him a pile of paperwork to sort through and file - even bought a file and plastic baggies for him - but I ended up chucking it all in a box yesterday.  Then, yesterday, he starts deciding what he'd like packing from upstairs.  He's had all flippin' week to tell me that but waits till the van's outside (driven up from here by A, accompanied by D) and nearly all full.  Minor grrrrr.

Once the van was loaded, and an early lunch was had, we all set off back down here.  I tell you, my car could do the journey without any input from me; it's certainly done it an awful lot this year as we tried to sort him out.  Father in Law slept most of the way down, and most of the time since he's been here.

Today we are moving into his new place.  K & I have a hot date at Curves first thing - they're starting their weight management classes today so we can't put it off - then we'll head back; by which time most of the heavy lifting will be done and A will be done in.

We have to go and order/buy a new fridge/freezer for Father in Law.  He assures me he bought it in the 60's, except that a) I know that style didn't exist then, and b) A can remember it being bought when he was about ready for secondary school (late 70's).  Either way it was in no fit state to be taken anywhere but the tip.  There was rancid milk accumulating on the bottom and going a lovely shade of blue, the drain pipe at the back was black with gunk, and it really needed a good scrub.  It also stank.  And don't get me started about the bag of cabbage that had turned to a vile, green liquid.  Father in Law says he has no sense of smell and I believe him.

Before anyone berates us for letting things get that bad for him, it wasn't through lack of effort on our part.  Up until the past 6 months or so we have been told politely but firmly to 'butt out'.  There's not a lot you can do about that without alienating him completely.  Six months ago he decided that he couldn't cope any more and that he thought he was becoming a bit forgetful (we'd been noticing it for a few years).  Since then we have been making enquiries, plans, and generally scheming to sort him out.  The local council here were happy to put him on their waiting list for somewhere suitable.  I am organising an Occupational Therapist assessment to see what else 'adaptive' he'll need to make life easier - I'm hoping to get a Dementia Screening person in at the same time so he doesn't twig on.  There will be plenty of home-made food in his freezer, and he WILL eat it - another issue caused by poor memory and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (too tired and breathless to eat) - as he hasn't got to walk far or use stairs to get to the kitchen any more.  I will also be taking care of the laundry, making sure the pots are washed properly and the place is clean

Life is about to get a whole lot more busy for us.  I'm hoping we'll see an improvement in his general health or, at least, a slowing in the decline of it.

When I got home yesterday there was a letter from the local college, where I'm going to do the Level 3 AAT qualification.  Basically it was a 'you can get your course books from us on these dates, oh and by the way there was a mistake in the brochure.  Your course day is a Thursday, not a Tuesday'.  The brochure came out in June and it takes them till the beginning of September to tell us that we're coming on a different day.  It's a good job I don't have other, unavoidable, plans for Thursdays, or have childcare to sort out.  I've had issues before with this college's admin 'skills' but this is just pathetic.

Don't be fobbed off - teachers DON'T always know best.

About 10 or so years ago I was told by my two's primary school teachers that a) D needed to write more, that he was bright enough but letting himself down by not writing enough, possibly lazy, and b) K was a daydreamer who could write more if she didn't spend so much time staring into space.  Both kids were working at above 75% of the rest of the class so there was NO possibility of any special needs - ok, so you can see where this is going, eh.

Fast forward to 5 years or so ago, and after a year or two of home educating one or both of them the penny dropped that all wasn't well.  I had many rows with D about his 'laziness'.  In the end I took my concerns to my GP who referred us on to the community paediatrician - who complained that he was 'too old'.  Maybe if school had said that things needed investigating then we would have been there years earlier, but hey I'm only a parent who expected the school to KNOW if things were a bit off.

D ended up with a diagnosis of dyspraxia (general motor clumsiness) and dysgraphia (issues with the mechanics of writing).  We've since added some dyslexia to the mix as his spelling and pronunciation can be interesting/unique.  He's happy as he has an Educational Psychologist (EP) report giving him permission to use a laptop in class and exams plus 25% extra time in exams.

K can be quite jealous of D getting my attention so at the time all his diagnostic work was going on I got a book out the library and read out some of the possible SpLD (Specific Learning Difficulties - not to be confused with learning disabilities) that were going on with him to help her understand why he needed my attention at that time.  At one point I read out about Irlen Syndrome - where the written word flies around the page, rather than keeping still - and she said "You mean, writing doesn't fly around the page for you?"  The poor girl thought it was normal for this to happen so, of course, she'd never mentioned it.  Cue a visit to the optician for some colorimetry testing (using different colour lenses till you find out which colour makes the writing stay still) and £100+ for the right pair of glasses.  Not long after, I took her out of school as she wasn't coping with changing classrooms and the work load.

K has always been 'different'.  Even now I'm not sure which planet she's on but it's not always this one.  Her take on reality is not typical either but she tries hard to stay in this one - when it becomes too much, look out!  Anyway, K found cursive writing too hard.  All those flicks and ticks to get in the right place, especially when you have to work out how to join it to the next letter in the word.  So, once she was out of school, I 'made' her print instead.  She was much happier, and even more so when I passed her my laptop and told her to do it that way.  She thought we were cheating till I told her I'd rather she'd be able to edit it till it looked right without any 'messy' comments that her teachers were happily doling out.  Besides, who'd know.  Plus her confidence needed a boost, and the ability to produce good, neat work was important to us all.

K also qualified for 25% extra time and the use of a PC/laptop in exams.  This enabled her to get a C at Cambridge IGCSE English (similar to the old English Language O-Level in content) a year early.  I only entered her to give her a taste of what was required.  We were all gobsmacked with her result.  By 16 she had added Edexcel IGCSE Chemistry (C), Edexcel GCSE Maths (A) and OCR GCSE Biology (C) to her tally and off she went to college, full of nerves (lots of people) and high expectations (AS's in Double Science, Philosophy and ICT).  She soon made friends and her confidence and self-esteem grew.

I'd pre-warned the college's Learning Support Unit (LSU) as to what to expect.  They were willing to help her with support in and out the classroom, essay writing workshops, etc.  Unfortunately K decided that she was fine and didn't need the help.  In January K had a full EP assessment done which she told me suggested dyslexia and dyspraxia - no mention of the Asperger Syndrome which I suspected might be in there somewhere.  At parents evening her teachers gave me the impression that whilst she wasn't A grade material, she wasn't totally useless either.  Unfortunately her AS results brought her crashing down to Earth big time (an E and 2 U's).

So I have spent the last week holding her and drying her tears.  She was ready to quit college because she was stupid (something I hadn't heard in a while).  To be honest I was very worried about her, hence another reason it has been quiet on here.  On Tuesday of this week she had her course choice morning at college.  Whilst she was in the hall having some lecture or other (Welcome back, here's how to fill in your UCAS stuff, etc) I collared the head of LSU and asked if I could see K's EP report as I hadn't had a copy.  She said that Kshould have had a copy to give me but for whatever reason I never saw it.  Anyway, we sat and went through it (I have my copy now) and it was a real eye opener.  K's verbal and non-verbal skills are up above 90% (as in 90% of people her age are equal or worse than her).  Her processing skills (as in what her brain does with the information she reads/hears) is 2% (as in 98% of people her age are better than her at processing the information).  That is one hell of a discrepancy - in fact, less than 1% of the population would have this size defecit.  Bl**dy H*ll!!!

It's no wonder she made such a bad job of her exams.  To be fair to the college the LSU are not allowed to frogmarch needy students into extra support, unlike at school where they can (but getting them to admit there's a problem in the first place is damn near impossible if you're smart with it).  As it was explained to me recently, if you are predicted C's then schools won't bother as you're hitting the league table requirement.  It's only if you are predicted D's/high E's will they make an effort to boost you to the magic C and that all important tick in the 5 A* - C box in the charts.

We are currently researching assistive software/hardware that will enable K to get the most from her next 2 years at college.  She needs something(s) to help her organise her written work (intro, middle, end), take notes in class (dictaphone, pre-made notes from the teacher, notetaker in class), make sure she has correctly interpreted what she is supposed to be doing (class assistant, follow-up in LSU), and honest feedback from her class teachers instead of "oh, she's lovely".  K has totally changed her courses.  Now she is doing a Level 3 BTEC in IT (continuous assessments that she can re-write to improve) and AS Photography (she's decent with a camera but time will tell whether she's arty-farty enough).  Both teachers are aware of her individual needs - one of the teachers is dyslexic too so says she understands (we'll see) - so I'm hoping that things will be better.

The college has a policy that for each subject you drop you have to replace it.  The double award Applied Science counts as 2 courses so she was expected to replace it with 2 new AS's.  The head of LSU and I both agreed that, for K, this was NOT an option.  The head of LSU said that if the curriculum management team wouldn't budge then she would play the disability discrimination card and to send them to her if they were awkward.  Needless to say, all is now well for K and she has replaced 4 AS's with the equivalent of 3 AS's plus plenty of time in the LSU for dyslexia assistance/confidence building/essay skills/show us what you're doing and we'll make sure you're on the right path help/etc.

The EP report suggests possible assistive stuff and we are looking to try before we buy.  I'm also hoping the LSU might have some to play with.  Now I've had time to digest the report I'll be contacting the head of LSU to see if I can get an appointment for a week on Tuesday (K has to go in to get her bus pass/timetable/etc) so that we can start the ball rolling on some of this stuff.  I've looked it up on the internet and some of it seems a very good idea - shame it's so darned pricey, which is why I want to get K to try it first.  If it really is going to benefit her she can have it, I'll make the necessary sacrifices, but I'm not forking out hundreds of pounds to find it doesn't help her.

So ladies and gentlemen, should you find yourself in the position I found myself in all those years ago - kids aren't producing the work at an appropriate level/volume but are very clever and therefore can't possibly have special needs (according to the teachers) - make sure you get them assessed.  Fight the school, LA, go to your GP.  Whatever you do, don't think that the teachers know what they're talking about.

I feel that, in a way, I wasted the 4 years K was home educated as I didn't push a lot of dyslexia therapy at her.  With D, all he needed was an alternative recording method (typing) and he was able to play on a level field.  With K, she needed more and I missed it!  Don't let guilt get you.

Crazy days

Did you miss me?  I've been away for a couple of weeks.  There's plenty to tell.

K turned 17 and is ready to start driving lessons - gulp!

Exam results have been mixed.  More on these as and when I get more information as to why.

Father in law has been offered a flat in a sheltered housing complex.  As he lives 200 miles away and cannot pack for himself, I'll be clocking up frequent driver miles lending a controlling helping hand.  Any tips for keeping my sanity in amongst all the mayhem will be gratefully received.

Because of this, I am giving up on my temp job with the NHS.  As things stand in the medical world at the moment it is impossible to be physically in two places at once (don't get me started on mentally), so I can't be driving off to sort out FIL and be at my desk.  So the desk has to go (shame).  At least until the beginning of October.  After that will depend on how he settles.  He knows and loves the area so it should go smoothly.  But his health isn't good and will only get worse.  I've never imagined myself as a carer so this could get very interesting very quickly.  So if you see me out and about and I look haggard you'll know why.

HOLIDAY!!!!

Before you all get excited I'm not actually departing Dark Corner for anywhere else.  We are staying at home and having some days out.  Today we went to Brighton & Hove (both bits).  A parked in Hove and we walked along the very nice promenade to Brighton.  Hove seems genteel and really unspoilt by the tourist tat, preferring to save that accolade for its sister town Brighton.  We found a nice little cafe in Brighton, The Bucket, where they make their burgers by hand from scratch.  A bit of a wait but well worth it for the taste.  The weather was very 'Mediterranean' with lots of sun and a blue sea, which looked very inviting. 

We then mooched around the shops for a while.  I managed to get A into an Ann Summers shop but we only looked at the lingerie.  Nothing really took our fancy.  Some of the phone shops have some appealing offers in right now.  We might investigate those this week.

On the way back we followed the A259 and passed through Worthing.  It also looks like somewhere we might like to visit for the day.  There was an interesting-looking restaurant that served Chinese, Japanese, Singapore, Malay, Thai, Indian & Italian cuisine.  That just about covers our family's culinary desires, so we will definitely give it a try.  I'll let you know the name and a review afterwards.

Later this week we intend to go over the the island (Isle of Wight) for another day trip.  In between all this galavanting around we will be doing more mundane things like finishing up in the garden (spray painting the shed and the rest of the fencing, moving a couple of bushes, taking out some ivy that is encroaching, reminding the clematis and the jasmine that it grows in THIS garden and not over the wall by the footpath, etc), making a start on getting rid of the carpet moths (not nice as they loosen the pile in your carpets, leaving bare patches - their favourite places are in the dark and rarely disturbed), and de-cluttering the study (just how many old PC towers can a man need?)

K & I will continue to fit in 3 visits to Curves each week.  Our exploits there can be followed at another one of my blogs.

Been a bit busy

Partying, that is!  The weekend saw a birthday here in Dark Corner so I saw it as my duty to give my liver a good workout.  It has now forgiven me.  A bought me a Bon Jovi DVD.  The jury is out as to whether I am in heaven or not.  The lip synch seemed a bit out in places, some of the instruments hit the odd wrong note, and Jon sounded more out of tune than in.  All in all, not the best DVD of theirs I own, and I own plenty.  We did wonder if it was recorded at the end of the tour (Madison Square Gardens 2008) and if they were all tour weary.  However, I did my best to make it rain, yodelling along to the tracks and thoroughly annoying the rest of the household.

Last week, friends of ours left to go home to the US (waves madly at Ann).  Hopefully they will soon find a house and life settles down again.  They'll be missed.

D goes on camp next weekend for a week.  Unfortunately K chose not to so we parents won't get as much peace as we deserve.  We are having the week off and will be alternating between de-cluttering the house and doing day trips.  We might head to the island for a day.

My parents came down for the weekend.  I now have a tidy back garden - thanks, folks.  I need to go and buy a job lot of slug pellets and growmore, as well as a bucket of long-acting weed killer for the patio and drive.

On the job front, my official finishing date is the end of August but, as per usual here, I may be needed a bit longer.  I'm not bothered either way but it'd be nice to have something concrete.  Oh the joys of being a temp!  I've applied for a few jobs but not heard anything back.

Roll on tomorrow.  No work for 2 weeks.  My job share fellow temp wanted to swap some days with me so I am working Monday - Wednesday this week.  Then I'm off next week before returning to my normal Wednesday - Friday the following week, so for 3 days off work I end up with 1 day short of two weeks not working.  Excellent!!!!!