Close encounter

Top gratitude to Judith for being an excellent hostess...lovely food and laughter to share, guided tours and completely unfazed by my 'collection device' deciding to donate rather than collect whilst sitting next to her!



The moor was delightfully pretty in the sunshine and scudding clouds and my joints and muscles ache today as if I strode across it when actually I did not. I made it on foot to the station though and for a potter around the picturesque little town. I was looking for photos to take that were 'a little bit different' from the usual picture postcard shots and I thought you might like this, taken looking upwards in a very narrow lane...

I give thanks for another sunny day. For the sound of a fly buzzing around the window. Yes I know it can get annoying after a while but how nice for the fly to have his coat and jumper off and be able to flap his wings for a change. For the quintessential summeryness of the noise. For the chance be outside for twenty minutes or so when I had to go out to post a letter and combined it with a sit in the damp grassed but breeze sheltered communal gardens. I give thanks for a chat with the nice people from next door and the good natured Tesco delivery man who was looking forward to cloud and rain again I think...he said it was hot in the van. It's always worth remembering whatever weather you think is just what you want, someone else may think something else again.

The thing that has moved me most in the last twenty four hours though was part of a documentary I watched about an autistic man unable to talk or behave in a 'normal' way and who had been diagnosed at different times as severely retarded, schizophrenic and clinically insane. He was given a special kind of typewriter to communicate and was found to be both intelligent and very emotionally aware of his situation and how difficult it was for others to understand and relate to him! OK, better not get back on your chair just yet if this kind of thing is news to you too... He also made friends with another man with severe autism who communicated the same way and they went out and about together for recreation and to educate others. They said that people without autism didn't understand that those with it did actually like to form close bonds and they found their friendship very enriching. You know what a softy I am...I wept at this. These men (and how many others?) had been locked inside their condition, and institutions for many years. All the communication and interaction we take for granted out of reach. I remembered Wilhelmina, one of those I used to support when I worked for Social Services. There were odd moments when we'd catch each other's eye and I'd think there was someone else inside her head from the one those around her perceived. Maybe there was. I give thanks for all the special souls I met there. May they be happy, may they be well, may they be at peace.