Blob Thing Meets Lots Of Animal Friends By The River In Manchester

My person is a silly woman sometimes.  I don't think it's her fault.  She just is silly.

This morning she took Winefride and me to a church fair.  She planned it all carefully.  I think we were going to have a good time and that we would meet some of the people my person used to go to church with when she was a preacher man and when she used to write sermons sometimes.  That was a long time before I was born.  She believed the words she said in her sermons.  I've read a couple of them.  Some of what I've read I agree with.  All the bits about being good to each other.  Some of it I don't agree with.  Back then she still thought that believing in Jesus - and believing lots of things about him - were an essential for her life and for the futures of other people too.  She doesn't believe that now which is good because I think I would end up having lots of arguments with her if she did and then Winefride would get upset.  My person still quite likes Jesus though and still owns more Bibles than most Christians.  Strange.

Anyway.  I was telling you how she is silly.  You might think she's silly for believing the kind of things she used to believe.  You might think she's silly for not believing it now.  You might think she's a very silly person for allowing me to dictate all these things about her and to happily keep typing about her own silliness without telling me off and chucking me across the room.  But it's okay.  Most of the time she doesn't mind being as silly as she is and she is learning to laugh about it.

Today we went to the fair.  My person checked the time of the fair.  She checked the date of the fair.  She read those details.  She checked again.  And again.  She must have checked half a dozen times so that we would know exactly when to leave the house.  She had worked it out to the nearest minute.  Nothing was left to chance at all.  Nothing.  My person can be like that.  Work it out thoroughly so that she knows exactly what belongs where and when it will get there.  When a journey goes wrong it can be majorly stressful for my person.

We went to the fair.

And we arrived at exactly the right time.

But we arrived at exactly the wrong date.

Yes.  My person is silly.  She took us to the fair a whole week early.

She had read the date over and over again.  But it was in her head that the fair was today.  After all, a fair somewhere else was today so surely this one would be too.  Her head did that.  And once done, no amount of reading and re-reading the correct information could change the wrong information engraved within her.

That's the way her brain works.  Fortunately she laughed about it, even though she had missed the other fair to go to the one that wasn't on.

Yes, my person is silly.  Frequently.

Enough about her silliness.  I want to share a little more about my exciting day out when we walked along the River Irwell.

I'll let you in on a secret now.  I have walked the second half of this walk again.  A couple of months ago my person took me back there and we took Winefride too.  We walked along the river again.  A long section was hard.  The first time we walked along one side and it was very muddy under the trees.  The second time my person decided that the route along the other side would be better.  It wasn't.  It was worse.  But we made it.

And then after our exciting walk - since my creator wasn't going to be home for hours - we went to a place called Farnworth.  We all like Farnworth.  The chip shop has good chips.  The cafe is very friendly and doesn't play horrid music.  There's a shop selling very rubbish imported toys, bad enough to disappoint even the least discerning child.  We like looking in that shop.  And most importantly, there are some very good charity shops.  My person has always bought at least something in Farnworth.  That weekend we bought a unicorn just like my friend Adduno and we gave him to my creator.  Last time we went my person bought a skirt which made my creator very jealous indeed.  My person says it's ultra-swish.

And then on that day, after Farnworth we went to visit a shrine.  My person was very silly there too.  We walked into the shrine and people were praying in front of what is either the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus or a wafer depending on your beliefs.  They were being silent.  And then my person failed to turn off her phone properly and suddenly, at the highest volume the phone could manage, came some not subtle at all Southern blues-rock by a band called Gov't Mule.  My person is silly.

But that's not the day I want to tell you about.  Maybe one day I should take pictures of Farnworth and show you what a wonderful place it is.  I could go to a big park there too and show you that.

On the day I'm telling you about I had just avoided being eaten by a wolf and then met some very spiritual worms.  It will be obvious to you that I preferred one of these experiences to the other.

We left the worms behind and I met lots more creatures and they let me have my picture taken with them.

First I met a caterpillar and lots of ladybirds.  I liked the ladybirds because they had arranged themselves in the right order.  They should have been in a straight line too but at least they were in the right order.  There were nine of them and they had different numbers of spots and they were using their counting skills well.  My favourite ladybirds were the second, third, fifth and seventh because those are prime.  I also liked the eighth, because he was a cube number and he also proudly told me about being part of the Fibonacci sequence.  The sixth said that he was a much better ladybird because he was perfect and because it's much better to be a triangle than a cube.  But how can you make a judgement like that?  I like triangles.  And I like cubes.  Which is better?  Neither.  They are both needed.  It's like asking whether an autistic person or an allistic person is better.  Neither.  And don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Walking onwards I met a duck.  I'd already ridden across the river on the back of a black swan that day so didn't need to ride on the back of a duck but it let me sit on its head and we walked around for a while quacking together and singing an amazing song about a duck.  Nooooo.  Not the one with the lemonade stand.  The duck didn't like that one and said it got quite annoyed because people kept wanting to sing it.  A tip for you:  Never sing the duck song to a duck because it's likely to bite you on the nose if you do.  A second tip for you:  Never sing the llama song to a llama.  I haven't actually met a real llama but I think llamas must be very fed up with hearing that song.  Try to be original if you meet a llama.  Sing them a song about Jesus.  Sing them a song about a different Jesus who joined the circus and worked part time as a pancake juggler, part time as a daredevil motorbike rider, and part time as the woman taking the admission money.  This different Jesus is a girl Jesus you see.  Or both a boy and a girl.  Jesus is big enough to be both.  If other humans can be both then it would be no trouble at all for Jesus.

My person is shaking her head at me.  Because she can't quite understand how I got from meeting a duck to talking about a gender-fluid Jesus in a single paragraph.  It wasn't hard.  I got there because I am extremely clever for a small pink soft toy.  I'm far more clever than my person expected I ever would be.  Sometimes I say things that she wouldn't ever think of.  Good going for a toy.  She is amazed sometimes because she thinks it is a simple matter to have this blog.  Just share a picture like this - of me riding on a dog - and that's that done.

But no.  Because I have my own voice and my own being and I like to use it.  Sometimes when we're out my person lets me choose what we're going to do too.  She would never have ridden on the narrow gauge railway if I hadn't said we should.  Next time we go I want her to spend the extra money so that I can drive the train.  They allow that.  And I want to drive a train.  Not many small pink soft toys get to drive trains, or ride on swans, or have blogs, or tell the world how silly their people are.  I am the luckiest small pink soft toy in the world.  By a long way.  And I've got Winefride too.  I am the luckiest.  And Winefride is the second luckiest.

And then I got to ride on another dog and that was very exciting indeed.  Because the second dog was a racing greyhound.  I had to hold on very tightly because she ran so quickly.  My person couldn't keep up at all.  I think the greyhound was showing off a bit.  Like I was in the last couple of paragraphs.  She wanted to show me how fast she was and she ran all the way back to Manchester Victoria station, where I had started my walk.  That was a bit worrying because I was now miles away from my person and that's a frightening prospect unless I am at home.  Fortunately the greyhound listened to my request to run back along the river and so we got back to my person who was still standing there looking very anxious and panicky indeed because she thought she might have lost me.  She already had her phone out and was going to phone the police to report a missing soft toy.  She gets scared if she thinks she has lost me and checks regularly to see that I'm still there.  I don't know how she would cope if she did ever lose me.  It doesn't bear thinking about.

After the excitement - and worry - of the greyhound, sitting with this calming creature was a big relief.  She looks a little bit like by creator's cat.

I met one more animal that day.  An owl.  Owls are meant to be particularly wise creatures aren't they?  This one wasn't.  This one was as dotty as a fruitcake.  I couldn't get him to say anything sensible at all.  But he did make me laugh as he danced around the path and sang about hobgoblins and tigers and sea anemones and the light of the moon.  A very mad owl.  But harmless and very cuddly.

We left the owl and continued our walk along the river.  For a while we saw no more unexpected animals.

The river was beautiful.  It would get more beautiful.  It would also get a lot more wet.  Well, the river wouldn't get more wet.  You can't get much more wet than a thing that is water.  But the air would get more wet.  Soon after this it began to rain.  And it didn't stop.  It rained more and my person - who had no coat - got quite wet.  She didn't mind.  And neither did I because when it got too wet I went and hid in the bag.

Next time I'll tell you more about my river adventure.  I'm afraid that there's another very frightening thing to talk about.  But don't worry.  I survived.  I am still here to tell you these stories.  It's okay.



[2056 words]

Blob Thing Nearly Gets Eaten By A Wolf Along The River Irwell

Blob Thing says:

It was a very long time ago.  They were good days, days of sweet innocence.  I was less than six months old.  Just about.  I had been having a very good year since being born on New Year's Eve in a house in Greater Manchester.  The year had started slowly.  I had lived in that house until being collected by my person.  She didn't know quite what to do with me because she had never had to look after a blob toy before, least of all an autistic blob toy.  I spent much of my early life sitting on her bed, spending my days with the other friends in her bedroom.  During the year more friends arrived, so many of them that some of them have to live in another room.

I lived my whole life there.  My person liked having me around but didn't know that I would develop to be such a well rounded person.  She liked the fact that I was a gift to her from my creator, just like my friend Portal, and so she kept me close at night.  But I didn't go anywhere.  It wasn't until nearly the end of April that I was taken out for my first adventures.  Towards the end of April my person had a day which transformed her life too but I wasn't there for that one.  She got sent out of the house and was ordered to find at least one thing that was a thing of joy.  She ended up taking a random bus and found several things of joy.  But I wasn't there.  Coincidentally we're going back on that bus today for another adventure.

It was just a few days after that transforming day that my life was transformed.  My person went out on an adventure she had planned - a walk that began at a bus stop on that bus route and ended at another bus stop on that bus route.  That sounds a bit dull doesn't it?  But it was a walk that included a river, a long sandy beach, clifftops and art along a promenade.  I think it must have been my creator who suggested that my person take me with her.  A friend to have with her.  My person agreed and she took the very first photos of me taken outside on that day.  The very first.  That was the 25th of April.  My first outing.

My life and character have transformed since then.  I've been on lots of adventures.  My creator suggested that my person write a single blog post about them.  Later she suggested that I get my own blog.  And it turns out that I am much better at writing my blog than my person ever was.  To start with she wrote it all.  Then I changed things so we would discuss the adventure and she would write from our discussions.  Now I dictate it.  Sometimes that means the posts go in directions neither of us expect.

My life changed in the biggest way at the end of July with the birth of my sister Winefride.  She has changed everything for me.  But on this day, a very long time ago, that I'm talking about today, there was no Winefride.  She was as yet unborn and undreamed of.  Life was very exciting though.

On that particular day my person and I had gone for an afternoon walk.  We had taken a bus to the centre of Manchester and were now walking along the banks of the River Irwell.  I was enjoying the walk.  Especially as it hadn't yet started to rain.  We took lots of photographs in the portion of the walk before the rain.  Less photographs when it was raining somewhat.  And then none at all in the last couple of miles when it was raining lots.  My person had only planned to walk about three miles.  Instead we walked eight.  Mostly in the rain without a coat.  My person is a bit weird sometimes.

As we walked further from the centre the river began to get more pretty.  I think it we had walked even further it would have got even more pretty.  My person wants to do that another day and see how far she can get up the river.  She also wants to walk down the river from where we began that day, past Strangeways prison and beyond to the countryside.  Here's the river.  On the right is a housing estate.  Up the bank to the left is a park.  It was all very pleasant and we still hadn't walked far.

It started to get increasingly pretty and there were lots of bridges.  We took pictures of some of the road bridges but this one is a foot bridge.  We wanted to take pictures of it from the other side too but there were two people who met on the bridge, a man and a woman.  They obviously had some kind of disagreement because they shouted and shouted and got louder and louder and said more and more words that I found difficult to hear.  I'm very glad that Winefride wasn't there to hear them.  She's non-verbal but you can almost guarantee that if she did pick up words to say - and probably say over and over again - they would be some of those naughty words I heard shouted from the bridge.  Winefride would probably be shouting out ******* or some other such word that I would have to asterisk out and she would be laughing and laughing and shouting the rude word without any notion that it might not be the most appropriate thing to do.  These two people on the bridge shouted so much and said so many mean things that I got worried about them and worried that one of them might end up leaving the bridge and entering the water below.  So we stood at a distance and waited until the two people parted again, still shouting.  It's very sad.  What could possibly merit such shouting?  I don't know.

Our walk progressed along the river.  And then things got worrying.  We saw a question on the ground.  A question.

What time is it Mr Fox?

I knew what time it was.  I knew very well.  It was about half past three.  I'm making that up.  I don't know exactly what time it was.  That's just a guess because I know it was the afternoon.  It might have been earlier than that though.

But the question was being asked.  What time is it Mr Fox?

All of a sudden an animal jumped out of the bushes by the side of the river.  It was Mr Fox.  Except he wasn't a fox my person says.  He was a wolf.  Later my person said that he had changed his name to Mr Fox because children nowadays aren't expected to know what a wolf is because (we thought) there weren't any wolves left in England.  There weren't wolves left in England when my person was little but children then still had to know what they were.  When my person was little they asked a similar question and played a game based on it.

What's the time, Mister Wolf?

The animal jumped out and opened its big mouth and said "DINNER TIME!"

I knew that was wrong.  It wasn't much past lunch time.  Certainly not dinner time.  I knew that wouldn't be for hours yet.  But this creature said it was dinner time and he seemed to think it was his dinner time.  This wolf looked hungry, as if he had dropped his lunch by the water and ruined it, just as my person had dropped our lunch a couple of days earlier.

He looked ravenous.

And I didn't think that he would want to eat our last remaining packet of really-not-very-nice pea snacks from Aldi.  The geese hadn't liked them.  And I didn't like them either.  I guessed they wouldn't be to the taste of Mr. Fox.

He sprinted up to us as fast as he could, all the while shouting "DINNER TIME!"

It was quite scary.

Then it got scarier.

Because it turned out that Mr. Fox the wolf was ravenous for me.

He wanted to eat me.  A small pink soft toy.

It's true.  He picked me up in his mouth just as my person was trying to take his picture.  These pictures were taken afterwards, once we had managed to pacify Mr. Fox and convinced him not to eat me.  There's another picture that was taken at the moment he grabbed me in his mouth.  I'm not smiling in that one I can tell you.  I didn't allow my person to post that photo because it scares me now a bit and also because it's very embarrassing because you can see right up my dress, all the way round.

It really was frightening to nearly be eaten by a wolf.  His teeth hurt but fortunately didn't do any lasting damage.  My person reacted quickly before he could run off with me back to the bushes and eat me.  She dropped her camera and reached out to grab me but she didn't manage it and then she had to chase the wolf and chase the wolf and hope that she could catch up before she had to stop running which wouldn't have been very long because she's very unfit.

Fortunately she was able to get close to the wolf and she reached out and grabbed his tail.  And she pulled.  Hard.  And pulled again.  Harder.  The wolf let out a big yelp because his tail hurt so much and he dropped me out of his mouth onto the ground.  The wolf tried to run off but my person wouldn't let go of him and gave his tail another pull.  How he howled.

My person held on tight and the wolf began to cry.  It served him right for trying to eat me.  We wondered what we should do.  My person first made the wolf apologise to me.  She then made him promise to not try to eat any more people even if he was hungry.  He should go and apply for help at a local foodbank just like a million British humans are having to do because they can't afford to feed themselves under the austerity policies of the British government.  My person told me I should include that sentence.  My person said that eating people is wrong, especially when there are foodbanks.  My person said that if she ever heard that the wolf had tried to eat another person she would come back and pull his tail again, even harder, and pull it so hard that it would feel like it was going to come off entirely.  My person spent a long time telling off Mr. Fox until she knew that he wasn't going to eat anyone.  My person did very well.

Afterwards I had the respectable pictures taken with the wolf and we sent him on his way with our last packet of pea snacks.  They might not have been as tasty as a small pink soft toy.  But they were food and the wolf would just have to have those until the foodbank opened the next day.  Mr. Fox skulked off into the bushes and we never saw him again.

As we walked on we met some more animals.  But they were far more friendly than a ravenous wolf.  First we met a cat.  It was very friendly even though it looked very worried about something.  It never did tell us what the matter was.  I think it might just have known that it would be raining soon and that it was going to get very wet because its owner had gone out for the day to Stockport.

And then we saw a black swan.  The swan was very friendly indeed and even let me ride on its back.  We crossed the river and came back several times.  It was lots and lots of fun and I think my person felt a bit jealous because she was too big to ride on the back of a swan.

As it turned out, we were to meet lots more animals by the river.  I'll tell you about them next time.  I have to stop now my person says because we have to get ready to go and catch that bus I told you about.  We're going to go to a museum at a colliery today.  My person has been challenged by my creator to take a picture of a "busy exciting hat."  Maybe we'll see one.  After the museum we're going to walk in a park and then we're probably going to a cafe before coming home.  It'll be another great big adventure and this time I will have my sister Winefride with me too.  She would have loved riding on a black swan.  She wouldn't have loved nearly being eaten by a wolf.  Or by a tiger.  But that's a story for another day.



[2178 words]

Blob Thing Meets Guardian Geese On The River Irwell In Manchester

Blob Thing speaks:

I have been looking through old photos of my adventures and I have been reliving some happy memories of my life.  I am nearly eleven months old now and am looking forward to celebrating my first birthday and looking back on a year that I could never have predicted when I was a newborn soft toy.  I got called Blob Thing because that's what I appeared to be.  A blob of pink wearing a dress and a smile.  It was never expected that I would turn out to be so clever or to have so many adventures or to be a good friend and companion for my person.  I have been a very fortunate toy.  And then in the summer my sister was born too and that's the best thing that's happened in my life.  She is incredibly wonderful.

Today I want to talk about an old adventure, or at least part of it.  It happened a very long time ago.  Four days before my half-year birthday.  My person was staying with my creator and on that particular Sunday afternoon my person had to look after herself with no help or company from my creator.  I asked her what we should do because I didn't fancy staying in the house all afternoon and evening just watching a television.  I wanted to go out somewhere.

My person suggested that we should go for a walk.  She has quite a lot of walks she wants to undertake, or at least start, in the Manchester area.  It's a big place and it's not all noisy city streets and crowds and all the other things my person finds difficult.  She decided that we should get the bus into the city centre, where it is all noisy city streets and crowds.  And then we should start walking and see how far we would get.  It wasn't a random direction though.  No it wasn't.  She said we would get the bus to Victoria Station, find the River Irwell which passes nearby and follow it upstream for a while.  Just a short walk probably until we got out of the city centre and then we would go home and rest.  In that way we would have started a long walk.  She wants to walk up and down all of the local rivers - and the ones in Stockport too - and the canals as well.  She wants to walk lots.

I thought that sounded like a good idea.  We would go.  And we would hope to stay dry.  It wasn't going to rain was it?  My person isn't always good at weather prediction.  On a recent visit to Manchester she was asked by my creator whether we needed to take our coats with us on a short trip to a liquorice shop in Atherton.  My person assured my creator that of course we wouldn't need our coats because it was a very warm and sunny day and to take a coat on such a day would be silly.  My person was wrong.  We got stuck out in almost the worst rain that Manchester has ever seen.  Without even a coat.  Winefride and I were able to take shelter in a waterproof bag but my person and my creator got very, very wet.  Fortunately they laughed lots about it.  And then they listened to the thunder for hours when they got back to the home.

It was the same on the River Irwell day.  My person thought it wasn't going to rain.  It did.  But she didn't mind that much because it was quite warm and the rain wasn't like the rain in that storm.

We set off after lunch and caught the bus to Victoria.  And then we started walking.  My silly person immediately took us the wrong way.  She just wasn't thinking straight.  She knew that the Irwell is down the hill from the station.  She passes the bridge on the bus every time she rides on that bus route.  She knows where it is.  So which way did she walk, confidently striding out from the bus stop?  That's right.  She walked up.  In the opposite direction to the river.  Instead of a short walk down a short road between a music college and a place where my person once went to a big Christian event we walked all the way round the outside of the station, crossed a main road the wrong way, backtracked, and eventually got to where we were meant to be.  My person felt a bit embarrassed by the whole thing.

Once we had reached the bridge we had to get down to the river.  My person knew exactly how to do that.  There was a footpath.  She had found it on the map.  And there was a sign to the footpath too.  She wasn't imagining it.  We walked along a little road to the path.  And that's where our walk went wrong again.  For the second time.  But this time it wasn't my silly person's fault.  We reached a fence and a big locked gate and a sign saying "Footpath Closed."  Oh dear.  Our walk really wasn't going very well and my person wasn't feeling too good and she wanted to give up and go home and drink lots of tea.

But I told her that we should persevere and try to find the river and that once we had found it our walk route should be more obvious.  I told her that we might find excitement along the river and mysteries and unexpected sights and that she would regret it if we didn't continue.  After a while she agreed and as it turned out our detour wasn't one that went on for miles.  Five minutes later we reached the side of the river.

It didn't take long at all and it felt that we had escaped the noisy city streets and left them a long way behind, perhaps in another country.  We happily looked one way.  Up the river.  In the direction we were heading.

And we looked down the river back towards the city centre.  We had only been walking along the river a few minutes and this is how far away the busy shopping areas and football museum were.  They had vanished.  You can't see it in the picture but there was a heron down there somewhere.

My person had to agree with me that it had been worthwhile not giving up.  That's one of our rules that is.  "No giving up."  She quite often wants to give up.  But the rules are the rules.  And thanks to my encouragement she didn't give up that day.  She stood by a river.  The sky was pretty.  It was warm.  The light reflected beautifully on the water.  And she started to feel a lot more calm.  So did I.  It's far more calming to be walking by a river than to walk in a shopping centre.  I don't understand why people don't do it.  We walked for miles that afternoon and hardly saw anyone but if we had gone to a shopping centre we would have seen thousands of people.

We carried on walking.  The route was pretty easy to follow because all we had to do was stay close to the river.  Easy.  We did have to leave the riverside later because a footpath that used to exist got closed off by the university which decided that closing off a riverside footpath would be the best policy.  We had to take a big detour then along a very noisy street and then some quieter streets before we found our way back to the river.  But we managed it and the rest of the walk was worth persevering for.

We hadn't really left the city and passed alongside an estate that didn't look to be filled with rich people.  There were lots of little houses, closed up shops, and no massive gardens or mansions.  That's okay.  The value of people isn't measured by how rich they are or whether they live in a mansion.  All people are valuable.

We were still passing by this estate when, up ahead of us, we saw another problem.  There in the distance our way was blocked by creatures guarding the path.  Creatures the like of which a six month old soft toy had never seen before.  They looked quite frightening and they were blocking the path.  What were we going to do?  Would we have to turn back, give up, and admit that walking along the River Irwell was impossible?  Would we be defeated so easily?  We hadn't been defeated by my person's silliness in going the wrong way.  We hadn't been thwarted by the right way being closed.  Was this the end?  It was scary and I didn't know whether we should approach these terrifying guards too closely.

But my person told me to be brave.  She might just have been saying that to convince herself to be brave.  I don't know.  She told me that she was determined.  She wasn't going to accept that we had come all this way and overcome such difficulties just to turn back now before even reaching the next road bridge across the Irwell.

Slowly we approached the creatures.  As we did I could see that they all looked similar.  With big long necks for reaching out in attack.  With massive beaks for biting and maiming and destroying and feet that looked dangerous too.  They weren't smiling.  I was very scared and there were lots and lots of them and I started to shake.

My person told me not to worry so much and said that it would all be okay.  She told me that now we were closer she could see exactly what manner of guardians these beasts were.

They were geese.  Geese.  That's what she said.  And she probably said it in the way she says words like that.  She said that we were going to be okay and that she had a plan to allow us to pass the geese.  She said the geese were birds and they weren't going to kill us and would probably let us through anyway without any difficulty but just in case she was going to make a sacrifice to them.

A food sacrifice.

I relaxed with this news and allowed my person to take a picture of me in front of the geese as we approached them.  I managed to keep smiling throughout the whole experience.

Here I am again.  This is me.  You can clearly see my lovely Autistic badge, the one that got stolen by the dragon in the Literary and Philosophical Society Library.  I'm possibly the best looking small pink soft toy called Blob Thing in the whole world.  I'm also possibly the only small pink soft toy called Blob Thing in the whole world so I haven't got a lot of competition.  But I dare to say I'm the only one with such a pretty dress and a wonderful badge and I'm almost certainly the only one who talks so much when blogging about his adventures.  My person says I should hurry up with my story.

There really isn't much more to tell today.  My person made her food sacrifice.  She couldn't make a big sacrifice because all she was carrying was a packet of peppermints which she knew the geese wouldn't like.  And two packets of a snack made out of peas.  She offered the contents of a packet to the geese.  They thanked her because it turned out they were very polite geese.  But then it turned out that they didn't like the pea snacks.  My person didn't really like them either and I didn't even want to try them because the looked and smelled and felt so awful.

Here's one of the geese asking my person why she has sacrificed something so rubbish to it.  It looks a bit confused by the situation.

I was a bit worried that the geese would look at our rubbish sacrifice and react badly and then we would be doomed to a painful destruction at the beaks of the birds.  But the goose said that it was okay.  We had tried and that was the main thing.  Trying is more important than succeeding.

The words of the goose made me very happy indeed.  Everything was going to be okay and we would be able to continue our walk along the River Irwell and we might find ourselves lots of adventures along the riverbank.

I will close with a couple more pictures of the geese.  It turned out that they were very friendly birds and I hadn't needed to worry at all.  They were unknown.  But I had turned the unknown into something very scary and I hadn't needed to do that.  I had catastrophised.   I had seen disaster when there was no disaster waiting for us.  I must learn not to do that.  I don't want to ignore danger.  But I don't want to be catastrophising every single day because that's a path to constant panic and not being able to live.  Sometimes it's very hard for me though to not catastrophise.  My head gets into a chain of thought and I get completely stuck there.

These are some of the friendly geese.  There's a hopeful pigeon there too.

And lastly here's a very friendly goose.  I think it was only being quite so friendly because it was the only one out of all the geese who actually liked eating the strange pea snacks we carried.

We left the geese behind.  We were safe.  And so were they.  Other adventures awaited me that day.  It was going to be a wonderful walk.  A wet walk.  With miles of walking in the rain.  But a wonderful walk.



[2304 words]

Blob Thing Has An Ecclesiastical Adventure In St. George's, Jesmond

We've just come back from a little holiday.  We went to Manchester again to see my creator.  She was very busy because she's a very busy person with a very busy life doing lots of work to help lots of people.  When we're there she helps us too and especially helps my sister Winefride.  We spent three whole days in Manchester.  On the first day my creator was busy so we went into the city centre with my person.  She spent most of the day in a special reading room doing some writing.  It was good for me because I dictated my blog to her.  But Winefride got a bit bored.  We should have taken some toys for her to play with or some of her favourite things for lining up.  We did have paper and a pen so she did some drawing so that was okay.  On the second day my person took us to Bolton but the weather was very horrible indeed so Winefride and I chose to stay hiding in my person's bag where it was dry and at least a bit warmer.  And on the third day we went on the exciting V bus to a place called Leigh.  My person says she used to live near another place called Leigh and that the two places aren't pronounced the same way.  We had some fun adventures in Leigh with a motorbike, a bus, a horse, Peppa Pig, and even some very friendly giant soldiers.  Leigh was nice and we'll go there again and ride on the exciting bus too.

Today I want to talk about a little adventure I had a long time ago.  Winefride hadn't been born then so it was just my person and myself going out adventuring.  We were having a bit of a random walk that day.  Okay, I will admit it.  It wasn't just random.  We were lost.  We had been walking to a specific place and we hadn't arrived in it because the streets just didn't go in the right direction.  Naughty streets.  They should have gone the right way and I think they just reorganised the map in order to confuse us that day.  We've been back since though and they obviously got stuck in the reorganised map version because they never changed back.  It serves them right for tricking us so badly!

We managed not to panic though and decided to see what we could find after we had been tricked so cruelly by the streets.  I hope the people who lived on the streets weren't too confused when they got home that night.  What we found was a very big building.  We saw it again a week ago on our final day hunting Snowdogs.  We passed the building.  It was quite close to one of the dogs too and I'll be blogging about that on my special project Snowdog blog quite soon.  So far I have blogged about seven dogs and a little Snowdog pack and the dog I'm talking about was number thirteen and was in front of a big sign all about kindness.  I liked that sign a lot.

But the Snowdog can wait.  I want to talk about the building.  Here it is.

Isn't that grand?  My person saw this place - it's a church - and said that we should go and explore inside if we could.  My person likes going in churches and exploring.  This one is called St. George's Church and it's in a part of Newcastle called Jesmond.  My person says that she had wanted to visit St. George's for a while because she had heard that it was pretty.  The things that she heard weren't wrong.  I'm going to write two whole blog posts about it and she's going to write one too and either post it on her blog like this one or post it on her new little project at Niume.  Or blog.  Because we took ever such a lot of pictures.

Before going into the church we walked in the grounds and it was there that we met Jesus for the first time.  At least, for the first time when visiting St. George's.  This was a very special Jesus.  With a very special talent:

He was levitating!

Now I know that Jesus could walk on water, which is a very clever trick.  But I didn't know he could levitate.  I thought that was just something magicians did in shows when creating pretty illusions.  My person is telling me that in the stories Jesus could do it for real, without the use of wires or stagecraft or props or whatever else the magicians on television and the stage use.  My person says that Jesus didn't levitate very often but did rise up all the way to heaven once in what people call The Ascension.  She says it's the final mystery of a prayer she used to pray a lot called the Rosary and that it's written in the Bible.  I don't think anyone on television has done a trick like that.  Jesus is impressive.  I think that's just a story though and I don't think Jesus ever did such a thing.  I don't think that heaven is up there anyway.  If it is then it's a very long way away.  And I don't think that, if there is such a thing as heaven, travelling through space would be the most efficient way to get there.

If heaven is the ultimate reality I think that no part of space is closer to heaven or further away from heaven than any other part so crossing the universe wouldn't help in journeying to heaven.  If there is heaven, you are just as close to it where you are sitting or standing now than you would be in any other place.  It doesn't matter whether that place is the top of a mountain, the bottom of the sea, a church, a shrine, a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas or in some distant galaxy.  You are as close to heaven now as you ever were or ever will be.  And in terms of physical distance that's zero metres and zero centimetres and zero millimetres and zero tiny little subatomic specks.  Physically you share space, or non-space, with that which is heaven.  Physically you are there now and so am I.  It doesn't matter whether you call it heaven, or nirvana, or ultimate reality, or realisation, or the ground of being, or anything else.  You and I are there now.  Because it is here now.

Oops.  Sorry.  I got sidetracked there.  Where was I?  Oh yes.  Jesmond.  I'd like to thank my person for typing all that for me even though her finger is hurting quite a bit from when it got broken years ago.  She should be registered disabled for that.  A writer with a finger that makes typing hard.  My person says she used to know a person like that.  A person who was a writer with a thumb that made writing hard.  Not too hard though obviously because that person was able to write eighteen pages of writing in a three hour exam which is far more than my person could ever do even at full writing speed.  That person was registered disabled because of her thumb even though it obviously wasn't a very disabling thumb.  Nowadays things are much harder.  Today is the one year anniversary of my person applying for a disability benefit because of all the difficulties that come through her autism and all the other things her head does.  One year.  And the process still isn't over.  After a year.  I think that's pretty horrendous and it's just lucky that she's got someone to look after her otherwise she would have ended up in big trouble.

We went inside St. George's Church and discovered that it's an amazing building inside.  If you ever get a chance to walk round it then do.  Here I am on a pew at the back of the church.  The altar is in the far distance.

We took loads of pictures.  I said that.  Lots of them don't have me in them but they're not quite so exciting so I'm not going to share them.  My person can share them herself and you will see for yourself that photos are made much better when one of three things happen.  These three:

1. I am in the photo.
2. My sister Winefride is in the photo.
3. Both me and my sister are in the photo.

All of those things make a photo better.  Of course Winefride hadn't been born when I went to St. George's Church so only the first of those things could happen that day.  When my person writes her blog about the church you can judge for yourself and find out that I am right.

Here I am at the back of the church by a big candle that's been partly burned.  My person says this is called a Paschal candle and the church gets a brand new one at Easter.  In the Catholic Church it gets introduced at a very special mass on Easter Saturday night and has pins squished into it to represent the wounds of Jesus and then it's burned through the whole of the year.  My person could talk more about this candle but I am not going to let her.  I just like the picture.  I think my person misses all the church things in some ways.  They provided some form of central cohesion in her head.

We walked to the front of the church and I decided that I would like to try my hand at being a preacher.  I'm not sure how well my sermons and homilies would be appreciated in the church.  The services there are of the Catholic Anglican tradition - very traditional and possibly with lots of smells and bells as they say.  I like bells.  My person has got to write a story about a bell soon.  It's in her head.  But she also wants to publish at least one blog post a day for the rest of the year.  Either one I dictate to her or one of her own.  That's quite a challenge.

Here I am on another pew, with the camera pointing towards the back of the church.  I nearly said "looking towards the back" but of course I was looking towards the front.

One last picture for today.  Here I am again.  Near some prayer things.  It might look like you have to light candles and then throw them in a bowl of water in case you burn the church down but that's not the idea.  To be honest I can't remember the idea.  I think you were meant to leave the candles burning which is a nice tradition but not one that could affect the efficacy of prayer in any way whatsoever unless a flame and a tiny bit of heat in some way travel up into heaven and then God sees them and then waves their magic finger and changes the world.  But that can't happen because heaven isn't up there and no God really works like that.  I think the flame just affects the people who light and see the candles.  They don't affect a God.  Nope.  Nope.  Nope.  That doesn't mean lighting them is a bad thing though.  It doesn't mean that the signs we create aren't significant.

I think the bowl of water was another sign.  Not for washing your hands.  Not for washing in any way.  There's another bowl of water in lots of churches for that.  And that's not even for washing with soap and water like after you go to the toilet.  My person still uses that bowl in churches sometimes.  I'm not quite sure why she does it.  You would have to ask her.

I think there were some pebbles nearby and you could choose a pebble and drop it into the water.  I can't remember why.  I think it was something to do with prayer again.  There are lots of things to do with prayer in churches.  Another sign.  People like signs.  I like them too sometimes.  I like signposts too.  And my person likes number plates.  We saw some good number plates on the third day away that I was talking about.  Winefride and I had our photo taken with one of them too.  We sat ourselves on the front windscreen wipers of a bus to have our photo taken.  The number plate of the bus was BUS 1S.  My person got quite excited by that.  She's a bit weird!

I'll tell you more about my visit to St. George's, Jesmond next time.  I met a couple of new friends there who live in the church and help to entertain little children who don't want to listen to the sermons.  A worthy job.  That's next time.  I'm looking forward to talking about it.  Probably more than my person is looking forward to typing it all.

[2173 words. That's rather a lot. I hope Blob talks a bit less or a lot less next time.]

Blob Thing And Winefride Nearly Get Arrested On Wrecsam Station

Blob Thing says:

You know what?  I'm a bit cross with my person right now.  I've calmed down a bit from earlier but I'm still a bit cross.  She's trying to make up for things by letting me write a blog post but she made a big mistake today.  Do you know what she did?  Do you?  No, you probably don't.  She went out today and photographed lots of Snowdogs.  She did.  And she forgot to take me and Winefride with her.  There we were, deserted at home in the warm.  And there she was, walking from dog to dog in the pouring rain without us.  She's a bit crazy is our person.  She walked for miles today.  In the rain.  At least she wore her adventure coat.  She says that she realised her mistake when she found her first Snowdog - a really posh one in a suit, suitable perhaps for somewhere like Gosforth.  She found seven Snowdogs today and lots of little dogs too.  And Winefride didn't see any of them.  Neither did I.  And that's not really fair is it?  And some of them were in Jesmond Dene and she's been promising to take us there for ages.  She's saying now that she'll take us on a sunny day and we can go and look at all the other animals there because though the dogs might have gone the birds and the goats will still be there.

So yes.  I'm a bit cross with her tonight.  Next time she goes out she's got to take us with her and she's promised to take us Snowdog hunting this week.  We might even go twice for two long days of hunting.  We're going to shoot them all.  Shoot, shoot, shoot.  Not with a gun.  We haven't got a gun to shoot with.  Partly that's because we don't want a gun.  Partly it's because we don't need a gun.  My person says she used to know a minister who would carry a big gun with him as he travelled between his churches.  He didn't have a car so had to walk, sometimes for more than a day.  And sometimes he would have to use his gun to scare off lions and tigers.  I don't think we will have to scare many lions in Newcastle.  And partly we don't have a gun because of laws.  Some countries have very strange laws and lots of people have guns because ... well, I don't know quite why.  But in some countries there are shootings all the time and I know there aren't many here.  I think it's because somebody once wrote some words on a piece of paper and those words fit a situation in another bit of history.  And then people think those words should be taken to mean only one thing for all time and everyone should be able to have guns even if they haven't got lions to scare.  I think that's why.

My person is telling me to hurry up and get on with my blog and stop talking about guns.  I saw some men who looked a bit like the ones at the bottom of this post.  They were at Newcastle station when Winefride and I were meeting Snowdogs there the other day.  Except these men were carrying big and scary looking guns and the men in the picture later didn't have guns.  I don't like seeing guns.  It scares me.  I have read it's because there might be scary people around.  But the guns scare me and every time I see them I want to cry and hide.  I know guns have good uses, like starting running races, but I don't like them.  Why do people want to shoot and hurt and kill other people?  They are stupid.

My blog.  I want to tell you about Winefride.  I want to tell you about something that happened when she was only one day old.  I'd sat and watched as my person and my creator acted together and created my sister.  They did a very good job.  She's severely autistic and she's wonderful.  She's also got a tumour but it's benign so that's okay.  I think.  I don't really know what a tumour is.  The very next day after Winefride was made we all took her out on an adventure.  We went all the way to another country.  It's the only time I've ever been to another country.  My person says that she used to live there.  The country was called Wales and there were lots of signs in another language.  While we were in Wales we took Winefride to her very first play area.  She enjoyed it so much and squealed and made all kinds of happy noises.  We enjoyed rocking together on this toy.

My creator and my person both had a ride on this toy and it was very funny watching them.  There is a video of my person using it and she rocked back so far that her head nearly collided with the ground!  It was so funny and I laughed until my sides hurt.  I'm glad my sides didn't split.  They're only held together with stitches and I wouldn't want my insides to fall out.

Later Winefride and I met some sheep.  I've already told you about the Welsh sheep.  I think I've even mentioned Uncle Adrian's emergency Welsh sheepdogs who are going to come and herd some as yet non-existent sheep into the sensory room.  I wanted to show you this picture again because I think it shows just how much I love my sister and how much my sister loves me.  I was so happy to have a sister.  And I still am.  My person needs to give my fur a clean sometime.  I can tell that when I look at old photos.

And then it was time to go back to the railway station.  It was called Wrecsam Cyffredinol.  I know that because it says so on the sign.  I posed in front of it and then Winefride came and joined me.  She couldn't read the words but she wanted to be in the picture too and was obviously getting upset that she wasn't in it.  So here we are together.  I am managing to look at the camera - which I don't always manage.  Winefride is looking in completely the wrong direction.  You can see that she didn't have reins then.  If she had then what followed might have been very different.

You see, Winefride was tired.  She was less than a whole day old so that's not surprising.  And she was a bit anxious because there had been so many new things.  And it was quite boring having to wait for yet another train.  This was the fourth one we had waited for that day.

Winefride started to misbehave.  She didn't know better and she was just being her wonderful self but most people would have thought her behaviour inappropriate.  She ran off.  She did.  It was actually quite worrying a couple of times because it took us ages to catch her and she had run too close to the platform edge.  She might have fallen and been run over by a train and that would have been the saddest thing possible for me.

Between the three of us we managed to get Winefride to calm down.  I was good at it because she's my sister.  My creator was very good at it because she knows a lot about autistic children and how to look after them.  She's gifted and skilled.  My person got a bit flustered by the whole thing and a bit worried in case she couldn't look after Winefride properly when we got back to Newcastle.  As it turns out she's done a very good job.  Except today when she forgot to take us out with her.

Winefride had her picture taken by this sign.  I wanted the picture to be taken.  I haven't got a clue what any of it says because it doesn't say anything in a language I speak.  Winefride didn't have a clue either but I think she liked the picture at the bottom and I think she might also have liked the shade of blue.  My person says that she used to pass through a place called Amwythig a lot.

And then.  We only took our eyes of her for a moment.  To look at a bird.  And then Winefride was off again.  Running up and down the platforms and I was chasing after her.  And she was making a lot of noise.  Lots of excited squeals and somehow or other she was flapping too even though she doesn't have anything to flap with.  She was obviously having a very good time.  But the people on the station platform weren't.  She was being very loud.  People were looking at us.  And then they were looking at my person and my creator with very disapproving faces.  I could tell.  Because they were tutting and shaking their heads like it was the end of the world.  And my person and my creator were trying to catch up with Winefride too.  I knew she was having fun but I was worried about her because she obviously didn't have any sense of danger.  How could she when she was a one day old severely autistic soft toy?

And then someone must have called the police because I heard a whistle behind me and I looked and there were two policemen there chasing after us too.  And that was scary.  I called to Winefride and she happened to look back.  And she stopped running.  I don't think it's because she thought she was doing anything wrong.  I think it was just the bright colours of the policemen's jackets that had caught her eye.

The policemen told us to stop moving.  One of them picked me up.  And the other picked up Winefride.

Winefride started to laugh but I was worried because these were policemen.  Actual policemen.  And I thought we were going to be arrested and thrown in a prison and I am scared of prisons.  It doesn't matter whether it's the prison at Hexagon where I was put in the stocks, or the prison I saw near Durham or any other prison.  I don't want to have to go and live in one.

My person and my creator finally caught up with us.  They were out of breath.  I am so thankful.  Especially to my creator.  She explained the situation carefully to the policemen and explained all about autism and about the difficulties it presents.  And she apologised for Winefride's behaviour.  I apologised too.  But Winefride didn't because she can't talk - or doesn't talk - and because she didn't know that she had been behaving in any way out of the ordinary.

The policemen relaxed and then they smiled.  And we were told that we shouldn't behave in such a way again and just this time we wouldn't be arrested.  The policemen were very nice about the whole thing and even let us have our picture taken with them.  Thank you policemen.

I love my sister.  But sometimes living with her can be challenging.  That's okay.  She's more than wonderful anyway.  Even on days when my person forgets to take us out.



[1888 words]

Blob Thing Looks Back on September Adventures With His Meany Bum Person

[Excuse weirdness in presentation.  We typed the whole lot.  Then the software died and we had to copy and paste it back from Open Office where we had saved it.  But then we had to redo all the photos and it all got difficult.  It's not as neat as we wanted it to be.  Apologies from Blob Thing.]


It's been a long time.  I keep trying not to get cross with my person but there's no getting around the fact that it's been a long time.  And she keeps making excuses.  First she says that she can't manage to type my blog when we're away from home so much.  It's true.  We have been away quite a lot.  We're away from home again now but she's agreed to try to type something for me so I don't think it's a particularly good excuse.  But then when we did get home for longer than a few days she still wouldn't type my blog for me.

My creator called my person a meany bum yesterday because of something my person wouldn't let her do.  Well my person is a meany bum for not getting on with my blog.  There's always been some excuse or other.  First she's too tired.  Then she's too stressed.  Then she says she would have typed my blog but she had to type something else.  Then I catch her just sitting watching television sometimes.  Yes.  She does that.  When she could be typing my blog for me.  It's not as if I can do it myself.  My creator says that my person should make a big strap on pointer for me so I can attach it to myself and use it for typing.  I bet my person doesn't do it.  She's such a meany bum.

It's been twenty-three days since I got the chance to type a blog.  Twenty-three.  When my person promised me that I would be able to do it nearly every day.  Meany bum.  My creator is such a wise woman in designating that title for my person.  I'm surprised she is typing this for me but I've told her that if she doesn't do it I'll get in a strop tomorrow in Southport and tell everyone how meany bum she is.  I'll tell the woman at the ice cream shop.  I'll tell all the staff of the chip shop.  And I'll even tell the people in the liquorice shop.  And everyone will know what my person is like and she wouldn't have a very good day.  I probably wouldn't do any of that of course.  I'm too nice.  But the threat is there.

Anyway.  It's been a busy time.  Today I just want to share some photos of some of the things I've been getting up to during September.  There are still adventures from July I haven't told you about.  Lots of them.  But all of these are from September.  My life has been pretty busy even though there was one day on which my person promised Winefride and me that she would take us to a special forest where we could walk round lakes and go and see lots of animals.  And then she didn't take us at all.  Instead she went for a lunch with some people and didn't even take us out of her bag and introduce us.  We would have much preferred to walk in the forest.  I think that she would have preferred it too in retrospect although of course she wouldn't say that.  She didn't treat us well that day and put herself first.  What a meany bum!

I think October is going to be a busy month for us too.  I hope so anyway.  Yesterday we got to row a boat across a big lake.  Today we've been to visit Jesus and Mary in their special shrine.

My person.  Meany bum.  She got to that point in typing my words and then she claimed to be too tired to continue and that she needed to try to go to sleep.  Where did that leave me?  Yes.  Unable to finish.  And now three more days have passed. [Blob stressed the word three a lot when he spoke just then.]

She hasn't helped with my blog.  At all.  I suppose I shouldn't moan entirely because it's not all been bad.  And she hasn't been totally terrible.  On Monday we had a day out to Southport.  Winefride and I didn't get to adventure much but we did play on a slide and we did try to watch the sun setting over the sea.  That was very nice.  Yesterday my person took us out walking.  First we visited a big graveyard because for some reason my person likes visiting graveyards.  There was a massive church there which I wanted to go in because it looked amazing and there were lots of holes but it was fenced off and there were big signs about it being unsafe.  Then we walked by a river and saw some pretty things.  I was glad that my person carried Winefride and me because part of the walk was very muddy.

Last night we got taken out to an autism event in Manchester and we heard lots of talks.  I was very very pleased at one point because I got mentioned and so did my blog.  I'd better get my meany bum person to help with it more often now if we're going to be mentioned at autism events in Manchester.  My person was given a few ideas at the event too even though the focus was different from the focus she wants to have in Newcastle.  And she met a person who used to live in Newcastle and really misses it.  Unsurprising.  Because Newcastle is a wonderful place.  She lived a few metres from a bus stop I will be standing at tomorrow evening.  Amazing.

This morning we are going back to Newcastle but my person said that there is just time to help me with my blog post.  I am going to post lots of photos now.  And just say a sentence or two.  When we manage to blog about these events I can tell you about my adventures in detail, the kind of detail only a blob or her person can include.

Here goes.  Photo time!

This is Winefride and myself from when we went hoop dancing.

My person wasn't good at it at all.  And the hoops were a bit large for me.  There weren't any blob size hoops.

Here I am.  Out of focus.

That's the evening I met the head of the Catholic Church in England.

Or the ex-head.  This head is a dead head.  He has ceased to preach.  Gone to meet his maker.

That was Humerous!  (sic)

 Here are Winefride and myself on a visit to Newcastle Anglican cathedral.

Newcastle has three cathedrals because Christians disagree and keep having arguments and used to kill each other lots over those arguments.

At the graveyard yesterday we saw how even in death the Christians have to be kept separate from each other.

Maybe they go to different heavens too.

Here's Winefride.  She's my sister and I love her.

This was the first time she rode at the front of a Metro train and got to look at the view from the front.  She liked watching the rails and sleepers as they went under the train.

My person likes the numbers on all the bridges and posts by the track.  She keeps telling my how the number on the first bridge out of Jesmond is a square number and how that makes her happy.

Another number we pass is the sum of two squares.  If she halves it it's still the sum of two squares.  If she halves it again it still is the sum of two squares.

That makes her happy too.  My person is a bit strange.

Here are the two of us on another train.

This one didn't have a driver at all.  How does that work.

It's the driverless train at Gatwick Airport.  We went to see the airport when we were in Sussex.  The train was amazing and we actually got to go on it again later.

Here we are on the south downs at a place called Ditchling Beacon.  We took lots of photos there and it's a place that now has a special meaning for my person.

This is one of lots of pictures that my person took of me and Winefride when we visited the museum in Market Lavington.

We enjoyed our visit there a lot.  It's a very good little museum.  My person and everyone with her enjoyed it too but they all seemed a bit sad because of something very sad that happened a few days earlier.  I think my person is still sad about it.

This was absolutely brilliant.

I spent three days helping here.  It's the Autistic Fringe yurt which was the best thing at the Autism Europe International Congress.

My person had a very good time too and Winefride was free to be herself in a safe autistic space.

Here's Winefride and I.  We're sitting on the head of a snow dog.  It's tempting to go and find all the snow dogs because there are lots of them scattered around Tyne and Wear.

In the background you can see an actual real life river god.  You can tell that they are powerful because they are sitting on the side of a wall and they don't fall off.

Here I am sitting on a melodica.

I went to a brand new choir with my person.  It's a women's choir and my person was really happy because she could hit the lowest part without having to drop and octave.

I know that she's looking forward to tomorrow night because she can go to the choir again.

This time she will take a head torch.

Final picture.


Here's Winefride being a bit too Winefride like.  She didn't understand how dangerous it was to stand so close to a caiman.


I was pretty scared.  But it turned out okay.  And we got to see dinosaurs too that day.



There you are.  A little glimpse into some adventures I had during September.  I have an amazing life for a small pink toy.  Absolutely amazing.


In a while we will leave for Newcastle and I'm sure we will do lots of living while we are there.  And then we will come back to see my creator for a few days again.  I love my creator.  I am very proud of her indeed.  I am proud of Winefride too.  She's pretty amazing.  She's severely autistic and doesn't talk but she's so full of joy and life and exuberance and I love her very much indeed.

[1741 words]