Blob Thing Plays With New Friends Before Exploring St. George's Church, Jesmond

Blob Thing says:

I was in a church with my person.  I seem to be in churches with my person far more often than you might expect when neither of us go to church.  We would have been in one on Sunday evening too if we had been able to get there in time, joining in with a commemoration of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, and thinking about all the transgender people who have been murdered across the world in the last year.

My person is transgender but the probability of her being murdered for being transgender is very nearly zero.  Because she lives in the UK.  Because she is white.  The church people were going to read the list of names and locations of the murdered, just as they did last year when my person was still a part of the church.  The vast majority of people on that list are not white.  The vast majority are black and a smaller but large group are Latino.  And the majority of them live in Brazil.  If you're black and transgender in Brazil you are at a shockingly high risk of being murdered, especially if you haven't got lots of money.  But my person is not at risk.  Not in the UK.  And not with her white skin.  She is very lucky indeed to live in this country.  Things aren't perfect here by any means and she knows people who have suffered far more than she has for being transgender.  She's been fortunate and she knows it.

Back to the beginning.  I was in a church with my person.

I was in a church named after Saint George - a man most famous for doing something that he never did.  A bit of a rubbish Saint in many ways.  If I named my church after a Saint I would choose one who actually did good things instead of one they wrote stories about.  There are lots of good Saints to choose from.  I might even choose to name my church after someone who isn't actually officially a Saint at all.  Maybe a peace loving Catholic Christian like Daniel Berrigan.  Or a crazy radical German preacher like one of the Blumhardts or Eberhard Arnold.  Or I might pick Jesus.  He was nice.  Or if I had to choose someone like Saint George - someone whose story is mostly fiction - I might decide to go further and choose a completely fictional character.  Saint Frodo's Church.  Saint Dorothy Gale's.  Saint Skulduggery's.

Those are all good.  But the church I was in was named after Saint George.  Which isn't unexpected.  Saint George.  The patron Saint of England.  Whoever he was, he wasn't English.  Yes, that's right.  All those far-right English nationalists proudly carry the flag of a foreigner and don't see the irony of their situation.  I don't like the far-right.  I can see my person is worried by them and the way they are becoming more popular everywhere.  I've moaned about that mister Trump before but there are much worse people than him trying to gain positions of big power and I can see why that would be scary.

I'd been exploring the very pretty church for a while and then we walked to the back again.  It was there that I met two new friends.  Here's a picture of us posing together, with me in the middle.  The one on your left and my right is called Jake.  The one on your right and my left is called Blue Bear.  Meeting them was fun and we were able to play in the church and make as much noise as we wanted and run around lots because the only other person there was my person and she doesn't mind.

We ran everywhere in the church, in and out of the pews and we laughed ever such a lot.  That picture was taken afterwards which is why Jake looks exhausted.  He ran out of puff and was having so much trouble with his leg that when he sat down it twisted all the way round.  You can see it on the picture.  Backwards.  That must have been very uncomfortable for him but by the time we left the building and I said goodbye to my friends he had recovered.

After all my playing I asked my person whether we could walk round the church again and look at some more of the pretty things there.  Here's me posing at the back of the church.  The statue is great and the window is pretty magnificent.  My person should go back and take some better pictures now that she has discovered that her camera actually has a zoom function.   She didn't know that then so everything looks far away.

The church in Jesmond is very beautiful.  There are lots of churches in Jesmond.  My person would be quite safe in most of them but there are some where she would be less safe.  One of the churches in Jesmond is very famous indeed for not liking it if you're in anyway queer, whether that be in regards to your sexuality, your gender or both.  They are mean to queer people in that church and they're quite proud of that because they think that Jesus would approve of them for being so mean to queer people and telling gay people to repent and act straight and transgender people that really they're not transgender at all because the Bible says so and that transgender people need to repent as well and reject themselves.  They think saying those things is honouring the God of perfect love.  I think they're totally wrong.  But I'm just a small pink soft toy and unlikely to convince them of anything.

Here I am standing in front of the organ pipes and some beautifully carved wood.

And here I am sitting, I think, near the altar and in front of some beautifully carved marble.

Christianity is very into armies.  At least, some types of Christianity.  These tiles are about one of the armies.  The noble army of martyrs.  There are some very beautiful tiles in St. George's, Jesmond.

Christianity is also very into flowers and flower arranging.  At least some types of Christianity.  It's almost a dogma of the church in the Church of England and some other British denominations that a church has to contain flower arranging.  Except while a baptist may have new flowers every week, an Anglican has to take some weeks off from flowers because it's a devilish criminal offence to have a flower inside the church for the weeks before Easter.  No flowers.  And you're not allowed to say Hallelujah either in those weeks because apparently praising God in such a manner is against all the important rules in those weeks.  I don't understand that in the slightest.  I really don't.  My person tried to explain it but she never quite understood it either.  No saying Hallelujah in Lent.  Some Christians give up chocolate for Lent.  Some try to give up complaining.  The Anglicans give up saying Praise the Lord in Hebrew for Lent.  And they give up flower arranging.  My person gave up going to church for Lent.

We left the church and both felt very pleased to have visited.  We nearly went back there last week when we passed it again but we were in a hurry to go and see lots of Snowdogs so we didn't quite have the time.  It's a shame.  I would have liked to have met up with Jake and Blue Bear again.  And I would have liked to have got my person to take some better photographs of the building now that she's learned to use a camera slightly more than she had in June.

We looked back at the church.  And then we walked away to wherever it was that we were going.

[1313 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 Go Riding On Some Welsh Sheep

We're not going to write much today.  We know we say that almost every day.  But this day it's true.  At least, we think it's true.  We're very tired and we want to go out so we neither have the brain power nor the time to write as much as Blob Thing usually seems to write or say.

Today Blob Thing wants to think back to Winefride's first day out.  It was only a week ago.  We're writing this in the morning so can say that a week ago Winefride had never been outside.  She was looking forward to it we think, although she didn't know quite what "outside" meant and can't have had any idea of the varieties of things out there.  Winefride has been doing marvellously in the last week.  She's been out again - enjoying the view from a coach, dancing in a cafe, eating apple pie and custard in another, and she and Blob had a good time by the seaside too.

But this was Winefride's very first trip outside.  And it was a big one.  She was going to go to a different country.  A place where the words are all different.  A place where even Blob doesn't understand the road signs.

The trip was to Wales.

Blob Thing was extremely excited.  He had never visited another country either.  And this was his first time being out with his sister and that couldn't have been a more special feeling.  What would they see?

During the day they visited two places.  Rhiwabon and Wrecsam.  Those places are also known as Ruabon and Wrexham.  Rhiwabon was very small.  Blob had wanted to eat lunch there in a cafe but there was only one cafe in the entire town and that had shut at noon.  Obviously there isn't a lot of demand for lunch in Rhiwabon.  Perhaps it's a missing meal and everyone just jumps from breakfast to dinner.  Why else would the only cafe in a town shut before lunchtime?  Fortunately everyone was able to buy a little bit of food otherwise they would have felt very hungry.

The most exciting thing in Rhiwabon was that Blob's creator found a little footpath and at the end of that footpath was a play area.  It had swings and lots of other play equipment.  And it was deserted.  Nobody there at all.  The very first picture of Winefride enjoying the world was taken there.  Blob shared it with you a few days ago.  But he likes it so much that he wants to share it again.

She's so amazing.  Her first day out and he just got on and did everything and smiled at it all and managed not to get too overwhelmed at the sudden rush of experiences.

Blob's creator and his person liked the play area too.  Blob's person had ten goes on the zip wire, having been a little afraid of it to begin with.  And they both really enjoyed lying down in a little bucket roundabout and being pushed round and round and round.  It was a wonderful feeling.  Everyone enjoyed the swings of course.  And they went on nearly everything.

After visiting Rhiwabon, Blob said that they should go to Wrecsam and have a look round.  On the way, his person was distracted by the local church and dragged everyone in and she was suitably impressed by all the stained glass and statues.  She would have preferred just to be able to look at things rather than having someone there try to tell her all about the history of everything.  She's sure that all of that is very interesting but she doesn't cope well with enthusiastic people telling her about everything in a church building.  They give her a maze of names and dates and so on and she tries for a while but nothing gets retained and in the end they might just as well be telling her a list of random words for all the difference it makes.  She was told about statues and windows and tombs and carvings and the font but all she can tell you about them now is that they were statues and windows and tombs and carvings and a font.  Some were old.  Some were pretty.  And some were connected with some rich family or other.  Blob's person isn't good at taking in verbal information.

So the four travellers went to Wrecsam.  Blob's person dragged everyone into another church.  Blob wants to know why she keeps insisting on going into churches.  Sometimes it can be fun.  He's visited several churches in Newcastle.  He made some friends in Jesmond and some more in the cathedral and he's done some bell ringing too.  But sometimes he confesses he finds it a bit boring.  What's he meant to do in a church?  It's not as if any kind of god exists in a church more than they would outside of it.  Blob is very tempted at this moment to start talking about god and God and all his theories about it.  People go to a church building to pray to some God or other.  But even in the teachings of those religions that God is everywhere and isn't any closer in a special building.  So why not pray wherever the person is?

Blob's person tells him now that for some religions, even though they teach that God is everywhere, God is somehow closer in a special building.  For a Sikh, the special building is the Guru's house.  So it's special.  For a Catholic, the special building is where Jesus lives, locked away in a metal box and hidden behind a curtain most of the time.  Because obviously that's how Jesus would want to live.  Catholics are funny about their quest to protect Jesus - who they believe exists in a form where he looks, smells and tastes like some wheat wafers but is actually fully Jesus and alive.  For a Catholic, the risen Jesus is closest to them when he's being a wafer and that wafer is the most special thing on earth and needs to be kept away from anyone who isn't a Catholic.  They have lots of rules and beliefs about that and Blob's person used to believe them all very strongly and that wafer was extremely important to her.  To Blob's person that wafer was Jesus, his body, blood, soul and divinity.  Substantially present.  Sacramentally present under the form of bread.  Blob's person used to believe all that.  Now she doesn't.

Blob says that his person should shut up about Catholicism now and about her past when she was so devout and when every line of liturgy gave her something.  Blob wants to move on to talk about what he wanted to talk about today.  Himself, Winefride, and sheep.  Yes, that church in Wrecsam might have been important once to Blob's person.  But that was a long time ago and the sheep experience was only last week.  Blob's person's faith is gone.  It's a very different faith now.  But the sheep experience was only a week ago.  And Blob is here.  Now.  And Winefride is here now.  And so Blob's person should type about them not about herself.  If she wants to type about her religious history she's got a blog of her own for that or she could just write a book.  People say that a book about her life would be very interesting but she always says that she doesn't agree and that it would be pretty dull.

Oh dear.  Blob's person says that it's time to stop writing.  They need to get ready to go out for the day.  Because she's talked so much about her own life, Blob hasn't got time to talk about his own.

Blob isn't happy!  This is his blog.  It's not fair.  It's not fair at all.

Please don't sulk Blob Thing.  You've got a day out to look forward to.  And I'm very sorry about it but you seemed to be enjoying the discussion we were having about the churches.  And visiting that church in Wrecsam was really very weird for me.  I promise that tomorrow we can just talk about Winefride and you and the sheep.  I promise.  At least, we'll try to stick to topic.

To close.  Just one of the six photos that Blob had planned to share.  Here he is with Winefride and a sheep outside a church in Wrecsam.  It's not the best of the six photos.  There are better.  And Blob will share them tomorrow.  Just look at Winefride.  She's ever so brave to do so much on her first day out.  Blob Thing is very proud of her.

Blob Thing Visits The Quakers of Newcastle

Blob Thing has more to tell you about his sister.  He is looking forward to going on some adventures with her soon too and they can have fun together exploring and experiencing all the good things that they can find.

But today and tomorrow he wants to tell you about somewhere he visited last month with his person.  He must have quite liked it - he's been back again,

It was a Sunday morning.  Blob's person used to go to church every Sunday.  Sometimes she would go several times, to several different churches.  She was quite enthusiastic about it all.  When she moved to Newcastle she had been a faithful Catholic and would go to Mass every Sunday morning - and sometimes on a Saturday evening too though that wasn't compulsory.  She would never miss that Sunday Mass without good reason.  Oh yes, she knew the rules too well.  She knew that the threat of Hell hung over her if she missed that Mass.  What if she were to die between missing Mass and receiving sacramental absolution through the Sacrament of Confession?  What then?  She would be doomed.  The rules of the Roman Catholic Church said so even though some Catholics tried to pretend otherwise.  Blob's person hadn't minded because, for a time, she had loved being at Mass.  She even went to Mass during the week.  Sometimes every single day.  And at home she would pray and pray and pray and read Catholic books and the Catholic faith was her safe space.

But that all changed and much to her surprise she left the Catholic Church.  And joined another church.  Half an hour later.  She was liked there and it wasn't long before she was given responsibilities.  To lead liturgy.  To preach sermons.  But that came to an end too when she told the world about her being transgender.  An ordained minister of the Church of England told her this:  "I'm sure you will agree that it would be inappropriate for you to continue to preach or lead anything in case anyone is ever worried."  Those were the exact words.  It made Blob's person very sad indeed.  Sad enough to leave the church.  They were happy to have her preach when she was still pretending to be a man.  They loved her sermons and she had been told quite a few times by people that they thought she was the best preacher in the place.  But now she was living honestly, they didn't want her.  Oh yes, she could sit in a pew and be told she was loved.  But love and rejection don't go together too well.

Blob's person had explored other churches.  She had been visiting them even when she was preaching and now she visited lots.  She settled in one of them too.  It was a place of love and acceptance.  The kind of love that is actually love.  That became her spiritual home for a while until she took the step of leaving it at the beginning of Lent this year.  Blob was proud of her for that.  It was a big step towards freedom and towards becoming fully herself.  He knows it was hard for her to leave because church and God and Christianity were the core of her life for twenty-five years.  They were her main reason for getting up in the morning.  They were the source of her hope and the meaning she gave to everything.  Quitting meant all of that was gone.  The core was removed.  And as Blob knows, without the core the warp engines won't go.

On this Sunday, Blob's person had decided to go back and visit one of the places she had explored already.  She invited Blob Thing to come with her and see the place.  She told him that he would be fine.  Where they were going was also a place of love and acceptance.  It was a place filled with people who like to seek peace, social justice, inclusion and who can usually disagree about the details of a spiritual journey.  Blob agreed to attend after he was reassured that nobody would be trying to convert him and nobody there would ever warn him about the dangers of Hell if he didn't go.  Nobody would say that their way was the only way and that anyone who didn't follow it was doomed.  They wouldn't even say that their way was the best way, that they were closer to some form of sky god than the outsiders.

There would be people there who had a strong, quite conservative Christian faith.  And there would be others who didn't believe in the sky god at all.  There might be a Buddhist, a Sufi, and there would be people who meditate in different ways.  Lots of variety.  Blob decided that it might be safe to be among such people.  He quite liked the sound of them.

So Blob and his person set out and walked to the place where the people met.  Here it is.

Blob spent a moment reading the sign.  Quakers.  Blob wasn't sure he wanted to do any Quaking.  He thought it a very strange name.  Blob's person told him that the word came about when the King of England insulted someone in the early days of the movement.  She also said that around the world there were lots of different kinds of Quaker.  Most of them have services that include singing and a kind of sermon based on the Bible.  But the ones here wouldn't be doing anything like that.  He would just have to see for himself what would happen.

Blob and his person were greeted at the door.  Everyone was smiling and very welcoming.  Perhaps the sign was true when it said "All welcome."  Perhaps everyone would be welcomed there and seen as equally wonderful too.  Lots of churches had signs up claiming that everyone was welcome there but in many of them Blob knew that you weren't really encouraged to be yourself.  You were encouraged only to conform and to be a sheep - and not a sheep living free in the fields either, cared for and encouraged to be the best sheep possible, but a sheep in a tiny pen in a dark barn, constrained in the way you were told to live.

Blob's person took him upstairs to where the main meeting room is.  It felt peaceful and all the chairs were arranged in a circle round a central table.  Blob Thing sat himself on the table for a while before deciding where he wanted to sit for the service.  Blob's Person told him that she had a copy of the book on the table and that there was much in it that he would enjoy reading.  She had picked up a little book at the bottom of the stairs.  It was called "Advices and Queries" and contained chapter one of the book on the table.

Blob sat down and waited for the service to start.  People kept coming into the room and sitting down and nobody was talking.  And then someone came in and shut the door.  But still nobody spoke.  Nobody introduced a service.  Nobody started to sing or said a prayer or did anything else.  They just sat in quiet.

Blob didn't quite know what to do.  What was happening?  Were people enjoying this and what were they all thinking about?  He hadn't realised that anything with the word "religious" in the name might have a meeting like this.  His person made signs and opened up Advices and Queries for him and that told him what he wanted to know about what was going on.  He stopped reading and settled into Quaker worship.  Blob likes it that everyone there is called to expectant waiting and that there is a belief that Spirit will speak in the heart of each person.  He likes that anyone can stand up and speak.  Certainly the "gathered stillness" he had just been reading about seemed to be evident.  During the whole meeting only three people spoke at all.  And none of them spoke for more than a minute.

Blob's person told him that when he had been reading her eyes fell on two words and they stayed with her through that meeting and - as we're typing this - she's told him that the words stay with her still and she wants to write about them one day.  Blob Thing says that she shouldn't say what the words were here.  It's his blog and he's already allowed too much talk about his person for one day.  He didn't mind including it.  Blob and his person have talked about faith quite a lot and her story interests him.  It's the story that led up to today.  It's the story that led up to her life including Blob in such a meaningful manner.

After the meeting there were some announcements and then a piece of art was unveiled.  Blob Thing thought it was beautiful.  Everyone in the meeting some months before had been asked to write words to describe their experiences of Quaker worship and of being a Quaker - a Friend - or someone who spends time with them.  The words were all printed onto crayons and made into this wonderful colour wheel.

It's lovely.  Blob wanted his person to take lots of pictures.  And when they went back a month later he wanted her to take lots more pictures.  She will blog about them one day, just as she blogged about her very first visit to the Quakers.  Blob Thing thinks it's funny.  He's blogging about his first visit.  And she did too.  He wonders how many other people have written about their first visits.

Blob Thing sat himself down on the table again.  It had been a marvellous meeting.  He had enjoyed it and he hadn't been forced to listen to a sermon either.  Nobody had told him what to believe or how his spiritual life should develop.  He was happy that he had worshiped with Quakers that morning.

It wasn't over either.  During the announcements someone had said that downstairs there would be a lunch available.  Blob decided he wanted to stay for lunch.  To spend a little more time with these people.  It had been nice to sit in silence with them.  Now he would get the chance to meet them properly.  He was looking forward to it and wants to tell you about what happened.  Tomorrow.  Not today.

[1750 words]

Blob Thing Dresses Up As The Bishop of Hexham

Blob Thing is going to try to keep a promise today as he tells of his final big adventure in Hexagon.

He promises that he will try to write less.  He's feeling a bit sorry for anyone who has stuck with reading of his adventures all this time.  He hadn't been expecting to be able to be so free when writing about them or that his person would allow him to get quite so carried away in talking about all kinds of other things.  Today, less.

He thinks it might be an easy promise to keep.  He is sitting here in Salford on a hot Sunday afternoon, dictating his ideas to his person and wondering why she never allows him to talk in the first person in his blog.  Perhaps, he says, she should think about that.  It's not as if he hasn't got a mind of his own.  Blob says that he should be able to write, "I fought a dragon," or "I travelled on a boat," or "I think that there is an inner core within us all that is love and peace and that all people are fundamentally good."  Blob says he should be able to write of "My creator" and "My person" rather than having to talk in the third person all the time.  His person says that he is making a valid point.  Just for today she's agreed to have a go at just typing whatever Blob Thing says to her.  And so:

I am very tired at the moment.  It's been a very long weekend and there have been so many exciting adventures.  And I have to say that the most exciting thing of all is something that is already changing my life and I want to tell you all about it and I am going to but not today because I want there to be photos ready so I can do it properly but it is a very exciting thing and I think you'll all be thoroughly thrilled when you read and hear my news and and and and and and and and wheeeeeeeee and cha-cha-cha-cha-cha and and and

At this point Blob has stopped talking altogether and is happily flapping away.  I, Blob's person have to agree about the news being very exciting indeed.  I can quite understand his reaction.  You will be able to see some problems inherent in this blog becoming a first person monologue.  Blob writes long run on sentences.  Sometimes he gets distracted halfway through the sentence.  Through editing his words as I do, his ideas and his experiences are filtered into something which I hope is at least partially readable.  A straight typed dictation might get very hard to read.

Right.  Okay.   Blob Thing is calmer now.  We're going to try again.

I had a pretty perfect day in Hexagon.  Apart from the bit when I got scared and overwhelmed.  But you know what?  Being scared doesn't need to ruin a whole day.  And being overwhelmed is okay.  Well, it's very not okay.  But it doesn't have to become the focus of a day.  I don't have to say, "My day was rubbish because this bit was horrible."  My person had a horrible time a couple of days ago.  In the past she might have said, "Oh dear, what a rubbish day" and focused in on the rubbish bits.  But now she's learning to see the joy.  Other things that day were great because she chose them.  It's not that the rubbish bits weren't rubbish.  I think they were.  It's just that there is always more to be grateful for.  And of course on that day I was feeling very grateful indeed because to the very exciting thing that's changing my life.  I went dancing today.  I'm going to share a video of that soon if I can.

Hexagon.  Yes, Hexagon.  It's not really called Hexagon of course.  I just like the word.  Really - and I haven't been allowing my person to say this but I am going to since it's the final post - really it's called Hexham.  Hexham.  It's a town in Northumberland and I liked it a lot and want to go back sometime soon and maybe find the river or walk along the river from somewhere else until we get to Hexham.  I would enjoy that a lot.  My person says that we'll go back.  I think she might just want to go back to one of the charity shops where she bought herself two very pretty dresses.  I want to walk by the river though and listen to the birds and the water and try to spot how many different types of flowers or grasses I can.

I was having a wonderful time exploring Hexham Abbey.  It's a beautiful building with amazing stained glass.  We were in a church yesterday that had beautiful glass and I wanted to be able to sit and gaze at it and take in every detail.  There were so many and the colours were so rich and I hadn't spent enough time there but the people I was with seemed like they were in a hurry so I had to go.  It was a fun town to be in and we all had a stunningly staggeringly sumptuous time in a playground there.  All four of us.  Ooh, perhaps that's a clue as to what the very very very very exciting thing was.

After visiting the crypt - and everyone should go and visit the crypt, EVERYONE, because it's so great - I asked my person if we could go and have a little look at the exhibition about the abbey.  We might learn something or we might just see some pretty things.  As it turned out I didn't learn anything much at all if I'm honest.  We looked at lots of things and read lots of panels of information.  But can I remember it all?  No.  No, no, no.  I've forgotten the lot.  It all felt very interesting at the time.  My person says she's forgotten it too.

While walking in the abbey I had sat myself on a seat.  It was like a Bishop's throne and as I sat I wondered what it would be like to be a bishop.  I wondered too what I might wear if I was a bishop and whether they would be able to make those fancy clothes in my size.  Here's me on the seat.  I think I look good, as if I am telling some people about spiritual things and giving them tips on how to find the answers for themselves.  Because the answers aren't just the words of a book.  The answers aren't found in the quotes from others, no matter how amazingly beautiful and uplifting the quotes are.  At least that's what I believe.  I think all those books, and quotes, and stories, and all the legends and all the exciting things others have taught are all good.  They can all help us a lot.  Reading them and thinking about them is good too.  But they don't actually contain the answers.  Sorry.  I'm not meant to be getting distracted.  I'm not meant to be writing much.  I am meant to just share a few pictures today.  Sorry.  It's just too easy to get distracted.  There are so many awesome distractions.

Okay. Quick. Let's go.  In the exhibition I got my change to learn what wearing ecclesiastical clothes would feel like.  There was a dressing up section for children.  And since I am child I wanted to dress up too.  My person said that it might be a bit difficult due to my size but I insisted.  I wanted to try it.  What was the worst that could happen?  And what was the best that could happen?  The best won.  It was a bit like applying Pascal's Wager to my life.  Except application in the case of "should I try on a robe and see what happens?" seems to me to be far more valid than the original application of "should I believe in God and become a Christian."  I don't think that version makes sense if anyone stops to think about it for longer than about six point eight nine two four one seconds and a little bit more.

So here I am, dressed up.  As a bishop.

Wow, I look amazing.  That style of hat suits me.  I could be bishop.  I could do it.  Except to tell the truth I don't want the job.  They can keep it, they're safe, I'm not applying.  And I do have to say that if I was a bishop I'd have go get a hat that fit me.  That one would keep falling down over my eyes or even over my entire body.  And I think I'd have to get it made in a different colour.  That one doesn't suit my fur tone at all.

After dressing as a bishop I got to dress up as a monk too.  They have a very funny hairstyle and I was able to wear a wig with monk hair.  I look at this and I want to laugh.  I couldn't have a monk hairstyle.  With my fur type it would be an impossible cut so the only way I could be a monk would be to be part of an order that didn't say you could only be part of the club if you got yourself a stupid haircut.  I really don't think a stupid haircut would improve my relationship with any god or help me to pray or do good deeds.  It would just make me look a bit daft and when I approached people would keep on saying, "Here comes that daft monk again with his silly haircut."  My person gets stared at a lot and I think if I had that haircut I might be stared at almost as much as she gets stared at with a perfectly sensible haircut.

Finally, after seeing what a fun time I was having, I got my person to agree.  She would have a go at dressing up too.  I liked that.  She's tried lots of new things recently.  I held the camera and took a picture of her even though she was embarrassed and was finding it difficult to enter fully into the experience.  Compare my facial expression with hers.  She looks miserable.  Miserable.  Or perhaps minsterable.  She's telling me that she wasn't miserable but she was going to the look of a solemn monk, on her way to a service or half way through a three hour Carthusian style marathon of singing plainchant the proper way.  She says monks traditionally weren't meant to look happy or to boogie around to the music.

Apparently having fun when worshiping was seen as very disrespectful to God.  Isn't that stupid?  I would have thought it would be the other way round.  Not having fun and not enjoying worshiping God is surely far more disrespectful to God.  "I adore you God but that gives me a sad face" is a concept I don't understand.  If it was me I would say "I adore you God and in the face of infinite love and in the face of all the hope my beliefs and doctrines and dogmas give me, I have this stunningly super smile on my face and I shout my Hallelujahs out with whooping and cheering because you're just so amazing."  Not "You are my everything and I look as miserable as my person does in this picture."

Right. Okay. That's it.  That's my day out in Hexham, or Hexagon as I've been calling it for a week.  I hope you enjoyed at least something about it.  If you've got to the end, very well done indeed.  Give yourself a pat on the back if you can.  Otherwise just smile internally and know that I'm very grateful for anyone to be willing to spend their free moments reading about a small pink soft toy.

From Hexham Abbey we walked back to the bus and went home.  We'll go back though - but we say that about most of the places we have visited in the last few months.  So I don't know when we'll have time to go back and there are a lot of other places we haven't visited at all yet.  My life is very exciting.  Most lives could be more exciting if only people would embrace the thrill of this amazing world.

Thank you for reading.  We're going to have a rest now and then we're going to go and meet my creator at a train station and then come back and rest some more.  Tomorrow I'll be going back to my Newcastle home.  I'm sure that there will be lots of adventures for me there.  They aren't waiting for me.  Adventures don't lie in wait around corners - well sometimes they do, good and bad ones.  Most adventures are the ones we make, not the ones we are given.

My challenge to you, if you're still here, is that you would sometime this week make an adventure.  Go somewhere new.  Do something new.  Take a risk.  But not a silly risk.  And see what happens.  It might be rubbish.  But that's okay.  You can try another new thing next week.  But it might be good.  It might be spectacular.  And it might just change your life forever.  Go for it.  What's the worst that could happen?  And what's the best that could happen?  Yes.  Go for it.  Have an adventure.

I am sorry.  I didn't keep me promise did I?  I said I would try to write less than I have been.  And then I wrote more.  Maybe that's another danger of my person allowing me to just dictate every word.  Maybe we should go back to the other way tomorrow and maybe try this again sometime.  I'd like that even if I do talk lots and lots and lots and lots.  Maybe I'll even learn to edit myself eventually.  Hmmm.  Perhaps not.



[2344 words, written in a state of much fatigue, by a Blob Thing who obviously has a lot more energy than his person]

Blob Thing Celebrates His Jubilee in Hexagon Abbey

Oh Happy Day!

It's time to celebrate and Blob wants to have a party.  He's in luck because a party has already been organised for this special day.

Blob can hardly believe that this day has come.  It's his Jubilee.  In a way.  For today is the day he is publishing this, his fiftieth blog post.

He feels that his achievement is splendiforous.  For a small, pink, smiling toy to have given the time and commitment to go out in search of adventures, discuss those adventures with his person, choose himself some photos and write a post, is pretty amazing.  Blob's person is also astonished by the way things have gone and how she and her Blob have reached this point.  She is usually rubbish at commitment to things like this.  Usually she would manage a week and then her previous obsession would become almost an anti-obsession and transform from being joyous to intricately painful.

Yes.  This is post number fifty.

Blob is very proud.  His blog has become something more than his person ever expected.  And it's all his work, the product of a combination of his honesty and a wisdom uncommon in soft toys.

Blob's person is very proud of Blob Thing and tonight, in celebration of reaching this milestone, they will indeed have a party.  It'll be even more special because Blob's creator will be there too.  It's going to be stunning.  Blob believes it so.  And he chooses it to be so.

Post number fifty.  Wow.  Let's get on with it.

Blob was now having a wonderful day adventuring in Hexagon.  He decided that he liked it and that as long as he stayed away from the prison everything would be more than okay.  One day he might return to the prison and see whether going inside and exploring would alleviate the bad feelings he had from being outside.  Blob is incredibly brave.  His person is quite impressed that he would even consider going back to a place that had worried him so much, even though it was a place that she had said contained nothing real to worry about.

If Blob had feared punishment, the punishment was not real.

If Blob had feared imprisonment, the reality was freedom.

Perhaps that's how it is for most people too.  They created the unreal, a long stream of fantasies, and become unable to grasp that which is real.  And so the suffering they all experience at times is multiplied and added to and that which they could bear in the strength of Being becomes an unbearable nightmare lived each day with the result that many people live in sorrow, distress, and even despair over that which is a fear, a fantasy, a facade that bears little relation to a present reality.

That's what Blob thinks anyway.  He looks at people and too many of them look as if their sorrows and their battles are the size of continents that have to be carried by flesh and mind.  He knows that many people are going through difficult things.  But nothing real could possibly be so difficult that it produces the people Blob may see when he's out walking in a city centre.

In a world where the human race has become so clever, in a world of scientific light, moral light, philosophical light, spiritual light, even humanistic light, why can so few humans see?  Blob wonders much about humans and why they are the way they are.

Yes, Blob's day had improved impressively since the prison.

He now walked across the grounds of Hexagon House and in front of him was one of the most impressive looking buildings he had ever seen.  This was Hexagon Abbey.  The famous Hexagon Abbey.  Or perhaps not so famous.  Blob Thing doesn't actually know whether it's famous or not.  He just assumed it was because his person had talked about it on the bus on the way to Hexagon.  She talked of the abbey, of the possibility of charity shops, and said that Hexagon was by a river.  Blob wants to go back to Hexagon and explore more.  He didn't even get to see the river.  For all he knows, his person was being a geographical incompetent and there is no river at Hexagon.

He would like to trust her but she's been wrong before and frequently seems to go the wrong way when they are out walking.  Blob Thing says which way to go and she says, "Oh no, we'll go this way because the map looks like we should."  And then it's wrong.  And they have to walk all the way back.  Or they end up going some less than wonderful way to get back to where they were meant to be in the first place and where they would have been if only she had listened to the good sense of Blob.  On one trip recently things got almost dangerous.  Will his person ever learn?  He loves her dearly but her skills at going the right way leave a lot to be desired.

Blob is going to stop complaining about his person now.  Because if he doesn't then she is going to refuse to type any more.  Instead he's going to talk about Hexagon.  Because he has no choice if he wants a fiftieth post to ever be published.  Blob isn't going to say much.  He wants to keep pointing out how silly his person can be.  And he thinks she's almost blackmailing him.  But he does agree that this blog is meant to be about his adventures, not about his daft person.

Here's Blob, posing in front of the abbey.  He agreed to have his picture taken but said that it should be done quickly because he was very eager to go and explore inside.  Blob had only seen one abbey before Hexagon.  That was Finchale.  He had enjoyed it immensely.  This one might be even better.  This one had lots of things that Finchale lacked.  It had a clock.  Windows.  It even had a roof.  This was an abbey still used as a place where a God was worshipped.  It wasn't being used as an abbey.  But it was still a church.  There weren't any monks living there now.  Blob wishes there were.  He would like to visit some monks one day.

This photo is Blob Thing posing in front of one of the stained glass windows of the abbey.  He's been looking into the history of the place.  There has been Christian worship there for over 1300 years - he'll tell you more about that next time because he was able to visit a very ancient place underground.  He likes some of the names from the early history, especially Trumbert and Trumwine.  Blob has just told his person that he thinks she should write a story about Trumbert and Trumwine because they're such good names.

Blob spotted some ancient stairs in the abbey and walked up them to look at the view.  He had to be very careful indeed because the wall at the top of the stairs wasn't flat.  If his person hadn't held onto him tightly and if he hadn't carefully balanced himself he might have fallen and got very hurt on the hard floor below.  All that care meant that taking any good photo was particularly difficult.  Blob apologises for the crooked angle here.  This is the best of several pictures and it does at least show all of the impressive window behind him.

A final picture for today.  Here's Blob Thing posing on the font.  It's funny.  He posed on another font yesterday in another church.  He had a fun time in that church and even got to ring the church bells up in the tower.  He wonders what the people of Newcastle thought when the church bells suddenly started to ring and ten to twelve in the morning.  Ringing church bells was another fantastic adventure.

At Hexagon, Blob's person told him what fonts are for.  She has been baptised.  Three times.  All of them as an adult.  Only the third of those times involved a font.  Sometimes she thinks it would be nice to be baptised again a couple of times.  She hasn't been baptised in a river.  Or in the sea.  And both of those would be a good experience.  But it will never happen.  She doesn't believe in the religious faith she followed when she was baptised three times.  And she knows that baptism is meant to be something that happens only once.  There aren't many people who have had three Christian baptisms.  Blob is quite impressed!

Blob doesn't want to get baptised at all.  And especially he doesn't want to be baptised by "full immersion" like the baptists almost always insist on.  Being fully immersed wouldn't be the best thing to happen to Blob Thing.  He couldn't just grab a towel and get dry.  [Blob's person has just told him why she was a little distracted at her first baptism.  He is shocked.  Shocked!]

Blob doesn't believe he needs to be baptised.  He could write lots about his reasons - and he could write about why he doesn't think anyone needs to be baptised except because a religion says so and writes it into their story or says that you have to pass a strange initiation to join the club.  He likes some of the symbolism and he likes the idea of living symbols.  But as for all this washing away your sins business is something he believes is nonsense.  Blob Thing has talked about Jesus in some of his posts and he says he'll probably talk about him again.  He likes Jesus.  It's just that the Jesus he likes isn't necessarily the Jesus talked about in many of the churches.

Blob on a font.

Or symbolically, Blob rising through the inner truth of I AM above the seeking of religious observance into the freedom of awakening.

Blob's person almost thinks that Blob Thing should stop saying things like that.  She agreed to start this blog with him on the understanding that they would post a photo each day and Blob could say a few words about it.

Here were are, fifty posts on from that agreement.

Blob Thing likes where his blog has taken them.

And he looks forward to the unknown places to follow and discovering what his blog might become by the one-hundredth post.



[1738 words]

Blob Thing Writes His First Thoughts About Northern Pride

This morning Blob has woken up feeling very tired.  Yesterday was exhausting for him.  He took part in the Northern Pride parade, went to the Alt-Pride picnic, and then his person made him walk round the stalls of the official Pride event.  He enjoyed the parade a lot even though it's noisy and crowded.  The picnic was hard because neither he nor his person are very good at group social situations.  But the people sitting there enjoying each other and enjoying the sunshine were obviously a good crowd.  The official event was mainly a horrible experience, only in part because Blob and his person both have quite big sensory difficulties due to being autistic.  Every moment of Pride is difficult - it is a form of sensory hell, a torture at every moment.  Some people love it.  They rave about how good it all is.  Blob Thing found it very hard indeed.

But Blob chose to be there.  To support his person.  To have a new experience.  And to stand up for things he believes in:  Inclusion.  Acceptance.  Equality.  Justice.  The dignity of people no matter their gender or sexuality.  The truth that monogamy is not the only acceptable form of relationship.

Perhaps there's not a lot that can be done about the constant sensory hell that autistic people face at Pride.  Perhaps there is - Northern Pride could introduce a tent at the edge of the event.  A quiet zone.  A place for people to be still.  Blob is going to a festival next month and yesterday he learned that at that festival there is a place known as the haven where everything is quiet and relaxing things happen.  Blob's person was talking with someone who volunteers there and works with accessibility issues so that everyone can enjoy the festival and their different needs arising from disabilities or health problems are catered for as much as is possible.  Yes, that festival - Greenbelt - sounds much more inclusive than Northern Pride.

The first horrible thing was on the way in when Blob's person had an argument with the security guard who tried to throw her empty water bottle into a bin.  Blob has since heard of a much worse argument someone had when entering Pride.  Blob won't talk about that for legal reasons but will say that it sounds like it was a horrible experience for the person concerned.

Blob's person asked whether her bottle was going to be recycled and the security guard couldn't say yes.  She argued with the guard because she likes recycling bottles.  Even more than that she likes, if possible, to reuse water bottles - hers had been filled with tap water at the start of the day.  That seems sensible.  It saves money.  And it's one tiny part of everything that will need to happen if they human race isn't to doom itself.  Blob's person has asked Northern Pride to confirm whether the so-called rubbish is recycled.  Publicly posted on the official Facebook page she wrote:

The security guards yesterday were confiscating water bottles from people and throwing them away - including from people who were wanting to use that water to take essential medication and from poor people who can afford tap water but not to pay expensive prices for it. My question though is not about the very dubious ethics of that. I would like to know what happens to all the plastic bottles that were being thrown in the bins at the entrances by security. Are those bottles being recycled? Please could you confirm whether Northern Pride is environmentally aware enough that rubbish is sorted and recycled. The guard couldn't tell me so I refused to let them throw my bottle away. Yes, I kept my bottle. Which I think is right. And guess what? Northern Pride did not fall apart by my having a little of my tap water. My bottle will be reused thank you, not wasted.

Of course, confiscating people's drinks is morally very dubious.  Some families bring a picnic.  They want to eat it while sitting by the stage being entertained.  The security guards confiscate their picnics.  Some people have special diets and need to bring food to support those diets.  The security guards confiscate their food, thus endangering their health.  Some people are very short of money.  They can afford to bring their own sandwich but can't afford to pay a fiver for a small fajita and a few Pounds for a bottle of water.

Blob Thing is disgusted by the policy Northern Pride introduced a couple of years ago that nobody would be allowed to take any food or drink into the event.  He is disgusted.  There are other things too about Northern Pride that he doesn't like at all.  Maybe he will talk of them one day when he posts about the adventures he had there.  Yes, this isn't Blob's post about Northern Pride.  He was meant to be starting to tell of the adventures he had in a place called Hexagon, of how he found himself imprisoned there.  But he got carried away with talking about water bottles so Hexagon will have to wait a day.

Blob's person didn't enjoy being inside Northern Pride.  For her own reasons.  But she was pleased she went in.  She talked with nice people from the church she used to be a part of - Northern Lights Metropolitan Community Church.  She's not part of the church.  She hasn't got a personal God to pray to.  But she still loves the church of which she was a member.  And Blob's person met a couple of people who were surprises and she was really pleased about that.  One was someone she met at Autscape, the other was a very nice political activist and music lover.  Meeting them was great.  It was also very good to see people from the Sunday Assembly.  Blob's person goes to their events and posts nearly every day in a Sunday Assembly group.

At some point Blob will write a proper post about his experiences at Pride.  He has other pictures to share and may have much to say when it's all sunk in a little more.  Blob Thing is very glad he went to Pride.  He's glad that he has some new notebooks picked up for free from stalls.  He's glad that he was among such good people.  If he can, he'll go again next year.  Tonight he'll be back at Pride too - for the event is not over.

Tonight there is a Pride vigil service led by the Northern Lights church.  It is always an excellent service and is very moving.  It's the one time in Northern Pride when people remember those who have been killed, been hurt, been driven to take their own lives.  It's the one time for remembering the suffering many people there have endured, for remembering that there is still much work to do before we achieve those values Blob Thing believes in.  It's true that the service is led by a church.  But it's not about any particular God or even any God at all.  It's about life.  It's about beauty.  It's about sadness.  It's about love.  And Blob wants to be there and share in all that.





 [1212 words.  If this were Countdown that number would be called a Whitehall.]