Blob Thing Enjoys A Banquet And Heads To The Refugee Rally

It's late in the day and I still haven't even started writing my blog today.  There's a good reason for it.  A very good reason.  Winefride was listening while I was dictating the posts for the last couple of days as I met the Herma Merma Dragora and then was lucky enough to find a ferryman across the Tyne.  She was looking at the pictures too and she did really well because she starting pointing at them.  I asked her if she would like to go on a ship like that too one day and she got excited by that thought.  It was almost more excited than I've ever seen her before.

So last night I talked to my person about it and told her how much it would mean to both Winefride and myself if we could one day we taken on the ferry together.  Then this morning she completely surprised me by saying that today would be the day.  She had been planning on going for a very long walk and taking us with her but the weather didn't look right for that.  She still wanted to go out somewhere though and said that we could all get the Metro to South Shields, have a little explore there, and then find the ferry person and cross the river and have another little explore.

It's been a stunning day, full of adventures.  Winefride has had a brilliant time and it's been wonderful and joyous to see how happy she's been.  She enjoyed the ferry the most of course and we have some great pictures that I'll show you sometime.  But that wasn't the only adventure.  Winefride met a friendly lion, rode on the shoulders of Muffin the Mule and we met a creature living in a tree.  It got a little bit dangerous at one point and it was only with the help of a giant octopus that Winefride was able to rescue me from being eaten alive by a shark.  I was quite scared.  It actually had me in its mouth and if it wasn't for my sister and the octopus she had made friends with I don't know what would have happened.  My person tells me that the shark would probably have realised that I'm not a fish and wouldn't have eaten me.  But it was still a frightening experience.  I had a few adventures of my own while Winefride was having a rest and even my person had some fun.  She played on a roundabout and a zip wire in the rain.  Watching her have fun was brilliant.  The only things that would have made it better were if it hadn't been raining so much and if my creator was there to share the fun of the play area.

Anyway.  I'll tell you about all that another day and show off the pictures.  They're all stuck on my person's phone at the moment and she needs to get round to moving them onto her computer.  But she kindly agreed to email one picture to herself so I could put it in my blog today.  Here are Winefride and myself and behind us the ferry is just arriving to carry us across the water.  Isn't it swish?

But back to my other adventure.  We climbed the hill from the ferry into the centre of North Shields.  I don't understand it.  I thought we would get more of a welcome after our heroic trek.  I thought there would be banners raised in our honour, that the streets would be lined with cheering crowds and that they would possibly even be throwing rose petals in our path.  But there was none of that.  Nothing.  It was almost as if the city of North Shields did not know that we were coming and that we had completed such an arduous ordeal in order to be there.

We walked on, through the very centre of that city.  We still didn't see any shields for sale but I did spot at least one shop selling socks.  Even in North Shields in this century, socks had replaced shields.  Perhaps the cities should both have changed their names by now and the area be known as the Land of Socks.  But maybe they are overly proud of their historical heritage and keep the name in order to remember a time of valour and shields that would otherwise be forgotten.  Maybe more barbarian hordes would invade if the city were called North Socks.  It's not such a powerful name.  Maybe the barbarians don't know about the socks.  I hope they don't ever read my blog otherwise it'll only be the Herma Merma Dragora - and the powerful, friendly lion we met today - who stand between Shields and it's total annihilation.

Further we walked.  Further still.  Away from the noise.  Away from the crowds who hadn't known to cheer.  Eventually we saw a church ahead of us.  A place of God.  My person said that this was our final destination and there we would receive the welcome we deserved and be able to share in the fabulous banquet we had been promised.  The building rose up ahead of us, imposing, as if the people there had fought and won many battles against barbarian hordes.  My person is trying to tell me that in the 300 years the church has been there, no barbarian hordes have tried to invade the Land of Shields.  But I think my story is much better than hers.  Her story might be believed by scholars of history but it's not very exciting.  Her story is this:  A church got built.  People worshipped in it.  And then one day the people welcomed the people from the walk for refugees and gave them a banquet.  The end.  My story is far better.  I didn't see any socks for sale in the church either.  The church website says it has a long and fascinating past.  So my story must logically be closer to the truth than that of my person.  I'm sticking with it anyway.

We entered the building.  Journey's end.  We had made it.

And we were welcomed as we deserved.  The people of Christ Church, North Shields had done an amazing job preparing for our coming.  We all took our seats in the banqueting hall.

There were some speeches to commemorate the occasion.  The minister who led the walk said a prayer.  He talked with my person and by the end of the chat they were friends on that which is called Facebook.  They discovered that they had a mutual friend in Scotland, someone who had stood beside my person when she got married.

And then.  And then.  We ate.  And we drank.  And we ate and drank some more.  And we celebrated everything that we had done that day and celebrated the fact that the refugees are welcome.  I know my person is proud that she lives in a City of Sanctuary.  Sunderland is also such a city and that is a brilliant thing.

Yes.  We ate and drank.  But not all of us did.  Some of those walking with us, some of those brave refugees, ate and drank nothing.  Those people were Muslims and they follow Islam.  One of the important things in Islam - it's one of the five pillars of that religion - is fasting.  It's not just the giving up of food and drink, there's a lot more meaning to it than that.  During the year, my person told me, they have a month of fasting in the calendar month when they believe the Qu'ran was revealed to their prophet.  For the whole of that month they fast from all food and drink from sunrise to sunset.  Our epic walk had taken place in that month.  While we snacked and had lunch they ate nothing.  While we feasted at the banquet they ate nothing.  And the month was in the middle of summer.  It would be a long fast.  It's true that each of them was given a banquet to take away with them.  But they would still have many hours to wait before they could eat.  Isn't that amazing?

I ate a lot of course.  Here are the remains of just a fraction of my eating.  Lots and lots of fruit because my person and I are just extremely healthy people.  Honest.  We are.  And I don't see her butting into my blog and correcting me at this point so she obviously wants to give the impression of health too.

Here's a photo taken by the minister.  These are many of the intrepid walkers.  And a few of those who welcomed us into the sanctuary of Christ Church.

Walking with these people had been one of the best days of my life and I hadn't even nearly been eaten by a shark.  It's always a bonus for the day to not be eaten by a shark.

It was time to go.  My person had somewhere else she needed to be and I was going to go there too.  We planned to go and sing at a rally for refugees.  I posted something about that when it happened.  We arrived back into Newcastle and there was just time for us to walk from there to the place of the rally.  More walking.  After an epic trek my person made me walk some more.  To get to the rally we had to cross back over the River Tyne.  But this time there was a bridge.

The view from The Tyne Bridge is brilliant.  From here you can clearly see the Tyne swing bridge, and beyond it there are more bridges.

We arrived at the rally.  We sang our hearts out and I do think perhaps my person should go and sing with those people again.  The media took lots of pictures of us and filmed us but then, because the media is a very biased creature, we were hardly mentioned anyway apart from by one media outlet who said that some children had gathered to protest, and they included a picture of some of the stupendous children who were with us.  That's the way the media often are.  They skew reality so much that anyone who experienced it can hardly recognise that the event they lived through is the same one that's been reported.

I shared this photograph in my post about the rally.  I still say it.  I stand with refugees.  And I stand for each of those four words on the placard.  Sometimes it is hard to hope.  But we must hold onto hope and, if we are able, work for a future where compassion, decency and humanity are at the centre of all we do, and where "loving one another" is at the centre of the way we live.  That's what I think anyway.  I may only be a small pink soft toy with an active imagination, but it's what I think and believe and it's how I try to live my life as a friend.

Tomorrow I'll be talking about a different subject.  I've got a lot of adventures to choose from.  I keep having more of them too.  My life is amazing.  And now I have a sister to share it with.  I love my sister.




[1883 words]

Blob Thing Sings For Compassion And Says He is #WithRefugees

Content note: Blob expresses his strong opinions.

Blob was tired.  He had just walked from Sunderland to North Shields to support, in his own way, Sunderland Refugee Week.  He had a great time and was very pleased to have joined the walk.  He thought it was amazing.  If he and his person had made different choices they would have chosen a different day out and not met those people.  They had so nearly gone back to Chester-le-Street to walk down the river to Sunderland.  And if they had travelled on any other Metro that day they wouldn't have spotted the banner and the walkers just after getting off their train.  Their day had been very fortuitous.  It had been long too.  It's the longest walk Blob has done in his life.  So he was tired.

But the day wasn't over yet.  Blob and his person had plans.  They had heard that there would be a protest that evening.  At the protest there would be lots of singing led by the North East Socialist Singers.  Blob doesn't know if he's a socialist.  He doesn't know what a socialist is.  But the protest was for a cause that he immediately knew he could support.

The protest was by people who said that refugees are welcome here.  They would stand against racism and xenophobia and hatred.  They would stand for welcoming people with love and with warm hearts.  Blob Thing is a great believer in love and in having a warm heart.  Blob would gladly join these people and sing with them.

They sang for a long time, songs like:

Get Up, Stand Up

 Bread and Roses

We Shall Overcome

Solidarity Forever

Blob's person was very surprised to realise that she still knew most of the words to the first verse of Solidarity Forever even though she hadn't sung it in a lot of years.  She wanted to include that version of it because she had never heard it before.

Blob's person carried a placard throughout the event that she had been handed.  Afterwards she put it down with others and Blob asked for a photograph.

Four words:  Compassion, Decency, Humanity, Hope.

Just four words.  But four words that Blob Thing believes in.  Blob is happy to stand behind those four words and with people who are campaigning for those things.  And he too is #WithRefugees. 


Blob wasn't alone of course.  There were lots of people there.  And some of them were children.  Blob felt proud of them all, knowing that each of them had thought lots about issues of social justice and that they wanted to be lightbearers in a world where social justice doesn't always exist.

Inside the building an event hosted by UKIP was taking place.  Mr. Farage was speaking.  His event was called "We Want Our Country Back."  Blob thinks that Mr. Farage is being mean in trying to keep refugees out of Britain.  Blob thinks that Mr. Farage's "Breaking Point" poster was totally despicable and to defend something so closely mirroring Nazi propaganda, as Mr. Farage did, was not an action of someone who Blob would like to see having any position of power.

On the day that this is published Blob knows that people in the United Kingdom are having a vote.  Do they want to be part of the European Union?  Or do they want to leave?

Blob isn't a politician.  He isn't a member of any political group or of any campaigning group.

But he sees that one side of the argument has very often been an argument for xenophobia, an argument against those words on the placard his person had carried.  Blob looks at Mr. Farage and what he sees is campaigning without compassion for those who suffer most in the world.  He sees a complete lack of decency.  And he sees a man whose campaigning stands against the beauty that Blob sees in humanity.  Mr. Farage tries to sell hope.  But Blob sees a false hope arising from selfishness.

Blob thinks that too many of the British people have swallowed the ways of Mr. Farage, mirrored in much of the media.  Blob believes many people have been taught to fear, have been taught to want to exclude and cast out the suffering.

Blob thinks Farage and the other rich people campaigning alongside him, men with names like Johnson and Gove, might win today.  He thinks of

And Blob doesn't want to think about what the future might hold.  Blob is a little scared.  He hopes that the lightbearers can hold back the rise of hatred and exclusion that is happening.  But he sees the possibility that things will get a lot worse.

Stand with Blob Thing.  Be #WithRefugees.  Be #WithCompassion.  Be #WithHumanity.

Blob knows he's spoken strongly in this post and in the previous one.  He knows that some people won't want to know him any more.  But he doesn't care.  His person said to live daring to shock.  His person said to stand up and be himself even if some people don't like it.  And he is a brave little thing.  He's going to do it.

He does promise though that tomorrow his post will be back to normal.  In tomorrow's post, Blob will tell you about going to a cafe.  No politics.  No strong opinions about issues that are dividing the entire country and even the entire world.  Just a cafe and a cup of tea.




[893 words plus song titles]

Blob Thing Visits The Angel of The North

Yesterday Blob Thing told you that he had visited something he found very exciting.  But he didn't want to tell you where it was and he wouldn't let me tell you.

Today, Blob Thing reveals the truth.  He went to see The Angel of The North.

He wants to share a couple of pictures today and then tomorrow he wants to share some more when - much to his immense joy - he actually got to touch the angel.  He didn't know you could touch angels.  Blob Thing had thought that if you touched an angel you were likely to be killed with some fiery sword or die horribly from some kind of plague.  He has heard some stories from The Bible and that's the impression he got from them.  Somehow he only managed to take in the "Slaughter an army overnight" kind of angel rather than the "Do not be afraid" kind.

Blob Thing is also highly amused because he is already posting his news about The Angel of the North and he knows that it's going to be ages before his person manages to do it.  She is so far behind on posts and Blob finds it really funny.   Then again, Blob Thing smiles at everything.