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 And Winefride Complete The North East Snowdog Trail

Blob was meant to be talking about the second half of his Bradford adventure tonight but he's had such an exciting day today that he just wouldn't stop talking about it.

Blob Thing says:

I'm exhausted.  I truly am.  It's been such a busy time.  I've never known myself to be so busy or to travel so much.  Nearly every day we seem to be going places and my person always seems to have another photographic challenge to complete.

And then there are the Snowdogs.  Today I did something amazing.  I completed the Great North-East Snowdog Trail.  Almost.  In order to raise money for our local hospice lots of dogs came to visit Tyne and Wear and this month I've been trying to see them all.  It's been hard work but I've enjoyed it.  Winefride has come too and she's had great fun meeting all the dogs.  And my person has come along to help us and she has taken hundreds of pictures of us with the dogs.  I've been allowed to start a second blog too so I can share all of our adventures and all of our pictures.  You can find it at http://blobandthesnowdogs.blogspot.co.uk/  I am looking forward to remembering all our adventures and it's going to take me quite a long time because there were lots of dogs.

We saw all of them.  Almost.  There's one we haven't seen because it was much too far away for people who don't have a car.  But we will see that one.  The Snowdogs are going to have a big going away party in a few weeks and we've been invited to attend.  My person will take Winefride and me and we'll see the other dog.  Hooray.

In total we have seen sixty-one Snowdogs out of sixty-two.  The official trail had sixty-one dogs not sixty-two but we bumped into a very special stray dog who wasn't on the list.  The other sixty-one dogs had gone to live in places all over the county.  There were also ninety-seven smaller Snowdogs and we have seen every one of those.  They were living in eighteen different places and we had to visit all of them.  They included an out of the way business park, two shopping centres we had never wanted to visit before, and an arts centre that we could only get to by taking lots of buses.

But we managed it.  And we finished today and Winefride was so upset or sad or something or other for a moment because she learned that we were standing on our very last big Snowdog.  She jumped off the dog and my person couldn't stop her because my person wasn't holding Winefride's reins.  She can't hold the reins and take a picture of us sitting between the ears of a Snowdog.  So Winefride was falling off and I reached out to try to grab her and save her.  And then I lost my balance and I fell off.  We both landed with a crash on the floor.

Fortunately we were both okay.  I've got to admit that the final dog wasn't the only one we fell from.  Those dogs are very slippery.  We haven't been hurt thankfully and haven't fallen from any of the ones sitting in the middle of muddy places.  We always got back on again after falling.  Here we are on that dog, which is called The Snowdog.

So we have seen one hundred and fifty-eight dogs.  And today we went to pick up our certificates for completing the Snowdog trail.  One certificate for me.  One certificate for Winefride.  And there's even a certificate for my person because she saw all the dogs too.  People have accused my person of being quite obsessive about the whole thing.  But you can't blame her too much.  She wouldn't have gone on the mad quest had it not been for me telling her I wanted to see the dogs.

There was one day on which it all went wrong.  My person went out finding dogs for me and Winefride that day.  In the rain.  She caught a bus to a place close to the first dog, intending to walk and see six dogs and some little dogs.  When she got off the bus it was hailing.  Hailing.  She decided to go home again.  And then changed her mind because the hail stopped.  She got very wet that day.  And what made it worse was that when she got to the first dog of the day she realised that she had completely forgotten to take me and my sister with her.  She.  Had.  Forgotten.  Us.  Can you imagine that?

Here's that first dog.  Photographed.  Without Winefride.  And without me.

Well she walked on and saw all the dogs - apart from a couple of little dogs she didn't know about and which were hiding.  And when she got home there I was waiting for her.  Can you imagine how cross I was with my person?  It was a horrible day for me.  I think Winefride didn't mind so much that we had been left in the dry and in a warm house.  She got on with playing for most of the day and laughed a lot at her games.

I made my person promise that if it was possible in any way she would take us out on another day and we would be able to see those six dogs too.  And that's what happened today.  Our last Snowdog - but not my person's last of course - was found outside the Seven Stories museum, a place devoted to children's books.  I wonder if there will ever be books about me.  I could write them and we have lots of pictures already on my blog.

And that's the dog we fell from.  The Snowdog.

The day wasn't over though.  After leaving the museum we visited a farm where we saw lots of animals.  We especially enjoyed watching a cockerel crowing.  That was fun.

We saw a beautiful snake too.  And some giraffes.  The scariest thing was when a tortoise tried to eat me.  I'm glad that I didn't get eaten by a tortoise today.

And after all that excitement my person took Winefride and me to the seaside.  We had some more little dogs to see.  We could have seen them already but when we visited the dog outside the Blue Reef Aquarium we didn't know that there was a pack of four dogs inside.  So we had to go back.

And then we walked all the way to Tynemouth and we sat eating our chips in a very quiet place.  There was nobody in sight and we spent our time in the quiet watching the mouth of the Tyne.  The tide was slowing coming in and we watched as different rocks got covered.  And we saw gulls.  And we saw lots of oystercatchers and turnstones too.  There was a heron.  And we even saw a curlew.  That's what my person said it was called.  It's a funny name.  I haven't ever seen a curlew before but Winefride and I have both seen herons.

It was lovely.  We then had to go back into Newcastle.  Because my person had realised that when taking photographs of the pack of dogs at the Central Library we had forgotten to take pictures of one of them.  That had been a hard time for us all.  One of the security guards told my person off lots and lots because I had wanted to have my picture taken with Winefride on top of all of the dogs.  Just like we've done everywhere except at Washington Galleries where it wasn't possible.  The security guard didn't like it at all and kept telling my person off.  She wasn't having a good day and she melted down a bit and ended up sitting on the floor between a dog and the window and just repeating a few words.  "Oh dear.  Oh dear.  We got it wrong.  Oh dear."   On and on.  Sometimes, for all three of us, being autistic can be very difficult indeed.

Nobody came to see what was the matter.  Eventually she calmed down a bit and looked up and saw on a screen a sign saying that Newcastle Central Library is an autism friendly environment.  That helped her a lot and she was able to get up.  She went and asked a woman whether she could take pictures of us.  The woman didn't know and she went to ask another security guard.  His name is Tony and he's very nice and he helped us a lot and we took our pictures.  My person says that she has talked with Tony before and that he's always very friendly.

But in all the fuss and the worry we forgot to take a picture of one of the dogs so today we had to go back into Newcastle just to see that one dog.

And that was the last little Snowdog.  All ninety-seven seen and photographed.  I think ninety-three of them have been photographed with either me or Winefride or both of us sitting on them.

We haven't hurt any of the dogs and we were very careful.  We also don't weigh very much so we weren't going to risk crushing them or denting their paint.  Some of the paint was beautiful.  One of the big dogs we saw today was very, very beautiful and it had lots of animals on it.

Have you ever seen such a beautiful dog leg?  That dog was called Wild North East and was living in the Pets Corner in Jesmond Dene.  There were lots of animals there too.  We especially liked seeing a really big white rabbit.

So there you are.  Winefride and me finished the Snowdog trail.  Just in time.  We're all going away tomorrow morning and by the time we get back the Snowdogs will be moving to a special place where they're going to have a good bath and see the Snowdog vets who will make them perfect and shiny ready for their big party.  We're going to the party right at the beginning and we are hoping it will be quieter then.  We don't like to be surrounded by lots of noise because we're quite sensitive to sensory things.  We were happy because near the giraffes there was a little sensory garden.  We tried eating a leaf from a plant called lemon balm because a sign said to taste.  It was a very strong taste but I think we all liked it.

We have finished the trail and I don't know what we'll be doing with our days when we come back home after our time away.  I'll have my Snowdog blog to complete of course and that's going to take me a while.  And my person will probably have photographic challenges to complete.  She also wants to write a lot more.  We haven't given her much time for writing because we've been making her come out and find all the dogs.

My person is considering trying to find all the blue plaques in Tyne and Wear and that will give her a big challenge and lots to write about because every blue plaque has a story to tell.  Did you know that there is a blue plaque for a man called Jimi Hendrix in Newcastle?  Well there is.  My person thinks finding all the plaques and taking pictures of them and their buildings would be a very difficult challenge.  But I think she might try it anyway.  I wouldn't mind.  It would mean that she would take Winefride and me to even more places and we'll become world famous experts in the geography and history of Tyne and Wear.

I will stop talking now because I was meant to be talking about something very different tonight - the second half of my adventures in Bradford when my person took us there recently.  And then I talked about Snowdogs instead.

Well, it has been a very exciting time finding them all and it ended with a brilliant day today.



[2017 words.  And I've given Blob permission to share what he's said in his Snowdog blog too]

Blob Thing Remembers An Angel's Words And Freedom In Southport

I don't want to say much this morning.  Yesterday Winefride and I found six more snowdogs and we also went to see the Angel of the North.  That angel is my friend.  That angel told me some very special things the first time we met.  After meeting the angel I had been so thrilled by the experience that I got my person to write about it and together we wrote a post.  It was one of the first posts on my blog and we wrote it five months ago today.  Here it is, under this link.

I'm still not going to tell you everything the angel said to me in his special message.  But the angel was right and my life has been a lot more extraordinary and exciting than I could have dreamed all that time ago.  I think that there will be even more exciting times ahead for me and for my person.  And for Winefride too.  Five months ago I hadn't ever imagined that I could have a sister and would love her as much as I do.  I won't share that special secret message.  But I want to share again some of what the angel said to me that day:

"You're a Blob, unique.   Be proud of yourself.  Be proud of who and what you are and live your life in the wonder of your own being.  Be you, love others, and don't let anyone make you feel bad for living a life of freedom and love in whatever way is right for you.  Let go of the things you can't do.  Those things are for others.  Embrace what you can do.  Embrace your desires, your dreams, your passions and let your creative spirit flow.   If people look down on you for being a Blob Thing rise above them and know that you are beautiful, you are strong and you are as valuable as any soft toy could be."

Those are good words for me still.  And they're excellent words too for my person.  She needs to do these things better but she's learning.  She let go of something last week that she wanted to do but couldn't.  And the letting go was hard for her.  I was very proud of her for putting down something while knowing that it was a very good something she was putting down.

Today of course we're going snowdog hunting again.  My person says we're going back to Sunderland.  We were there twelve days ago hunting for butterflies and we saw some of the dogs then but now we want to find them all.  We want to see eleven dogs today and some little dogs too.  Little dogs but not Little Dog.  Little Dog lives here with us.  He's small and white and he's quite old.  I'm not yet one year old and Little Dog might be twenty-five years old.  Maybe he could come on an adventure with me one day because he's only little.

I said I didn't want to say much but then I said lots.  And I want to share some more pictures from that happy day in Southport.  It had been a very good day and I had lots of adventures.  I like adventures.  Most soft toys don't get to have as many adventures as me.  Not even the soft toys I live with.  It would be quite difficult for them all to come out on our adventures.  My person wouldn't be able to carry all of them because there are quite a lot of friends.  And some of them, like Adunno, are heavy.  He's a very heavy unicorn because he had surgery.

I was with my person and my creator in a field after we drank tea and it was so nice there.  I think it might be less nice to lie down on that grass today.  I think it would be a lot colder and the ground would be very wet.  But on that day it was perfect and we were all happy.  I played and bounced up and down the field.

Before we left I lay back on the ground and looked up at the sky.  It was very beautiful.

Of course, I didn't look directly at the sun.  That wouldn't have been good for me.  But my person could point the camera at the sun and that was it didn't hurt her eyes.  Can you see?  Can you see?  Ooh, ooh, can you see?  There are bubbles in that photo.  Because we blew bubbles too.  What can make a perfect moment even more perfect?  Bubbles.  That's what.

Eventually it was time to move on and we decided to walk to the sea.  But first we had to cross this big lake that's in Southport.  That was quite pretty too.  My person took a really nice picture of my creator as we walked by the lake.

And we saw lots of birds too.  They were good to see.

It was a long way to the beach.  I don't know why they put the sea so far away from the carousel and the crazy golf.  It's a long way.  And even when you get to the beach the sea is still a long way away.  I've been to Southport beach several times now and I haven't yet seen the sea.  My person tells me that the sea does come a lot closer sometimes and says that one day we will go there and be surprised because the sea will be nearer and we will see waves.  I saw lots of waves in the last couple of weeks because I've seen the sea several times.  Last time I went to Southport we walked all the way to the beach to sit and watch the sun setting.  It had been a very sunny day.  But just as it got time for the sun to set there was lots of cloud in the sun setting direction and we could hardly see the sun.  We sat and watched anyway.  Winefride was there too that time because she likes to come out with us.

I took this picture of my person.  In the background is my creator and behind her is a fairground.  My person says that she has never seen this fairground open.  Maybe she just goes at the wrong time.  She might like to go on that big wheel but might not like the fast rides.

And then it was time to go.  We couldn't stay in Southport forever.  So we walked back to the train station and I got to sit on a plant with very big leaves.  That was fun too.  I don't think anyone else got to sit on the plant that day.

On the train I sat and remembered the day and I drank my tea.  You will notice that we bought our tea from a shop called Subway.  That's not at the station.  You can't buy cups of tea at Southport station.  There's a shop outside that sells drinks.  But it doesn't sell cups of tea.  It sells cups of coffee.  But it doesn't sell tea.  You have to walk a very long way indeed to buy a cup of tea in Southport, especially when it's so late that most of the shops are shut.  But we found tea because we needed tea.  We hadn't drunk tea since going to the cafe by the field.  And now we needed tea.  My person likes tea.  She's especially obsessed by what she calls black tea.  She has it with milk so it's not black.  And it comes in a white packet.  But the packet used to be black so she called it black tea when the packet was black and now she still calls it black tea even though the packet is white and she has it with milk.  She seems to think that's a totally reasonable way of naming tea.  She's also got some green tea here.  But that's not green tea.  It's a spiced tea and the tea is black.  But the packet is green.  She wants to get some red tea too but only knows of one shop that sells it and that's in Manchester which is a long way to go for a teabag.  My person does also have lots of green tea that is proper green tea.  Black tea and green tea are both black teas but her green teas are green.  My person has too much tea.  But she likes tea and I have to say that sharing in tea drinking with her is very nice.  I like tea too.  My person has more than one mug.  That's good because how else would I be able to have tea to drink?

So there I am, with my tea.  I was quite tired but it had been a wonderful day and I was happy.  I am happy now because I'll be seeing snowdogs today.  And I'm happy because I saw the angel yesterday and was reminded of all that the angel said to me.  I'm happy because I've got my sister.  I love Winefride.  I have lots to be happy about.  My person says that there are lots of sad things going on in the world.  My person says that life can be quite difficult for her.  And it can be much more difficult for lots of other people.  But I am still happy.  Because I am me.  Because I am loved and love.  Because I listened to the angel.  Because life is a wonder and because I am awestruck by the amazingness of it all.  And because there is always tea in this house.  And tea is a happy thing.



[1612 words]

Blob Thing Loves That His Head Wouldn't Fall Off In A Comedy Club

Blob Thing has spent several days telling you about his exciting trip to the Literary and Philosophical Library in Newcastle.  It was obviously very exciting because he had fallen asleep and his person had fallen into an even deeper slumber.  Blob thinks it's almost a miracle because she normally finds it very difficult to get to sleep.  Blob thinks it's very funny because his person had a bump on the back of her head for almost a week from where the librarian hit her with a large hardback book to wake her up.  He's sitting there now, laughing his head off.  It is unclear what he is laughing his head off from as his head isn't attached to a neck, let alone a separate body.  Maybe that's one of the advantages of having a head and body all in one, of being a special kind of blob.  It means that you can't literally laugh your head off.

Humans of course don't have this advantage and when particularly hilarious comedians appear at a comedy club like The Stand in Newcastle**, they very often have to pause their act so that people can get up and find their heads and fit them back on again.  Sometimes that can become funnier than the comedians because the headless people bump into each other.  It gets so madcap that more people lose their heads over it.  Then the staff at the comedy club blow a big hooter and tell everyone to sit down on the floor while a group of janitors dressed in purple polka dots go round and try to match up heads to bodies.  It is unclear as to why the club thinks that purple polka dots make a good uniform and it's unclear as to what the janitors are doing during the rest of the evening as their sole job front of house is head sorting.

It is suspected that they voluntarily inhabit a back room in the club where they spend their time writing poetry for fun and hit situation comedies for cash.  Another theory says that the janitors are sorcerers from another world who appear only when needed for their head attachment role.  A third theory says that there is a secret tunnel leading out from the club and heading deep under Bigg Market and eventually under the Tyne to Gateshead where they work as security guards in a shoe shop.  Nobody knows which, if any, of these theories are correct.  The janitors refuse to say.

Any mistakes can be sorted out at the end of the show.  The janitors usually get it right with the help of the heads telling them roughly what body to look for.  But sometimes they get it very wrong indeed.  The man whose bulging head, bald save for a grizzled beard, should have been paired with the body of a six foot ten body builder was the most difficult case the club had seen.  The janitors attached his head onto the body of a proverbial eighty-nine pound weakling.  He got very angry indeed and went on a rampage and tried to break up the bar.  Being an eighty-nine pound weakling he couldn't do much damage.  The actual head of the weakling - weak only in body, his mind was one of the most powerful in Europe - stood and watched in disbelief and then flexed his muscles for a while.  It was the first time he had flexed his muscles.  Eventually the body-builder's head calmed down and both men were offered tickets to another show and a free meal from the rather gorgeous restaurant at The Stand.

On one occasion someone tried to get away with leaving the club with their head attached to someone else's body.  She decided that having the kind of figure that could adorn the front cover of Vogue might be nicer than having the kind of figure that the fashion industry thinks is inferior.  Silly fashion industry.  Fortunately that woman was stopped at the door and the rightful owner of the body had it restored to them.  The woman was later sentenced to 240 hours community service and had to go on a re-education course about why being skinny doesn't make you a better person.

And then there was the time that a caretaker was sweeping up late at night after a particularly funny improvised show and found a head under the table.  The staff were all called back and the building was searched but no body was to be found.  When police examined CCTV in the small hours of the morning they discovered that a headless body had been carried out by a group of people who looked to have had possibly half a drink too many.  A body hunt was started and the police were considering trawling the River Tyne.

They were just about to call for the search vessels when the club received a very sheepish phone call from a woman.  She had woken up that morning with a terrible hangover and her husband wasn't in bed with her.  She was worried by his absence.  Then she was surprised and a little distressed to find him sitting downstairs on the sofa without a head.  It took a while but the events of the evening came back to her.  They hadn't even realised they had left the club in a group of five bodies but only four heads.  That's what booze can do.  Blob says [yes, this is his blog even though he hasn't been mentioned] that a little bit of alcohol in moderation is fine even though it's a poison.  But getting drunk is something that Blob would advise everyone not to do if they can help it.  It can lead to scenes such as leaving your head in a comedy club.

**Disclaimer: Much of what you have read may not be 100% the literal truth.  So don't go forming a religion around it or start worshipping purple polka dot wearing janitors.  If you much form a religion, don't split into different sects and have religious wars arising from strict dogmas about what the janitors are doing on their day off.  What is true is that The Stand is in Newcastle, has comedy nearly every night, much of which is very funny, and that the food and drink in the restaurant upstairs is worth visiting for.  That bit is true.  Don't doubt it.  Even if you doubt the rest of it.

Blob thinks it could all be true though because why else would there be phrases like "laughed his head off"?  Blob isn't great with idiom.  He's not great with metaphor.  He is rather literal minded, which he puts down to being autistic rather that it just being one of those things.  He's probably right, because autistic people are often very literal.  Even Blob's person struggles with idiom and metaphor sometimes after decades of learning what they all mean.  She's quite good at inventing her own idioms and metaphors though.  Which is great.  Except that nobody knows what she's talking about.

Blob has stopped laughing his head off now.  His person has told him that the bump on her head had hurt quite a lot and it meant that she couldn't lie on her back without wincing visibly from the pain.  It had been a very big book and the librarian had hit her harder than necessary.  Blob says that it was entirely necessary because smaller books and gentler knocks hadn't woken her.  Blob's person is skeptical at this moment.

Blob's blog has gone a little astray today but he thought it important to talk about important things.  He is not surprised that people's heads don't often fall off in the street.  Many of them aren't smiling at all.  Many of them look as though they're not enjoying life at all.  Blob advises that if you're going to laugh so much that your head falls off you shouldn't do it at the top of a hill in the countryside.  If that happened it might take days or weeks for you to find your head again.  And what if it fell into the fast flowing river at the bottom of the hill and was swept out to sea and swallowed by a Leviathan and then vomited up again three days and three nights later in Nineveh, like Jonah's head was when it was still attached to his body?  What would you do then?  It would be terrible.  Blob Thing is glad that kind of thing could never happen to him.  People say to "hold onto your hats."  Blob advises holding onto your heads too.  Don't lose them.  And don't ever screw them on backwards.

Before discussing his adventures, Blob Thing would like to point out again that he has a sister and that he loves his sister.  She's called Winefride.  And she was named after a woman whose head actually did fall off and rolled down a hill.  Well it didn't quite fall off did it Blob?  It was chopped off by a nasty man called Caradoc who wanted to lie with her - as the Bible phrases it - and then got cross because she didn't want to lie with him.  Blob thinks that the Winefride in the story was sensible.  Even if she did lose her head for a while.  Maybe Saint Beuno, who put her head back on later, was actually a purple polka dot uniformed janitor.  Maybe.  It's not much more farfetched than the rest of the legend.

Today Blob Thing wants to talk about a visit to another library.  A very big library.  A library which looks very old but is much more modern than the Literary and Philosophical Library.  It's in Manchester.  Blob wants to talk about his visit to the John Rylands library and about all the interesting things he saw there.  Then he wants to talk about the rest of that day.  It was an extremely exciting day.  He saw Roman ruins, drove a tank [or so he claims] and even sat with the Blue Peter dog. [Blob's person can verify that claim.]

Blob wants to talk about that.  But he's not going to talk about it are you Blob?  Because you've already talked too much today.  It's time to stop.  Blob's person is going to allow him to share just one photograph from that thrill packed day.  Just one.  Choose carefully Blob Thing.  "Choose your next photograph carefully Mr. Blob.  It may be your last." [Slightly dented gold painted star for anyone who understands the last two sentences and knows who once said similar words.  Clue: His star would have been much nicer than the one Blob Thing is pretending to award.]

And here, after much deliberation, is the photograph Blob Thing has chosen of his trip to the John Rylands Library:

[Oh, Blob Thing.  Why did you have to choose that one?]  Blob Thing says it's because this photo was a result of his person's rebelliousness.  There was a specific sign saying that it was against the rules to photograph this toilet.  And she did it anyway.  Blob's person is a criminal.  Blob hopes that she doesn't get into too much trouble as a consequence of Blob Thing publishing her photograph.  [Okay, Blob.  Another photo.  This time use one that has you in it.  That's what people want.  A picture of you.]  Blob is sitting thinking.  There are several pictures to choose from.  He's looking at all of them very carefully.  Which one is best?  Which ones does he want to save for when he talks about the library?  He's choice is made.  At last.  This one:

A good choice Blob.  Good choice.  You might even want to use that one again when you manage to write a post and focus on the subject at hand.  People do need to know about the janitors but they don't want to getting so off topic every day.  Blob Thing agrees.  Next time he will stick to the theme.  Maybe.




[2000 words.  Exactly 2000 words.  Yay!]

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 Discovers Hexagon Sensory Garden And Has A Special Moment

Blob Thing was feeling a lot happier than he had been before lunch.  The peace of the hill, the joy of rolling down the hill, and the finding of a mysterious path by the tumbling water had quite resolved all of his earlier anxieties about prisons and noise.

By the time he walked up into the gardens of Hexagon House and saw Hexagon Abbey displayed in front of him Blob was back to his happy self and believed that this day would become one he would treasure.

Blob and his person turned a corner and came across this sign.

A sensory garden.  Blob can't even begin to tell you how excited he was.  He had heard all about sensory gardens but he had never seen one.  Being autistic he was thrilled to find one and wondered how amazing it might be.

He stopped for a moment to give thanks to Alan Moy M.B.E. for opening the garden so many years before Blob Thing was even born, Alan Moy who could not possibly have foreseen that Blob would one day come to visit his garden.  Alan Moy, Blob Thing salutes you.  At least, he salutes you in his mind.  Saluting you physically would involve some physical movements impossible for one so amazing but so limb-free as Blob.

Alan, you may be "an ordinary man" as you put it yourself, but Blob Thing thinks the garden is great.  For all the work that you did in your career working as a gardener in Hexagon, we thank you.  Whether you are being called Percy the Gardener, or Parkie, or just Alan, we thank you for work that must have brought thousands of smiles to thousands of people through many years.   You made people happier and gave them somewhere good to be.  And for that you deserve your M.B.E. just as much as anyone else.

Alan, you left school without a qualification, without some piece of paper to show the world and claim merit because you happened to have passed an examination.  Your life has been worth far more than examinations and certificates.  Compared to a life devoted to helping create the places you helped to create they are nothing.  Compared to the achievement of improving the lives of the many they are worthless.  People may say you were just a gardener.  People may grade careers and say one is better than another and one has more status or should be given more respect than another.  Blob Thing would place your career, if he was forced to put them all in order, high up in the list.

Because to Blob, a smile is important.  To Blob, the flowers and the grass and the trees and all the other plants are important.  To Blob, the fact that you opened your sensory garden in 2005 and it brought enjoyment to both him and his person eleven years later means that your work was very important indeed.

You planted life.  You nurtured that life.  And in doing so you gave some life to every person who passed by.

Alan Moy, M.B.E., at that moment of seeing the sign you were Blob Thing's most favourite person in the entire world.

Blob and his person walked into the garden.  There were such a lot of different kinds of plants and every one of them seemed to have a different shape and a different texture.  Some were tall and long, others short and stumpy.  Some were rounded, others jagged.  And among the soft leaves of many shapes there were some that looked very hard and spiky.

Blob Thing wanted to look at every single plant in the garden.  Twice.  And he wanted to touch them too. To rub himself against them and feel them against his face.  He wanted to smell them and appreciate the different scents of the leaves and of the few flowers that happened to be in bloom that day.

Blob sat down among the leaves, his weight supported by them.

He let himself fall inwards and fall outwards into a sharing of himself with them.

He saw.  He felt.  He smelled.

He knew a truth beyond telling.

Every plant a world of its own.

Every leaf, every petal, every stem almost the size of a universe.

When something so tiny becomes the fullness of our awareness then just for a moment we and it become the entirety of existence.  All else fades away into nothingness, into an imagined past and future, as if it was never there at all.

Blob, seated in tranquility, let the world go and slowly that which was real reduced in size until it was only him and the plants.

And the air too, slowly blowing across both Blob and leaves, bringing oxygenated life to all that remained and taking away all stagnation, all the waste of the lungs of Blob and plant, all the thundering darkness and unstoppable, chaotic noise that keeps rising within the minds and hearts of us all.

There was Blob.  There were plants.  There was air.

And that was all.

In a moment stretching to infinity, beyond past and future, beyond all dimensions.

In a moment stretching in to the steady core of Being, the heartbeat of the blissful truth.

In an intimacy beyond knowledge, in the unity between the three.

Three separatenesses apprehended as the oneness they possessed already in the stream of time and change.

At this point Blob's person wants to say something.  She wants to say that she truly admires Blob Thing and the way he enters into experiences such as these.  She can't do it herself.  And saying that, she realises that she is limiting herself just as nearly all of us limit ourselves.  Blob Thing says that she can do it.  Or more to the point, she can't do it!  Because there is no doing involved at all.  Instead there is a lack of doing.  It's all about being.  It's about letting one's self drop away so that one can be one's Self and then just Be in that truth where Self is one, and all is One, where language fails to express what Is.

Blob's person doesn't really understand what Blob is talking about.  Blob Thing seems to know though.  He has "been there."  Blob says that we are all there already and need to learn to be where we already are, that it's not a matter of going somewhere else - unless you find something in that somewhere else place that helps you discover where you already were in the first place.

Blob's person is getting confused.  She wants to move on and talk about something else at this point.  Much as she admires Blob's almost instinctive, beautiful mysticism, she wants him to stop talking about it.  Blob says that we all have instinctive, beautiful mysticism.  We just forget it exists and then fail to believe that it ever could have been there within us all the time.  He is laughing so much about it at the moment.

His person's face isn't a beautiful picture of mysticism.

It's a beautiful picture of puzzlement.

Blob Thing has decided to leave his Blog there for today.  He's written enough for one day and given his person lots to think about.  He thinks that she should spend some time considering all the things he has said about his experience.

She should also spend some time considering the idea of importance.  What makes an act important?  What makes a career important?  What makes a word important?  What does significance mean?

And what do the answers to those questions mean for her life?  She has always felt guilty for all the things she hasn't done, for all the things she can't do.  Blob says she needs to stop.  She needs to appreciate the good things she does.  She needs to live the truth that the passions that drive her, the passions she is slowly discovering, are just as valid as the passions that drive any other person.

She needs to know that she is important.  And then she needs to get on and live that important life, and live and live and live until the fullness of life, the life in abundance (which Jesus promised) is so full it does indeed overflow and pour out great life to others.

Blob says that doesn't apply just to his person.  It applies to everyone.

You.

Whoever you are reading what he has been saying.

You are important.

Live.  Be Abundant.  Overflow.

Be a spring of living water rising up and becoming a mighty river.

It is your birthright.  It is your own innate beauty.

Blob Thing really is stopping now.  He just wants to share a few more pictures of him enjoying the sensory garden.  After his perfect moment (during which Blob's person confesses she was standing around getting a bit bored and unappreciative of his silence) Blob walked round the rest of the garden.  He sat on a bench and smiled because he couldn't have been more content at that moment.

He played in the leaves of some more plants.

And then, just for fun, he sat himself down on some of the spiky plants.  He burst out laughing and almost fell of the plants.  The feeling of the spikes pricking his bottom was just too funny for words.

Blob really likes the picture of him sitting on the spiky plants and laughing.  He especially likes that way the grass plant curves so perfectly round him.  If Blob Thing had his own Facebook account he would perhaps choose to crop this photo and use it as his profile picture.  It would make him laugh every time he saw it.

It was time to leave the garden.  The day wasn't over yet.  Because there, in the distance, just where it had been before Blob first read Alan Moy's sign, was Hexagon Abbey.  Yes, Hexagon Abbey.  Blob could hardly wait to see what mysteries lay within.



Alan Moy would be in his early seventies now.  We hope he's living long, enjoying his retirement and will have many years of smiles of his own.  If anyone reading this happens to know him - which we know is unlikely - let him know that we appreciate him.



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