Blob Thing Finds An Unexpected Play Area On The River Wansbeck

Blob Thing says:

Hello again.  Thanks for bearing with me in the days on which I haven't written.  My person has been wanting to help me but somehow there has never been enough time.  Or more accurately she hasn't made enough time for me.  I'm sure there was enough time to go round for the both of us.  Today there really isn't that much time because we're going on a little adventure soon.  My person joined a choir recently and they have their first little public performance later.  I'm going along with her and we'll take Winefride too and while we're there we can take pictures and generally have a very good time.  Afterwards we might try walking home even though that's a very long way.

Last time I talked with you I finished telling you about some adventures I had in Morpeth.  Today I want to start telling you about some adventures I had on the way to Morpeth.  Not on that day, no.  I didn't have any extra special adventures on the way to Morpeth that day.  I know that riding on a bus can be an adventure but I ride on lots of buses and I couldn't possibly tell you about every journey.  I mean, I'll be riding on at least one bus today but I'm not going to give details of every road it passes between the city centre and the choir.  That would be very boring.  Especially if I was to tell you about the journey every time I take it.

I want to tell you about a different day and a different journey to Morpeth.  In terms of miles I'm only going to focus on the last part of the journey.  The part after we got off the bus.  Because you don't need to know about how we rode on the Metro and then caught a bus.  Not a bus that went to Morpeth though.  Not this time.  This bus went to Ashington.  But we weren't going there.  Not that day.  I went there recently and we walked to the Woodhorn mining museum and to a lovely park with a big lake and Winefride and I got taken on a little narrow gauge railway which was very exciting.

That isn't the day I'm telling you about though.  This time we got off the bus at a little place called Stakeford.  I'd got off the bus there before, the very first time I got taken out on an adventure.  This time things would be very different on four counts:

1. My person was more confident about going on adventures.

2. My person was better at adventuring with me which meant that I wouldn't get forgotten about in her bag for almost the entire day.

3. We would be adventuring in entirely the opposite direction.

4. And this is a big, big difference and the most important one.  We would be taking Winefride.  When I first got off a bus at Stakeford, Winefride wasn't yet created.  I hadn't dreamed of having a sister.  This time she was coming too.  It was going to be amazing.

We got off the bus and my person had a definite plan for the day and only got slightly lost once.  Only slightly.  That's very good for my person.  Sometimes she can get very lost more than once.  On one walk we ended up in a village about five miles from the one she had been wanting to get to.  I'm not sure how she did that and think it was pretty amazing because she didn't completely meltdown over it.  I dread to think what might have happened if we hadn't found a bus stop though.

Winefride, my person and I walked down the hill from the bus stop until we came to the river.  It was very beautiful.  There's a modern road bridge over the Wansbeck at that point that's not pretty but you can stand on it and look both ways.

Here I am on the bridge.  Behind me is the river Wansbeck and it's flowing in that direction to the sea.

The bridge in the background is a railway bridge but you're not likely to see a train on it now.  Further along there's another road bridge, and then suddenly you reach the sea.  It's amazing there.  When I visited in April my person and I were the only people on the entire sandy beach and we had a little sing before walking the length of the beach to some rock pools and then up onto the cliffs to continue our walk.  I want to walk it again because, as I said, I spent most of that day in the bag and missed out on it.  I've also just suggested another walk to my person.  To walk along the whole coastline and use the road bridge to cross the river.  If we set out early and started at Tynemouth I wonder how far she could get before being too exhausted to continue.  My person isn't very fit.

Here's a picture of Winefride.  We had walked down from the bridge to the river and this is the view upstream.

If you follow the river far enough you get to Morpeth.  We followed it far enough.  Apart from a stretch where you can't follow the river and have to take a big detour to get round private estates.  We didn't want to have to take a detour but we found something amazing there.

We were enjoying our river walk immensely.  Winefride was taking everything in and behaving very well considering she was less than ten days old.  You can tell she's young.  We hadn't even thought that reins might be a good idea then to help her keep safe.

And then we encountered the first big surprise of the day.  Right there by the river, seemingly nowhere near anywhere we found it:

A play area.  A nearly deserted play area.  I couldn't have been happier and when Winefride saw it she squealed with delight.  She must have remembered the play area she visited in Rhiwabon when she was only one day old.  Her first ever adventure.  We just had to go and play and we all wanted to.  It was amazing and it was very peaceful, one of the most peaceful play areas in the world.  You could sit on the swing and watch the river pass by peacefully.

Here are Winefride and me, sharing one of the swings.  We couldn't see the river when this picture was taken because we were facing the wrong way for the river.  That's okay.  It was the right way for the camera.

Then we saw a slide.  I have to confess that I was slightly afraid of slides.  I've been on them now and they're okay.  Winefride saw it though and she wanted to see what it was and experiment with it.  She wanted to try everything in the park even though it meant we wouldn't get to Morpeth as quickly.  It was a change of plans and my person isn't always good at those.  She agreed though.  We would climb to the top of the slide and see whether it looked safe enough to use.

The view from the top scared me.  Was I really expected to sit on a big metal thing and trust it to get me to the bottom safely?  Wouldn't it be better just to walk down again?

My person assured me that I would be okay and Winefride was getting quite agitated because she desperately wanted to try falling down it.  She is so brave.  Here's my brave sister sitting at the top of the slide before her first descent.

She didn't get killed.  In fact she seemed to quite enjoy herself and when she got back to the top of the hill she was smiling even more than usual.  She huggled up to me and giggled and I decided that I might be able to try to slide too.  Here we both are at the top of the slide.

Winefride went first and then I took a deep breath and followed her.  It wasn't the most graceful of rides but it was quite a lot of fun and I wanted to go again and see if I could slide any better.  Winefride of course wanted to go again.  She would have probably stayed sliding all day, all night and into the next week if we had let her.  But then we wouldn't have reached Morpeth.  Maybe that would have been okay though.  Morpeth would still be there to be reached on another day and maybe giving Winefride such hours or days of happy joy would be better than following the plan.

Then I said to my person, "But what about you?  You haven't done it.  You should slide too."

It took quite a lot of bullying and cajoling and convincing and by the time my person agreed to ride on the slide Winefride had slid down and climbed up another four times and she was laughing so much.  I said to my person, "Look how much fun Winefride is having.  You could be having that fun too instead of standing around looking a bit bored and anxious to be walking."

In the end she decided that she would have a go.  She would follow me and Winefride down the slide.  I made another suggestion.  My person should video the experience and then we could show my creator what we had all been doing.  I thought my creator would be very happy to see our escapades and our enjoyment.  She likes play areas and I know she would have encouraged my person to play.

So we all went on the slide.  And my person did take the video.  This one.  Another video for what will become the worst YouTube channel in the history of the universe.  That's what my person says anyway.

It was excellent fun.  Here I am at the bottom of the slide, just before we moved on to other adventures.

One more adventure in the park to tell you about.  We got to ride on a seesaw.

The seesaw was amazing fun but it was very difficult for us to hold on tightly and it was a bit unbalanced because my person is much heavier than me and Winefride put together and she had to be on the other end to do the seesaw work.  What would have been better would have been if my creator was there too and I could sit on one end with my person and Winefride could sit on the other end with my creator.  It would be incredibly good fun.

My person said it was time to move on.  She didn't let us stay playing all day and said that we had to continue the walk along the river to Morpeth even though some of the walk wouldn't be by the river at all.  Reluctantly I agreed and Winefride was surprisingly calm about being dragged away from the play area.  It was time to walk again.

Later we would discover an unintentional poem.  My person might have helped me with my blog yesterday if not for that poem.  She looked at the photo containing the words and just had to look something up and ended up browsing most of a book about the voting in Northumberland in the general election of 1841 and then she started reading about poor laws and all kinds of other things.  All very interesting I'm sure.  But it meant I had to wait yet another day to get this post written.  Never mind.  I've done it now.  Maybe I'll find another play area today on our adventure.  Maybe.




[1955 words]

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

Blob Thing says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What time is it Mr Fox?

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

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

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

What's the time, Mister Wolf?

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

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

He looked ravenous.

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

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

It was quite scary.

Then it got scarier.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



[2178 words]

Blob Thing Journeys To Greenbelt And Rides On An Elephant During The Trip

Blob says that he wants to take a break from telling you about things that happened a long time ago.  He says that he enjoyed the last week so much that he wants to tell you all about it.  Now.  Immediately.  Everything needs to be told and it's very urgent.  Blob's person has reminded him that he said the same thing not so long ago about Autscape and that he hasn't shared any of those adventures yet either.  Remember Blob, how you spent all that time with lots of autistic adults and how you did surprising things too like riding on a Dalek.

But Blob Thing is adamant.  The recent adventures must be told.  Now.  NOW.  NOW!  He also says that his person should write about them too because sometimes she writes different things and somehow seems to have had an entirely different adventure even though they were together.  Like the person said - there are seven billion realities from seven billion people and each one is slightly different yet all are true.  Blob's person is surprised at how different her reality is from that of Blob but maybe both are true.

Blob Thing had an exciting week.  He's been to Greenbelt.  It's a festival.  Blob has never been to a festival before.  He went there with Winefride, his sister.  Blob says to say that he loves his sister.  He always says that about her.  He likes saying it.  He does love his sister.  She hadn't ever been to a festival either.  The two of them were taken to the festival by Blob's person.  She hadn't ever been to a festival either.  And that really surprised a man who Blob knows as Mister Chris.  He was very surprised indeed because he thought that Blob's person seemed like the festival type.  Maybe she is and just never knew it.  The Blob, his sister and his person would never have gone to Greenbelt had it not been for his creator.  It was her idea.  It was her instigation.  Without her, Blob's person would not have attended and so Blob and his sister wouldn't have been able to go either.  They're all very grateful for Blob's person.  She has been to a festival before.  It was also called Greenbelt.

So what is Greenbelt?  It's a festival.  It has changed its description over the years.  It was once a Christian festival.  Then it became a Christian arts festival.  The website now says that "Greenbelt is an arts, faith and justice festival with a long and rich history."

Arts.  Faith.  And Justice.  Blob likes those things.

It's true that most of the faith content of Greenbelt is Christian.  But it's not all Christian.  And it's not the kind of Christianity that condemns anyone for not being the right kind of Christian or for not being a Christian at all.  It's the kind of Christianity practised by nice Christians.  They're the kind of Christians an atheist can happily and safely drink tea with.

Simply.  They are the kind who Blob's person and creator can safely be with.  Blob's person says that the whole event was a special time because it was a few days in which she and Blob's creator were not stared at by people.  It was a time in which they fitted in because everyone fitted in and everyone accepted everyone else.  They both get stared at a lot.  Blob's person can cause people to stop dead in their tracks.  She hopes that those people won't ever stop dead in the road and get mown down by a large juggernaut.  At Greenbelt people didn't stare.  At Greenbelt things were fine.  Straight people.  Queer people.  Hippies.  Goths.  Steampunk lovers.   Theists.  Nontheists.  Atheists.

It's safe to say that Blob's person enjoyed herself.  Blob and Winefride loved it too and had plenty of adventures.  Only some of them were photographed because everyone was too busy for photos.

Today Blob wants to talk about the journey to Greenbelt.  Because even on the journey there was cause for adventure and surprise.

It was a very long journey.  So long that it began the day before.  Next year - because Blob wants to go back to Greenbelt - the journey might be a lot quicker because Mister Chris said that he should travel down with a group he comes with each year from Sunderland.  Blob would like that.

The journey began by travelling to Manchester to stay with Blob's creator overnight.  Then everyone had to get up very, very early.  Blob didn't want to get up and he was quite worried that Winefride might have a meltdown because she's not used to the early mornings.  Thankfully she took it all in her stride and was ready to leave for the festival before anyone else had a chance to put their shoes on.  It wasn't just because she hadn't got shoes to put on.  She was just there waiting and humming to herself.  Winefride likes humming at the moment.  Blob thinks that she should be exposed to all kinds of music so she can find what styles she likes the most.  And he likes it when she hums.  It's sometimes a bit of a drone but sometimes it's quite melodious.  Maybe she should be shown some simple musical instruments to play.  A bit of percussion or something she can hit and make notes.  Yes.  Blob says that would be a very good idea and is asking his person to arrange it.

Winefride was very calm as the four friends got on the bus to the city centre.  She had her photo taken on the bus and you can see just how calm and happy she is.  It was a beautifully sunny morning and it was impossible to be miserable on that bus ride.  Even Blob's person was happy and reasonably calm and she had hardly slept and was pretty scared at the idea of (a) going to a festival, and (b) going to a festival at which people talked about God.  Blob Thing told her it would be okay.  Blob's person told her too and together they did their best to calm her more and recommended following the example that Winefride was setting.

The journey was a very exciting one.  They had to travel on three different trains.  Fancy that!  Three trains.  Not just one or two.  And then at one of the stations there was a surprise adventure.  A complete surprise.  Winefride and Blob Thing met a real life elephant.  They had met sheep before - an adventure Blob told you about a month ago.  He hasn't written about his adventures with his sister since then.  They've had quite a lot of them and he wants to tell you about them all one day.

Yes.  It was an elephant.  Blob was surprised to see such a creature roaming wild in Yorkshire.  He has since learned that this is The Warrior elephant, part of a large herd of elephants that has currently descended upon a city called Sheffield.  Blob and Winefride were allowed to ride on the elephant.  He would quite like to go back and find more elephants to ride on but doubts he could find all 58 of them in a day even if he could go back to Sheffield and visit more of it than a railway station.

Just look at the two of them, riding proud on an elephant.  It was quite dangerous.  At one point Blob Thing fell off, all the way to the ground.  It was lucky that the ground wasn't covered in poisonous plants and that it wasn't the crater of an active volcano.  Very lucky indeed.  Blob wasn't even bruised by the fall and was able to climb back on the elephant.

It was soon time to leave the elephant behind.  He had been friendly and Winefride had kept laughing at his impressive trunk protector.  She laughs even more than Blob Thing does.  She would have liked to have stayed longer and hugged the elephant tightly before saying goodbye in the special way she has of saying goodbye to someone she likes.  She can't speak, but at least some of the time it's easy to know what she means.

Blob and Winefride caught the train from Sheffield just in time and the rest of the journey passed happily as the scenery flashed by.  And then they were nearing the end of the journey.  Kettering

From there it only remained to catch the special Greenbelt shuttle bus to the festival.  Blob's person kept singing "I wish to go to the Festival."  She KEPT saying it.  For days beforehand.  And pretty soon she would have her wish.  The bus went a very funny way to the festival through streets that were never designed with a double decker bus in mind.  But it got them to Greenbelt eventually.

The journey was over.  All that remained was to set up the tent - thankfully in the disabled camping area which was very close to the entrance.  Blob and Winefride didn't help at all with that.  They just sat back and watched as Blob's person and his creator attempted to erect a tent which they had never seen before.  Blob thinks it unlikely that he would be able to put up a tent on his own.  On the other hand he wouldn't need a big tent so might manage it and he wouldn't have to store lots of things in it because he only has one set of clothes and is happy to sleep anywhere.

The job was done.  The tent stood proud.  Proud and only slightly wonky.

And so the four companions turned from it and headed through the festival gates.

The joys and struggles and wonders of Greenbelt awaited them.

Something completely unknown to three of them would become known.  The next few days would be wonderful.

Assuming they could all manage to survive the large storm heading their way.


[1654 words]

Blob Thing Reconciles Himself To A Life In Fleetwood

Blob had arrived back in Fleetwood.  His escape attempt had failed.

He looked back at the ship that had been his hope of freedom and which had ultimately brought him back.  He sniffed one tear and then turned and smiled.  The attempt had failed.  But he was still alive.  And where there is life there is hope and beauty and freedom.  Very often, Blob says, we can created prisons for ourselves that don't really exist.  We trap ourselves in situtations.  We bury our dreams in thought processes that speak of hopelessness and self criticism and lots of other things that aren't the truth.  Some prisons are real.  Blob had seen them.  He had imagined what it would be like to be on the other side of the wall, to be in a real physical prison.  Some prisons are not.

Maybe, just maybe, Fleetwood itself would turn out not to be a prison at all.  Maybe Blob could find freedom here.  Inner freedom and the deepest of joy that can only come from contentment of mind and heart.  Life might be in Fleetwood for the foreseeable future.  But that didn't mean it had to be terrible.  Here there would be sunsets, and eccles cakes, and cafes.  There would be market days and climbs up The Mount.  There would be friendships to forge and even Fleetwood could have an almost infinite scope for new adventures.  Blob was determined.  Life would be happiness.  Whatever place he ended up in.   Even Fleetwood.

And so he stood up proudly by the ferry and smiled his biggest smile and sighed in expectation of the future.  Or rather he was held up by his creator because it was very windy and he didn't want to risk falling into the water.

Blob told his person and his creator that things would work out.  He said that they shouldn't look so sad about being back in Fleetwood.  At least this was a place where hungry dogs aren't turned into statues for stealing a biscuit.  Blob's smile and his enthusiasm were infectious and pretty soon his person and creator were smiling too.  Fleetwood wasn't so bad.

Together they stood by the dock and watched the ship workers prepare their ship for departure.  And then it left.  Blob knew that he might never see that ship again and he waved his best wave.  It wasn't a particularly good wave because he hasn't got a hand to wave with.  Blob's person waved a much better wave because Blob told her to.  The ship got smaller and smaller.  At least that's how it appears and right now Blob wants to go into an extended monologue about how perspective makes things in the distance look smaller but Blob's person isn't going to let him because anyone reading this probably knows about such things already.

And then the ship was gone.

Gone.  And just for a moment a great darkness seemed to fall across the face of Blob.  Just for a moment.  Then life was bright again.  The sun shone and the birds still sang.

The three friends stood for a while longer by the dock considering their lives.  How was it that everything had led up to this moment?  And what would a future in this land hold for them?  They stood and watched the water and believed they would stand and watch nearby waters many times again.

Then they turned with their heads held high and walked back into the town.

It didn't look bad.  It was true that all the cafes were shut and they desperately needed a drink.  Just when it looked as though thirst would defeat them they saw a big sign up ahead.  "North Euston Hotel."  They were saved.  Surely they could get a drink in here.  It did look like an interesting building.

The three walked in and were greeted by an old man who said some very strange things.  Blob decided that this man must be the person employed as the town fool.  He was very friendly.  He beckoned them into an area with lots of chairs and there was a man there behind a counter selling drinks.  Fortunately Blob's creator still had enough cash to acquire a drink.  The next day they would all have to look for gainful employment.  Maybe they would all get jobs as swan feeders on the local lake.  That would be good.  They sat and drank and started to make plans for the future.  If they were truly stuck in this town for the rest of their lives then some pretty solid plans were needed.  Blob was quite impressed at the results of the planning meeting.  He hasn't got time to tell you about it but promises you that it was a good meeting with a lot of actionable outcomes as business people put it.  Blob doesn't like the word actionable.

Feeling a lot better and wonderfully refreshed by the local tea, the friends got up to leave the North Euston Hotel because they didn't have the spare cash to rent a room.  The town fool was still there and greeted them again on the way out.  He spoke some more strange words.  Then he said the most profound thing anyone had heard that day.

He said, "The Fleetwood Ferry tram and bus stop is where they come.  The Fleetwood Ferry tram and bus stop is where they go.  In and out.  In and out.  They get off the tram, get off the bus.  And they get on the tram or the bus again.  From elsewhere they arrive.  To elsewhere they leave."

Could it really be true?  Was it really that easy?  Was it possible that Fleetwood wasn't a prison at all and that all one needed to do was get on a bus at a specific place and time and escape would be secured?  Really?

Blob Thing said that they had to try it.  What did they have to lose?  He would be able to forge a new life in Fleetwood but he didn't really want to.  He wanted to be able to go home to where his soft toy friends lived.  Blob's person said, "No, it can't be true.  Not after all we've gone through."  But Blob was adamant.  And when Blob is adamant there's no point saying no.

So Blob Thing, his person, and his creator left the North Euston and walked back to Fleetwood Ferry, to the place they had spotted a tram stop earlier.  And they waited.  Hardly daring to hope that the old fool had spoken a truth in his crazy ramblings.

But he had.

A bus arrived.  A bus.  The companions boarded the bus.  Their passes still worked.  They could leave Fleetwood.  The bus driver didn't even know it was a prison of any kind because she had been bringing people to Fleetwood and taking them away again for years.

Blob Thing had escaped.  It only remained for him to return to Blackpool and from there he would be able to return to his creator's house and rest from his adventures.


Note:  Blob will be taking a little break from his Blog for a few days because he's currently on holiday having more adventures and doesn't have the time to write anything even if he had the opportunity.  He's just got one more adventure to tell you about from his day on the Fylde coast.  It's one that he found very exciting.  His person found it quite exciting too.



[1245 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 Meets Some Friends At The Literary and Philosophical Library

Blob Thing was having ever such a good time at the Literary and Philosophical Society Library.  He was glad that plans had changed and that he hadn't been taken to the cathedral that day, although he's very glad to have visited the cathedral since then.  While the Lit and Phil wasn't quite so grand as the library he had visited less than a fortnight before - the Sir John Rylands Library in Manchester - Blob thought the Lit and Phil was a lot more comfortable.  This was the kind of place that a small soft toy friend like Blob could wander into and relax in and maybe find even more people as friendly as those who helped with the tea making.  It was a place he knew he could return to and sit with a book or help his person write stories.  The Manchester library was very grand and Blob was glad to have visited as a tourist - it was quite the adventure - but unless he became a famous scholar it wasn't the sort of place he would have wanted to be for relaxation.

Having drunk his tea and helped his person eat her biscuits, Blob was quite chilled.  He wanted to explore the library some more before they left it to attempt at least a second job in the city centre.  Blob's person felt a lot better too.  This had been a great place to come and drink tea.  It was quiet and bright and friendly and there were even some comfy chairs.  Blob says that it's a mystery to him why they haven't been back yet.  Yes, the cathedral refectory has been a good place to sit recently and yes, his person managed to write a little bit there, but surely the Lit and Phil would be a better place to visit with a pad of paper and a pen or with a laptop.  [Blob's person promises that they will return there soon and they will just sit and write and find ideas and prompts in the books around them.]

Blob began to walk around the shelves of the library.  There were so many of them and it would have been a struggle knowing which ones to look at if he hadn't had the time to look at them all.  There were all kinds of different subjects and some of the books were very old.  And then, right in the middle of the big room, Blob spotted something which filled his little heart with great joy.  And he happy flapped about it with all his strength and all the freedom of a beautifully autistic Blob, proud to be himself.

He saw a children's library.  Blob Thing thought this was a shining brilliance at the centre of the library.  He likes it that children are placed in the centre.  It's where they belong.  Blob enjoys adult books.  He does.  He has probably read as many of his person's books as she has read and could teach her all kinds of things if she only bothered to ask him.  He's a very literate soft toy friend.  But he's also a child.  He's only seven and a half months old so if he were human rather than toy then he wouldn't even have to buy a child ticket yet.  Blob's person hasn't got very many children's books.  There are some in the house that he likes.  Lots of stories by Dr. Seuss.  And she has some books for older children and is happy to tell you how brilliant the Skulduggery Pleasant series is and how everyone should read it unless they're an evangelical Christian.  She knows of one Christian who started reading the first book of that series and decided the best thing to do would be to stop reading and burn the book.  It's the only book that Christian has ever burned so it must be implausibly terrible.

Blob would like to have a few more picture books, especially for his sister Winefride.  She's non-verbal.  She isn't stupid but she hasn't yet learned how to read difficult books.  Blob finds that Dr Seuss helps her a lot and she really likes the way the rhymes sound when he reads those books to her.  He hopes one day soon that he and his person can teach Winefride to use some form of augmented or alternative communication.  That would make things a lot easier, especially for Winefride, who sometimes gets a bit frustrated if Blob's person doesn't quite understand her.

Blob was very happy indeed to see this Children's Corner.  He was a little confused though as to how it could be a corner when it was right in the middle of the big room.

Blob enjoyed looking at all the children's books.  He knows that the city library has a children's section too and is, at this moment, asking his person why they haven't taken Winefride there to choose some books.  Then they could sit at home and Blob thinks that some simple books like that would really help his sister.  It's all very well taking her for fun days out but she needs to be helped to be the best possible version of herself that could ever be, just like Blob has become more than he ever believed possible.

Blob Thing also enjoyed making some new friends in the library.  He wondered if this girl was going to be his friend but as he approached he discovered that she was just a cardboard model of a girl rather than being a real friend.  But it turned out okay.  Because while the friendly girl wasn't a friend, sitting in front of her was a friend.  A real one.  A very lovely bear.  He had a lot of stories to tell about life in the library and he thought for a minute that Blob had come to live there too.  The bear was a little sad to learn that Blob was just visiting and thought that they could have had great fun there together.  Blob said that next time he's in the library he'll come and say hello to the bear again.  That might be one of the reasons why he's so keen to return.

There were other friends to find too.  Blob found them chatting on one of the shelves of the library.  It's a good library like that.  There aren't lots of signs everywhere warning people that they have to be completely silent.  The rabbit and the frog.  Blob thinks they said their names were Peter and Jeremy but he's not quite sure.  He was very brave and went to say hello to them and they had a good talk about the library and about the shelf they were sitting on.  Blob Thing likes the sound of a book called "When We Were Very Young" because he is very young.  And he likes the sound of a book called "The Wind in the Willows" because he knows he would like listening to the sound of wind in the willows if he was in a forest of willow trees on a windy day.

Here's Blob posing.  He's amazingly good at posing.  He was just leaving the children's library and wanted this picture because it could have lots of books, a statue, a savage book - which Blob's person says is written by a quite local author - and, most importantly, the smile of Blob himself.

The visit to the Lit and Phil was proving to be fantastic.  Blob just wanted to have a quick walk around the rest of the shelves and then leave the library until another day.  That would be something to look forward to.

A note.  Blob Thing has managed to write his blog every single day for seventy-four days.  There will probably be some gaps from this point on.  Early tomorrow morning he's going to a four day conference for autistic people so may not have time for writing.  And then he's going to a four day conference for Christian people even though he's never been a Christian and his person isn't a Christian any more.  And then he's got to go to Sussex for his person's family commitments.  All in all, there might be lots of days missed in the last month.  But he'll try to write as often as he can.



[1388 words]

Blob Thing Fears That His Person Is Insane And Is Throwing Amethyst Away

Blob Thing had been having a very exciting day.

It hadn't begun well.  He woke up in his Newcastle home like he does most days.  From that moment the day got off to a very difficult and stressful start.

Blob sat around at home while his person put lots of things in a big bag.  What was happening?  Was she having one of her massive clear outs again?  Were all these things really being sent to a charity shop?  Blob thing watched carefully as she sorted out more and more things and put them in the bag.  It seemed a strange selection of things to be sent to charity.  The clothes all looked like good ones, full of colour.  They weren't the usual boring clothes that Blob's person seemed to have an almost infinite supply of.  Why was she getting rid of the good clothes?  Blob didn't quite understand.

And then Blob's person sorted out some even stranger things for charity.  Socks.  Some pairs of knickers.  Her toothbrush.  Antiperspirant.  And then she put some of her medication in the bag.  What would the charity shop want with those?  And wouldn't Blob's person miss them if she gave them away to charity?  She needs her medication.  Giving it away to charity seemed to be a very foolish plan and, at least sometimes, Blob's person wasn't quite that foolish.

Blob wondered if his person was going completely mad.   He's not the only one ever to wonder such a thing.  Some people see these blog posts or her Facebook updates and wonder if her fragile grip on sanity has been lost, leaving her falling, falling, falling into the heaven and hell of those whose minds cannot exist in their lives.  Blob Thing got a bit worried and his person kept putting things into the bag.  Her nail clippers.  A razor.  A couple of books that Blob knew she wanted to read.

And then things got worse.

Blob's person packed Amethyst into the bag.  Amethyst.  Her friend and his friend.  One of the friendliest soft toys you could possibly wish to live with.  But that wasn't right.  Blob's person loved Amethyst.  Didn't she?  Was Amethyst really being given to a charity shop?  Had Blob's person lost all sight of reality, of love, of the way that Amethyst had cared for her in the darkest nights?

Blob thing watched and was distraught.  He had never before been this worried about his person.  Or about Amethyst.

This had to stop.

He was crying by now and afraid of what might happen but he approached his person and through tear soaked eyes asked her what was going on.  Why are you packing Amethyst away?  Are you really getting rid of her?  Will I be next?  What's wrong with you and can I help?

Blob's person stopped.  At that moment she had been packing her hairbrush into the bag.  She put it down instead on the bed and turned and looked at Blob Thing, who by this time was getting a bit soggy from his tears and the front of his dress was soaked.

She smiled at Blob.  She picked him up and held him close to her.  Then she sat on the bed and started to rock back and forth and said that she wasn't going to send any of those things to a charity shop.  She told him that he didn't have to worry and that she was perfectly okay at that moment.  She wasn't packing Amethyst and her knickers to get rid of them.  She wouldn't do that.  Not ever.  Amethyst was far too precious.  Amethyst had been the first of the new friends, back when Blob's creator had told his person that she needed a friend for cuddles.  Amethyst wouldn't be sent to a charity shop.  Blob's person said that her knickers weren't as precious as Amethyst.  But they weren't being sent to a charity shop either.

Blob's person held him tighter and rocked more and kissed him gently on the forehead.  The two of them stayed like that for a while and Blob managed to stop crying.  He was still a bit snuffly though from the tears when he asked his person, "Well why are you putting Amethyst and your hair brush and medication in that bag?  Why?  why?  why?" 

His voice got very quiet.

And that's when the day improved.  A lot.  That's when it got exciting.  Blob's person said that they were going on a little holiday that day.  They were going to go and stay with Blob's creator for a few days.  And while there they would have lots of adventures and Blob could be cuddled by his creator.

Well that changed everything.  Slowly he calmed down enough so that her person could put him down without his tears welling up again.  And eventually he managed to smile and then he started to get very excited.  A holiday.  His creator.  A coach ride.  Adventures.  Meeting all of his creator's friends again.  Seeing the place in which he was created.  Maybe one day that house will be a sacred shrine.  Or at least it will have a blue plaque.  At least.  That's the minimum honour that should be afforded to that house.  A plaque.  With a simple inscription. "In this house, Blob Thing was created.  2015."

Blob's person finished the job of packing the bag, being careful to arrange things so that Amethyst wouldn't get too squashed.  By the time she had finished packing it was already time to leave and begin the journey to Manchester.  She picked up her rucksack.  Grabbed the handle at one end of the big bag.  And picked up Blob Thing.  She definitely didn't want to forget to take him.

By the time they reached the coach stop Blob had almost forgotten about how stressful the day had been so far.  His fur and dress were almost dry and his smile was as wide as it always is.  Blob's person finds the coach journey quite boring unless she can read - which she usually can't.  But Blob Thing finds it very exciting.  He enjoys watching the world passing.  The cars, the trees, the fields, the clouds, the towns.  Everything.  He even enjoys joining in when his person is passing the time counting bollards or concentrating on the numbers on the posts by the side of a motorway or the numbers on the lamp posts, or when she is making almost imperceptible movements with her thumb or finger as if they are jumping over the cars or the lamp posts or the trees or the bridges or the road signs.  Blob's person has always done things like that.  It's the way she gets through journeys.

At the coach stop Blob's person wanted to tell her off a little.  They had arrived there over an hour before the coach was due to depart.  Over an hour.  Blob wondered why they had left so early.  Blob thing said things like "What if the Metro was delayed?"  "What if it was cancelled and then the bus didn't show up either?"  "What if four Metro trains in a row broke down or if they got stuck in a queue for two hours in the tunnel between Jesmond and Haymarket?"  What would they do then because they would miss the coach and that meant they had to leave home as early as they had.  So they couldn't possibly miss the coach.  No way.  At all.  Better very early than later.

Blob had to admit that his person had a point.  He wouldn't want to miss the coach and so not be able to go and stay with his creator.  But he thought she still left far too early and waiting for over an hour on a city street for a coach to happen wasn't his idea of fun.

Still, there was a journey to look forward too.  Maybe they would even be able to have the front seat again.  Maybe there would be some particularly beautiful cloud formations.

And then they would be in Manchester.  And Blob's creator would be there.  And they would have lots of adventures.  Blob's person told him that they had a big adventure planned for that evening.  A BIG adventure.

Blob Thing had been planning on telling you about his big adventure today.  Or at least half of it.  It was such a big adventure that he was only going to tell you about half of it today - the half in which he scaled the thirty-nine steps and watched while a man thwarted an evil plot.  That was an excellent adventure.

But Blob has told you instead of how scary the first part of his day had been.  He had been planning on mentioning it but while sitting discussing his post with his person he decided that he should tell the whole story.  It's not always smiles and joy and fun for Blob Thing.  Sometimes it's a bit scary too.  Sometimes things don't go right.  And sometimes he has to work very hard to look after his person.  Sometimes she's not doing well at all and Blob doesn't ever let go when she's struggling.  Blob loves his person and he is a very fantastic soft toy friend.  [Blob said that this post had to include that sentence.  It's true.  But maybe he's bragging about it just a little bit.]

Blob hasn't got time to tell you about his big adventures.  He had all the photos sorted too.  He feels a little bad about it though because when his first post was written - a process he didn't have a lot of input into because his person hadn't foreseen how much he would have to say for himself - it was promised that every day there would be a photo of an adventure Blob had.

And today there hasn't really been the tale of an adventure.  And no pictures were taken of Blob crying his little heart out or of Blob waiting for the coach.  That's not surprising.  But Blob wants to include pictures anyway, even though they will have nothing to do with his adventure.

The first picture is connected.  This was taken while walking from the Metro station to the coach stop.  Blob Thing would probably talk about this saying for a long time were he allowed to do it at the moment.  He's not being allowed but will say that he is true to his own self and that his person is gradually learning to be true to her own self.  That's all Blob is being allowed to say about it.  Nothing more.  No Blob.  No.  Maybe another day you'll have a chance.

The other photo was taken in a field about the little village of Giggleswick.  Blob Thing hasn't ever been there but in five days he'll be there.  It's where his person and his creator first met.  Not in this field but not very far from it.  This photograph was taken on a very special day when something very special happened.  And without that something Blob's person and his creator might not even have talked with each other once since leaving Giggleswick.  Without that very special something, Blob Thing probably would not have been created at all.

All hail that special thing that happened.  Give praise for the way the events happened.  For the day on which this photo was taken was the day on which the events leading to Blob Thing happened.

Blob Thing is looking forward to going to Giggleswick.  He's going there for an autism conference run by and for autistic people.  He thinks it will be amazing to be there.  And he's taking his sister too and promises that he and his person will look after her very well.

[1961 words and I don't know what's going on with the formatting - no matter what I do the software refuses to make the text the right size.]

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]