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

Blob Thing says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1313 words]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was levitating!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blob Thing And Winefride 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 Goes Hospital Visiting In A Week That Was Not As Planned

Blob Thing says:

This is my one hundredth blog post.  Isn't that amazing?  My one hundredth blog post was meant to be a big celebration.  A massive party in honour of me!  And of Winefride too.  It's important to honour her because my sister is amazing.

But life doesn't always work out as planned.  My person was going to help me with this post at the weekend and now it's the end of the week.  So this is my post and it's not a joyful celebration of me.  Because things happened and my person didn't manage to find the time or the energy for my blog.

On Saturday my life was being very good.  I went out with Winefride and my person to meet up with a friend we all knew from Autscape.  We went to the Literary and Philosophical Library and I tried not to have flashbacks of my last visit there - the one in which a dragon dressed up as a giraffe stole my Autistic badge when I fell asleep.  My person helped me write a blog post about that.  We went to a very good photographic gallery.  And we sat in Super Natural cafe for ages.  During the day this photograph was taken.  It was an accidental screenshot.  Sometimes very exciting photos happen when accidental screenshots happen on the phone.  Sometimes very boring ones happen too.  This is one of the best.  Don't worry.  The vampire bunny didn't manage to bite me.  I have not become a blood sucking small pink soft toy.

Everything was very happy.  But that changed.

On our way home we learned that my person's wife had suffered an accident.  She was at the hospital being checked out.  That was on Saturday.  It's now Friday and she is still there.  She fractured her spine.  So my life this week hasn't included writing happy blog posts.  My person might have been able to find the time for them but she didn't have the mental energy to help me.

Today she's agreed to help me and I'm going to share some photos from my week.  It hasn't all been bad.  I've had some fun too.  And my person's wife is going to be okay which is a big relief to everyone.  Winefride and I have been hospital visiting every day too.  Here we are in one of the wards of the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle - a place where the staff are all doing a wonderful job looking after my person's wife.

My person has taken quite a few photos of the prettier part of the hospital.  On one day we had some food in the cafe.  We might have some more later today.  The cafe is in the prettier part, which also houses the Great Northern Children's Hospital.

Here I am sitting on a ledge by our table.

And here's a view from a walkway we use on our way to the ward.

It's a very nice place even though it's a hospital.  But from there we have to walk through a very long corridor to get to the ward.  Maybe this afternoon, if the weather is fine, my person can go to the hospital a different way and avoid the corridor.  Maybe we can also go and see some ducks in a nearby park too.  I'd like that.  I like ducks.  I had an adventure with some geese once and I'll tell you about that one day.  They didn't think our pea snacks were tasty but we didn't have any proper goose food and they were all very insistent about being fed.  There were dozens of them gathered around us.  I have to admit that I didn't like the pea snacks either.  I don't think my person was that keen either because she didn't eat all of them.

It's not all been hospitals this week.  Not for me.  It's all been hospitals for my person's wife though.  She hasn't left the hospital yet.  She hasn't even been able to visit the pretty part of the hospital.  And she has had a lot of pain.  It's all been very worrying.

My person has also been able to give me a few adventures.  Little ones, but for me a little adventure is better than no adventure.  Here I am with Winefride.  This amazing creature is on a wall in central Newcastle.  It was very friendly and told us a very interesting story about its place in the history of the city and about how it came to have such a fabulous tale.  Gosh, it was a brilliant story teller.

Here we are again.  We're back at Super Natural cafe.  I thought the books were quite interesting.  Mr. Hitchens made some very good points in his book but sometimes spoiled them by using some very mean insults that I don't think were called for.  We've only just started Mr. Holloway's book.  He seems a lot more calm about the whole thing than Mr. Hitchens.  We've been enjoying Mr. Hitchens though.  Well I have.  Winefride hasn't.  She doesn't want to sit there and have our person read big books to her.  Why would she?  Sometimes I think that she's far more sensible than both of us and that her priorities are far more what life should be about.  She's amazing and so full of joy and love and excitement.  I love my sister.  But my person is still a little obsessive in her thinking about God things and I've picked up some of that too.  I spend quite a bit of time in rooms that contain a lot of God books and I read some of them.  But Winefride can't read.  She can't talk either.  Or she doesn't talk.  It's hard to know which.  But she can laugh and smile and let out big whoops when she's excited.  She's amazing.

Here I am a few days ago.  We went to Whitley Bay.  My person knew that the Amazon delivery person was somewhere in the street just now and she was right.  She couldn't see him but could hear the bass of the music coming from his car.  That Amazon delivery person has a particular tone of bass noise coming from his car.  Sorry for that sidetrack.  The Amazon person has gone now.  Yes, we went to Whitley Bay.  Just a quick visit to help my person stay calm by doing something other than being at home or at hospital.  We visited the charity shops.  All we bought was that book by Mr. Holloway and a book containing the Dhammapada with a commentary on all the words and their meanings and how they all fit in with Buddhist philosophy and practice.  I did say my person was still a bit obsessed with God type things.  She probably always will be, no matter what she decides to believe in ten years time.  I am going to enjoy watching her continuing to grow in the ability to be lost in wonder at the things around her.

So that's my one hundredth blog post.  It's not what I wanted it to be.  But that's okay.  I can have a big celebration of the wonders of my life at another time.  When my person started this blog she was just going to share a photo of me and say where I was when it was taken.  She didn't expect that I would find my own voice.  I am very happy with the way it turned out.




[1246 words]

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here goes.  Photo time!

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

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

Here I am.  Out of focus.

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

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

That was Humerous!  (sic)

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

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

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

Maybe they go to different heavens too.

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the two of us on another train.

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

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

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

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

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

This was absolutely brilliant.

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

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

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

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

Here I am sitting on a melodica.

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

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

This time she will take a head torch.

Final picture.


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


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



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


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

[1741 words]

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 Apprehends A Thieving Giraffe In The Literary And Philosophical Library

The chase was on.

Blob Thing didn't know quite how it had happened.

One moment he had been sitting at a table, drinking his cup of tea at the Literary and Philosophical Library.  And then he must have fallen asleep.  It was the middle of the day and Blob doesn't usually sleep in the day.  It can't have been just any average kind of sleep either.  This must have been the kind of deep and contented sleep that only occurs when surrounded by books.

Ah yes, the soporific effect of the printed page.  It works in many ways.  Some people fall asleep in front of any open book, bored into sleep by the words in front of them.  Others just embrace the relaxation which comes from the songs sung by the pages themselves:

We are the dreamers and the keepers of the night.

We are the stories of sunsets and storms.

We tell of the fight between darkness and light.

We are the plays curiosity performs.

We are the lives of the writers in paper and ink.

We are the holders of all truths and of lies.

We balance the scales of thoughtless and doublethink.

We grant you peace and bring sleep to your eyes.

We evangelise, catechise, surprise and terrorise,

Talk of french fries, custard pies, exercise.

We propagandise, scandalise, hypnotise.

But we never would think to televise. Never, not ever.

Blob Thing slept.  He doesn't know how long he slept for.  The books washing over him in song, in word, in the beautiful colours of the imagination.  Sleep Blob, sleep.

Then he woke with a start to see a giraffe standing facing him from the other end of the table.  The giraffe was just standing there, motionless.  He was smiling at Blob.   It didn't look like a friendly smile.  Blob yawned and rubbed his eyes.  [No, don't ask how he rubbed his eyes when he hasn't got anything to rub them with.  That's not relevant right now.]  He looked at the giraffe.  The giraffe looked back and smiled wider to reveal a gold tooth on one side and a large piece of leaf stuff on the other side of his mouth.  This was not a giraffe who practised good oral hygiene.

Blob yawned again.  The sleep had been wonderful and he had dreamed of cruising down a beautiful river with his creator.  Winefride had been there too and they had all been eating a fabulous liquorice ice cream and watching the sun setting over a spectacular view of a mountain plateau.  The dream would have been perfect had it not been for the inclusion of a seagull which kept pecking at Blob Thing's chest for some reason.  Perhaps it had been the final squawk of the bird which had woken Blob.

He looked again at the giraffe who, apart from the change in smile, had not moved at all.  And that's when Blob noticed it.  The giraffe was holding Blob Thing's badge.  His "Autistic" badge.  His unique badge, made for him by his creator.  The giraffe had stolen it.  Blob shouted out "Thief!"  The giraffe continued to stand there as if he were completely unworried, as if he knew that the staff of the library wouldn't even notice him there let alone apprehend him.  The staff didn't even seem to hear Blob.  He shouted again, "Thief!  Thief!" but nobody moved.  Nobody came to his assistance.

Not even Blob's person who had fallen asleep too.  Blob nudged his person several times.

"Wake up.  Wake up.  Help me!"

Blob's person didn't move.  The books had taken her into a deep dream world and no amount of nudging and shoving by a small, pink soft toy was going to rouse her from the depths of a book induced sleep.

There was only one thing for it.  Blob Thing would have to catch the thief himself.

Blob stared at the giraffe.  Blob didn't blink once but kept staring as he slowly inched his way round the table towards it.  The two kept their eyes locked even though the food stuck in the giraffe's mouth was quite distracting and more than a little disgusting.  Slowly, slowly, Blob drew closer and still the giraffe stood.  Motionless apart from moving its eyes to keep holding the gaze of Blob.

Blob was almost close enough to touch the fiend and then ...

The giraffe suddenly turned and ran.

And the chase was on.

[Note:  These photographs were not taken during the chase.  You will be able to surmise that it's the case because Blob is wearing his badge in all of them and is looking quite happy.  You will also be able to work out that it's the case because throughout the chase Blob's person remained fast asleep and unable to take pictures.]

[Note:  The events in this post are in no way to be taken as indicative of a condemnation of all giraffes.  This giraffe was just one particularly mean example of a giraffe and one mean giraffe does not imply a view that all giraffes are mean.  It does not imply that all giraffes have bad oral hygiene either.  As this tale is being written, Blob and his person are sitting with a giraffe called Gerry.  Gerry is a particularly friendly giraffe and his oral hygiene is wonderful.  There's no food stuck in his mouth and his breath never smells in the slightest bid bad.]

[Note:  Later you will see another reason why these events could never in your wildest imagination be taken as a condemnation of giraffes.]

[Note:  You will also spot that in the photos Blob Thing is wearing his "Autistic" badge.  He wants to let you know at this point that it's the original badge and that he managed to get it back from the giraffe in the library.  Blob didn't want to leave you in suspense for any longer than he needs to.  You may already have guessed that this story has a happy ending from the title of the post.  You clever person!]

[Note:  The photos follow the exact route of the chase.  Once Blob's person finally woke up - and that didn't happen until a librarian hit her on the head with a particularly large volume and said words along the lines of "Hey! You can't sleep in here." - Blob told her about everything that had happened and once Blob had relaxed about it and had a massive hug he took her round the chase route and posed for the photos.  Blob was quite proud of getting his badge back and immensely proud of pinning it back on his dress.  [Again, please don't ask how he managed it.  It's not relevant right now.]]

The giraffe turned and ran from the table and into the corner of the library between the bookshelves.  Blob followed, sprinting hard up to the shelves.  He waited for a while by the end of the shelf to see whether the giraffe would come out.  Blob would then be able to pounce on it, rugby tackling it to the ground and holding it down until it gave in.  But the giraffe did not appear.

Blob had not choice but to choose and end of the shelves and run round to try to catch the giraffe.  He chose the direction that the giraffe had run in from - assuming that the giraffe would guess that Blob would try to catch him on the way out and would thus run out the way it had run in.  Blob shouted out, "Right, I'm coming in to get you now and you had better give my badge back or you'll be in big trouble."  He then crept up to the corner of the shelving unit and ran into the space.

The giraffe was nowhere to be seen.  Blob looked back round the shelves into the library.  The giraffe wasn't there either.  For a moment it appeared that the giraffe had vanished.  Blob looked back round the shelf, puzzled.  It was then that he saw the giraffe's tail dangling down from the shelves above.  The giraffe was climbing and had nearly reached the top of the book case.  Blob had no choice but to climb too which is quite a struggle for such a toy as him.  He has to jump up one shelf at a time and grab hold with his mouth or squeeze himself into the gaps between the tops of the books and the bottoms of the shelves.  It's hard work.  You try it sometime, climbing a book case with no arms or legs.  Just try it.

Blob reached the top of the shelves just after the giraffe, whose climb was a little slower because somehow its neck kept getting in the way.  Blob was just about to jump on the giraffe when it made a massive leap onto the top floor of the library.

Whatever was Blob to do now?

He's good at jumping and often gets bouncy when he's happy flapping.  But he knew there was no way he could jump all the way to the top floor.  It was impossible.  And for just a moment he wished that he had proper jumping legs like a giraffe.

Poor Blob.  He sat there for a while and felt like crying.  The giraffe watched him from the top floor.  Then it blew a raspberry at him and shouted at him that he was useless and just a stupid little blob who shouldn't even be allowed in a library.

Blob felt very angry.  Who did the giraffe think it was to say such things to him?  Didn't the giraffe know that Blob wasn't stupid?  He might be small, but he wasn't stupid.  He even had his own blog and sometimes said quite clever things - more clever than his person says.

Then Blob noticed a spiral staircase leading up to the top floor.  He quickly climbed down the shelves and bounced his way up the stairs.  In other circumstances bouncing up a spiral staircase would have been particularly fun, but Blob wasn't in any mood to enjoy the sensations.  Blob Thing chased the giraffe round and round the balcony on the top floor.  They even ran and bounced round the balcony in the other big room of the library.  No matter how hard he tried Blob wasn't quite able to catch the giraffe.  And then the giraffe jumped back down onto a shelf.  It was a downhill leap so Blob risked doing it himself.  Success!  And then they were back to ground level.

The chase continued in and out of the shelves.  They passed fiction books, religious books, history books and politics books.  They even passed some big books about art and some music too.

Blob would have liked to have explored the library at a much slower pace.  He would have liked to have seen everything while not chasing a giraffe thief.  And then things took a turn for the worse.

Just as Blob rounded a corner near the comfy chairs - on one of which his person still sat, sleeping and snoring - a puffin stepped out and tripped him over.  The giraffe was getting away.  The puffin just laughed.

Blob was determined not to be beaten.  He picked himself up and gave chase.  But the time he reached the children's library the giraffe was right at the other end of the library.  And the puffin was flying across the library to meet it.  They were a team.  That wasn't fair at all.  Blob didn't have a helper.  He would have to do this alone.

And then something surprising happened.  The puffin grabbed hold of the giraffe's neck and pulled.  The neck had a zipper on it.

It was a costume!  Fancy dress!

The puffin continued to pull the zipper and pulled it all the way down the giraffe's neck and down its back.  It wasn't a giraffe after all.  It was a dragon.  Now Blob had two flying fiends to deal with.  This was almost intolerable.

Blob noticed that he was standing by someone named Matilda.  She was stuck on a piece of paper trapped in plastic so couldn't help with chasing but he asked her for some ideas.  Matilda was a very clever girl indeed.  She was written that way so it's nothing to be proud about!  She had a very good idea and taught Blob Thing exactly how he could set up a trap in which to catch both the dragon and the puffin.  The puffin wouldn't be able to peck its way out.  And the dragon wouldn't be able to use fire.  Matilda gave Blob exact instructions and showed him where in the library the materials were kept.

Blob quickly gathered the materials and prepared the trap.  All this time the giraffe that was really a dragon - or the dragon that wasn't a giraffe - and the puffin stood and chatted and laughed lots and sometimes made rude wing symbols at Blob or taunted him with names.  They kept saying things too like "Whatcha doing rubbish pink thing?  Whatcha playing at with all those things?"  And they blew lots of raspberries and played a catch game with Blob's badge.

Blob tried to ignore them as he worked and pretty soon the trap was constructed.  [Don't ask the exact nature of the trap please.  It's not relevant.  Just accept that it was a trap and that a library has sufficient trap materials.  And that a picture of Matilda can give clear verbal instructions about trap construction.  Just accept it.  It's easier that way.]

Blob looked at the trap and nodded and smiled.  Yes.  It would work.  He just had to chase the two criminals and the trap would work its magic.

Blob set off again at a sprint.  He was glad of all the walking he had been doing with his person.  Without all that exercise he might not have been fit enough for this.  He was just reaching the dragon and the puffin when they took off and shouted at Blob that he was inferior because he couldn't fly.  Blob disagrees with that assessment.  They flew at speed down the library laughing because Blob couldn't catch them.

But that was Blob's plan.  Matilda watched and grinned because it was working out so well.

The dragon and the puffin reached the trap.  It was sprung.  And they were caught.

Oh how they struggled but the more they struggled the tighter the trap became until they had to stop moving and give up.  Blob walked up to them and told them they were very bad creatures indeed.  He said they would never be allowed out of the trap unless they gave him back his badge and promised never to behave in such a way again.  So they had no choice and gave Blob back his badge.

At that point - finally - a librarian appeared to find out what all the fuss was about.  She looked down at the dragon and the puffin and said, "Oh dear, it's you two again.  What mischief have you got up to this time?  Thievery?  Hmm.  That's the last straw."

The librarian grabbed hold of the pair and opened the trap.  They were very glad to be released because it had been very uncomfortable in there.  The librarian asked them whether they had learned their lesson.  They nodded sadly and said sorry to Blob.  The librarian then told them to go back onto the covers of the books they had come from - a pair of children's books.   She then put a big plastic library cover over the book so they couldn't get out again.

"Just in case," she said.

Blob put his badge on.  He was tired.  He was still quite scared and full of soft toy adrenalin.  The librarian took him back to his person and woke her up.

Blob's person was very surprised to hear about all the goings on while she had been fast asleep.  Blob was shaking by now and she gave him a massive hug and rocked with him in the comfy chair until he felt better.  And then the librarian gave them both a free cup of tea and some extra special biscuits.

The moral of all this, Blob thinks, is that you should never fall asleep in a library.   Next time, he's going to stay wide awake and if he feels drowsy he's going to get up and run down the aisles shouting "Wheeeeeeee!" until he is wide awake again and everyone else in the library is wide awake too.



[2763 words]