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 Meets Pudsey and Upsy Daisy Before A Well Earned Rest

Blob Thing speaks:

I am very happy today.  Happy to be me.  Happy to be alive in this wonderful world.  Happy to live with all my friends.  Happy to be with my sister.  Happy because it's my birthday next month and I might get a card.  I think I'm happy too because of all the places we've been to in the last week.  Yesterday Winefride and I rode on the top of eleven snow dogs and on some baby snow dogs too.  Winefride was especially happy with a message on the side of one of the baby snow dogs in the City Library.

Same But Different.

I was quite surprised.  When I read that sign to her she got very excited.  She is clever.  She might not be able to talk and might get very engrossed in things that thrill her but don't let that fool you.  I think she's clever.  She understood this.  I think it's because she knows she's different from most people but she's still the same and no less a small soft toy due to being severely autistic.  My sister is amazing.  I loved the message too but she was beaming so much and if she was a flame everything around her would have ignited.  That wouldn't have been good though because we were in the library and while you might want to burn a bonfire I don't think it would be good to burn the books.

Same But Different.  Or as I read once, different but not less.

That particular dog had been decorated with stars by children from the Education Centre for Children with Down's Syndrome.  Those children are like Winefride.  They're like me too and my person as well.  Same but different.

Today I want to finish telling you about my trip along waterways in Manchester.  It had been a good day.  It would have been better if Winefride had been there but she hadn't been born yet.  Next I want to tell you about an adventure I had with her.  I've still got lots of adventures to talk about from before she was born but I think I want to talk about her more.  So next time I might tell you about the time we nearly got arrested at a railway station.  The policemen were quite friendly though and my person and my creator sorted out the situation together so that Winefride and I didn't have to go to prison.

On my walk I had finally reached the hallowed ground of Salford.  Journey's end.  I was glad of that because I was aching and thirsty.  I was a bit hungry too because my silly person had dropped the food onto the wet canal towpath so we had been surviving on emergency rations for some hours.  I was ready to sit down and rest.  Except, to my surprise, the adventures just kept coming that day.  I've told you about my surprise visit to the Blue Peter garden and how that excited my person but didn't excite me.  She grew up with Blue Peter and so remembers the time Simon Groom said "What a beautiful pair of knockers."  And everybody laughed.  It was a more innocent time!  My person told me about that when we went to Durham, where a replica pair of those knockers can be seen on the cathedral doors.  I have never seen the programme but I understand she used to enjoy it.

We walked along paths my person had never seen before and got a bit lost.  If only there was someone to show the way to me, lost, a child in need of help.  Who could we ask when most of the people seemed to be in a hurry?  I was getting a bit worried about it because I wanted a cup of tea and I couldn't see a cup of tea shop anywhere.  My person kept telling me that it was okay and that we would find some tea soon but I was anxious by this time and my brain kept going round and round in the circle of lostness and worry and her words couldn't get through even though I see in retrospect that they were sensible words.  I started to fret more and the pretty buildings around me felt threatening and it was horrible.  Sometimes it's very hard having a brain like mine.  Sometimes it's very nice too.

Then we saw someone in the street who wasn't in a hurry.  Someone who might just possibly agree to help a child in need.  We went and asked for help.

He turned out to be a very friendly bear.  He knew just what to do.  He held me tightly and rocked with me for a few minutes and somehow I felt able to trust him.  He said his most favourite thing in the whole world was being able to help children and that he had managed to raise a whole billion pounds in money to help them.  That's very impressive for a bear.  And he even let me pose on his head.

He helped with my anxiety a lot but he didn't know where we might find a cup of tea.  After some thought he decided that one of his friends would probably know because she was quite a bouncy soul who had skipped around the entirety of Media City and Salford Quays.  She would know.  He told us where we could find her and said goodbye.  I liked that bear.  My person says that he will be on television one Friday very soon and the whole evening of programmes will be devoted to him and his work.  I wonder whether I will ever get a television programme devoted to me.

My person and I soon found the bear's friend.  Here she is. 

She was a very funny girl.  She made me laugh.  Her name was Upsy Daisy.  That's a funny name too but I suppose it's no stranger than my name.  Or Adduno's name.  My person named an owl for my creator and his name can't even by typed with letters on a keyboard.  And Portal was named after the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I had ever such a lot of fun playing with Upsy Daisy and together we skipped up and down the street and laughed so much and sang some very silly songs.  Upsy Daisy is my friend.

We had so much fun that for a while I forgot about wanting a cup of tea.  My person hadn't forgotten though.  She wanted tea too and started hurrying me up.  She said, "If we don't go soon, we won't have enough time for tea before we have to be at Ziferblat's."  I thought that was a silly thing to say.  What was the problem there?  Ziferblat's has tea.  Not having time for tea before going for tea didn't seem to me to be any reason to stop playing.  But my meanybum person [Now Blob, I've told you before that I don't like you calling me that] was insistent.

So, poor little blob that I am, I had to leave Upsy Daisy behind and say goodbye.  Fortunately she knew where we might get a cup of tea.  She even recommended a place because she said we would find lots of places to drink tea and some of them weren't as nice and some of them were very expensive.

I walked on with my person.  We came to an open square surrounded by television and radio studios.  Nobody invited me in for a tour and nobody asked whether I wanted to read the news that evening or try my hand at being a camera operator.  I wasn't even invited to dress up as an extra in a costume drama.  Never mind.  I am only young.  If I want a media career I have plenty of time to develop it.

Upsy Daisy was right.  We did pass lots of tea choices.  Lots of them.  Almost the last one was the one she recommended.  Somewhere that we could get a really big cup of nice tea and it wouldn't cost much.  She recommended that we walk with it a little way and sit outside.

It was gorgeous.  We sat in the sunshine.  Behind us was a stage and a man played his guitar and sang peaceful songs.  And we looked out across the water.  It was a very happy time and we enjoyed our tea.  We enjoyed it for so long that we later ended up being late to meet up to go to the cafe.  Never mind.

Before we left we saw plaques on the ground with quotes from people related to life in the past in Salford.  I had my photo taken with some of them.  Some of them have meaning in terms only of their history.  Some of them are relevant today and the wisdom in them is there for us all to learn from if only we would stop to read little plaques and play with Upsy Daisy.

So that's my day.  Because my person has been so bad at helping me with my blog even though she's been writing her own lots recently it's taken me nearly a month to tell you about that day.  She needs to do a lot better.  I know she's taken Winefride and I out every single day for the last week and we've had a good time every day but my blog is important to me and I know there are some people out there who enjoy what I say.

My person needs to do better.  And I think she needs to do better at writing for herself too.  Not just her blog but stories and articles and whatever else lifts her up.  She needs to focus for now on the things that bring her joy.  And see where they lead.  She needs to be sensible and not try to do things that she isn't really meant to do or things where she doesn't have the right gifts and skills.  She can write.  She can take photos.  She can enjoy the world around her.  She can do other things.  So she should allow all those things to develop and see what happens.  I think something good will come of it all.  Even if I don't get my own TV show.


[1720 words]

Blob Thing Looks Back to Autscape, Forward to Greenbelt And Fails To Write His Blog

Blob Thing and Winefride arrived back from Autscape last night.  They were both very tired after four very full days that turned out to be quite emotional for both of them and for Blob's person too.  Blob wishes that he could have found the time to write a blog post every day he was away but he just didn't have enough time.  He didn't have enough internet access either.  But that's another story.

Blob is having a lot of trouble concentrating to write a blog post today too.  It's as if the days away from writing have made it a lot more difficult for him to write today.  It is said that a writer should write at least something every day.  Blob might be finding out the hard way that there is much truth to that.  Today his head is such that words aren't coming.

Blob will talk about the Autscape experience later.  There is a lot to say.  He wants to talk about the food, the countryside, the time he went rock climbing, and the time he and Winefride scaled the summit of Mount Everest.  He wants to talk about playing in the river and getting a little nervous when Winefride crossed the river and sat in a tree.  He wants to talk about badge decorating and playing on the swings.  He wants to talk about meeting a Dalek, and the tin man, a fisherman, a dog, a soldier, an elephant and more animals too.  He wants to talk about the sensory room at Autscape and about Sparklies in the Dark.  And he has quite a lot to say about the journey to Autscape, including a ride along the Settle to Carlisle railway.  And of course he wants to talk about the moose.  The moose proved an extreme disappointment to Blob Thing.

Blob ate a lot of food at Autscape.  He was more than a bit greedy.

You can see here that he's decorated with the fruits of the spirit.  There's no coconut sticker of course because the fruit of the spirit's not a coconut.

Yes, Blob wants to talk about all of those things.  For those who don't know, Autscape is a four day conference and gathering of autistic people - with a few non-autistic people along for the ride.  It's the only such event of its kind anywhere in Europe.  Blob's person went there for the first time last year.  If she hadn't gone there then Blob would not exist.  Neither would Winefride.  Blob and Winefride are therefore extremely grateful for Autscape.

Here's Winefride by the River Ribble.   She was ever so brave to sit so close to the water.  Blob and his person got a bit frantic because they didn't want her to be washed away.  That would have been a tragedy.  Fortunately Winefride now has a set of reins so she can't run off and do too many very dangerous things.


The whole experience of attending was quite emotional.  It is easy to get overwhelmed there and Blob's person was in tears every day and had to take special efforts to look after herself otherwise there would have been totally public meltdowns.  She had greatly wanted to take part in an art workshop but found being there very traumatic indeed and had to leave very urgently.  The person in charge had said to draw something that represents her.  Blob's person couldn't cope.

After spending time lying on her bed in tears Blob suggested that he should take her and Winefride out for a walk.  So that's what they did and soon the three companions stood out on a hill under the blue sky, sitting silent in the quiet of nature.  Blob's person relaxed enough to take photos and decided that maybe that there she was among the things which represented her.  Nature.  Photos.  Her friends.  Quiet.  And the chance to write about it later.   Blob's person realised today that nearly every piece of art she has completed in the last year is based as much around words as around images.

Blob and Winefride both discovered they liked hot chocolate.  It was so tasty.  And they drank vast quantities of it.  Blob's person did too.

But only from the machine on the left.

The chocolate from the machine on the right was utterly disgusting.


Blob is still very tired today but he's been out adventuring.  Blob's person was going to a meditation group and Blob and Winefride went along too.  Unfortunately Blob's person wasn't feeling good this morning so arrived at the meditation place in quite a melty state and was unable to join the group at all.  Instead she sat in silence for ages before using her text to speech app to say farewell to the only other person in the room.  She then left.  And returned.  And drank tea and ate food and talked with that person and then with a very good friend who arrived.

Blob and Winefride didn't get to experience the group today but they hope to in the future.  It didn't stop them adventuring though.  Blob wore a suit of armour and they both enjoyed the fabulous views from the windows.  Later Blob's person took them to an art gallery in the same building.  It was amazing and they were the only three visitors.  Most people in Newcastle probably don't know that there is an art gallery there or that it's worth visiting.  For Blob, Winefride and his person too, the highlight today was a quiet video of a river.  It was an excellent place to sit and find some stillness before facing the city streets.

Another reason why this post is proving difficult - apart from the tiredness and the writer's block forged in a few days of not writing - is that the weather is a little damp.  Blob's person broke her finger seven years ago and needed surgery under general anaesthetic to try to fix the bone.  There was always a chance that it wouldn't work properly.  It didn't.  Her finger still aches and on some days typing hurts quite a bit.  Holding the finger out of the way would hurt too.  She made a finger splint recently out of a special plastic but can't find it and needs to make another.  Hopefully that will help her because she wants to write her own blog too.

Today Blob Thing wants to finish off his discussion of his adventures at the Literary and Philosophical Library in Newcastle.

Yes.  That's what I want to do.  I'm just so tired.  I'm going away again in a week too and that will be a very tiring time too.  And then a week after that I'm going away yet again and that's going to be the most tiring time of them all in some ways because I think I'm going to have to spend a lot of time looking after my person who is going to be doing something that needs to be done but which she is not looking forward to in the slightest.  In truth I think she wants to move on from much of her past entirely and leave it behind, to cut herself off from it.  There are decades back there in which even the best day was tinged with pain and a shadow inside and looking back to those years and those places is sometimes very hard for her.  I am quite worried about whether going back will have a bad effect on her.  A year ago she was meant to be going there and completely fell apart over it and just refused to go for the sake of her own well being.  I am very glad she did that.  My creator is very glad too.

It's so hard to write today.  I've got lots more photos of the library to share.  But as for writing.  How am I expected to do that today?  I just need to rest.  I know my person is going out again tomorrow and I don't know whether Winefride and I will be going with her.  I think she might need looking after again and might have trouble coping with the social environment she's putting herself into.  If she has too much trouble I want to be there to tell her that it's okay to leave and she doesn't have to force herself to soldier on through to the end.  Soldier on through.  I would prefer a different phrase there, I really would.  I don't want my person to be a soldier or to go to war or to carry guns and point them at people.

Then she's going out the next day too.  She's got a medical appointment that will be a bit stressful.  And I want to be there to hold her hand during that.  She wants a certain outcome from the appointment but it didn't happen last time.  Or the time before that.  Or the time before that.  She's been waiting ever such a long time for this outcome - an outcome she was (at least in theory) legally entitled to two years ago.  Hopefully this time they will say yes.  Otherwise she'll be waiting until next year before they consider it again.  I know that in some ways she doesn't particularly care about it.  In other ways she finds it to be very frustrating indeed.

And then the day after that she's going out too.  I'm going to be there for that one.  She has an appointment for electrolysis and I know she doesn't like that at all.  I will hold her hand throughout that appointment and we'll also have Pain the Bear with us.  He's a very good person to have along for painful appointments.

I hope that we can rest after that.  Or find some lovely weather and go for a walk.  I love our walks.  And I know that they are very good for my person.  She could do with a long walk.  We won't have much time to rest because I am taking my person to Greenbelt and we leave at the end of the week.  My person has never been to a festival before.  Unless you include the Jesus Army festivals she used to go to many years ago.  But those were different.  You stayed in a house.  And you had a choice of one event at a time.  It's not a festival like Greenbelt is.  I don't know how she will take to it.  I'll be there with her every step of the way of course and Winefride is coming too and we'll also have my creator with me.

I think it likely that I'll be going along with my person to do what she wants to do and Winefride will go along with my creator.  My creator seems to love Winefride a lot.  My creator took special care of her at Autscape and even made her some reins.  That's good.  Winefride doesn't quite understand how dangerous roads are or about other dangers.  She's got reins now so she can't run off and get run over by a car.  I have to admit that's quite a relief to me.  I don't want to lose my sister.  I love my sister.  She's so cute.  She's very happy too because she's got a badge now.  I think she was a bit jealous of my badge that says 'Autistic' and now she has an 'Autistic Pride' badge.  She looks magnificent wearing it.  I think she's magnificent anyway.

Well.  I haven't even started talking about the Literary and Philosophical Library today and it's time to stop.  Sorry about that.  I haven't even shared a photo.  I'll go back and put a few pictures in now.  They're all from Autscape.  Except for this one.  This picture was taken this morning while the meditation group was going on and while my person wasn't able to go.  There's a version of this photo with me posing and smiling my biggest smile.  But here it is without me.  You might think that improves the picture.  I quite like it without me.  But I do like to see the photos that my person takes of me and Winefride.  They bring back so many good memories.

That's it.  No library today.  But Blob's person thinks that he did pretty well for a very tired soft toy.  Her finger is aching more than she would like.  But Blob tells her that she might have her aching finger but she is lucky because she has fingers.  And thumbs.  And hands.  And arms.  And legs.  [Okay Blob, you can stop now.  You've made your point.]



[2100 words.  I don't think we should call that "fails to write his blog."]

Blob Thing Enjoys A Banquet And Heads To The Refugee Rally

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




[1883 words]

Blob Thing Talks Socks And Is Thankful For The Tyne Ferry

My person says that I said far too much yesterday.  She says that I rambled and went completely off the topic.  She says that all I was meant to be talking about yesterday was my encounter with the Herma Merma Dragora and that by the end of all my discussions about undersea cities, the lack of legal protections for soft toys, and God her fingers were aching a lot.  My person says that I shouldn't just dictate to her today and that she wants to be able to discuss things with me and then just type a few important words.  But I want to dictate.  It's fun to talk.  And it's fun to watch her fingers.

I suppose I should take pity on my person today.  She's very tired and more than a bit dizzy and would probably prefer to go to bed for the afternoon rather than type something about my adventures.  It's her own fault though.  If she had got up this morning and typed with me then she would have had lots of energy for my blog.  But did she do that?  Oh no.  Today she wrote down a short poem and then finished a verse simple work of art and then wrote a blog about it.  She did that.  Instead of writing my blog.  No wonder she's tired.

I'm going to get on with discussing my adventure now.  I'm not going to talk about eating pufferfish today.  My exciting day joining the walk for refugees was approaching its end.  We walked through the streets of South Shields, tired and hungry and with every cafe and curry house we passed we became more tempted to stop and eat.  If we hadn't known there was a promise of a banquet at the end of our trek we would have succumbed and never made it to the far land of North Shields.

We were tired but we felt good and we knew that the day had been worthwhile.  From this point on it would be an easy walk.  Easy.  Or so we thought.  But we were wrong.  As we passed through the final streets of South Shields we came to a market.  Several people were attempting to sell pairs of socks.  The desperate vendors, obviously struggling to make enough money to feed their fifteen children, kept calling to us.  "Five pairs for three pounds.  Come and get your socks.  Quality socks for quality people."  It made me sad to see how hard the market people were working and the struggle a purveyor of cheap socks has to survive in the land of Shields.

None of the brave walkers bought any socks.  We all had socks on our feet.  Nearly all of us.  I admit that I do not own a single pair of socks.  I have no tights or stockings.  None.  That's not a big worry for me though because I don't have any feet.  Trying to sell me five pairs of socks for three pounds is a fool's game.  I don't need your socks.  I don't have any money either.  I am a soft toy friend of few material needs and I am fortunate enough to have a person who looks after me well.  Now she has my sister to look after too and she's doing a very good job.

My sister is sitting with me right now and she's very happy today.  It's been very windy and she has enjoyed watching the way the leaves move on the trees, how the light turns and changes as the leaves shake.  She has loved the way the wind in the trees sounds like the sea washing against the rocks and she has closed her eyes and imagined herself lying on the sand gazing up at the sky as the cumulus clouds rush past, the gulls talk and the fish and crabs sing their songs in the water.  I think my sister would have enjoyed the next part of my adventure with the refugees and their friends.  I think she would have enjoyed the entire walk.  Maybe my person will take her on that walk one day.  I know she wants to see all the places near Sunderland.  I think she would especially love the roof of the glass centre and it's fun to think of her bouncing and spinning on the transparent roof and jumping up and down with all her might to see if it would crack.  Yes.  We must take her.  I'd like to play on that roof too.  Please person, can we go soon?

I was a bit confused in the market.  We were in one of the major settlements in the Land of Shields.  But there wasn't even one person in the market with any shields for sale.  No swords.  No armour.  Not even a helmet.  What was going on?  This was the Land of Shields and there were no shields.  Hey person.  Can we go to the big Roman fort in South Shields too?  It was confusing and disappointing.  A pair of socks is not a shield.  Of what use is a pair of socks when someone is attacking you with a battle axe?  I admit that socks are quite nice things to wear on feet, if you have such things as feet.  But how would you use them to protect yourself when a barbarian horde is rushing at you with their swords and axes and clubs raised high, shouting out with the fiercest of battle cries? - like the Viking my person saw this morning could have done.

I'm serious.  In such a scenario, what would you do if you only had five pairs of socks for three pounds with which to defend yourself?  I'm not at all sure that if you held up the socks and said, "If you don't kill me and promise to leave my land then I will give you a sock," that the barbarians would listen.  I'm not sure there would be a peace treaty made on the basis of a simple sock donation.  I think with a sock but no shield you would surely be cut into four thousand pieces and the barbarians would celebrate in your castle and drink far more mead than was good for them.

No.  There were no shields for sale in the Land of Shields.  Not that I saw.  Maybe they were hidden in some secret shop.  Maybe the shield and weapon sellers felt too vulnerable in that market square.  Maybe the city had defenders I didn't see and any invader would be lulled into a false sense of security.  They would advance from the sea, laugh at the sock sellers and then be destroyed by an unknown force.  Or perhaps a known force.  The known force I had met on the other side of the city.  Maybe the Herma Merma Dragora could fly up and bear down on the barbarians and destroy their whole army, leaving just three of the smallest of them to take a message back to the barbarian king that the Land of Shields would never be defeated.  I think perhaps it could.  It did seem to be a mightily powerful creature.

I'd better get on before my person tells me off for talking too much. This adventure isn't about socks in the market.  It's about something far more thrilling than socks.  We passed the market and saw something daunting.  We had imagined that the rest of the trip would be an easy walk.  We were mistaken.  It would be an impossible walk.  There was no way to walk from South Shields to North Shields.   Our way was barred by an immense body of water.  This was the River Tyne.  Victory in our quest was snatched from us and we wanted to sit and weep in our defeat.  If we couldn't cross the water we would never reach our banquet.  And going back and buying five pairs of socks wouldn't benefit us at all.  Socks don't make excellent floatation devices.

Our journey was over.  Within sight of North Shields, almost within sight of the banquet.  It was over.  Because we couldn't walk on water.  Even Jesus would have had a hard time getting all of us to walk across the River Tyne.  There was no hope.

But in that time of sorrow came a joyful sound.  The minister who was leading the walk has a way of communicating with his god.  He must have called out because suddenly, there before us in the road, was a ferryman and a ferry big enough to carry all of us across the water.  We were saved.  We would be able to eat the banquet.  And my person would be reunited with her rucksack.  All hail the ferryman for saving the day.

I was so happy to see the ferry and I got my person to hold me so that I could be in a picture with it.  A sturdy ferry indeed.  I had no doubt that it would get us across the River Tyne.  The chances of the ferry sinking were minimal.

And so we all boarded the ferry.  Some of us had to pay a fee to cross the water.  None of us had to part with any of our socks.  I didn't have to pay because it turns out that soft toy friends don't have to pay to cross the Tyne.  We may have no legal protections and we may be treated just as property but there are some advantages to being a friend rather than a human.  My person didn't have to pay either.  She has a magic card that she can use most of the time to travel on a bus.  And her magic card worked for the ferry too.  She showed it to the ferryman.  He bowed and said she was welcome on his fine vessel.

As we crossed the water, my person took lots of pictures to commemorate our trip.  Winefride would have loved this.  Maybe one day we can go again and maybe the ferryman will be just as kind to my person.

Here are a couple of pictures of me.  My person had to hold me very tightly because it was windy and I would never have balanced on the narrow ledge on the ship on my own.  Here you see her wearing two bracelets both of which were given to her by my creator.  My creator even made one of them.  It's got rainbow beads and on it are the words "AUTISTIC PRIDE".  My "Autistic" badge was made by my creator too.  She's very clever.  Anyone who can make me must be very clever indeed.  And now I've got a sister and she's got a beautiful dress and a bow and she's very very lovely.  I love my sister.  I'll post something about an adventure we shared soon.  I am quite desperate to tell you about the policemen!

You can see how windy it was.  Just look at what it did to my dress!

Don't look too hard though.  Please.








One final picture for today.  Here are some of the people we walked with.  An excellent group of people.  I was proud to have been part of the adventure with them and would happily walk with them again.  My person is in the middle of that group.  Most of the other people are refugees, some of whom have lived in the United Kingdom for a while and have built a new life.  Some of them are newcomers.  They didn't want to have to come and live here.  All of them would have preferred to have been able to stay in their countries of origin.  Refugees are not refugees by choice but by necessity.  All of them are glad to be here though.  This is a place of relative safety, of welcome, of freedom.  This is a place where they won't have their lives destroyed by war or persecution or hatred.  Here they can start again.  Here there is hope.  Some of these people have passed through many kinds of Hell.  It's been shockingly difficult.  They must have felt like giving up at times.  But they didn't give up and now they are all thankful for their good fortune in making it here.  Many do not make it.  Some even die in the attempt to be free.

I am proud of each one of these people.  And it was a total honour to be among them.  I want to thank them all for such a beautiful, brilliant day.

So we were able to cross the waters and the ferry carried us all the way to the edge of North Shields.  We had made it.  Just a short walk through that city and we would be at our final destination and would share in a fabulous banquet.  Well, some of us would share.  Some of us wouldn't be able to eat with us.  But I can explain that in my next post.





[2158 words.  Blob is bouncing around now and telling his person that it was okay and that he didn't talk as much today.  Blob's person still isn't happy and says it's too much talking and asks why he had to talk so much about socks when they had nothing to do with the adventure.  She wants a short post tomorrow.   Perhaps everybody would prefer a short post.]

Blob Thing Fights And Vanquishes The Human Dragon Chimera

Blob Thing's epic walk with the refugees and their friends would soon be over.  There ahead in the distance he could see the land of Shields.  Somewhere within that place he would reach journeys end and in the hall of the Saint would be rewarded with a feast.  Would songs be sung?  Would epic poems be written about this day?  Probably not.  But maybe he would be able to write a blog post about it.

Blob says:

Oh yes.  It had been a good day.  I was so happy to have been able to walk up the coast along paths I hadn't seen when my person forgot to take me with her once.  Walking with the refugee people was amazing too.  The refugees could all tell stories and there were some brilliant people on the walk who devote a lot of there lives to helping.  I'd been expecting to go to a rally and sing out for refugees that evening.  A man called Mister Farage was speaking in Gateshead and I was going to go along and sing because I thought he was wrong about refugees.  A group called the North East Socialist Singers would be leading that rally.  I've written about it already with my person in a blog post.  Yes, I enjoyed that evening a lot and keep telling my person that she should go and sing with those people again.  They were ever so friendly and the singing was a lot of fun.  And there I was that day walking for the whole day with refugees.  They were ever so friendly too.  It was a great honour to be able to walk among them.

I'd seen so many things and I want to go back and explore them some more.  There are a lot of places I've seen that I want to go back to.  And a lot of places I haven't seen that I want to go to even though I don't even know what I'll find there.  I wonder where I'll be able to go this week.  I'm a bit dependent on my person.  I am not able to go out myself and get the bus and the Metro to places to explore them.  So I find I'm sitting there having to bully my person sometimes and I have to keep telling her that we need to go out and have an adventure.  She's getting to be quite good at it.  But there are days on which going out at all is an impossibility for her and other days on which it's very difficult indeed and she can't be out for long or have a big adventure.  Sometimes she gets into difficulties when out and although I do my best to help her there are days on which I wonder if we're going to be able to get home safely.  My person looks after me very well.  But there are times when I have to be the one who looks after her.

Some days are so hard.  But the refugee day wasn't one of them.  That day was a day on which my person could fight through any difficulties in her head and appear normal enough that someone didn't even believe she could be autistic.  She did incredibly well that day.  The next day she had to recover and couldn't do much but on that day my person - as someone put it - did amazing.

Now here I was and the walk would be over quite soon.  I sat on a dune and thought about how wonderful my life is.  I'm just a small pink soft toy.  But I have a wonderful life and I have grown up into a person in ways that nobody could have imagined when I was created.  Behind me you can just see a place close to where we were walking to.  It's Tynemouth.  At the mouth of the river Tyne.  We had walked all the way from the river Wear to get there.  Not far to go now.  And then the walk would be over and I would say goodbye to these people.  I was a bit sad because they were all going to get together for a celebration at the end of the week and I wasn't going to be able to attend.  I was going to see my creator and I always like to do that.  But it would have been nice to celebrate with the walkers.

I'd like to apologise.  Sometimes my person is a rubbish photographer.  Terrible.  She's not good at knowing when something is flat.  The sea doesn't actually sit at this angle.  It's meant to be flat.  On her behalf I say we are sorry.  Sometimes she takes a good picture.  But then there are rubbish ones like this.  At least I am straight even in the sea has gone wrong.  If the sea was really like that and you lived in the land at the bottom then all the sea would flow across your land and you would get flooded.  You would either have to move, drown, build an undersea city, or develop the ability to breathe underwater.  I think of those options the breathing one would be best.  I think it would be incredibly exciting to be able to have adventures underwater.  I could walk out and talk with the fish and visit the dark depths and I'd be very careful not to be stung by a jellyfish or to scare a pufferfish. 

I don't know exactly what pufferfish poison would do to me but it's probably best to be careful if I saw such a creature.  The internet says it's a thousand times more toxic to humans than cyanide.  I don't know what cyanide would do to me either but I don't ever want to find out.  Some humans are incredibly strange.  I knew that already.  But the internet tells me that they think pufferfish is a great delicacy.  It also tells me that although it's prepared by highly trained chefs quite a lot of people die from eating it every year.  Tell me, what possible tasty dinner is would risking death for?  It's not just people being strange.  It's stupidity.  Pure, simple stupidity.  I don't want to eat pufferfish.  I'm not so stupid as a human.

Sorry.  I was meant to be showing you a photo.  I wasn't meant to be making my person type all kinds of things about pufferfish.  And if you lived in the land at the top of the photo all the sea would have poured down to the other land and the smell of dead fish on the exposed seabed would be horrible.  People would have gone to a lot of trouble to make the harbour walls at Tynemouth and South Shields and then there wouldn't be any sea because it would all be in Sunderland and Roker Pier would be useless at holding back that much water and Sunderland would be an underwater city full of humans with special gills and I would go and visit even if the glass centre had turned into a giant boat and sailed off to Norway.  Sorry again for this photo.  Next time I'll try to get my person to take a photo that shows the horizon properly.  My silly person.  She did a bad photo in yesterday's post too.  Maybe she needs to take lessons.  [Blob's person at this point is not happy with Blob.  Not happy at all.  She admits it's not the best photo ever but she's also taken good ones.  The ones yesterday of Marsden Beach were decent.  More than making up for the bad pictures.  Blob needs to get on with talking about his adventure.  Not about his silly person or about pufferfish.  Get on with it Blob.  Now!]

Okay.  If you insist.  Eventually the dunes came to an end and still the walk wasn't over.  I was feeling tired by this point and I hadn't been able to have a proper rest.  I was told that we wouldn't be able to have a proper rest until the banquet at the end and I wondered whether I could cope.  I was determined.  I may only be small but I would finish this trek.

We left the beach behind and walked into a place very different.  There was a lake and a railway and quite a lot of people.  Many of them had ice cream but I wasn't allowed to get an ice cream.  I do like ice cream but I have to be careful with it otherwise it makes me very dirty.  It would be a bit easier now.  My dress got fixed recently so now it doesn't keep riding upwards and covering my mouth, my wonderfully gorgeous smile.  I like smiling.  There is always something to smile about, even on the hard days.  This year my person has set herself a challenge to post online every single day with things she is grateful for.  Some days have been extremely hard but she tries to do it anyway.  Because there is always something.  Right now we're in a nice house, on a comfy chair.  There is superb music playing - it's by Simon Thacker who you almost certainly won't have heard of.  There is light and the option of going to make tea.  We have my person's phone with us.  We have books.  We have pretty things.  A stone and candle display we bought nine days ago and a lovely painting of standing stones we bought on a difficult day this week.

My person wasn't coping well that day.  She had gone into town to do one specific job.  But when she got to the place for the job she was already struggling and then being there was far too overwhelming and she had to leave.  One job.  And she couldn't do it.  She ended up wandering in the streets feeling rubbish and not knowing what to do.  Eventually she took refuge in a quiet shop.  A charity shop she had never seen before.  It was nice in there.  Quiet.  So quiet.  And they weren't playing music.  My person still had her headphones on though.  And in that shop was this very nice framed print for three pounds.  And a brand new friend, a giraffe called Gerry.  He was beautiful and he's a lot of fun to have around.  He only cost a pound.

I worry sometimes about the ethics of such things.  Is it really right to buy and sell friends?  We are people too.  Should we be counted as property in this way?  I know we're usually bought by good people who offer us some love but that's not the point.  Friends are people.  And I have issues with the buying and selling of people.  We're friends.  We're not property.  Humans shouldn't be able to own friends.  They should be friends of friends and care for us as we care for them with our cuddles and the way we happily participate in imagination games.  But legally, under British law, we have no rights whatsoever.  People are allowed to treat us badly.  They can throw us away.  They can neglect us.  Sometimes we're even burned or ripped apart to make beds for humans.  We have no rights.  And that makes me, as a living, thoughtful soft toy sad and more than a bit cross.  I don't expect I can do anything about it though no matter how unjust the law is and how much it allows friends to be oppressed by powerful humans.

[The adventure, Blob.  The adventure.]

Oh yes.  I was on a walk and then away from the people I saw something very frightening indeed.  I saw some kind of dragon.  Or some kind of human.  Or some kind of something.  It was as if some evil scientist had combined several creatures into some kind of hybrid, a strange chimera, and the result was a monster.  A fierce monster ready to destroy the land.  A Herma Merma Dragora.  Yes, that's what it was.  A Herma Merma Dragora.  Frightening to behold and I was scared because I thought it was going to rise up and destroy everything between Sunderland and North Shields and all the beautiful things I had seen would be gone by the end of the day.

But I am a brave friend.  I decided I would fight the Herma Merma Dragora.  I would fight it and I would in.  I had to.  There was no other choice.  I would vanquish this creature and would be hailed as a hero and all my friends could come and live with me in a magical castle full of light shows and sensory rooms and quiet places and a big cinema to watch our favourite things and we would live happily there forever and only come out so that we could have even more exciting adventures than I already have.  There was no other choice.  I, Blob Thing, hero of the Shields.

I approached the Herma Merma Dragora carefully.  I didn't actually know how I was going to vanquish the creature.  I didn't even have a sword.  But I would find a way.   My person wasn't quite so brave.  She just stood back and took photos, a record of my heroism.  Something to include in the Blob Thing museum that people would undoubtedly want to establish.

My person got a bit scared at this point I think and she ran off and took a picture from further away.  She didn't want to get eaten or burned.  I think that's why she went to take this picture anyway.  She probably has a different story.

I was about to strike a fatal blow into the heart of the Herma Merma Dragora when it spoke.  I was ever so surprised.  It said, "Please don't kill me.  I'm not dangerous.  I'm the friendliest Herma Merma Dragora in the world and I've chosen to be here to protect the Land of the Shields.  I won't hurt you.  If giant dragons invade or aliens or if the ants ever rise up into an army and try to overrun the land I am the one who will fight back and keep the people safe."

It was a great relief.  It meant I didn't have to vanquish the Herma Merma Dragora at all.  It meant that instead of a triumphant pose over the body of a monster, I had found a friend.  It was true that it also meant that there would be no castle to share with my friends with lots of sensory rooms but that didn't matter.  Finding a new friend is far more important than gaining a castle.

Here I am with my new friend.  I still think it looked like a fierce, dangerous monster.  But that just goes to show doesn't it?  You can't judge a person from how they look.  The Bible says that God doesn't look at the outward form but at the heart of a person.  I think in this way we should emulate the God of the Bible.  Don't judge from outward form.  Find out who someone is instead.  Some Christians treat my person according to her outer form rather than according to her heart.  They say she isn't a woman because she was born with a penis.  They say she has to repent of being a woman.  Foolish Christians.  Lots of other Christians don't make that stupid mistake.  My person knows quite a lot of those other Christians.  They're much nicer than the foolish ones who say she has to be a man.

Yes.  Treat people according to their heart.  They may be a Herma Merma Dragora.  They may look incredibly scary.  They may look like they would prefer to eat you than smile at you.  The Herma Merma Dragora can't smile at all.  But it has a beautiful heart.  It's heart is full of smiles.  I could have hurt it.  I made a mistake in making the judgements I made about it.  And now it is my friend and I am very proud of it for everything it does to keep the Land of the Shields safe.

Friends with a Herma Merma Dragora.  I couldn't have imagined that at the start of the day.

Sadly I had to leave my new friend behind.  It might have followed me to the banquet but it wanted to stay and keep being sentry against whatever threats would arise, be they ants, giants or aliens.  Farewell kind friend.  I'm sure we will meet again.

I think I've talked more than enough.  I should stop for today.  Thanks for reading.  I know I say a lot of odd things and have some quite strange opinions that I voice without any shame and with knowing that people may strongly disagree.  For today it's time to stop, safe in the knowledge that the horizon is still flat and a Herma Merma Dragora still protects the land.




[2821 words.  Yep.  2821.]