Blob Thing Completes His River Irwell Expedition In The Rain

Ooh.  It's quite exciting.

I've just booked to go and see my creator.  She lives a long way away from me.  I could never hope to flap my dress and fly that far.  Not in one day.  I think if I did try I wouldn't go the way the coach goes to where she lives.  I would take a more direct route.  It's much prettier.  And it's much shorter too.  It would probably still take me three days to fly though.  At least.

This week is going to be very exciting too because on Friday Winefride and I are going to be taken to the Great North Snowdogs farewell event and we will see all our dog friends again.  I'm hoping that we get to see the dog called Patchwork who lived in Kielder which is also a long way away.  We want to have our picture taken with Patchwork.  We would also quite like to sit on the dog who lived at The Sage because he was on a big platform that made sitting on him impossible.  I wish the people at The Sage hadn't forced their dog to live on a platform where he couldn't go for a walk.

It's all quite exciting.

The day I've been telling you about in my blog was quite exciting too.  I'm not sure I want to repeat the excitement of nearly being eaten twice but there were plenty of other exciting things to smile and whoop about.

We had been walking along the banks of the River Irwell, a short river that starts in some hills that I want to go and see next year and ends in the middle of Manchester where it flows into a big canal.

As we walked we looked through a very long fence to our left and kept seeing graves.  Lots of graves.  My person likes graveyards.  She does and she doesn't care if you all think her strange.  She says graveyards can be very pretty, very peaceful and very calming.  This particular graveyard had ever so many graves.  We passed a section of very plain gravestones, all exactly the same size and shade of grey and then came to a section of much more ornate graves that had been decorated with all kinds of things, like shrines.  This was a Roman Catholic section of the graveyard.

My person said that she wanted to visit the graveyard.  Not that day because it was already raining quite hard.  But one day.  And we've done it too.  We've been to the graveyard.  On a much drier day.  We took Winefride with us and we all had a lot of fun except my person started crying at one point when reading some of the inscriptions to infants who had died.  I had to comfort her.  Winefride ran off and played and we thought that would be okay if we kept an eye on her.  But then she climbed up a tree stump and got stuck in a hole in it and I had to rescue her.  My person was useless.  She didn't help me at all.  She just stood back and made me do all the work to extricate my sister from her unfortunate situation.  She just stood back and took pictures of the scene.  I'll blog about it one day and show you just how unhelpful my person was.  The pictures are nice.  But I think I would have preferred some help and my person could have helped in an instant.  Sometimes I wonder about her priorities.

So that first day we just walked past the graveyard.  It was raining quite a bit and we knew that after the graves we would come to a road.  My person had looked on the map on her phone and spotted that there was a bus stop nearby.  She had decided it would be better to stop walking, catch a bus, and go and get dry.  No more adventuring for Blob Thing that day.  I agreed with this decision.  For once my person was being sensible.

We got to the road okay.  We got to the bus stop okay.

And then we encountered a problem.

There were no buses on a Sunday.  None.  Not even if we waited for three hours.  None.

What to do?  In the rain?  On a road with no buses?

The sensible thing would have been to walk up the road.  It would perhaps only have taken us ten minutes and we would have reached another road.  And another bus stop.  With regular buses.  Even on a Sunday.

That would have been the sensible thing.  We stood in the rain and my person pondered what to do.  Should she be sensible?  Twice in one day?

She decided to be not sensible.

She decided the best thing was to carry on walking along the river.  In the rain.  With no jacket.  Because that's just the kind of woman she is.

At the time I complained and asked her, "Why don't we just walk to another bus stop?  It's only just up that hill."  She said, "It's okay, if we go this way it's just another few miles and then we'll be somewhere I know we can find a bus stop."

So we carried on walking and in retrospect I am glad.  We saw lots of pretty things that day - things we took Winefride to see too after seeing the graveyard.  The rain didn't spoil the afternoon.  But I did hide away in the bag quite a lot.  My person didn't have a waterproof jacket.  But I haven't even got waterproof skin.

We crossed the Irwell at the road and found ourselves in Bury.  We're not in Salford anymore Dorothy.  A sign announced that we were at the edge of Drinkwater Park.  I didn't want to drink the water but I like parks.  So it was a thing of gladness to find that our route entered the park.  To be honest it wasn't in our route.  My person knew where we were going.  There was a signpost pointing to where we were going.  It wasn't through the park.  It wasn't even on the same side of the river.  But the park sounded more fun, even in the rain.

We saw pretty things like this.

It might have been pouring with rain but I still wanted to take time to pose for a photo.  I'm glad we've taken Winefride to the park too and she has seen what I saw.

We saw this plant.  Cow parsley.  I think, although it seems a funny name for a plant that doesn't look like a cow.  It's very pretty.  That's not to say that cows aren't pretty.  I like cows and met some near another lake we walked to.  But cows don't look like cow parsley.  Unfortunately we saw a lot of another plant too and took photos of that.  It was called giant hogweed.  There's a lot of it there.  The Wikipedia article about Drinkwater Park has a section about flora and fauna.  The only photo there is of giant hogweed.  Horrible stuff.  This plant was much prettier.  And much less evil.

We carried on walking and passed a wide flat area.  It was still very wet but we were happy.  I was surprised by how happy my person was being.  She was having fun and being very obvious about her enjoyment of being outside.

The rain kept getting worse.  I sat in the bag mostly and didn't even take time to have my photo taken.  Not even when we got to this part of the river.  My person had to jump from the river bank across a deep gap to the top of an old wall to take this photo.  She did it again when we went back with Winefride and she took some very nice pictures of us there.

We reached the second of those bridges.  It was time to cross the river again.  The bridge once carried a canal but the canal had gone.  The view was still there though.

We crossed and followed a tow path high about the river.  It was very muddy and we could hardly tell it was a tow path because there wasn't much evidence that there had ever been a canal.  Never mind.  And it was very wet.  The tow path seemed to go on for ever but I know that was just our imagination.  Eventually we reached the end and reached our destination too:  Clifton Park, back in Salford.

We didn't take time to explore the park, deserted because of the weather.  There was only one car in the entire car park.  We left the park quickly - it would still be there another day - and climbed up the hill back to a bus stop.  My person was right.  This bus stop had buses on a Sunday.  Lots of buses.

And so we returned to the house and got dry.

All that was left to do was to drink tea and smile at what had been a very lovely day indeed.



[1512 words]

Blob Thing Learns The Wisdom Of The Worms In Manchester

Blob Thing speaks:

I'm going to speak less today.  My person says so.  She says that her fingers were aching after my last two posts because I talked so much and about so many different things.  So today she's only allowing me to talk about a little bit of my adventure walking along the river Irwell.  My person wrote a blog post about the Irwell too last night, about the time she walked along a small section of it in the middle of Manchester and Salford.  Or rather, on the edges of Manchester and Salford because the river is the border between them at that point.  I didn't feature in my person's blog even though I was with her.

Yesterday I told you about a scary experience I had when I was nearly eaten by a wolf.  It was a narrow escape but I was basically unharmed.  We continued our walk along the river and I met some more creatures.

These were worms.

I didn't know what a worm was and my person has had to explain for me.  It was a little confusing for me because one evening I had been sitting with my person and she had been channel hopping on the television rather than doing something even a tiny bit useful.  She came to a programme and the people on it were talking about a wormhole.  Apparently that's like a big tunnel in the universe and they would go into the wormhole in one place and leave it in a place a very long way away.  I'm not at all sure that's possible but if it was I would quite like to have a wormhole so I could go to places a very long way away.  I would go and see my creator.  I would go to the seaside.  I would go to the top of a mountain without climbing it.  But I haven't got a wormhole.

The creatures I met were worms and they didn't have anything to do with wormholes.

The worms were very friendly and they slid along the ground into different positions and as they did so they invited me to join in with their sliding.  They talked to me too and what surprised me the most was the way worms talk.  When a worm talks to a small pink soft toy its words somehow appear on the ground.  That's handy.  My person couldn't hear the worms.  But she could see the words and they were seen too by the lens on her camera.

I don't want to say much.  These photos are the words of the worms.  I am with them because they were kind enough to invite me to join in with their games.

My person says that this post is more like she was expecting all the posts on my blog to be:

Short.

I could say a lot more.  My person thinks she should take the words of the worms literally.  That she should actually lie very straight or squirm or do wiggly tricks.  I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  It's a lot of fun to do these things.  Once I had sorted my photos for this post I tried to get Winefride to do them.  She enjoyed herself doing all that squirming and wiggling.  She wasn't so happy to just lie very straight and wanted to skip straight on to the "Do it all again!" section and start squirming and wiggling again.  She laughed lots and lots and is still bouncing around from the fun of it all.

It's not the end of it though is it?  There's a much deeper message to the words of the worms.  They weren't just teaching me a little game.  They were teaching me, in wormly mystical terms, of the spirituality and philosophical basis of their worm society.  It's just their worm society.  There are lots of different worm societies in the world, even more than there are different kinds of worms.  You couldn't expect full conformity between earthworms, tapeworms and the Lambton Worm could you?

The words spoken were a game in which was hidden the deepest of worm truths, shared with me.  It was a large privilege to have it all shared with me.  The profundity underlying advice such as "Lie very straight" is mind boggling.  It's one of the two statements of ideal behaviour and practice in their society.  The other is of course "Do it all again!"  The first things they said show the theoretical and mystical basis for the practical tenets.

I would love to be able to tell you all about this.  I think, five months later, I have managed to grasp at least some of the meaning of the words.  I'd love to explain it all to you as clearly as I can and help you understand the richness of the worms.

But I can't.

Because my person says that I have to keep my post very short.

She says I have to stop now because it's already longer than she wanted it to be and her fingers are already aching.

So you'll probably never learn worm spirituality and ethics.

You can blame my person for that.

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 Unexpectedly Goes To War And Drives A Tank

It's not fair.  It really isn't.  My person has written thirteen posts on her own blog in the last week.  Thirteen!  And how many have I been able to write?  I'll tell you how many.  None.  None at all.  She keeps writing her own blog and then doesn't help me with mine.

I should say in her defence that it hasn't all been bad for me and Winefride.  We've had some fun in the last week.  We've been to Durham on an adventure.  Winefride has flown on a unicorn.  We've both swung in a hammock.  Winefride fell out unfortunately - and after my person said she would be okay too.  Silly person.  Today I have posed with a giant fungus.  We've had some fun.  My person went to a museum today.  I think she should go back so that Winefride and I can have some big adventures there.  I'd like that.  There was such a lot to see there and I think Winefride would especially enjoy it if our person took us to see the planetarium at the museum.  She would love it I think.

Today I want to tell you more about my adventure - before Winefride was even born - along the water from Manchester to Salford.  I was now officially in Trafford and we could see a very famous place called Old Trafford.  It wasn't the famous place called Old Trafford where people dress up in white and play a game for five days and then announce that the game was a draw because it rained.  Not that one.  It was the one where people dress up in red and get paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to kick a ball around for an hour and a half once a week.  I don't really understand sport but I am told that people get a lot of enjoyment watching people kick a ball around or try to hit a ball with a stick.  Anyway, this Old Trafford place is very famous apparently and important to a lot of people.  76,000 people can watch a ball game there.  Only 26,000 can watch a ball game in the other one.  I don't know whether that means there are 50,000 disappointed people whenever the ball and stick game is played or whether less people want to see the ball and stick game than the game with just a ball.  And some nets.  I understand that game has nets too.  I just don't understand it.  Playing on the swings is far more fun than watching people kick a ball.

So I was in Trafford with my person.  And we were walking alongside the water.  The other side of the water wasn't Trafford.  It was Salford.  Both of them are fords though so they might be similar.  We were glad to see Salford because it would be the end point of our walk and I wanted to have a rest and put my body up and have a nice drink.  I actually thought that there wouldn't be any more adventures that day because I had already had lots of adventures and I could see the end of the walk.  I was wrong.

As we walked we passed this building.  It's full of offices but I really liked it.

And then we found a museum in an even more spectacular building.  My person was obviously very tired because she didn't walk all the way round the outside and take photos of it.  One day she will because I want to take Winefride there and show it to her.  I want to show her all sorts of things.

This was the Imperial War Museum North.  I don't like war.  War is horrific, no matter the motives humans have for entering into situations in which they blow each other up.  Why do humans do that?  They're a very strange species.  Nobody in my species has ever harmed another from my species in any way.  Of course, my species only numbers two.  Winefride and me.  But we would never hurt each other and if our species grew to be a million small soft toys we wouldn't have a war.

This was a whole museum about war.  My person decided we should go and see what was inside because the building looked interesting and because it was free admission.  I didn't really want to go and learn about war but she insisted and I am glad that she did.

The building was wonderful.  I recommend visiting too.  Even if you don't look at any of the exhibits it is worth visiting just for the building.  I want to go back and get my person to take lots and lots of building photos.  And I have to say this.  Even though I don't like war I was very impressed by the museum.  It didn't proclaim that war is wonderful.  In fact it often said the opposite and there were sections looking at the suffering caused to ordinary people when there is a war.  There are lots of wars going on now and people killing each other for lots of reasons which seem to make some kind of sense to them.  I don't think my person would ever want to fight in a war.  She bought a book today about Quakers and I know they wouldn't want to fight.  I want to go back to visit the Quakers soon.  They were nice.  Winefride might not cope with the worship though.  I wonder if they would let her go and take part in the children's meeting and whether they would take photos of her.  She might like that and they're very inclusive.

On the wall of the main exhibition hall - which is an incredible room - there was this sculpture.  I really like the shape and all the prickly bits and the colour and the way it shines in the light.  I'm not quite sure what it's meant to be though.  Probably I could have found out and I know there was some information about it but I just wanted to look at it shiny and bright and full of shapes.

We saw lots of things as we walked round.  Some of the photos didn't come out well because it was quite dark in places and my person didn't want to use flash on her camera.  She didn't know whether she was actually allowed to take photos.  Here I am in front of a car.

This is me in front of a firewatchers shelter.  The sign behind me says that nobody is allowed to stand on the plinth.  But I am standing there.  I hope they don't find out or I might not be allowed back into the museum.

And then I saw something very impressive.  An armoured killing machine with a massive gun on the front.  This was a tank.

I asked if I could go and explore the tank and that's what I did.  I don't think I was meant to but I'm small and wasn't spotted by a security guard.  So I climbed up onto the tank and climbed in.  It smelled very funny in there.  I pressed and pulled levers and buttons and drove the tank all the way round the museum and then had to carefully steer and drive it back to where I started.  At least I think I did because I did lots of pressing and pulling.  I know for sure that I drove skillfully because when I climbed back out of the tank it was back where it had started.

Driving a tank was ever such an exciting experience.  I was very good though and didn't fire the big gun.  I didn't want to destroy the Imperial War Museum because that wouldn't have been fair at all and because it is in such a nice building.  Here's a picture of me posing in front of the wheels of the tank.  Aren't they big?

One last photo of the museum.  We have lots more on the computer and I like looking back at old photos of me.  Hey, it's my birthday today.   Did you know that?  I am ten months old today.

This is me in front of an aeroplane of a sort used in wars.  You can see that shiny bright sculpture behind it.  I knew what the aeroplane was.  But I preferred the sculpture.

It was time to leave the museum and head to Salford.  Journey's end.  And even there we would find more adventures before finally sitting down with that cup of tea.

I am glad my person agreed to help me with a blog post today.  Maybe in November she will be a bit better about helping me rather than getting distracted by her own blog post or by difficult things in her life.  I think I deserve to be helped and I was told yesterday - by a writer no less - that my blog is excellent.  I certainly like it.  I wonder what I'll talk about next.  I think I should talk more about God and autism and flowers and creativity and beauty and giraffes and I saw a narwhal today.  I did.  I saw a narwhal.  And a rhinoceros.  And a dinosaur.  And lots of birds on a lake.  And it was really enjoyable being out and the sun was shining.  That's a strange phrase too isn't it.  The sun was shining.  Well of course it was you silly!  It doesn't stop shining.  It's not as if the sun ceases to burn at night or goes out whenever a cloud is in front of it.  It's a silly phrase and I'm a bit embarrassed to have used it.  The sun was visible in the sky.  There.  Although: don't look at it or you'll hurt your eyes and might end up with Medjugorje Syndrome and you wouldn't want that would you?  Yes, it was a lovely day today in Newcastle.  Lovely.

Right.  That's it.  My person is telling me that I have to stop because she needs to put food in the oven otherwise nobody here will be eating tonight.  That would be sad.  I don't want to miss my dinner tonight because we didn't get fed when we were out.  My person didn't even buy ice creams for Winefride and me even though we passed a perfectly good ice cream source in the park.  Next time person, you should indulge us.  Thank you.




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Blob Thing Pushes Barrels And Gets Chained Up At Praed Road

Blob speaks:

This is my 101st blog post.  I was wanting, having posted for the hundredth time, to get back to posting things every single day.  But my person hasn't been doing very well in the last few days.  It's been a real struggle for her head.  I've had to look after her and all our friends are chipping in to caring for her so that her head can get through everything and recover.  Got A Warthog and Amethyst have been doing an excellent job at night, with Portal helping out when they've needed a rest.  Even Buttons and Gerry have been active and have shown that they're worth far more than their weight in stuffing.  I haven't been asking my person to write with me every day but this morning I think it might be good for her.

Yesterday I colluded with my creator and strongly encouraged my person to go on a little adventure.  It was amazing.  We visited the Lady of the North.  I've been to see her before but Winefride hasn't.  She wanted to run out to where it was dangerous.  I think she wanted to stand on the tip of the lady's nose and then roll right down her face.  But it was very steep and I didn't want her to get hurt.  We took some pictures.  I'll show you them one day.  Then we went to Plessey Woods and had a walk in the trees and by the river.  My person walked along a path she possibly wasn't meant to walk on and was very tempted to just keep on walking in the hope that it came out somewhere.  It was very pretty even if we weren't meant to be there.  And then the three of us went out for lunch in a tiny little cafe above a new age shop.  The food was very nice.  I think some people were there to have some kind of readings done by some kind of psychic or intuitive.  My person quite likes tarot cards.  She keeps saying they're pretty.  She doesn't think they are of any use in predicting the future though.

It was a very good adventure yesterday.  I sat on a giant toadstool too.  Winefride had her picture taken with some real fungi and I was very glad that she didn't try to eat them.  She can be crazily bouncy enough without accidentally eating hallucinogenics.  I don't want to imagine Winefride on drugs.  Or even worse, the fungi might have been poisonous and then she would have had to go to hospital.  We were going to hospital anyway but having one member of the family there is quite enough.  Yes, it was a very good adventure and we got home in time to go and see my person's wife in the afternoon.

But that's yesterday and I'm not talking about yesterday today and won't be talking about yesterday tomorrow either.  Today I want to tell you more about another big adventure.  I won't tell you much because my person's head is not coping well and she's finding it hard to focus.  I think she needs a big squish hug from someone special.  Someone special isn't here so she'll just have to have one from Got A Warthog.  He's a very special warthog.  I don't think there are many songs about special warthogs.  Not many.  But there are songs about warthogs of course.  Why wouldn't there be?

Got A Warthog has not got a pink satin dress with blue bows.  I wonder how smart he would look in such beautiful clothes.  It would make me sad if he went out dressed up like that and nasty people insulted him for being a boy warthog in a dress.  Got A Warthog says that he much prefers that warthog song to this one.

He doesn't want me to look further on YouTube for warthog songs because he just spotted a link to something very frightening.  It was a video of a warthog being eaten alive.  Got A Warthog is feeling bad now and has his head hidden under the bed covers.  I hope he'll be okay.  I'm glad that there are so many other friends here because he'll be looked after well.  Yes, here come Stillness and Pain to give him a big cuddle.  Stillness is an elephant.  He was rescued from the shelves of a shop on the same day as Without Names.

So yes.  I was with my person and we had been walking from the centre of Manchester along some water.  We had nearly reached the end of our journey but still had many adventures left.  As we walked we came to an industrial sculpture area.  It was great fun to play on some of the sculptures except I couldn't play as much as I wanted because it was raining and I don't have any waterproof clothes.  We looked in the hiking shop but they didn't have any Blob sized jackets.  Even the extra small ones for human children were far too big for me.

This first photo is rubbish.  I don't know why my person was holding the phone camera at that angle.  I don't want to insult my person, especially when her head is so sore inside.  But it is a rubbish photo.  The best thing in it is me!

The rest of the photos are much better.  It's a big shame that Winefride wasn't with us that day.  She would have loved it there.  She would have been jumping around on everything and would have had so much fun and I would have enjoyed seeing her smile and hearing her excitement.  Maybe one day I can take her there.  She is amazing.  The way she finds joy in nearly every situation is brilliant.  Yes, she can't talk.  Yes, she's severely autistic.  But she's absolutely wonderful.  Of course there was a reason why Winefride didn't come out with us that day.  She hadn't been born yet.  That night when she was born was the most exciting of my life.

I have got a lot to say about these photos.  I have the version of events that my person remembers.  But there's also another version of events that's equally exciting.  Let it just be said that I got completely stuck in the chains.  I couldn't get out and the whole situation got more than a bit fraught.  My person couldn't help me either and she tried everything she could think of.  In the end I was freed through the combined efforts of the fire brigade, the army and a helpful pigeon named Persephone who lent the aid of her beak.

I'd tell you all about it but my person is really not feeling good and she needs to stop typing now.  Hopefully she will have enough energy for my blog again soon.  I might get her to write it for a while rather than me dictating.  I think it helps her when we get into discussions about my adventures.  Especially when she doesn't remember them properly.  And especially when we get sidetracked in our discussions and start writing about other things.

Yes.  Time to stop typing.  My person is very tired.  I hope you enjoy all the pictures.  They've all got me in them.  In my next post I'll tell you about how exciting it was to drive a tank and might tell you about my part in winning a war and how I attached loudspeakers to the top of my tank and played "Give Peace a Chance" and how I adjusted the big gun to shoot white poppies and bubbles.  My tank was the only peace crusader tank in the whole war and when the enemy saw it they laughed and decided that bubbles are better than bullets.  Their country stopped producing bullet guns and everyone got issued with a bubble gun, a sparkly wand, and a kite and the country devoted itself to spreading pacifism.  It's a shame no other country has listened and it's a shame that their country had too many people shouting about how bubbles were for babies and how it was their divine right under God to bear arms because an ancient piece of paper seemed to say so.  Silly people.  They got into power in the end and that country became miserable again.  I might tell you all about that adventure.  If my person lets me.

Enjoy the photos.

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Blob Thing Enjoys Himself Walking By The Canal To Salford

Hey.  My person is a bit silly!  She's got the title of this post wrong and she's not letting me change it.  There might be pictures of Salford here and we might have ended our walk in Salford but we didn't get there in this part of the day.  No.  We didn't realise it at the time but we got to Trafford in this part of the day.  And that's a totally different thing.  My person is excited.  She's discovered a 57 mile walk round the outskirts of Salford and she wants to explore it.  None of the walking I will tell you about today was inside the outskirts.  It was Trafford.  We went back to Trafford last week and my person took a photo of a green telephone junction box.  That was a good evening.  I got mentioned in a talk at an autism event.  I don't think it'll make me famous and I'm not sure whether I would want to be famous anyway.  It seems like a lot of hard work having to deal with strangers wanting to talk to you all the time.  I think I'd get overwhelmed and I don't know how Winefride would cope with it all or whether everyone on Twitter would be kind to her.

There are good people who use Twitter.  And there are mean people too.  I saw some things that a Republican candidate to be President of the United States of America wrote on there and I was quite shocked.  He seems to be a very mean person.  I saw him on television too and one night when my person had insomnia I heard him in a debate.  It makes me sad that people still want this man to lead their country even after all the mean things he said about all kinds of people.  It seems he reserves nice words mainly for members of his political party and not for people who disagree with him or have a different coloured skin.  I called my person a meany bum for not helping with my blog enough.  I take it back.  It's that horrible man who is the real meany bum.  His meany bum is so big I am surprised there is any chair in the world big enough that he can sit in it.  As for skin. Well, I've got fur.  And my fur is one colour.  Winefride's fur is a different colour.  What does that matter?  It doesn't change the way I love her and it would be a totally crazy thing if it did.  We're different.  But we're not superior and inferior and we're not inferior and superior.  That's what I say and I'm sticking with it and if anyone disagrees they'll have to argue with my person because she agrees with me.

But my walk.  Oh yes, I was walking wasn't I?  I am quite glad that man wasn't walking with us.  I think I would have had to tell him to shut up lots of times.  There are other mean people.  It's not just him.  I saw some a few weeks ago in Newcastle.  Some openly racist people had a march and said some very nasty things.  Unfortunately the not racist people who also had a march said some very nasty things too and I was in tears about it all and we had to block Winefride's ears and hold her tightly all evening because she was so upset that supposedly nice people could scream in the streets of Newcastle and encourage human beings to kill themselves.  My person says she isn't going to go to the rallies and marches any more because she got very upset by it too.  When the nice people become monsters what hope is there?

At least I can still walk.  And I can smile.  And I can sing, and dance and write and play and find divinity and beauty and think of the thousands of good things that still happen.  We watched a man playing the piano and singing on the internet last night.  He said to think of the good things and sometimes to switch off from the bad.  He then said that we should be creating the good things.  I agree.  As a small pink soft toy I'm not in a position to create very many but I want to create some.  And experience others.

That day was full of good things.  Here's one of the good things:  My person was smiling.  Here she is, at the start of our canal walk.  We're still right in the middle of Manchester.  Not far away are big railways and big roads but this place was quiet.

My person is telling me to get on with it because she says I talked too much about that meany bum American person.  The next picture is of me.  I had to be held very carefully because there was nothing safe for me to sit on and I didn't want to fall into the canal.  It's not a very good picture but my person says it's quite hard to hold me and take a picture of me while making sure the camera is straight and making sure to press the button without changing the angle.  Personally I think that just means she needs more practice.  Lots more pictures of me please.  And lots of pictures of Winefride too.

Hey, yesterday was good.  First we got taken to a cafe because my person could get us some cake for free.  And then we got shown round a multilingual library which was a brilliant place.  She got photo practice there and I'll be blogging about it soon.  My person says that next week she will go back and join the library because it's such a good thing and also because it would be a quiet place to sit when she gets too overwhelmed in town.  It's near an art gallery shop too and she's promised to take us there soon.  My person doesn't like being in shopping malls but that little section is quite nice.  The library did have some quiet music playing.  That's not normal for libraries.  My person says it was by Kathryn Tickell who is a local woman who plays Northumbrian pipes.  She says we have some of her albums but she's not playing one now.  She's currently playing, yet again, The Four Seasons by Vivaldi.  But this is the version by the Jacques Loussier Trio.  I like it too.  I think Winefride would prefer something playing that's easier to dance to.  She loves dancing to music.  This is good to sway and rock to and to close your eyes and fall into but it's not good for wild dancing.  We danced to the piano player at Greenbelt.  I still need to finish blogging about that.  I got half way through and then we kept going away and my not meany bum person kept not being able to help me with my blog and then I didn't get back to it.  I hope we go again next year.  We need to book.  One disabled person.  One carer.  And two soft toy tickets.

Oh yes.  This next picture is of me.  Aren't I wonderful?!

Then we started to walk along the canal.  I like this bridge picture.  I like bridges in general and I think I want to see more.  It's amazing but my person still hasn't taken photos of me with all the bridges crossing the Tyne in Newcastle.  I have photos of myself and bridges on the Wear, except for that one which doesn't yet exist.  But not the Tyne.  Except for the Millennium Bridge.  We took photos of that a while ago when we all went on an adventure in the Baltic art gallery and I nearly fell into an eternal pit.  There I was nearly falling for ever and my person just smiled and took pictures.  Can you believe that?  I think my person wants to use this picture for her blog too.  But I got there first.

We're walking into Trafford in this photo.  Trafford.  Not Salford.  We're already past the point at which my person made sandwiches and dropped them in a puddle on the towpath and had to leave them for the grateful birds.  It was being a lovely walk and we weren't getting wet either which pleased me.  I am glad my person did not decide to jump across to the other side.  I don't think she would have made such a daring leap and then we would all have got very wet.

Yes.  We were in Trafford.  We didn't know that then because our Greater Manchester geography knowledge isn't very good.  But we could see Salford.  Here's some of it across the water.  All those buildings are in Salford Quays.  People look at Salford Quays and think that Salford is a posh, upmarket place now.  It isn't.  Just bits of it.  There is a lot of deprivation in other parts of the city and a lot of people are struggling in big ways.  The Quays are posh.  A public face of investment and that's good.  But the money hasn't quite trickled down to the poor estates, including ones very close to the Quays.

You can see from these photos that the weather wasn't being perfect.  It was very pretty though.  You should have been there.  Unless you're reading this and you're that presidential candidate I was talking about.  Then you shouldn't have been there because you would have only spoiled things.  You won't make America great again.  And you wouldn't make Salford of Trafford great either.  I'm glad you weren't there too if you're a vocal supporter of that man.  You would have spoiled things too.  The quiet of the water and the amazement clouds can produce should not be spoiled with racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, or any of the other things I've seen that man display.  Sorry.  I'm talking about him too much aren't I?

Big clouds!  And it was starting to rain a bit.  But I'm Blob Thing.  And I can still smile and enjoy myself.  I was a little worried because if it rained too much then I would have had to go and stay in the warm and dry bag and I'd miss things - including everything in my next blog post.  I didn't want to miss out on seeing it.  Here I am near the water and behind me is Salford.  I wasn't in Salford.  No.  I was in Trafford.  Don't forget that.  It's important to me.  Even though it wasn't important enough on the day to know where I was.

Here's my person again.  I don't need to talk about this photo.  It's of my person.  That's all I need to say.

And this last picture is of me sitting on a big wheel.  We were entering an industrial area and I was going to have a fun adventure there.  I hadn't expected that.  Or that I would drive a tank before finally crossing the water.  That's what I said before.  If you don't know where you're going or what's there then sometimes the surprises can be stunningly wonderful.  I'll tell you all about my industrial adventures next time.  Not Greenbelt.  That will have to wait.

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