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

Blob Thing says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1313 words]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was levitating!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blob Thing And Winefride Complete The North East Snowdog Trail

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

Blob Thing says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




[2000 words.  Exactly 2000 words.  Yay!]

Blob Thing Meets Some Friends At The Literary and Philosophical Library

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



[1388 words]

Blob Thing Enjoys Impossible Food At Super Natural Cafe

A quick post this morning.  We hope.  Blob will almost miss the thrill of telling you about his refugee walk.  Today he wants to tell you about a day that was much less exciting and on which he didn't make friends with any unique mythological creatures or become a lifeguard.

Blob's person was going out for a few hours and although she was only going into town he wanted to come.  Sometimes there are adventures there too.  There was that day on which he drank tea and met friends in the Literary and Philosophical Library.  There was that day on which he rang the bells of St. Andrew's church.  Even in the centre of Newcastle there are adventures for Blob to have.  This day would be one of them.  It just wouldn't involve the Herma Merma Dragora or lunch at a lighthouse.

Blob's person had an important job to do when she got to town.  She regularly has her eyebrows waxed.  Blob thinks for most people who do the same thing it's a meaningless custom.  He thinks that most people should just be satisfied with the eyebrows they have and not fall into societal pressures that say a certain kind of eyebrow is better than another kind or to think they look far better because their eyebrows are now a shape dictated by fashion, a shape that often doesn't look natural at all.  He thinks that the idea that your eyebrows should be a certain colour - even when that colour looks strange because it doesn't match the hair on the top of your head at all - is an odd idea.  He thinks women and men and non-binary people can do whatever they want with their eyebrows.  But he hopes that they are all doing it for themselves, as self expression and that there is no taint of doing it out of societal pressure or fashion or anything else.

That's what Blob thinks about it all.  He doesn't understand fashion and he doesn't understand dressing like everyone else and he doesn't understand how people think they are improved by having their eyebrows ripped out or dyed or by having fake eyelashes bolted onto their faces.  But if that's what makes people happy then Blob's fine with it.  They're not hurting anyone - except themselves when their hair is ripped from their faces.

Blob doesn't understand.  He'll never be a follower of fashion or listen to other people telling him what style means.  He has his dress.   If people like it, great.  If they don't then Blob doesn't care.  One man got very worried indeed that anyone would ever possess such material let alone have it made into a dress.  He was quite insulting in the way he talked about Blob Thing's clothes.  He insulted Blob's creator too and Blob's person was not happy at all about that.  But another person said she was quite jealous of Blob's dress and that she wanted one just like it.  Blob likes his dress a lot and knows that the colour suits him very well.  He likes Winefride's dress too and thinks her clothes are beautiful.

Blob hasn't got any eyebrows but his person does have her eyebrows waxed.  It's not a fashion thing with her.  It's different.  If she doesn't get the job done then her eyebrows go crazy.  She looks like she could be a perfect werewolf.  She looks like a male werewolf.  And she gets stared at even more than usual and gets comments about her appearance.  Perhaps she shouldn't care in the slightest about that.  But a fact is a fact.  Eyebrow waxing makes her life as a woman easier.  She doesn't wear make up. She doesn't "pass better" that way but she does "pass better" through the waxing.  It's a simple matter.  Eyebrow waxing changes the way people treat her and look at her.  And it's not a major burden for her life.  It's still something she wonders about.  Blob's person has a motto that she says sometimes.  "F*** Passing!"  But in the waxing - and in the electrolysis too - one of the aims is to pass better.  Perhaps she doesn't F*** passing as well as she says.

So Blob went to the salon with his person.  Here it is.  Blob was patiently waiting with her at this point.  It wasn't a long wait.

 

Lots of people are there in the background having their fingernails made prettier.  Blob's person likes pretty nails but she hasn't ever spent money having someone make them pretty for her.  It's a very popular way of spending money though and new shops selling pretty nails open in Newcastle regularly.  Blob's person rarely makes her nails pretty even though she likes pretty nails.  It takes lots of time to do and she can't be bothered with it most of the time.

Soon it was time for Blob's person to be waxed.  Blob came too.  A woman painted wax on her face, covered it with some kind of special paper.  And pulled.  There was a loud ripping sound.  But no reaction from Blob's person.  She didn't seem to mind the pain.  Blob's person didn't even twitch a muscle.  Blob thought that he might have had to look after her like he does in electrolysis appointments.  But no.  He wasn't needed at all.

Blob and his person left the eyebrow waxing shop.  It was close to lunchtime and they were getting a bit hungry.  And so they returned to the cafe they had visited a couple of days previously.  Super Natural Cafe on Grainger Street.  This time they would have lunch.

Here is that lunch:

It's very impressive.  It was a plain jacket potato topped up with lots of good and simple food from the salad bar at the cafe.  Blob's person thought it was very excellent and Blob could only agree with that.  There would be more than enough for Blob and his person to share and they would have to be a bit greedy to get through it all.

It was also very good value for money and Blob decided that they should return to Super Natural regularly and eat baked potatoes and all those simple salads.  They might even add something green to the plate one day.  A very good idea.  It's a nice cafe and the salad bar raised it above nearly every other cafe in Newcastle in the eyes of Blob.

You can see just how much Blob was excited by the meal in that photo.  You will also notice that it's a different meal.  Yes.  You spotted it.  That photo was taken on another day.  Blob's person had enjoyed the food so much that she went back again.  It certainly was an impressive way to eat.

On the eyebrow day, Blob Thing and his person sat with some philosophers to eat the food.  They happened to be in the cafe and she knew some of them from a long time ago when she used to go to some philosophy groups with them.  She never coped well with the groups.  She would sit in silence, unable to speak in such an environment because she doesn't really understand how the social rules in groups of people work.  And she would struggle with the conversations the people would have - often attacking each other verbally.  Blob knows that Socratic dialogue needs to challenge views but he doesn't think it needs to be so aggressive.

That day Blob's person sat and talked with one of the philosophers.  That's the only way she can do groups.  Corner one or two people.  Extract them from the group.  And then talk only with them.  Sometimes (often) that's a struggle too.  After lunch she got up to go and said farewell to the friendly philosopher.  Philosophy makes Blob's person very tired indeed and she was glad not to have joined the group properly.  They seemed to be saying much the same things they had been saying three years earlier.  But maybe that's how all groups of people are.

And then, as she headed for the door to escape philosophy, someone called out to her.

"Hey, Blob's person."  That someone didn't actually say that.  She used Blob's person's name.  Nobody greets her as Blob's person.  Blob thinks that would be a strange thing to do.

The person was someone she knew from the Sunday Assembly and from the gratitude group of which they are both members.  Blob's person was brave.  She agreed to go and sit with the someone and with two friends of the someone who Blob's person had never met before.  Blob Thing was pleased.  It meant he could sit and look at this picture of a cat that was hanging on the wall.

The four people sat and talked.  It got noisier in the cafe.  Blob's person was just about coping but Blob was getting very overwhelmed.  So he asked whether he could wear his person's noise cancelling headphones for a while.  In truth, she was wanting to wear them but in most social situations it's not quite acceptable to stick headphones on and intentionally not be able to hear everyone.

Then someone suggested a fantasmogorical suggestion:

Cake cake cake!

Blob likes cake.  And the cakes at Super Natural are quite special.  Blob was overjoyed because his person agreed to stay for cake.  Here's Blob Thing and the cake.  He had already shared some of it with his person and it was quite delicious.

After eating cake, everyone was satisfied.  It was time for Blob and his person to go home.  They hadn't met any mythological creatures.  They hadn't played in a play area.  They hadn't been on a ship or ridden on the back of a turtle.  But it had been a good day.

Blob Thing said that they should return to Super Natural regularly and eat baked potatoes and the fabulous foods on the simple but wonderful salad bar.

A few days later they returned to the cafe.  They were greatly looking forward to it.  And that's where it all went wrong.

The cafe had decided to take away the salad bar.

Instead of all that wonderful simple food the baked potato - which had gone up in price - would be served with a lettuce leaf, a dollop of coleslaw, and a few crisps.

Boring, boring, BORING!

The salad bar had raised that cafe far above all the others.  And now it was gone.  The food that Blob Thing wanted to eat was now impossible food.  What was there in its place was the same dull thing served by a thousand other cafes.  A leaf.  Coleslaw.  Crisps.

And so Blob Thing asked to leave the cafe.  He will treasure the memories of those two plates of food he shared at Super Natural.  But there will never again be a plate of food to compare with them.

Blob understands that the cafe probably had to become as boring as all the other cafes in order to make some money.  He understands that they want to survive and to have some profits to give to the cats.  But he's still quite sad about it.

Blob Thing is glad that he has written about that day out.  It was a good day, but thinking about the fact that it can never happen again is an unhappy thought.  He's glad that he doesn't have to write this blog again and think about it some more.

He's not decided what to write about tomorrow.  He might talk some more about Winefride and share their adventure with the policemen.  Or maybe not.  There will come a time very soon when he will be missing days.  This is his 69th post in 69 days.  But he'll probably miss days soon.  Next week Blob Thing will be going to an autism conference for four days and he'll be very busy indeed.  And then not long after that he's going to a Christian festival and he will have to leave the computer at home and so won't be able to post anything at all.  Be warned.  The missing days are coming!




[2020 words.  Blob's person thought that if she didn't let Blob just dictate the post then it would be much shorter.  Her plan didn't work.]

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.




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