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.

[1877 words]

Blob Thing Is Forced To Shelter From The Storm In A Bar Called Barca, Manchester

Blob Thing is only being allowed to write a short post today.  He's got a little carried away with himself in the past few days and hasn't always been completely kind about his person.  So she's in control of things today and Blob isn't going to say much because his person has a life of her own.  She's also a bit cross with Blob because he laughed at her for a while earlier today.  She went all the way to Sunderland for a writing workshop and discovered she had mixed up the times.  He laughed and couldn't quite stop laughing about it quickly enough when he spotted that she was sad about it and a bit overwhelmed by things.

So a short post.  It's going to contain facts.  Yes Blob, facts.  Actual facts.  Not a flight of fancy about beheaded bishops and hurdy-gurdy bruises.  None of that was true was it Blob?  No, it wasn't.  It's all very well you telling me you wish it was true and that it would have been far more exciting if the history of Manchester included that tale.  The point is that it didn't happen.  At least his person thinks it didn't.  Blob asks her what she knows about it and is asking her how many actual books she has read about the history of Manchester.  She has to admit that she hasn't read any.  Blob wants to know how she can be certain that his story wasn't historically accurate if she hasn't read the books.  Blob's person says that isn't the point and she'll get annoyed with Blob if he doesn't behave himself.  Blob says he'll be good if he can dictate his own blog again tomorrow.  And she agrees.  Blob's smile is now broad again and he's quite excited because that means he gets to tell you all about his walk along the canal to the sculptures and possibly even to his adventures driving a tank.

Yesterday Blob eventually told you about the Roman ruins he visited with his person.  Together they wandered on towards the start of what had been their planned adventure for the day before getting distracted by book shops, libraries, sheep and Romans.  They walked down the hill to the canal, ready to walk along it as far as their legs would carry them in the time available before a dinner appointment.  Well, when you just read "their legs" it has to be remembered that Blob Thing does not possess any legs.  It's just a phrase.  Nothing was meant by it.  But Blob has rightly pointed out that the phrase does exclude some people and that in this case the phrase excluded precisely fifty percent of the people having an adventure.  Blob's person apologises and asks whether he wants another word for walk too.  Blob says that would be silly and that it can be called walking even though he hasn't got legs.  It's amazing how Blob Thing manages to propel himself and keep up with his person.  Amazing.

The area around the canal was pretty, and pretty interesting too.  Above the canal were the road and the railway as if a transportation enthusiast had been confused as to which transport should use the area.  All three seemed to be a bit excessive to Blob but he has to admit that it was quite exciting and that he rushed around and got very flappy about things because he was happy.

Blob's person had to tell him to calm down and when he wouldn't she actually had to hold onto him for fear that he would rush about just a bit too much and fall into the canal.  She's pretty sure she would have been able to rescue him but it wouldn't have been a pleasant experience for either of them.  Blob's person had to admit that it was all amazing and that she was very pleased to be there.

Let the walk begin!  Except, no.  Don't.  Because it was that point that - contrary to the received wisdom of the weather forecast provided by the Meteorological Office - it began to rain.  Just a bit of drizzle at first.  And then it was as if God had decided the canal was too empty and needed to be refilled as quickly as possible before he looked away and forgot about it.  It rained.  Hard.  Blob and his person sheltered under one of the bridges and watched the pretty raindrops fall  and collide with the ground and the water.  It was quite beautiful in its own way.  Blob would like to point out two things at this point.  (A)  He could have happily watched the water all day because the patterns the rain made on the canal were so very beautiful and the sound was somehow very calming.  (B) He was glad that he had spent so much time talking with Ted Roocroft's sheep and hoping for a sign of Uncle Adrian's emergency welsh sheepdogs that he was at this point able to shelter under a bridge rather than being a mile up a towpath with no hope of shelter.

Then the warm weather turned cold.  And it got windier.  And the rain direction changed.  The bridge was no longer a suitable spot for shelter.  Blob and his person were getting wet and were quickly getting wetter and they was no sign that the rain would stop soon.

It was Blob Thing who got them out of their soggy pickle.  He pointed ahead to a sign for a bar and asked whether it would be a good idea to go in there and have a drink - to unexpectedly spend some money - and wait out the storm somewhere dry.   Blob's person tried to come up with an argument against that idea.  She was worried that the bar would be too noisy or that the drink would be too expensive.  But Blob kept asking and his person finally agreed, secretly happy that she wouldn't be getting much wetter.

The two friends entered the bar.  It was called Barca.  It looked quite posh - or at least posh in Blob's person's eyes which probably doesn't mean posh to anyone else.  She was pleased because it was quiet in there, not peak trading time.  There was music playing but it wasn't noisy music and it didn't have a horribly intrusive bass line or beat.  It was some nice jazz songs and Blob's person knew she would cope better with the bar than with the rain.

She found a cosy seat to sit on - and very comfy it was too - and then went to buy a drink for Blob and herself.

It really was very nice in Barca.  The man at the bar was friendly too and Blob was very glad that he had bullied his person to go there.  You never know until you try.  That's what Blob is saying his motto is.  Blob's person is suspicious of that because she has never heard him say that before.

They drank their drink, listened to the music and read for a while and pretty soon the rain stopped.  Hooray!  They would be able to walk along the canal after all.  As it turned out they did get a bit wet later but nothing like as wet as they would have got in that little iota of storminess.

Blob left Barca and looked up at the sky.  How could this sky be the same one that had forced him to shelter in an unexpectedly pleasing bar?  It was a stupendously gorgeous sky and it had a heron in it too.  Blob thinks it's a heron in the photo anyway.

So Blob and his person walked back down to the canal.  It was going to be a good day.  They had decided.  It had already been quite a good day but together they resolved to make the rest of the day as wonderful as it possibly could be.  Nothing could break their resolve.  Not even when Blob's person made up her sandwiches by the canal towpath and immediately dropped them in a puddle.  Even that mishap wasn't going to spoil the wonder.  Not that day.

[1362 words.  Looking at my photos makes me want to post about the day myself and show off the pictures that don't contain the smiling face of Blob.  It was a lovely day and it was a privilege to share it with him.]

Blob Thing Visits Some Roman Ruins And Talks Of Barrels And Bishops

My person is letting me write something today.  She's been busy for the last few days.  I'm quite proud of her because she's made a lot of progress in the last year.  On Saturday she went to a writing group in Sunderland.  She would never have done that a year ago.  She wouldn't have gone to anything for writers because she didn't know she was one.  She's learning.  My person shows that even in old age people can learn new things.  [I'm not old Blob, that was a bit rude.]  Sorry person.  But you have to admit that you're much older than I am.  I'm not even a year old.  I hope I have a party for my birthday.  It's on December 31st.  If anyone wants to send me cards and presents or even a nice little message then that would be wonderful.  My first birthday.  Put the date in your diary now, it wouldn't do to forget it.  My person is MUCH older than I am.  I'm not going to tell you how old she is but her age is in double figures.  Yes, she's that old.  Isn't that amazing?

And my person came back from the writing group with some more material to play with.  Not velvet and satin.  Don't be silly.  Not that kind of material.  Word material.  Between moving large mahogany sideboards, drinking tea and eating too much of her liquorice sweets, she got enthusiastic about an idea that was formed in the group.  So my person took herself off to be alone a few times and she's started to write a monologue.  It's not something she's ever done before.  She hasn't ever written a thing as if someone else was talking.  It's a new adventure for her.  And I'm proud of her for trying it.  So far she's written 4,500 words which is about enough for 25 minutes of speech.  She doesn't know how fast her character is talking.  She's quite enjoying it I think although she needs a rest after writing each part.  It's all about a murderer.

This isn't some comic short about someone eating the washing.  I liked that one.  It was funny.  I think someone should find it and make it into an illustrated children's book.  I'd buy a copy.  I would.  Except I haven't got any money.  Maybe I need to take that up with my person.  She should give me pocket money.  Winefride too.  It's not that we need lots of things but sometimes it would be nice to have the choice and have our own money to spend when we're in a charity shop or see something pretty.  She's typing all this of course so the seed is planted and maybe she'll come to us next week and pretend that she invented the idea all by herself.  This morning I think my person needed not to think about her fictional killer for a while and that's why she came rushing to me and said "Blob, let's go write a blog post for you."  I suppose I should start writing it now.

We left the big library in Manchester and started to walk along a big and busy road called Deansgate.  I think in the past Manchester had big gates to get into the city and each gate was for a different type of person.  I think Deansgate was the only place the original cathedral deans were allowed into the city.  If they had tried to come in by another gate they would have been shot by archers protecting the city.  Greater Manchester had some very specialised gates didn't it?  They must have needed a lot of gates unless there was an "Everyone Else Gate" somewhere.  But can you imagine the furore if a dean had tried to enter at Bishopsgate?  It would have been a catastrophe if he had succeeded.  The entire system of church government would have been destroyed and there would have been such big riots in the street that the entire city would have burned down.  No wonder they shot arrows at the cathedral dean.

Of course, bishops weren't ever shot with arrows at Deansgate.  That would just be silly.  At Deansgate there were soldiers armed with swords and their job was to chop the heads of any bishop trying to enter the city through the wrong gate.  There was one time when three visiting bishops from Derby tried to use Deansgate and for the sake of the church two of them accepted their deaths graciously - bishops believe in grace - but the other one escaped and rode on his horse all the way to Chester.  There was almost a big war about it all and it was only at the last moment that the Archbishop of Canterbury intervened by pointing out that the Battle of Manchester-Chester was a rubbish name for a battle and anyone involved would get laughed at.  Peace prevailed and it was decided after much negotiation that the rules about who could use a gate would be relaxed.

The gates aren't there anymore but there names survive and I think somewhere there's a memorial plaque commemorating the two bishops who lost their lives.  The soldiers who defended the gates had to retire of course and they became travelling folk singers and one became a dare-devil who was the first person to ride down High Force in a barrel.  The folk singers split into two camps at that point.  One group sang a song about the bravery of the man.   The other sang a comic song asking why anyone would be crazy enough to even think about riding down a waterfall in a barrel.  It was lucky they had all had their arrows and swords confiscated as part of the Treaty of Bishopsgate or things might have got difficult.  As it was, the worst that happened was one of the singers getting a bad bump on the head when they were struck with an errant hurdy-gurdy.

Greater Manchester had some other gates too.  I'm sure Bishopsgate and Deansgate can't have been used much because there aren't many bishops and deans to use gates.  But on the way to Bolton there's a gate that wasn't used once in three hundred years before being destroyed in a fire that many suspected was started deliberately by a bored guard.  This was Moses Gate.  It was built for Moses.  The man in the Bible.  If ever Moses passed through Greater Manchester he would use his gate.  Of course, he never did pass through.  Because he had died.  A long time ago.  And if he had passed through Greater Manchester he would have stuck to the main road or possibly ridden down the river Irwell in in basket.  Winefride and I had an adventure by the Irwell just nine days ago.  I'll tell you about it sometime.  I don't think Moses would have used his gate at all.  And then there's Didsbury.  That had something called the "Gates to Hell."  I wonder how many people used that one.

So I was on Deansgate.  I think I got the story right.  I was as accurate as I could manage anyway but if I got any part of it wrong you can correct me.  I'm glad the original gate isn't there now because then my person and me might have been shot with arrows and that would have made me sad.

Nobody shot us!  My person wants to go back and take lots of pictures.  I made her take these two pictures of the street.  It's very big.  Very busy.

The big building is Beetham Tower.  It's got 47 floors.  That information seems to please my person a lot.  It's currently the tallest building in Manchester and can be seen from miles away.  It won't be the tallest for very long.  It might be the only building in Britain that makes a noise that sounds like a UFO landing.  That's what someone said anyway.  I'm not sure how they know what sound a UFO makes when it's landing.  But they must know or they wouldn't have said it.  Therefore UFOs must exist.  Therefore there is intelligent life on other planets and aliens visit us here.  There's proof.  The existence of a tower in Manchester is proof.  Something like that anyway.

We turned off Deansgate because it was noisy and we found somewhere quieter and prettier.  I was meant to be writing about this place today but I've said quite a lot already so I need to be quick.  We found some actual Roman ruins and I got to play in them.  It was a lot of fun.  I met some sheep too but I already blogged about that.  Back then I was never allowed to dictate my blog to my person.  She always worked out the words.  I think she would like to go back to that sometimes.

This post is all about the Roman ruins but I think I've said a lot already and my person looks like she wants to go and unpack her bag from her most recent Manchester trip.  She bought herself new clothes and bought things for my creator too but she didn't buy me anything and didn't buy anything for Winefride either.  That's why we need pocket money.  So we can buy ourselves things like stylish hats and maybe a little swing to play on.  But we don't get pocket money even though we go shopping with our person lots of times.  It's not fair.

Here are some pictures of me playing in the ruins.

I don't think the castle is an original Roman castle.  I think it got built much later to show what Roman castles were like.  I think anyone friendly would have been allowed in these gates because cathedral deans hadn't been invented yet.

These last two photos aren't of me.  This one shows some of the ruins and in the background is a railway.  I don't think the Romans rode on electric or diesel trains.  They had caravans though.  I might be wrong.  After all, Rome has trains and that's where Romans came from.

And this photo has some of the ruins and in the background is Beetham Tower.  It's much taller than anything near it.  I wonder what the view is like from the very top.  I'd like to find out one day.  I think someone should build a helter skelter all the way up the side of the tower and then charge 50p a go to ride down it and carers and soft toys should all ride for free.  Maybe it could pass through the middle of the tower half way down and people could have the option of stopping there for a cup of tea.  I'd like that.  If you know someone in the Manchester planning office please could you forward my suggestion.  Thank you.

[1810 words.  I think it's likely that Blob Thing wasn't entirely accurate in his reporting of historic events.  We won't be going searching for that memorial any time soon because I don't think we would find it.]

Blob Thing Visits The John Rylands Library In Manchester

My person doesn't want me to just dictate my blog today.  She says that she wants to be in control and edit everything I say.  She wants to have the control.  She says that I've been very mean to her in my last two posts.  She says that I shouldn't have forced her to help me talk about the Blue Peter garden last night when she was so tired.  And she says that I shouldn't have called her a meany bum so many times in the previous post.  Especially not when showing just how many adventures she takes me on and how I get to take Winefride too.  So she wants to be able to stop me today if I start calling her names again.  But this is my blog.  MY blog.  It's not hers.  So I should be able to say whatever I want.  That's free speech.  She doesn't have to read it if she doesn't like it does she?  It's not as if my words about her ever descend to the level of a hate crime.  I'm not into hate crimes.  And she was a bit of a meany bum to not help with my blog much.  After she promised to write nearly every day.

I have promised to behave very well though.  No calling her names today.  Apart from that meany bum name I just used.  So she has agreed that I can talk and she will type and it will all be okay.  It feels like I'm on some kind of probation though and that she might change her mind and wrest control from me again.  If only I could type my own blog but even with a pointer tool it would take me a very long time.  I'd use a speech to text tool but for some reason they don't seem to understand my voice.  It's lucky that my person understands me so well.

Yesterday [when keeping me up late, thank you Blob.]  Sarcasm?  [Oh well done Blob you spotted it.]  More sarcasm?  [Oh, noooooo, not that time Blob.]  Well thank yooooou!  [We had better stop this.  We're both being sarcastic now.]

Yesterday I told you about my visit to the Blue Peter garden.  Today I want to tell you about the start of that day's adventures.  I confess I've already told you about one adventure I had that day - the time when I met Ted's sheep in the middle of Manchester.  If uncle Adrian's emergency Welsh sheepdogs had been there then they could perhaps have herded all the sheep into a beautiful sensory room.  It's possible.  Stranger things have happened.  You don't know about uncle Adrian do you?  Or his emergency Welsh sheepdogs.  I feel sorry for you for not knowing such things.  But I don't feel sorry enough to explain everything to you.  You might want to know.  But you don't need to know.

I'd gone into the centre of Manchester that morning with my person.  We were going to go walking later in the day but first she wanted to find bookshops and look for some good books filled with walks in the local area.  First we went to the tourist information centre.  They would know about walking in Greater Manchester wouldn't they?  No.  They wouldn't.  Information centres only seem to be able to tell you about expensive things to do, not free things like walking for miles.  They couldn't help us at all and didn't even have a map of the area except for a not very good city centre map.  So we went to seek out bookshops, the start of our pre-walking delays that turned out very useful because when it rained very heavily later we were still close to somewhere we could shelter.  I'll tell you about that in a couple of days.

After that we wandered some more.  My person suddenly shouted out, "Look!"  Everyone stopped and stared at her.  Then they turned and stared at the thing she was pointing at.  And then they stared at my person again wondering why she was pointing at this thing and telling everyone to look at it.

It's just a building.  And they, mostly being residents of the area, had seen it before lots of times.  My person had seen it before too but she's not perfect at knowing where everything is in Manchester so she was happy to see it again.  She began happy flapping in the street and got ever so excited.  Some people continued to stare because she was putting on such a display.  And then she said to me, "Let's go in."  Now, I know some things about buildings.  And one thing I know is that you're not allowed to just enter them uninvited.  And this was a big and imposing building.  Surely we wouldn't be allowed into this one.  There were probably security guards and perhaps it would have it's own police force too and big dungeons and they would throw trespassers into a big pit filled with slime and if we entered the building we would be thrown into the slime too and meet the man called Albert who got thrown there three years earlier and he would sing us long songs about his three years of misery.  And that would be made much worse because Albert can't sing in tune and his songwriting skills are dreadful.  Seven hundred verses of misery.  Out of tune.  And all of them almost exactly the same because there's not a lot of variety when you're alone in a slime filled pit dungeon.  So I told my person that we shouldn't attempt to enter this building because I didn't want to get covered in slime.  I got quite worried about it.  What a sight we must have been.  There was my person happy flapping and almost jumping up and down in excitement.  And there was me fretting and panicking and being quite close to a full scale meltdown and the prospect of the slime and the difficulties of getting clean even if the queen of the matriarchal society inside the building ever let me out of the pit which I didn't think was very likely.

My person eventually saw my difficulties and she calmed down and held me tight.  She told me not to worry because we were allowed to go into this building.  It was a library.  We wouldn't be breaking any rules by going in and having a look round.  We wouldn't break any rules.  She promised.  She promised.  I calmed down too and was able to smile at her.  A library.  That sounded good.  I like books.  My person said that this was the John Rylands library.  It wasn't just any library.  It had lots of old books and it had some rooms which were also museum displays.  We would be able to see the oldest surviving fragment of the New Testament in the world.  And we would be able to look at lots of old books about demons and witchcraft.  Or at least see them.  We wouldn't be allowed to handle them or read them because they were far too precious.  That all sounded good.

So we went into the library.  And my person broke her promise.  Straight away.  It was okay though.  It was quite funny.  I'm making her show the next picture and I hope she doesn't get into trouble or have to go to prison or be thrown into the stocks that are actually a pillory at Hexagon.

It's a toilet.  It was down a staircase at the back and it's a very old loo.  There was a sign outside saying that you weren't allowed to take pictures inside.  My person ignored the sign.  She says that she wouldn't have taken that picture at all if the sign hadn't been there.  That's my person.  She's a rebel.  She takes illegal photos of toilets.  A rebel and a meany bum all wrapped up in one woman.  [Don't call me a meany bum again in this post Blob.]

My person used the toilet [People don't need to know that Blob.] and we walked back up the stairs.  First we looked at that piece of Bible which was very old indeed.  I couldn't read it because it was in Greek and lots of the words and characters were missing.  If I was God and I was personally inspiring every single word people wrote down to form a Bible, if I was breathing them out, then I would have been a lot more careful about it and made sure that people would know what the right words were even two-thousand years later.  I wouldn't have done such a shabby job in preserving my words.  I'd have spoken clearly too and not put anything in that people could easily use in order to own slaves or persecute people of colour, women or gay people.  Or trans people like my person.  If I was God I'd have done a much better job at dictating my book and I'd have planned it a  lot more carefully.  But maybe God didn't breathe the Bible at all.  Maybe people wrote it based on their own ideas and cultures and beliefs and their own seeking after the divine and mystical experience.  And maybe what they wrote contains errors and biases and all kinds of things among the human words.  I don't want to be definite about that here in case someone gets very grumpy at me.

Then we looked at the books about demons and witches in Medieval Europe.  They were quite interesting.  And then we walked into a gigantic hall full of books.  There was stained glass and a very high ceiling and a statue of this man.  This is John Rylands.  John.  An ordinary name.  There's also a statue somewhere of his wife, who started the library in his memory.  Her name was Enriqueta Augustina.  A less ordinary name.  It's lucky that my sister wasn't created the day I went to the library or she might have been called Enriqueta instead of Winefride.  

We walked behind Mr. Rylands and I had my picture taken showing the length of the hall.  It was massive.  I found it quite hard to balance on this post.  I'd have held on with my teeth but it's uncertain whether I have any behind my beautiful smile.

This is another picture of the hall.  I'm glad there wasn't anyone here to steal my "Autistic" badge like there was in the Literary and Philosophical library.  I think I would have got very out of breath if I had to chase a disguised dragon round a hall this big.  I'm still not clear as to why the dragon had disguised itself as a giraffe or why it tried to steal my badge.  Some things perhaps are better left as mysteries.

And another picture of the hall.  My person took lots of pictures of the library.  She wants to use them for a blog post of her own if she every manages to get round to writing lots of blog posts for herself.  She says that sometimes she's too busy helping me with my blog to be able to write her own.  I think she's just making excuses and could write far more than she does.  Especially if she just got on with things.  She could write in the morning.  And the evening.  And the afternoon.  It's not as if she has to work in an office or a shop for sixteen hours a day.  I keep telling her to write more and she keeps promising she will.  But sometimes it seems to me like her promise is like the one she made about rule breaking in the library.  I need to bully her more and get her writing.  Her blog.  Lots of stories.  Poems.  And I know she wants to start writing the story of her life.  I think it was remembering the time a man called Iorwerth confiscated a small packet of non-toxic crayons so she couldn't kill herself that finalised her decision that she will write her story just like everyone keeps saying she should.  She is still not sure how she would have managed suicide with a small packet of non-toxic crayons and she has had maybe twenty-four years to think about it.

We left the hall and walked around the rest of the library.  Apart from the bits we couldn't go in.  There were some "No Entry" signs in places and there was a special section of the library just for members.  We didn't go that way because I still didn't want to get thrown into the slime pit.  My person tried to tell me that there wasn't a slime pit and I wondered for a moment why we weren't going into the forbidden places if there was no slime to be thrown into by the queen's police.

I asked for a picture to be taken on these stairs.  I was quite safe but it doesn't look that way.

I thought that this corridor looked like the cloisters of Durham cathedral.  It was very pretty and there was no giraffe in sight.  I wonder if I could have had a chase game with the dragon giraffe up and down this corridor.  Or we could have played a ball game.  Or maybe, and this would have been brilliant, we could have used the corridor for a game of ten pin bowling.  My person could have been the person standing up all the pins and bringing our balls back to us.  I'm sure she wouldn't have minded.

It had been an amazing visit to the library and we left the building happy.  I wasn't covered with any slime at all and hopefully there won't be any slime as a consequence of sharing that toilet photo.  I was glad that we had visited John Rylands in his library.  I might go back one day but there are so many other things I want to do in Manchester first.  I haven't even been to the Hidden Gem yet.  Or to the Working Class Library in Salford.  The John Rylands library doesn't seem working class even though working class people are allowed in.  I want to go to see the Working Class Library.  I think that would be just as much fun as the John Rylands Library even though the buildings and contents are so different.  And maybe a working class giraffe dragon would be more friendly than the one that stole my badge.



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Blob Thing Is Uninspired By A Visit To The Blue Peter Garden

My person promised that she would help me write a blog post today but it's the end of the day and she hasn't done it.  She's making some excuse about how her job list was very long and she just didn't have the time.  But I want a blog post and she's going to do it even though she's struggling to keep her eyes open.

So here are some pictures.  She's allowing me to share pictures but isn't allowing me to talk about my adventure.  I suppose they explain themselves.  And I think this might have been a more exciting adventure for her than it was for me because although I understand that there is a children's television programme to do with this, it's not one I've ever seen.  My person hasn't seen it for a long time either and probably may never see it again since it stopped being on a channel that she might sometimes watch.

But I stood and I posed for the camera and did what was expected of me.  It was a good day though.  I had lots and lots of adventures that day and one day I will tell you about them all even though it all happened a very long time ago - about 100 days ago.  My sister hadn't even been born then.

Okay.  Here are the photos.  Maybe tomorrow my person will let me write a proper blog post.

So that's it.  Me visiting the Blue Peter garden.  It's tiny.  It really is.  It's not much more than a couple of flower beds.  Anyone can go and visit it though and some people might get very excited by it.  I wasn't very excited.  There were much more exciting things that day.  Much more exciting.  A beautiful library, some roman ruins, a journey along a canal, playing in a sculpture park and a trip to see an actual tank.  It was an exciting and enjoyable day and I only got a bit wet.  Maybe the Blue Peter garden was the most boring part of the day for me.  Maybe it would have been more exciting if I had heard of Blue Peter before visiting the garden.  Maybe.

My person says she wants to go to sleep now.  I will be kind and let her.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here goes.  Photo time!

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

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

Here I am.  Out of focus.

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

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

That was Humerous!  (sic)

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

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

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

Maybe they go to different heavens too.

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the two of us on another train.

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

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

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

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

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

This was absolutely brilliant.

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

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

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

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

Here I am sitting on a melodica.

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

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

This time she will take a head torch.

Final picture.


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


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



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


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

[1741 words]

Blob Thing Was Happy To Be At Greenbelt But Has No Time To Write About It

Blob Thing does not have time for a blog post this morning.  It's a very strange time.  He keeps going away from home and being busy.  This is the strangest of the three recent times away.  His person seems far more subdued and worried by this time.  She's not showing it to the world and is masking some things about herself in a way that Blob Thing thinks is a bit unhealthy.  Blob hopes that his person will be back to normal soon.  Okay, not back to normal.  Some people would say that Blob's person has never been and will never be normal.  But back to what is normal for her.  Blob wonders whether there will be hoop dancing for his person next week and whether she will get herself a decent hoop and practice until she has at least one basic hoop skill.

No time this morning.  Blob and Winefride are being taken to a little place in Wiltshire soon.  They're quite excited about it but Blob's person seems quiet today and unable to smile quite as much as Winefride or to be able to happy flap the way Winefride was earlier at the prospect of another car journey.   Winefride isn't used to cars.  She hadn't ridden in one until a few days ago.  Blob can't remember riding in one either but he thinks that a car is a bit like a bus except for having less people in it and it stopping at houses rather than at bus stops.  Blob is looking forward to the view from the car.

So today Blob can't write a proper blog post.  He hopes that he can tomorrow but there seems to be so little time just recently.  Humans are so busy.  Why can't they just do important things like help soft toys to write about themselves?

Today Blob is going to share just one photograph from Greenbelt.  It's from the Sunday afternoon.  Blob's person was busy chatting with people.  Blob was happy about that because she kept telling people about him and Winefride and he got to meet lots of people.  Winefride got a bit overwhelmed by all the strangers and had to hide away in the bag for a bit and look at some of the free things that Blob's person kept collecting.  Blob has to say that his person collected a lot of nice free things at Greenbelt.  He was quite impressed by how much there was and how she was still able to fit everything into her bag when packing up - including two new coats and three new hats which will look completely stylish in winter.  They might be the style of a crazy person but they'll be stylish.

One photograph:

This picture is of Winefride, not of Blob Thing.  Blob wants to point that out in case anyone gets confused.  She is his sister and he loves her.  He wanted to say that too.  The picture sums up the overall Greenbelt experience.  Happy to be there.  Blob, Winefride, Blob's person and Blob's creator all want to go again next year too.  Blob also wants to point out that Winefride is not a unicorn but that it's fun to pretend sometimes.  They didn't meet any real unicorns at Greenbelt so maybe someone else was pretending too.   Isn't Winefride gorgeous?

Blob Thing hopes that tomorrow - or whenever he can write a full post - he can tell you all about the rest of that Sunday.  Some of it was difficult.  Some of it was blissful.  It was to be a day that was hard to cope with but which then didn't end until nearly two o'clock in the morning which is far past everyone's bed time.

Wiltshire beckons.  Another county for Blob to visit.  He doesn't think he'll ever visit all the counties of England.  His person has been to them all - although she doesn't remember Norfolk because she was only a few months old and she only entered Cornwall for a few hours.  Blob wonders where his future will take him.  He had never expected to be visiting Wiltshire or to be doing all the other things he does.  He's still hoping that before leaving Sussex he has time to go to a big park and see animals there.  Blob's person hopes they can do that too.  Winefride is wild about the idea and hopes that they can see the baby meerkats.  You can just see her face light up when Blob mentions them and she squeals so loudly with delight that everyone has to laugh.




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