Time to be out

Seeing we had some good weather not unsurprisingly I have been out of doors a far bit  this last week or so and one thing I always found handy was the able to read a map and to take a smallish one me in case either I get lost which can happen or for extra details about the terrain or area  that might prove most useful.

One thing I always looked forward to seeing when I was younger were the Dandelion's coming out after Winter even though as you can see in this photograph the soil is fairly dry underneath, they  are all out and I can enjoy blowing the seeds away which always seemed magical to me.
It was taken on my new camera last weekend.

This was one of those I took of a group of flowers illuminated by natural sunlight using the Tamron 90mm Macro lens using a wide aperture to keep a shallow depth of field between the group of flowers I wanted and the remainder.

That kind of control about how one controls a pictorial composition was why I wanted a digital system camera.

The Put-Em-Rights

 There are some books written by Enid Blyton I'm familiar with because I read them when I was in first childhood either owning or borrowing usually from girls and others because she was most prolific author I am not so familiar with.

The Put 'Em Rights comes under the latter although the subject matter is something I am very familiar with which is travelling preachers usually of a evangelical sort who come as the name suggests to galvanize people to action around social or moral issues of the day.

In this particular story it's the impact of travelling gypsy preacher  who inspires Sally, a Ministers daughter, to form a group of six children to do "good works" in their village of Under Ridge after a meeting on the village green.

In modern parlance they act as Social Activists, attempting to put situations right such as a dog being physically and emotional maltreated, a woman with a dirty house and equally dirty baby, a family facing eviction and anther facing lack.

What they discover in their eagerness is often situations are more complex than they originally thought and also less clear-cut such as the mother has a mental illness - depression - the family facing eviction are not only being evicted by the father of one of the boys but for theft which when they get further into it is a father taking the blame for what a severely mentally disabled boy has literally taken a shine to, oblivious to the notion it is theft being in human terms more like a magpie from that point of view.

What is more and I feel is one of more worthwhile aspects to this story is while they start of on the basis of changing other peoples attitudes to the right they soon learn their own are not necessarily any better with Sally being impatient and self righteous, Podge is well looked after but careless in looking after his possessions such as a bicycle  just assuming as they go messing or are stolen because he doesn't put them away safely his parent will just buy  him another, not appreciating the sacrifice they made in buying him them.

Amanda starts to realize she is really is very lazy and selfish being allowed to do nothing and get out of taking turns in helping.

Although Enid doesn't say this (and forgive my C.S. upbringing  and background for dropping a religious point in) what she's alerting the reader to is the notion that caring for everyone else's values and attitudes without looking at your own first is foolhardy.

We may be better off caring about other peoples but working on our own, transforming those we encounter by it even if we may not be perfect rather than coming over as somewhat pious, lecturing others.

The outcome of this book is unsatisfactory in one respect, and that is underneath much of the plot is class attitudes and prejudice. 

Bobby is 'working class' his mother unusually for 1946 has to work as his father is in prison and he feels very much ill at ease with the other five middle class children who haven't struggled as he has.

He starts off being friendly with them, almost an equal but Sally's socially superior attitude starting from how she tries to stop a mother from spreading gossip only goads this woman into revealing the awful truth of where Bobby's father is as his own mother has been hiding it feeling this whole thing has just been a matter of the children playing "goody-goody" to make them feel superior. He feels crushed and for all their mixing he can only ever be with 'his own' although they do make up and share ice creams.

In some respects I feel rather than resigning oneself to your lot, Bobby would of better served by having those children apologize for how he'd been treated and encouraged to give breaking out of his social class a second chance and from that be at the point he is able to take advantage of his own abilities rather than in effect limiting himself because of what had happened. 

Although the ending could of been better thought through, I did feel this was a novel well worth reading.

*There are some alterations in this 1992 version - some of the essential social commentary is diminished although later editions are more altered as sadly the case with most of this authors stories.

Introducing Henry

For as many years as I can remember one constant of tuning in to Blue Peter originally on BBC 1 and then to CBBC from 2012 onward was the mention and often appearence of the shows pets.

These came very early on the shows history in part as many children like having pets but may be unable to have one but though the show could share in their adventures and also to talk about animal welfare.

Their have been a variety of pets, 23 in total which included tortoises, 2 parrots, 9 cats and 9 dogs.

I can remember the first dog, Petra when I was very young going through Patch, Shep who was strongly linked to the late John Noakes, Goldie who was with Simon Groom in 1978, Bonnie in 1986, Mabel and Lucy the first rescue dogs, Meg who was associated with Matt Baker and Barney in 2009.

Photo credits: BBC
On last Thursday, it was revealed Henry, a rescue Basset Hound  was to be the first new Blue Peter pet since the move from the studios at Television Centre, London to Media City, Salford, Lancs.

Of the pets prior to the move only Shelley the tortoise remained although in truth she featured more as a quiz where people would find her picture messaging on the online Fan Club page with being in London rather than in the studio and at one point seemed the pets element was being phased out of the show. 

I can't deny this pulled at me as it brought back my memories of new dogs on the show from a long time back and how you'd look forward to news about them and how with the presenters they were a kind of family.

I just went back in time watching the show just before teatime on Thursday to that little boy all over again and indeed watching yesterday's show seeing Henry after the Blue Peter theme was like old times.

Making progress

 

I've decided that Age Regression is not a accurate description of how I am as this thing is a permanent state that might be masked at times with emotional and even behavioural costs arising from that.

I am Age Dysphoric having Age Dysphoria because it is permanent having no voluntary element to it however good regression can be for things such as trauma, depression and the like.

I am a boy of ten in an adult shell of my era with more life experiences as that ten year old  for going around the sun several times as one but not really developing in the may most bio-boys would becoming teens and then adults.

I've also accepted my autism which may not be the 'classic' autism of the eighties film Rain Man but still is and is me.

In my era diagnosis was poor and if they gave you one label than they attributed everything to it which was why my Dyslexia was late in the day being diagnosed and that was through the Employment Service rather than health and disabilities so they ignored the autism and adhd and stuck like glue to Cerebal Palsy for everything.

I have an account now at a site that can help me cope with this on my own terms not needing a cure but tips on how to ride being your authentic age dysphoric, autistic, dyslexic learning disabled self.

Musings from this adult little gurl's dorm

I can't say I ever lived in a house that had large grounds as the best it got with me were the grounds of ones boarding school that had acres for safe exploration and play but if there were pictures to be taken of me in such a setting they'd be like this

For me at least there's always a bit of younger past mixed in with an older on paper present and like her I'd be their holding a plushie or a doll simply because it makes me feel secure, comfortable as myself.

That always was and truthfully is what I've been looking for from relationships with people not that I don't subscribe that you to offer something in them that's of benefit to others - that's a given with me - but in terms of what aids me especially in those that of necessity involving caring for me.

Neither overly cuddly nor sternness really satisfies either one or alternating between the two but warmness, empathy and active listening  is what is called for.

Re-reading a few books this week dealing with the stress of the current political issues rather brought much of this into focus.

 If your co-ordination is anything like mine scenes like these are by no means uncommon now as they were back then where if you could just walk into something or go to pick it up and just end up with everything all over the place then it would.

When things are like that an offer to help sorting things out are much appreciated.

While staying dry I recently bought a book by an author I loved during ones boyhood but had not read before in its first edition.

The Family at Red-Roofs is a family story about the Jackson's, four children between nine and seventeen and their mom and dad who living in cramped conditions were able to rent a bigger property that needed some work doing on it.

They acquire a domestic helper called Jennie and all seems well until their mother is taken will needing surgery and quiet respite just at the time gets a once in the lifetime offer to go to America to work for his company and has left.

Worse still it transpires a ship he was one was hit head one by another with few survivors so Jennie has more to deal with after receiving a letter from his company, the children's mother is too delicate to be told and in an age lacking social insurance, it appears they may become penniless. 

Molly and Peter have to find jobs as the oldest even though both before this tragic news of his assumed death would of been studying for careers in Teaching and being a Doctor respectively. Even Michael aged 11 does clock repairs to bring money in.

Molly's former school friend Prudence, a stuck up daughter of a monied family falls on hard times and so needs to stay with them that means for the first time in her life she actually has to work.

What really happened to the children's dad transpires: He was saved but was so traumatized by the incident, he'd forgotten who he was but as luck would have it a photograph of the four children of his floated and is publicized in the national press. 

Dad and children in time are reunited and mother recovers just in time so she didn't need to be told of his disappearance and presumed death.

The story is genuinely heartbreaking in places, the presumption all is going well from moving to a better house soon moves to that of the actual loss of a breadwinner parent and severe illness of their mother and of sacrificing potential careers to deal with pressing needs.

What is good about it is it shows the children maturing, showing resilience that they'll need as adults and upon his return after all, their father sees the fruit of his efforts fathering them in their ability to cope under pressure.