a scruffy ruffian
I am going to dig at my old jumps on Thursday. They are pretty dry so it should be possible to get some things riding. There’s not any major digging to do, just weeding and tidying some bits up. If you know where the jumps are then come down. Could be a fun evening.
It’s been so nice this weekend, just having fun in the sun. I have ridden 3 sets of trails and been on as many walks. Badminton is fun too.
I would have thought now that the weather is warm that the spiders would go and live outside. But we have had two very enormous spiders in our house in the last two days. They were definitely not the same spider as their proportions were different. 
The first spider was getting on for the size of my hand but with a medium sized body and quite long legs. We thought about (and briefly tried) to drown it but then decided to let it outside as spiders are really useful. They eat all the dirty things like flies and also make good food for birds.
The second spider was also nearly the size of my hand but this one had a most enormous body and fairly stubby legs. This is more like me. I have a very long body and short legs. I am about 5″3 and have a longer body than my sister who is 5″5. This means that I am surprising when I stand up because you will have been expecting me to be taller.
I wonder if the spiders are staying in our house because we have an unusually large number of birds around outside. Our house has quite a lot of tress outside and us and the next door neighbours have seed hanging up. Within 24 hours the birds have eaten all our seeds as there is so very many of them. They are really nice, there are all kinds of different ones and I’m only just learning their names. So maybe spiders feel too threatened outside. They don’t need to worry though – the birds must always be stuffed full of seeds.
The other thing that will come up now and then on here is things to do with my job which is a speech therapist. I work in mainstream and special schools and it is pretty interesting. The thing I have found is that parents sometimes have no idea what to look for in a school. I think someone (me?) should publish a guide with suggestions. Not that everyone should look for the same thing, but they should know how to identify what it is they want. Also I don’t think parents know how good it is to have children with significant needs in the same class as their child. There is no way they could know I think. After all you would think it would mean that their child would get less support.
What I think really happens (or can happen at least) in a school where there is every kind of child, is that the school looks at the children as individuals so they can support the child’s whole development, not just academic progress. It helps them recognise the good things children can do which maybe aren’t measured by tests. So not only do they recognise skills in children with special needs, they can recognise important skills in all the children. Like learning to be fair and kind and thoughtful and considerate. All the things that make you a good person to know and to live with… That’s not to say children with special needs can’t also suceed academically, just that you begin to realise that’s a small part of what helps a child to be the best person they can be in every way.
I don’t suppose I will ever write such a document, but I think it’s really good to think about what actually matters for a child and how you can spot those things in a school. And maybe if parents stop thinking that children with special needs will deprvie their own child of support then staff at schools won’t feel that way either.
Sorry, this is probably a really boring entry but I still think it’s interesting!
Well, as predicted playing Harry Potter very quietly wasn’t particularly effective. So thanks to Liam for his suggestion – I will try that this evening. This obviously provides opportunities for any malicious sly-plotters to get me to try strange and obscure sleep cures but I think Liam’s sounds quite safe. Except I might have trouble getting up in the morning. But then I don’t have to get up in the morning.
Also QI is on tonight at 10pm on BBC2. This may not help me sleep, but it will provide fantastic entertainment whilst I am awake. It is a re-run of the last series – I was hopeful for a minute that it might be a new series, but that is still very good. I think it is my best programme. It is followed by the new series of Peep Show. This is bad news at it is Ben’s best programme and my worst. I can see it’s very funny but it just makes me cringe inside so badly. But I have to get a bit immune to programmes before I can like them. Took me months to like The Office so there is hope.
The KM is going to Joey’s Wood tomorrow at 12 O’clock to take some photos. They want to do an article on the trails and how KCC have messed everyone around. The more people there the better really.
I played football at lunchtime today for the first time in ages. It was pretty fun. Before I was into riding I was into the guitar and before that I was into football. I guess I have a pretty obsessive personality. I was thinking it would be interesting to know what other people did before they rode. Write it in the book.
Shaun Williamson .com has to be one of the funniest websites in the universe.
The other theme which is likely to recur on my blog is sharks. I like sharks a lot. I’m not entirely sure why. I think it started when I was very small and saw Jaws. I was very frightened. What I like to do when I am frightened of things is to find out about them, so then I know. I am also frightened of capital punishment and so I have found out about that too. I am glad that amnesty international are trying to get it abolished. Interestingly, the trend is to get it abolished although a lot of people (most people?) think it should be reintroduced. It doesn’t help that the media make us really hate paedophiles and terrorists (rather than just hating them a bit). I think the best methods are probably hanging and the guillotine (I don’t think this gets used any more).
Anyway, back to sharks. After I found out all about them I discovered that
1. They’re not keen on eating people
2. They are really amazing and a very good at what they do
3. They are really beautiful and it must be fantastic to see a big one in real life.
So, I am going to go and see some real ones in real life. Me and Ben are going to South Africa on the 19th May to go and see the great white sharks. We are going to the place they filmed the Planet Earth documentary bit on sharks, where they breach (leap right out of the water).
I can’t quite believe it’s happening but I am very excited about it. I hope I come back with all our limbs.
This is my first blog entry in my new blog and it is about sleeping. This is likely to be a recurring theme on this blog as
1. I like sleeping a lot
2. I am having trouble sleeping.
So any remedies would be gratefully received. At the moment I am trying listening to audio books in bed – sometimes this works but often it doesn’t. I think maybe Harry Potter is just too exciting. I like listening to it though. It is Stephen Fry reading it which is really good. Also, although I don’t think J.K.Rowling writes particularly well the key thing, it seems to me, is that she creates a world I enjoy being in. That makes me want to listen to or read her books because it would be great to actually be in those books. So even though her use of language is a bit limited at times, and at others sounds like she’s been looking through a thesaurus for long words, I still like the books.
But they’re not helping me sleep. I think the next thing to try is having it on really quietly. Only then I might be listening so intently that I’m even less likely to fall asleep.
Goodnight.
At this time of year lots of new faces start to appear at the woods. Without fail you can predict that people who have been at the skatepark all winter will suddenly appear that the jumps with their bikes and a sheepish look on their face, ready to ride your, still slightly soft, jumps. I don’t have any objection to sharing my hard work with people who are prepared to pick up a shovel when its wet and lend a hand, especially if they have the initative and motivation to build their own trails. Sharing something makes it more fun. I don’t have a problem with people coming down to watch or chat. But am I the only one who thinks that it is incredibly rude for people to turn up at the jumps who have never so much as lifted a shovel and expect to ride? Am I just being a trail Nazi about this?
What is it with bands whose names begin with K? The Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, The Klaxons. What is their obsession with making horrible ugly shouty music. And the “lyrics”. Look at the words to “Golden Skans” by The Klaxons. When I hear this on the radio I have no way of telling what on earth they are saying. It’s impossible to make the words out. Then when I found out I couldn’t believe what drivel it was. How has music this bad become so popular? I can see nothing good in it.
scruffian 