Two angry confrontations happened today.

Number 1:
Little Nutter’s nursery is next door to a vacant building that has just been sold. The new tenant is refitting the place, and this involves the installation of a collection of construction machinery in the car park. A nursery car park. The nursery car park that is used twice a day by myself and my ASD son.

So I consulted the Health and Safety Executive today, and learned a few things about ‘Risk Analysis.’ So, at about 4pm, I spoke to the site foreman.
“Can I see your Risk Analysis please?”
“Nothing to do with me, mate.”
“But aren’t you the foreman? It is the foreman’s job to draw up the Risk Analysis.”
“Oh, THAT Risk Analysis!”

So, the builders had not taken any account whatsoever of the potential risk to other users of the car park. They didn’t even have a Risk Analysis. I told them that I would notify the HSE first thing on Monday.
“Oh, you need to see the foreman, mate…”
“This letter formally notifies you that the car park is crossed twice daily by a two year old child with mental disabilities. Your Risk Analysis must take this into account, or you must remove the construction equipment.”
“What construction equipment?”

Note: always take a camera.

Number 2:
Where do I park the Volvo?

The sweet little old lady was patiently listening to Radio 3 in her Nissan, not entirely confident that she could fit it past my car and into her drive. Fair enough: it was a bit of a squeeze - perhaps only ten or twelve inches to spare.

“Oh, I’m ever so sorry. I’ll just put my son in his car seat and…”
“You stupid ***ing *******! What the ****ing **** do you think you are doing parking your ****ing wreck in my ****ing way.”
“Erm…”
“Stop dithering you useless **** and move your ****ing **** of a car out of my ****ing way.”
“Please stop swearing in front of my…”
“Move your ****ing car out of my ****ing way before I get my son to…”

I wasn’t around to hear the rest…

Oh, you could make your man ecstatic! You could bring him happiness beyond his wildest dreams. Just with three little words.

Show him your junk room. I know you’ve got one. All women I know have one. Either in the attic or the cellar. Or the garage. Point him towards it and say those three little words,

clear it out!

He can slurp coffee and rub his stubbly chin whilst he thinks about it.
He can put on scruffy jeans and a slobby t-shirt and old trainers.
He can take the seats out of the car .
He gets to drive to the tip.
And best of all, he can saw bits off things to make them fit in the car.

There are no words to describe the sound of an ancient two-seat sofa falling eight feet into a skip full of ceramic bathroom fittings. I just cannot begin to describe it. But I nearly danced!

And any excuse to use a saw - any excuse whatsoever - is a cause for celebration.

And best of all, (apparently) is that I have been “out of the way” all morning.

Well, actually, the whole family had a Cantonese lunch, but that doesn’t make such a good title, does it?

And Little Nutter thought it was absolutely marvellous. He sat in the middle of the restaurant, babbling away in the way he does (with absolutely no recognisable words whatsoever) and beaming at everything and anything. He got upset when people got in his way, though.

He picked the sesame seeds off his prawn toast one at a time and dropped them on the carpet.

He threw the ice from his fruit juice at the floral display on the table.

He shoved his chopsticks into every hole he could find in his head.

He picked his nose and had a really good look at it.

He removed his food, one morsel at a time, from his plate onto the tablecloth, pronged it on a fork, and shouted “MWAH!” with every mouthful.

He smiled.

He flirted with the waitress.

And then he put on his coat, sat in his buggy, and sang all the way back to the car.

He was a perfectly normal two-year-old.

Now, why-oh-why did no-one else in that restaurant understand why I was so happy?

A fabulous parcel arrived today. A blue hardback book with my name in gold lettering on the front cover and spine. My thesis, finally bound properly.

I could hardly fit my head out of the front door.

Meanwhile, Little Nutter has finally found out what vegetables are for. Place them in neat rows on the table, splat them into oblivion with a cup of juice, and watch the pretty patterns magically appear on the wall.

Happy days.

We went to York today. There is a job there I might apply for - a pretty good job. Well, let’s be honest, the very job I have been working towards for nearly ten years. I’m qualified at last, and this is where I dust off the good suit, brush my teeth, and start being nice to head teachers. Had to start somewhere.

The drive down was reasonable. Stopped at a branch of Burger King that had a huge plaque outside, boasting that it had been opened in 1995 by the Rt Hon Tony Blair, MP. (His career has taken a bit of a dive since the heady days of opening roadside burger bars in Teesside.) Given the political situation at the moment, we were alert to the ever present danger of UN Weapons Inspectors jumping out of the undergrowth and searching for weapons of mass-destruction hidden amongst the onion rings. However, we had anticipated them: they were hidden in the boys’ nappies.

Whilst Darling Wifey was ordering the Whoppers, I took the car to top it up with fuel and check the tyres. Little Nutter thought I was abandoning his mum.

“Excuse me,” said a voice behind me as I operated the pump, “but did you know that your son is banging his head on the car window?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. He’s listening to Ozzy Osbourne.”

York is beautiful, but I wouldn’t recommend visiting the place without plenty of supplies. Every time Little Nutter ran out of juice, he screamed and tried to escape. And the roads and paths are so narrow that he actually smacked his head on a wall in Mad Alice Alley. (Yes, that is a real place, just round the corner from Whip Ma Whop Ma Gate, along from Marks & Spencer.)

All the way back he would scream for about twenty minutes, sing the chorus to “Bob the Builder,” and then scream again. What with Little Madam screaming Jingle Bells off key about three octaves too high, Tiny Flirt just couldn’t help but nod off.

So we’ve decided to move to York - and leave the children in Durham.

I was shut in the kitchen this evening, all by my happy self, reading the mail and cooking fish for dinner, when I heard Darling Wifey’s best “end of tether” voice declare in the other room, “Just because you have been diagnosed with autism, it doesn’t mean you are allowed to develop behavioural problems as well!”

I think it was because Little Nutter had engaged his latest subroutine again (anyone familiar with BASIC programming for 1980s home computers should recognise it…)

10 LET x = 1 TO 16
20 REMOVE x CUSHIONS FROM SOFA
30 NEXT x
40 GOSUB “TRAMPOLINE”
50 INKEYS “RESTRAINT BY PARENT”
60 GOSUB “TANTRUM”
70 LET y = 1 TO 16
80 REPLACE y CUSHIONS ON SOFA
90 NEXT y
100 GOTO 10

Finally, we have a form to fill in, sent to us by the Child Development People at the local government. The table is currently heaving under the weight of the wretched thing, and the howtofillinyourform.pdf download has been running for about eight hours now…

Exaggerate? Me? Never in a million years!

Apparatus
One baby (optional)
Clean nappy (’diaper’ if you are American, ‘couche’ if you are French, fresh fleece if you are Welsh)
cotton wool and warm water (or lotion wet-wipes if you have any sense)
clean babygrow
clean blankets
clean sheet
moses basket
dark room
9oz bottle of freshly mixed baby formula milk at exactly the right temperature (with 0.01% margin of error tolerated)
two high-dose ibuprofen tablets and a large glass of single malt whisky

Method
1. Distract older brother and sister with toys, sweets, DVD player, toolkit and credit card.
2. Sing to the baby to distract him from chronic fatigue whilst removing the vomit-stained babygrow you put on him only four hours ago.
3. Unfasten old nappy. Retch. Curse the fact that there is no clothes peg for nose on the ‘apparatus’ list.
4. Wipe baby’s bottom with whatever comes to hand (but don’t use the cat when she is shedding.) Control retches by means of full upper body spasms. Place all soiled wipes inside soiled nappy, seal shut, and bribe eldest child to shove it out of the catflap.
5. Fasten clean nappy securely into place. Drink whisky.
6. Put the clean babygrow on the baby and fasten poppers. Gently swaddle screaming child in clean blanket.
7. Hold child carefully and insert bottle of baby formula into the screaming end.
8. Remain silent and motionless for duration of feed.
9. Hold screaming child upright over shoulder, pace the room and pat your screaming child gently on the back until he burps.
10. Repeat steps 7-9 as necessary
11. Use remaining wet-wipes to clean vomit from shoulder
12. When finally stuffed with milk, you baby will theoretically be incapable of remaining awake for three to five hours. Place gently in the moses basket in the dark room. Take ibuprofen.
13. Return to the other children and assess damage.

Hey-ho! 34! Am I middle-aged yet?

Little Nutter was in nursery today. They are still making arrangements for the extra care he needs. Yesterday’s “official diagnosis” of autism has become a kind of Thunderbirds are Go! signal to all concerned. Like he cares.

I have told everyone concerned that it makes no difference to me, because I will be ensuring that Little Nutter is not affected in any negative way at all by this - but for them, it is their Last Post. From this point onwards I will see nothing but the highest standards of professionalism and proactive support from them. I told them this as clearly as I could.

It matters.

So this left Little Madam and Tiny Flirt at home under Birthday Boy supervision. (Darling Wifey was spending the day doing research for her PhD.)

First up, a snowball fight on the front lawn. Little Madam & myself Vs twelve kids from my school. What is it about children these days? They were dressed up in thermals, complete with battery heated gloves and socks, and threw their snowballs like extras on the latest Barbiefilm. I was wearing jeans and a T-Shirt, and had no shoes on (although Little Madam was dressed just like the rest of them.) I scored a direct hit on every one of them, and was not hit once. I call that a result!

Then the usual fun day with children. Paint the kitchen table and ignore the paper. Sneak an unsuspected barf onto the daddy’s lap. Watch the snow fall whilst standing naked on the windowsill. (Actually, I might try that one myself next time it snows.)

All this and an evening with an very, very good new friend - the Frenchman who lives across the road - a bottle of Bordeaux, another of Glenmorangie, and two GameBoys linked together.

Life, as they say, has its ups and downs. It is rare for them all to happen in the same day, though.

All Sing Together Now:
“When Jesus puts his Reeboks on,
For the Holy Race,
They test him for drugs
But he is clean,
Because he is trained by God!”
(Copyright Lenny Henry - reproduced without even asking for permission!)