What can I say?

Damn.

I couldn’t find my sister before the start, so I decided to start from the back and look out for her as I overtook everyone. If (as was the case) I missed her then I would meet her at her charity tent at the end.

The race went so well. I reached the eight mile mark with a big smile on my face, less than 60 minutes after the start. I’d passed two drinking stations without needing any water. I was on the pace for a finish in about 1 hour 35 minutes – maybe less. I was even thinking of upping the pace when I passed the eleven mile marker.

Then my knee went pop and I hit a pedestrian barrier.

The Red Cross volunteers (who hunt in packs like hyenas following gazelles across the African plains) pounced on me and dragged me off to their lair. They took my number, gave me a drink with isolitic thingies in it, and buried my knee in ice.

After five minutes I escaped and hobbled off to the next Red Cross station a mile along the road, where I beat up a knackered old man, threw him out of the last available chair, and demanded ice with menaces. They, too, took my race number and force-fed me isotopes.

The remaining Red Cross stations were at half mile intervals. With shame I admit that it took me ten minutes to reach each one, where I spent five minutes convalescing with iced isolated drinks. (Except the one with St John’s Ambulance volunteers from Darling Wifey’s old Girls’ High School – I spent a little bit longer there.)

As it happened, I did overtake my sister earlier in the race – and she caught up with me later… and then vanished into the distance…

I eventually hobbled over the line in a time even I am too ashamed to admit (although I confess that the last mile and a half took over twenty minutes,) and straight into the welcoming arms of the nearest Red Cross volunteer.

But I finished. I have my medal, and Little Nutter is proudly wearing my sweaty Thomas the Tank Engine running vest.

Change of plan.

My sister, who is still in so much pain after the death of her daughter, has decided that she will run the GNR after all. She was fundraising for Leukaemia research, and her daughter was so excited that her mum was running for her that she couldn’t not run.

She isn’t half as fit as I am – her pace of ten-minutes-per-mile will take over two hours to complete the course, and with rain forecast for the afternoon I’m thinking seriously of carrying an umbrella. But who cares?

Mum & Dad will see us off from the start and meet us at the finish; my brother-in-law will be there with their other daughter; and we’ll run together.

It’s the Great North Run on Sunday.

The whole family was looking forward to it; Darling Wifey was going to leave the Fellowship of the Snot with her parents and then spend the duration of the race hopping from viewpoint to viewpoint via the Geordie Metro system with Little Madam. They were going to take photos of my descent through pain, agony and despair and on towards South Shields.

And you thought that Dante’s journey into the Inferno was hellish.

However, Darling Wifey’s dad’s surgery has been brought forward to this weekend. This means that Darling Wifey has to stay here in York whilst I head North for a little jog in Pandemonium. A disappointment – but yet another example of getting your priorities right.

I showed Little Nutter a bottle of milk and a carton of fruit juice.

“What would you like to drink?” I asked.

“Tootle-a toot ratoot! Puppy Power!” Shouted Little Nutter.

Welcome to the entertaining world of echolalia.

Little Nutter smeared shit all over his bedroom walls tonight.

Again.

I wouldn’t mind, but that’s good textured wallpaper.

He seems to be developing an artistic muse. Last week it was video cassette sculptures; this week its abstract art installations in the bedroom. I wonder if his stuff can be smeared all over the Tate?

The Fellowship of the Snot gave a mixed welcome to our visitor this weekend.

Little Nutter, who never talks to strangers (although, to be fair, she is only slightly strange) looked her in the eye, waved and said, “Bye-bye!” She kindly appreciated that even though he was, in his way, telling her he didn’t want her in the house, the fact that he was communicating his wishes with words and actions was a great family moment. Darling Wifey and I were wiping away tears of pride and joy as Little Nutter was trying to eject our welcome guest from our home.

Tiny Flirt just went for her breasts.

We spent yesterday examining York. Little Nutter discovered to his delight that York Minster is a magnificent echo chamber. We ate yum-yums in the square next to Clifford’s Tower, and then Little Nutter and I had to get a taxi home because we bought too much stuff to carry – and the taxi company didn’t have a car big enough for six people.

We anticipated mayhem.

Little Nutter started school this week.

Monday morning wasn’t good. I had to drop him off before driving 200 miles to my niece’s funeral. He hated his school uniform, and had three tantrums before 8am. We both arrived at his school with bruises and cut lips.

However, his teachers had done their research – the whole of his first day was spent in free play with his favourite types of toy: enormous 100 piece jigsaws; a large tub of water with things floating in it; construction kits; the essential train set; even a pocket calculator.

Next morning, while the rest of us were yawning over our breakfasts, Little Nutter managed to put his own school uniform on, get his schoolbag onto his back, and stood patiently waiting next to the front door for forty minutes. That evening he fell asleep in the car, cuddling his schoolbag.

For the last two days his teachers have been using these delightful objects to bombard Little Nutter with stimulating interaction. Being a determined little bugger, he has clearly decided this is a price worth paying for unlimited access to autistic heaven. Today, a teacher helped him to count all the balls in a ball pool. And then he fell asleep as I carried him to the car.

The irony is that Little Nutter’s school is rare: for most autistic children in the UK, school means sharing a classroom with 29 neurotypical (aka “normal”) children, a classroom assistant, and nothing more useful than behavioural management training for the adults involved.

All kids with autism should have access to facilities like the one Little Nutter attends.

The summer storms have abated, the sunshine has returned, the weeds have started to grow in the garden.

It’s time to return to work.

Teachers traditionally begin the academic year in a gentle and informal way: a couple of days with no children, sorting out the class lists, planning the first few lessons and chucking all the new stock into cupboards.

However, we now live under the totalitarian regime of the Management and Administration Party, and so must spend these two days undergoing propaganda and re-education with the principles of R. Meredith-Belbin and Anthony Robbins and Douglas McGregor.

I have, in the last two days, sat through two motivation seminars, three management theory discussions (they were not, repeat NOT meetings, as I discovered when I was reprimanded for not using the correct Newspeak vocabulary) a workshop on “realising the difference between Vision and Mission” and caused mayhem at a Strategy Discussion intended to work out how to deal with a class of kids with behavioural problems when I insisted on repeatedly using the word “brainstorm” even after the social worker had told me it was not “PC.”

Not one minute of the two days I was paid to be in school this week was spent preparing to teach.