Monday, February 23, 2009

Yesterday was not a Super Monday.

The morning started off unusually early as my partner had to be a work before 8am to drop a tripod off. A large thing 5ft tall and about 1ft in diameter to go in a diesel ford fiester. My partner doesn't do mornings. My youngest(12) then forgot to take the front door key school partially because nobody had remembered to tell him that it might be necessary.

The plan was to take my middle son(20) to Newcastle to put him on the train to Hexham where he stays during term time as he is at a Mencap college in Corbridge. He has learning difficulties and is on the autistic spectrum.

Living with someone with Simon isn't easy as some of the things he does do not make sense. When a teenage child behave annoyingly it nearly always makes sence.

I spent the morning processing the pictures I had taken on Sunday an unplanned (for me) mini's rugby match at Barnard Castle, this has to be the coldest pitch on the planet and a well atteneded colts match at the club. Fortunately there had been some blue sky and taking the pictures was relativly easy especially as the colt played well and scored plenty of tries. I visited facebook to find out my eldest(23) thinks I am an alien and I am the person who most annoys him. What are parents for.

Meanwhile Simon's nurse came to give Simon his medicine, I shouted several times for Simon to turn his music down knowing that it was too loud for him to here. Simon's taste in music is 80s which I didn't like the first time round. I received assurances via email that a that I need not worry about a technical issue on the rugby website. as of this morning doesn't work so now I do not have a website to work on anymore. Simon has a tantrum because his new phone is "broken" that is he can't send texts because hasn't the mental facilities to do that. Anyway he seems to have managed to send one to my partner saying he was being bullied at college and was feeling unhappy.

So at 2:15 I decided head off to Newcaslte a two hour journey by public transport and yes Simon has left his bus pass at college so that is an extra £4 for the bus fare. Only my phone is running out of charge so I decide to delay the journey to get some charge on my phone. So arriving at the bus stop at 3pm the bus arrives at 3:07 to break down at the stop fortunately there is a bus every 15 minutes to Durham. Oh I can't use my debit card for the train journey between Newcastle and Hexam and Newcastle and the Heymarked because I have forgotton my pin.

Anyway we arrive at Newcastle railway station and I put Simon in the train to Hexham and ring the college to tell them when to pick Simon up from the station. Make my way via WH Smiths to the Heymarket which because of building work closes at 19:45. Newcastle is a city therefore distances are short. I did some window shopping BHS Primark got some unhealthy food killed time for a bit.

Meanwhile Simon arrives at Hexham and there is no-one to meet him. My phone is not on full charge but I am ringing the college his house trying to get an answer. I then ring my youngest and parnter to get them to ring. Samuel is on the way to rugby training and his dad is driving so it makes sence for Samuel to ring. Simon is ringing back I suggest he makes his own way to his house but after two years living in Hexham he is not confident to walk the mile back himself.

So there I am lost in Newcastle forgetting which bulding I should be in for SuperMondays, Simon is still ringing. I meet someone going to the same event at am escorted to the building full of unfamiliar faces. Of course I am still concerned about Simon so after a coffee I leave the room to get a better signal and get locked out. I get locked out and the room is sound proof, there is no internal phone system in order to get help, I don't know the phone number of anyone inside. It is amazing how much swearing and cursing in these situation dosn't actually work. I did manage to leave a message on twitter which relayed to facebook. Someone was late and also couldn't get in the room. anyway someone eventually needed the toilet and I got in and held the door open for the other gentleman. I did eventually get through to Simon's house and he was safe. Still running out of power on my phone though.

I managed to hear two of the talks one about offline computing, applications not used by a computer but phones with gps and the other talk on scientific cloud computing. We then went to the pub where the beer was £2.65 a pint. there the conversation was about twitter and what a great thing it was and I got some ideas for my now non-existent website. Using pictures to illustrating stats that are according to the rugby club are wrong.

It is occasionally nice to be in company where you might not always understand all of what is being said but you know that most of what you say is understood and is not to technical for those you are speaking to.

This morning my eldest son has answered my comment saying is that why you are not here them.

I think quite a successful day.

No comments: