General Chat

We always put our tree & decorations up on the Sunday before Christmas Day, our children used to complain bitterly about it but it was soon enough in my opinion.
We no longer put up a tree or decorations & haven't done since 2004 when our last child left home.

Joan.

When I was a child, the tree was always decorated on Christmas Eve, so that it was all a lovely surprise n Christmas morning.

I kept up the tradition when my sons were small and I know elder son still does that, although he usually does it earlier in the day now that the granddaughters are old enough to help.

As for Christmas cards, I haven't written any yet, apart from the ones going abroad. I don't have that many to send these days, as the list gets shorter each year. :-(

Oh dear! Seems Ive broken the rules this year but.....always was a bit of a rebel ;-)

No, I am sorry Florence, I am with names on this one, no trees before December :-(

I know names, but I like to be organised ;-)

With that out of the way, that leaves me plenty time to make all the goodies, mince pies, xmas cake, cookies etc

I'm also making a peanut butter caramel cheesecake, its divine yummy. :-D

Poor Esme.

I wonder if the mother has given up or never gave him any guidance.

Florence - decorate the Christmas tree!! It’s not even December yet.

Hello everyone.
Goodness me Linda, what a dreadful thing to have happened, Esme was lucky not to have been more seriously hurt.

My grandaughter has had the same experience as Esme, with regards to an "Autistic" child, who also has attention problems as well !
For most of my grandaughters time in main stream Primary school she has had some serious confrontations with this particular boy who for some reason took a dislike to my grandaughter & was regularly throwing missiles at her & even physically attacking her, she regularly came home with various marks & scratches, & yet it was always my grandaughter that was taken out of the situations, moving seats in the classroom or being taken out of the classroom altogether, the boy in question was never removed which I thought was wrong !!

My grandaughter has now moved on to the secondary school (as has the boy) but he seems to be leaving her alone now, probably because the teachers & school are much stricter & will not accept any wrong doings.

Some chilly days here recently & plenty of rain so not much done outside, I have more than one pile of branches to clear up but not in the mood to deal with them at the moment.
I need the temp to rise a bit before I venture outside.

I will have to go out at some point though & finish off the new flower bed that I started on several weeks ago, I cleared an area of some long dead dwarf conifers & made a largish circle & surrounded it with some large stones, I have several bags of compost waiting to be tipped into the bed & then plant the various bulbs I purchased recently.

I bought some Minature Daffies, Fitillaria, Anemones, & White Grape Hyacinths, & dug up some Snowdrops from around the garden.
It should look rather nice next spring, really looking forard to seeing the result, just need a few nice days to get it done, it will certainly bring some colour to the area of garden at the side of the house.

Joan.

Morning all.
Its a beautiful bright & sunny day here but brrrr.

Linda, well done on the tombola! Yes buying the cakes will save you time as they take hours to make. I am making my own but I can make it 2 days before xmas and ice etc.

Sadly that child doesn't have a great start in life and further down the line, we can all see where he will end up. Surely social would be involved with the family and does she not have any family of her own to help out I wonder?

I do hope your daughter gets it all sorted as what happened can never happen again to your grand daughter or anyone elses child. Next time there is an outing, they will have to make stronger arrangements, ie 2 carers to the one child .

Haven't see Joan posting and a bit worried. Hope her and hubby are ok?

Daughter & I have decided to decorate the xmas tree today a bit later on as I'm fed up with all the decs etc sitting in boxes in the front room. I hate an untidy house!

Xmas cards are all ready in a pile for posting, some are inside parcels and that saved a few pounds.

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....everywhere you go"(Michael Buble version)

Florence in the hebrides

Sounds like you had a good day at Christmas fairs Linda. Good idea with the cakes and I think you deserve a rest from making one this year.

It will probably end up with that boy doing something that he can be 'arrested' for when he is older and then he will probably be placed in care. Maybe that is what his Mother wants. It must be particularly hard to be a single young mother with a child that is not normal when most of your friends children are normal. and she may well be in denial about it all I suppose. But that doesn't make it any easier or less worrying for the future safety of the public.

The boy doesn’t have a father and his mother is quite young and isn’t interested in any sort of help which the school tries to offer. She just brings him to school, dumps him and makes no attempt at all to control him. I know it must be really difficult to deal with a child like that, but he is going to be a real danger as he grows. He isn’t physically disabled in any way, so can move quickly when he wants to. I have seen him a few times when I have been to school events. He never sits down, he just roams about, touching everything, climbing all over the church pulpit etc. it must be dreadful got the poor carer trying to control him and it will just get more difficult as he becomes physically stronger.

All the Christmas activities are starting up here, the lights were switched on on Friday night. There was a craft fair in the town hall, so we went to that yesterday. I didn’t buy any crafts, but I did buy two Xmas cakes. I usually make my own, but haven’t got round to it this year. Eve always decorates it with OH, but this year I bought a middle sized one and a small one. I will put the marzipan and icing on, then the girls can have one each to decorate. Eve will do a design using the spare icing and food colouring, I have a selection of small Santa's etc, so Esme will probably just put all of those on hers. As we came back, we realised that the church were having their Xmas fair as well, so we called in there. It was very silly of them to have it in the same day as the main town craft fair because they had very few stalls this year. I did well on the tombola, getting three prizes out of the five tickets I bought. One was a naff Xmas ornament, so I gave that back, but the other two were food based, so I kept them .

That is going to be a constant worry about Esme and the boy. I wonder if his parents are also worried. I assume he also is not in a wheelchair. Good that the school are fully aware and concerned. But surely the organiser of the trip should not have a one to one responsibility as well. that seems to have been the real problem there. The trouble could also be that Esme doesn't see that he poses a danger to her.

I wonder, if he is so aggressive against her, what will happen as he gets older and bigger? will he be a danger to the general public?

Pleased that she is ok anyway.

Esme seems to be fine thank you. The school were very apologetic obviously, but as it was such a serious incident, it seems to have opened up some sort of thorough enquiry more than a normal accident one. The boy did have a one to one carer, but she was in charge of much of the organisation of the trip, so she had other things to do and wasn’t keeping a close eye on him.
They have agreed that they won’t go on any trips together in the future and that they won’t have them together in the same classroom. If for any reason he has to come into Esme’s classroom, they will take her into a different room. The odd thing is that she likes playing with him outdoors at break time and apparently makes a beeline for him because she likes to play football with him. All of the other children in her class are in wheelchairs, she is the only one who can run around. She doesn’t under that she needs to keep away from him because he is likely to attack her.

It is very cold tonight, apparently it is going to be zero overnight, but that doesn’t matter as the house is warm.

Hello everyone,

Linda I hope Esme is alright after what happened such an awful thing to have happen to her .

Very cold today here but bright and sunny , this morning there was a light frost .

Have done my cards and got some more presents so have to start wrapping things up.
Have to get the decorations out the cupboard soon but that will be a job for December which isn't far away .

Take care all.
Ginnie

Linda! Oh my goodness me. That incident just should not have happened. When I had charges that were severe, we were always 2-1 and if the risk assessment showed it was "too risky", then we didn't take said child.

I'm glad A & E were able to stick with glue rather than stitches but I hope your daughter doesn't let the matter drop. If the child D is so severely autistic, then he should be in environment more suited to his needs.

You don't know what effect mentally this may have on Esme in the future. Yes keep her off until your daughter feels she is ready to go back.

And poor you having to do another drive in the dark. If I was you, think I might have poured myself a large stiff one when I got home!

Hope you have a better day tomorrow.

My day was very quiet today. Did a pile of ironing, so basket is empty...for now. Spent the afternoon finishing off wrapping and parcelling. Almost finished and then a few cards to write.

Was torrential rain and gales all day here, so glad we were indoors.

Been watching the soaps and then Masterchef earlier, good viewing tonight.

Florence in the hebrides

Oh lord, things just go from bad to worse.
Esme went to school this morning, she was fine and was looking forward to her bowling. My daughter got a call mid afternoon asking her to go straight to the bowling venue as there had been an incident involving Esme and she was injured.

The incident involved a boy called “D”. He is severely autistic and totally unpredictable. Sometimes he is violent, other times he just launches things without any warning
He has a long history with Esme because he randomly attacked her whenever he saw her. They had to use different entrances to the school so he couldn’t get to her. He really needs to be in a specialist autistic unit, not just in an ordinary special school.
Esme moved up to seniors a year early to keep them separated. He also attacks others, he dragged one immobile girl along the floor by her hair from one side of the classroom to the other.

Apparently the woman who was supposed to be his one to one carer, only turned her back on him for a minute! In that time, he launched a bowling ball at Esme’s head, cutting it open. When my daughter got there, she had big white bandages on her head because being a scalp wound, it was bleeding profusely. She had to go to A&E and they used glue to fix the edges together. She can’t wash her hair for a week, so all the blood will have to stay there.

My daughter is absolutely livid because it could have been so much worse, he could have fractured her skull . She is demanding to see the risk assessment for the trip. Why they would take such a child as D somewhere where he could launch such heavy objects with just one carer, I don’t understand.

Eve stays at school on Thursday for choir practice, so doesn’t come home on the school bus. Her father normally collects her, but as my daughter had the car at the hospital, I had to go for Eve, so I got to do another long drive in the dark which I’didn’t like.

Esme just FaceTimed while they were having dinner, she was eating and seemed to be OK, although she kept touching her forehead and saying it hurt. They are going to keep her off tomorrow to make sure she is OK

Oh dear me Linda, what a carry on! Almost sounds like my daughter when i say she has selective hearing!!

Hope she she is better tomorrow and as you say, she wouldn't want to miss her bowling. Glad you enjoyed your day out with your neighbour. Was nice escape for you and a chance to relax a little.

Hope you are ok Joan, as haven't seen you for a few days.

Just had dad for an hour bashing my ear so in need of a coffee.

Florence in the hebrides

Oops, although Esme insisted on going to school this morning, they rang up at 10.30 to say that she was not her usual cheery self and was crying a lot, so my daughter had to go to collect her. She was fine by dinner time this evening, really tucking into her food. They are all going to have an early night tonight, so hopefully things will be back to normal tomorrow.. Her class is going bowling tomorrow, so she won’t want to miss that

Oh dear Florence, what a palaver, but at least you got your heart scan and can be assured that everything was okay

Sorry to have confused you yesterday. Esme’s father was there as well, but the phrase “ chocolate teapot “ springs to mind. I got back as soon as I could, so he only had to look after her for about two and a half hours. She was moaning all day long about her tummy hurting. Personally I think that if she had eaten something, she would have felt better, but she refused. It was a very long day, :-(. All she wanted was mummy, but of course her train was late, so it was well after ten before she got back.
As I was driving back up the motorway, the overhead signs were saying that junction 49 was closed. That meant nothing to me but it turned out to be the junction I needed. So I had to continue to the next one and come back on small country roads instead of a nice large dual carriageway. Anyway I managed and got back safely .

I was absolutely shattered and went straight to sleep. This morning, Esme FaceTimed just before 9am, she was all dressed and ready for school. Although she didn’t go to sleep until 10.50, she had a sleep over with mummy and slept all night. She was insisting on going because they do ballet on Wednesdays and she wasn’t going to miss it.

I went to York today for a day out with my neighbour, we looked round the shops and had a lovely lunch. We were going to go to the interactive Van Gogh exhibition which I have been to before , but when we got there, it was closed which was very odd as I.
I checked the website yesterday. It is right next to the Jorvik Viking centre, which you normally need to book for, but amazingly there was no queue at all. I have been lots of times but my friend hasn’t. She really enjoyed it. My hips are aching tonight with all the walking.

So after the awful day yesterday, i am glad to be in doors today. Its gale force winds and torrential rain since early morning.

Poor daughter had to go town and no doubt will be soaked when she walks from the bus stop, poor thing.

Catching up on emails and other paperwork today so all sorted now.

Made sweet & sour chicken for tea with popadoms and pickles, cant wait.

Hope all is ok with everyone else today

Florence in the hebrides

Yes Linda, I am confused as to who was looking after Esme if she wasn't in school whilst you get your hair done and take OH home??? :-S