Day 124

Today was a really good day. For the most part we managed to forget the shit that is going on for a day and spent time with someone special to us.

We took a trip to the south coast today to see our little one's former foster carer. As she still looks after foster children her garden is well set up to allow us to visit and stay socially distanced. We arrived, to be greeted by her son, who showed us around to the back of the house and into our half of the garden. Fortunately we had the half that had the trampoline, so our little one was in his element.

We marvelled at our friend's patience, as her latest charge did his best whirling dervish impersonation, throwing everything he could lay his hands onto, into the air - unfortunately one of the items hit the other child of the house, making him cry. It is very difficult when dealing with autistic children when they are upset, in particular if they are non verbal, as they can't get over to you how they feel, or understand your soothing tones...

We had our usual quota of bacon sarnies, cream cakes and cups of tea and coffee, before we had to leave, as I said, it was lovely to see her and great to catch up from a safe distance. Just before we were due to leave a man turned up, with what I can only describe as a 5 foot giraffe, made of balloons, accompanied by another helium balloon with "congratulations" on and another the shape of star. This was our friends way of saying well done to my wife, for battling against cancer and coming out the other side. She just clearly hadn't considered how we were going to get a 5 foot giraffe home in our car! Somehow we did, and "Gerald" has pride of place in the living room...

By the time we left our little one was looking knackered, having spent much of the 3 hours we were there on the trampoline, and sure enough within 10 minutes of leaving for home, he was fast asleep.

This in itself isn't a problem, but it does make it likely he won't go to bed on time. We decided that as it was a decent evening when we got home we would play today's games events. This took a couple of hours, coupled with a few beers and the nice weather we stayed out in the garden, the four of us, chatting and little one playing. Before we knew it it was gone 10pm. It was a really good evening, the ones that aren't planned often are the best events...