About Me

My photo
Single autistic mother of three awesome autistic kids. These are my anonymous ramblings about life, love, parenting and the rest – emptying my head of the weird, the wonderful and the mundane. Hope you enjoy.

Wednesday 28 March 2012

Of unending tiredness...

I was awake at 5am this morning - despite being completely knackered, and the fact that it was 4am in real, before-the-clocks-went-forward time. Here is the thought that, ironically, kept me awake:

"Will there come a day, ever again, when I can honestly say, 'I'm not tired'?"

I am so fed up with always being completely shattered, never feeling like I have enough energy to even get off the sofa. To add to this, recently I've started getting random aches in things: my big toe, which puts paid to my Thursday nights out dancing, and now my wrist, which I am ignoring, because my body can fuck off if it thinks I'm giving up the guitar playing as well - a girl's got to have some creative outlet!

Friday 16 March 2012

We believe you

I wanted to join this blog hop because I was so, so shocked by this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/13/woman-retracted-rape-claim-husband?newsfeed=true

A woman, who had the bravery to report repeated rape (including being forced by her rapist to work in a brothel) goes to prison because under pressure from her rapist and his sister, withdraws those claims. The judge even accepts that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, a recognised psychiatric disorder, and yet her criminal conviction is upheld.

How can this possibly be in the public interest? Do they really think that sending a woman to prison for withdrawing a rape claim will encourage more victims to report? It seems much more likely they would be terrified to even mention it in the first place.

Her husband, her rapist - despite the fact that having been raped by him was the very premise of her conviction - has never been convicted. So his crime of rape, can be accepted in law as having indisputably taken place, and he receives no conviction - yet she, whose actions are entirely explained by the fear instilled in her by someone who had abused her for years, is sent to prison for perverting the course of justice? No right thinking human being can see this as justice. Had the legal system any concept of the affects on victims of abuse, a judge would not be questioning her actions at all. Instead, he would be ensuring her husband was arrested for rape and perverting the course of justice . As one poignant comment from Helen Lewis on Twitter noted:

"As she was taken to prison, her husband - who a Judge accepted had raped her - picked up their children from school"

People's attitudes to rape have to change now. The legal system's in built prejudices about rape have to change now.

Sarah, I admire your courage, I abhor your treatment by the law and your husband, and I send to you every good wish for the future for you and your children. We believe you.


To join in this BlogHop please go to: http://saltandcaramel.com/index.php/2012/03/12/we-believeyou-mumsnet-rape-campaign/

Wednesday 14 March 2012

The Magic show, the headmaster and the unfortunate phone incident

It's all been about DS1s school talent show in our house for the last two weeks. My work days have gone out of the window in a frenzy of magic show prop making - our house looks like a slightly crapper version of the Blue Peter studio with the endless bits of cardboard boxes, white paper and prittstick littering the place.

DS1 has paid little interest in this frenzy I have to say. It's only because I suddenly realised that all his tricks - out of the magic set his Dad got him for Christmas - were just too tiny for a big audience to see, so I had to do something. I was wondering if I was just being 'competitive mum' - and of course I am a bit - but mainly it was that I didn't want him to have to experience of an audience reaction to him mumbling over a table of small objects for five minutes. Could have been deadly.

It was only when we got to school yesterday to practise for the first time I discovered they'd already thought of that. There was a microphone and a 'visualiser' (a camera attached to a computer, which projected onto a screen - see why they went with the one word then) so he could be seen and heard. Not the perfect set up but it did work a bit.

So, in theory, I needn't have bothered with making a final trick big enough for everyone to see and join in with. However, then I wouldn't have had the fun of watching DS1s headmaster stand up and shout something stupid at the top of his voice in front of parents and peers - which is how the final trick ends.

Some might say I engineered the entire thing just to humiliate said headmaster -  I couldn't possibly comment...  other than to say that if he will sit and patronise me for three-quarters of an hour when I dare to suggest that perhaps DS1 isn't being challenged to his full capacity, then he deserves everything that's coming. And if I had my way entirely, he'd be shouting 'twat' or 'idiot', but I fear that might be a bit much for DS1s delicate ears.