As I said a couple of posts ago, Sarah doesn't like change and going into respite care for a weekend, much as she enjoys it when she gets there, is a massive change in her routine. If it occurred at regular intervals such as every sixth weekend or the first weekend of every other month, no matter how complex that may sound Sarah would be able to cope with that as there is an element of routine to the event. As it is stands at the moment it all appears random, only three weeks between the last two stays and six weeks before the next. Autism, surprises and random dates don't always go together to well.
So we had the usual upsets and meltdowns and general non cooperation from Sarah from about Wednesday last week, which I detailed in the post: Respite! Oh yes... last week. Well she's home now. Came home yesterday evening after a day at Day Services, where she gave them a very hard time over the absence of her favourite staff member, along with other stuff. in fact a whole page of misdemeanors in her communication book. Of course she was not too happy about us knowing about the trouble she caused during the day but she was also relieved to be home, so we didn't get much in the way of bad behaviour, she just wanted her tea and to settle back into familiar surroundings and familiar things, in fact by 6.30pm she was her normal self, almost... but there is still something going on, sort of in the background.
She has her period, of course! That is always difficult for her, but it will be over soon and thinking about it, the outbursts that are so intense due to PMT should have stopped by now. So I'm thinking this bout of bad behaviour is just to do with respite disruption. This morning she was difficult to say the least, and sanctions are currently in place again... any more bad behavior and Fridays planned jaunt to Cardiff is not going to happen.
But this is the point where I start getting confused. Everything at the moment is as Sarah would like it, period as good as done, home from respite. By some miracle she has completely got her head around the ongoing problem of ever changing carer assistants with minimal knowledge of autism who are supposed to take her out twice a week and are employed by an outfit which also has minimal knowledge of autism (as they are used to running retirement homes and caring for the elderly) and contracted to Social Services in some sort of attempt to save money. And then I remembered the moon.
Now this is tricky, I know some would describe me as an old hippy. Yes, there are huge gaps in my memory of certain events and places I know I was at between 1966 and 1976. But I don't believe in most of what I consider to be hippy dippy stuff like astrology and consider horoscopes to be a load of hog wash. Tarot cards are just a good way of sorting out your thoughts, as is the I Ching. I don't pray to any gods whatsoever. The universe is a mystery and a wonder to me and I like it that way, I cannot get my head around some omnipotent being existing in any way, shape or form and how anyone can possibly be a creationist in this day and age is beyond me. But what about the Moon? It fascinates me, always has.
Here's a photograph I took of the last full moon very early in the morning on the 1st of February, the next full moon is on Sunday 28th February round about 4.30pm GMT I think, so we are in the second half of a Waxing Gibbous moon. Which is bad news as far as Sarah is concerned. This phase of the moon means Sarah will be pretty volatile until Sunday afternoon and I would lay money on her being a much happier and calmer Sarah come Sunday evening.
The problem I have with all this moon stuff is that it makes me feel like some sort of hypocrite. I can't help thinking about all those fabulous gothic tales of Warewoves and vampires and other fantastic creatures of the night all ruled in some way by the moon, and on the other end of that particular spectrum, I've never laughed so much as when I first encountered The Full Moon from The Mighty Boosh, if it ever does turn out that the moon has a voice and any kind of intellect I really hope it's like this:
And to add another odd dimension to this moon stuff, we started gardening according to the moon last year and had some good results. Something to do with the water table or some such, which actually makes some sense if you consider the tides. So you can probably see my contradiction dilemma, all this lunacy is getting a bit close to the hippy dippy stuff which I left behind years ago.
I will rationalize this whole moon business away to my own satisfaction if no one else's, it just has to be another of those wonderful mysteries I'm never going to get to the bottom of, a bit like Sarah's autism and that is a mystery and a half. So we'll keep our heads down and spend the next few days walking on egg shells, then on Monday morning this week will be history and we will be wondering what on earth
happened to February....
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