Temple Cloud

At this time of year, serious-minded people start agonising over whether it is all right to ‘lie’ to children about Father Christmas.   Religious fundamentalists worry about whether they are offering children a false god who may seem more attractive than the real God – bringing tangible presents in your stocking instead of a lifelong, or multi-lifelong, journey towards holiness.   Fundamentalist atheists worry about whether fairy-tales entice children into believing in the supernatural instead of looking for materialist explanations for everything.   Psychologists worry about whether the sense of being watched may be oppressive. Speaking as both an autistic person who sometimes finds it hard to tell whether people are joking or serious, and a Christian who believes that honesty is important, I’d say they’re worrying about nothing.   As a child, I could easily see that Father Christmas belonged to the category marked ‘stories and make-believe’ rather than the one ...

I know it’s been a while since I updated this blog.   Lately, I’ve got a bit blogged down in writing fanfiction  inspired by some of my favourite fantasy novels, or self-publishing an original novel online, Pilgrims ,  about a group of people on a sponsored walk from London to Canterbury.   I’ve also been reading other people’s fanfiction, particularly Mood Music ,  a Harry Potter fanfic in which Professor Snape and a Muggle shaman escape from the Death Eaters together,  written by the excellent  Whitehound . However, I have been jolted back into blogging by a magazine article about Christmas which made me shout, ‘They think people need to be told that?’   It started off, reasonably enough, by discussing the relative merits of real and artificial Christmas trees.   It concluded that artificial Christmas trees, considering the amount of energy they cost to make, would have to be re-used for twenty years to be more eco-friendly than cut tr...

This morning, the new curate at our church preached a sermon on friendship.   In his opinion, the essential ingredient is selflessness.   Friendship, he said, cannot survive if people are just demanding what they want; they have to focus on each other’s needs. Which is fair enough – but I’m not sure that selflessness is the right way to achieve this. It really depends on what we mean by ‘selflessness’.    One definition would be ‘lacking a self’.   It is possible that very young babies, and the most profoundly autistic people (as opposed to those who are just rather Asperger-ish, like me) do not have a sense of themselves as separate entities from other people and from inanimate objects.   We can’t be sure, because people in this situation aren’t often able to talk about how they think and feel. I do know one man who is both autistic and schizophrenic, but articulate enough to talk about having little sense of self.   He says that he does not ...

This is a copy of my blog about doing the  Big Issue BigStep Challenge  to raise money for the Big Issue Foundation which helps homeless people.  If you want to donate, please go to this site . Saturday 15 th September 2018 One drawback to long walks like yesterday's is that they make short walks seem a bit tame for comparison. This morning I knew I wasn't ready to do another all-day walk, but just wandering round Harridge Woods didn't seem like much of an adventure. Fortunately, my Beloved Partner needed to go to Wookey anyway, so I suggested that we should drive in together have lunch at the Hub, and he should leave me to walk home on my own. I took the opportunity, while passing through Wells, to pick up a greetings card for apologising to a friend I had badly upset . After some thought, I chose one with the motto, 'In alcohol's defense, I've done some pretty stupid stuff while completely sober.' This seemed a reasonable assessment of most of...

This is a copy of my blog about doing the Big Issue BigStep Challenge  to raise money for the Big Issue Foundation which helps homeless people.  If you want to donate, please go to this site . Friday 14 th September 2018 Today I got off to a fairly late start, at about 10.40, but decided to see whether it was possible to get into Wells by 7.30 in the evening. In the past, when my Beloved Partner and I had walked from our house to Wells (admittedly in the heat of summer, when we kept pausing to take breaks), it had taken most of the day. This time, as it was a moist day, I decided to walk along the roads rather than across fields of wet grass, going through Oakhill and then along Old Frome Road. This turned out to be so much faster (whether because it involved less slogging over rough ground, or because it was so simple to follow a road that I didn't have to keep stopping to consult my map), I arrived in Wells in three hours, by 1.40, even allowing for stopping to ...

This is a copy of my blog about doing the Big Issue BigStep Challenge  to raise money for the Big Issue Foundation  which helps homeless people.  If you want to donate, please go to this site . Tuesday 11 th September 2018 Today wasn't scheduled to be an all-day walking day, as I had various other things I ought to get on with. So I walked up to the pharmacist in Oakhill to collect a prescription, went to the coffee morning and had a pleasant time chatting to friends and eating cake there, walked home, spent the afternoon getting on with washing-up, laundry, playing Scrabble with my Beloved Partner, and relaxing after yesterday's exertion, and walked up to choir practice in the evening. I still felt a bit tired by the time I walked home from choir, but this was more to do with the emotional effect of practising Christmas carols, and the fact that we finished later than I usually go to bed, rather than the effect of the walk itself. Wednesday 12 th September 201...

This is a copy of my blog about doing the   Big Issue BigStep Challenge  to raise money for the Big Issue Foundation  which helps homeless people.   If you want to donate, please go to this site . Sunday 9 th September 2018 I know the Big Step Challenge doesn't start until tomorrow, but I thought I'd try to get in practice by walking up to a neighbouring village, Gurney Slade, for a treasure hunt inspired by the 1960s television show TheStrange World Of Gurney Slade . After my Beloved Partner and I had walked around Gurney Slade and Binegar, picking up clues, we returned to the village hall for tea and cake and a chance to watch The Strange World Of GurneySlade itself.   This was a comedy about a character (called, not surprisingly, Gurney Slade – I’ve always said that Somerset place names ought to be fictional characters) who escapes from a television series and sets out to explore the real world, only to discover that the camera crew are still track...

First, the minor confession.   Having resolved last week not only to do a sponsored walk, but to remind myself what poverty felt like by doing it on £1 worth of food per day, I am now going to backtrack on the peanut-butter sandwich diet.   This is because I have a lot of fresh food that needs using up. And the reason for this is the major confession.   Having invited a friend to stay for the weekend, I had driven him away by Friday afternoon. In the three years that we have known each other, my Beloved Partner has noticed a pattern among my friends, at least the ones who are single and childless.   Quite a few of them are (like me) rather emotionally brittle.   Quite a few (like me) aren’t very good at dealing with social situations.   The friend who came to stay on Friday morning, and left Friday afternoon, was someone I had met about twelve years ago while spending a few months working in Leeds.   Since then, he had visited me a few tim...

In January, my beloved partner and I (hereafter referred to as the Beloved) wondered whether to make any New Year’s Resolutions.   I planned to start driving lessons, as rural Somerset isn’t the ideal place to rely on public transport.   The Beloved needed to look for a job (he is an engineering consultant, but had been between contracts while completing a degree course, doing voluntary work, and supporting his elderly father).   He also still needed to empty and sell the house he used to live in, having been gradually moving house for several years, one car-load at a time. However, the only specific Resolution we made was to go for at least a short walk every day, and at least one long walk per week.   It seemed a good way to get fit, and to make the most of the wonder of being in Somerset.   We agreed that most of the walks ought to be local ones, to avoid wasting petrol – and after all, with the wonderful patchwork of woods, fields and limestone hills rig...