Categories: uncategorized
Date: 24 July 2011 21:50:15
for messing about on the... well... on the Basingstoke Canal.
Thank you all for your messages of love and support. At work I had to do a map of my support network as part of a training package (to train me to teach other people how to do the same sort of thing) and thought, as I fudged it, how nobody would quite believe the real thing if I were to put on there the people who offer me prayer and virtual hug support. You're an amazing group of people!
It's a rollercoaster at the moment... teenage stuff as all teenagers cope with, but fuelled by so much more. But the good days are good days indeed. And today was a good day. We skived church (I had a special service to go to this evening) and, once I'm managed to unearth him from the morass he calls bed, we hit the road for a day .. OK, a couple of hours... on the canal.
We'd been planning to visit the Basingstoke Canal Visitor Centre for ages, thinking that it looked a nice place to camp. It is indeed (though we didn't camp today). There's a cafe where they do some serious cheesy chips - mmmmmmm - and a walk along the towpath. That was the plan, a walk along the towpath. I spotted the sign for boat trips and thought how pleasant a ride on a canal barge would be, having grown up in the Midlands where a canal ride was a frequent treat, so we wandered across to look at the details.
What followed was an afternoon on the water.
They do cream teas on the canal boat trip. Mmmmmm tempting indeed. A bit expensive though, and you had to be able to round up a group of people to go. Pass.
They had some gorgeous rowing boats. Memories of my student days in Cardiff, rowing on Roath Park Lake, eating a picnic. Memories of a Shipmeet in Oxford punting on the river and eating strawberries. Oh lovely. What a perfect day for that, too, with the sun shining down on the canal water, shimmering through the trees. Quite a romantic plan for a Sunday afternoon, even when spent with one's 14 year old son.
Wrong again.
A pedalo. Yes, a pedalo. An hour on the canal on a pedalo!
And it was brilliant fun :D They're an interesting challenge to steer, and by the end of the hour my poorly knee was rather keen for us to return to dry land, and there was a sort of damp sensation around my feet, back and backside... but it was a delightful afternoon and I thoroughly enjoyed being with the handsome young man my son is becoming.
I miss him when he's taken over by this uncontrollable anger, and your prayers are requested for those times, and for the availability of a GOOD therapist to help him through them (no luck so far on that front - not that he's really willing to accept any help yet). But when he's calm and in control of his emotions, when we're able to do nice things together and be at peace, those times are still fabulous times.
Next time can we have a cream tea on the barge?