It was daft of me to plan to have a rest. During the week, I foolishly allowed a plan to develop, because Daniel was supposed to be staying at his dad’s on Saturday night. I was going to drop Daniel off at the play scheme, then have a sports and therapeutic massage followed by an afternoon snooze; I would go to the AA meeting up the road in the evening and then watch the Boxing at 9:00pm on Channel 5 before going to bed and having a lie-in on Sunday morning.
At 5:00pm on Friday evening I received a text from Daniel’s dad: “Hi there, hope all is well,” the text message began, “Bit of a problem tomorrow and Sunday – roads will be closed between 9am and 8pm both days for Rugby Sevens tournament … I can’t see a way to get him here and home again. 82,000 expected throughout both days and it’s an all day event … Sorry but I hadn’t figured on such lengthy disruption.”
Really?
Quickly, I recalculated the plans and decided that I would have to have the massage and snooze on Saturday, and then miss the meeting and have an early night, since I was unlikely to get a lie-in with Daniel at home.
When I looked up the Boxing I found that it was Hughie Fury and not Tyson Fury, so I could miss that; oh well, I reasoned – “early to bed and early to rise” and all that. As it turned out, Mum was able to have Daniel last night, so I could go to the meeting, which I was glad to be able to do, since I took on a sponsee a couple of weeks ago and, this week, it turns out that I have too much on my plate with the Local Authority-no-school situation to have any energy left over. My sponsee was at the meeting, and I was able to tell her. She understood. Nonetheless, possibly due to the massage stirring up energy, I felt incompetent. Similarly, when Tim spoke about learning the Special Educational Needs legislation as he had had to do with their own autistic son years ago, I felt disconsolate for not having taken the time to read through this material before.
Energy deficit. That is what happens. This situation has been foremost for 9 months now and, just when there seemed to be a clear water-surface, with the school that I want Daniel to attend offering him a place, my friend, who knows all about special needs education provision and who had spotted discrepancies in the latest EHCP, recommended that I ‘phone Global Mediation and ask for a Certificate of Mediation, extending my right to appeal the EHCP until the end of June in case, on June 7th, the LA should not name the chosen school on the latest document.
Thus did the ripples spread outwards again on Thursday and, with Charlotte’s help, I managed to secure this document. I now have to wait until the panel meets to find out whether the LA will agree to fund Daniel’s placement at the chosen school.
So when I got the text message from Daniel’s dad about a Rugby tournament so late in the day on Friday, I was reminded of other times when he has simply failed to step up. In 2016, there was a prolonged period during which Daniel’s dad had no contact with him whatsoever.
ASD: on being a special-needs single parent 