Eternal Valentine

Love in an autism home means something different to the rest of the world. It means hassling your little bro for attention when he won’t play with you. It means finishing your homework and then doing his homework and speech therapy with him just so you can spend time together. Watching the same movie/scene over

21 and Atypical: Happy Birthday Steph🍾🍰

Stephanos is 21 years old today! Just like his bestie, he won’t be preoccupied with this day. His birthday will serve as a reminder to his family of how far he has come and how many Steph milestones he has reached. A birthday is too typical to be atypical like our boys. Stephanos won’t get

The beach at Christmas

We are in Sri Lanka again this year for Christmas. Christos has not joined us but we spend 90% of the time imagining he was here, talking about what he would be doing (and eating) if he was and missing him so so much. Everywhere we go we are asked about him. The people of

Hope in Poo

(One of) my New Year’s resolutions was to read more non-fiction books. I just finished a book about Pablo Escobar and now I’ve moved on to a nurse’s recollection of what it was like to be a nurse in the 50’s. Both post-war Colombia and post-war Britain made the current politics scene more real than

When Will We Learn?

I’m not going to write about the atrocity that was the US Election – here’s what i felt a year ago #Project324 Trump, Republicans and Disabilities, oh my. I’m going to write about hope, the future. I’m going to remind you that you can change things, that you need to be strong in the face of

The end of Chapter 3

Earlier this week I found out that i have finally passed my Legal Practice Course; an LPC is the vocational stage of training to be a solicitor that must be taken after completing a law degree and before practicing. This means that after 8 years of being a law student, I am done. I was trying

School bells

Memories. I have recently become more aware of the fact that i have blocked large chunks of my childhood and school life from my memory. There are things I don’t want to remember so at some point in my adult life i decided to put all those years in a black box and bury it

Summery Blue Balloons

A couple of posts ago I gave you a glimpse into my version of the world of Silver Linings: Silver Linings is a world we have created. In my head, it has very high ceilings and no stairs, or chairs or anything you can climb on. The silver linings are like balloons that deflate just a

#Project324 Team

When my family and I came up with the idea for #Project324 I thought I would never be able to find people in 18 countries, and if I did would they be willing to help? Now that I’ve sent off their thank you presents I’d like to say thank you to each and everyone who

1,000,000 blue balloons

Earlier this year 7,000 people, including teachers (and myself), wrote to Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, requesting that autism be included in the ongoing review of the initial teacher training framework in England. In response to a question posed during Prime Minister’s Questions recently, Chancellor George Osborne confirmed the Government’s intentions to make autism a