...to World Autism Acceptance Week 2024. So from Tuesday 2nd April get ready for 7 days of rambles, rants and vaguely amusing tales of an Ash-based Autistic nature that may contain embarrassing cult movie mentions and pictures of dodgy haircuts but mainly old stuff repurposed for those new to my blog but with a wee bit of newness too....work/life permitting. You have been warned.....    

  It's been one of those rare weeks that mixes bloody brilliant with utter shite...the massive highs and lows have hit so hard that I'm at barely functional Friday...gotta love Autistic burnout. Have an adequate weekend all.  

As regular readers may remember, alongside the whole ongoing Social Work saga (which it appears may be almost sorted as far as the girls are concerned thanks to a particularly fab Social Worker we have for them - see? I can be nice occasionally) we've had a rather annoying situation regarding house repairs. You see just before lockdown (!) we found a teensy tiny leak in our bathroom which we reported to our housing officer who then promptly forgot about it....cue 4 odd years of an occasional visit to see where it is (example: "It might be the boiler" - checks boiler - "No it's not but I'm just a boiler guy so I'll have to send someone else!") culminating in a now collapsing kitchen floor, wobbly toilet and water pressure so low that the shower and washing machine don't work. Joy. Anyway a month or so ago - thanks to our local MP Carol Monaghan - a housing rep finally got in touch, visited and promptly got the ball rolling for repairs. Brilliant, ...

  When one of the Autistic kids in the house only drinks one thing and Morrisons decide to revamp the packaging....    

  Bought a new Batmobile today then find this trending.... HOW DO THEY KNOW???  

I've posted (OK taken the piss) before about the whole Billy Bollocks buzzword soup that is neurodivergent and neurodiversity and the like and how (almost) no-one actually understands what it actually means and why just using actual words rather than new fangled descriptors can be not only confusing but actually a wee bit embarrassing at times. For example, in our house 4 out of 5 of us are Autistic, so the 'neurotypical' member of the family is actually the 'neurodivergent' one. See how asking 'How many Autistics are in the house?' is so much easier? And then you get (well meaning yet ultimately foolish) folk who use the word 'neurodiverse' when talking about Autistic people (and others) without realising that 'neurodiverse' actually just means everybody. Your organisation is neurodiverse friendly? Brilliant, that just means that people can use it. Which is a pretty low bar if I'm honest. That'd be where the word neurodivergent would...