One of the griefs of living with autism is that it is so terrifyingly easy to lose things – aspects of family life – and generally impossible to get them back. Jack loves films and, until an incident a few years back, this included watching films at the cinema. Our local cinemas did special ‘kid’s club’ showings at reduced prices and Nick took the three children almost every week. I used the uninterrupted chunk of time to fold laundry while listening to Radio 4, soeveryone was happy. Then one week, there was a trailer, for a light-hearted comedy called ‘Night at the Museum’. And the thing is, even though the film is a comedy, the trailer was scary… so, in spite of all encouragement, Jack hasn’t darkened the door of a cinema since. Then a couple of months after we moved to Blackheath, Nick tried to get Jack off the train at Lewisham, where there is a huge gap between the train and the platform, rather than going through to Blackheath, where it is only a few inches. And just like that we lost trains. Yesterday we lost eating in restaurants as a family. Jack has never been that patient with the bit where you are sitting in the restaurant but no food as arrived – and at one point I knew how to say ‘please bring hot chips quickly’ in several different languages – but yesterday it became clear (I won’t go into the painful details) that Jack can no longer tolerate restaurants at all. 🙁
Jack woke me at 4:30 a.m. chatting to himself on the balcony. Fortunately Jack and I are the only light sleepers in the family, so Nick and the two younger ones slept on oblivious. By 0530 I had given up on getting back to sleep and was out on the beach with the camera by 6 a.m. hoping to photograph the sunrise. Unfortunately it turns out that the sun neither rises nor sets in Maiori – it comes coyly up behind one set of cliffs and goes demurely down behind the other. The light was quite nice so I took some pics which might be ok – if so I’ll post them later. Back to the room for Level 2 Chi Kung and the microcosmic orbit. Took the bus to Minori, the next little town along the coast. Possibly the most expensive bus trip in the world: Euro 2.50 for a journey of 1km – took about 3 minutes. I could of course easily have walked – except that the twisty mountain roads have no footpaths, so one has to walk on the side of the (very narrow) road, and hope that the crazy drivers don’t run you down. Had a look around the town, my progress largely dictated by the need to a) find shade and b) avoid getting run over. And yes I really do mean in that order – today was hot, hot, hot! Wandered around a brilliantly preserved 2000 year old villa, had an amazing cake at Sal de Riso (http://www.salderiso.it/it/le_mie_creazioni/la_pasticceria) then home for a nap before taking Dash and Katie swimming in the sea in the early evening.