It's nearly over thank goodness

I am not looking forward to the new year, that is a meaningless instance to me, I am merely looking forward to the resumption of normality, when shops, banks and offices can be relied upon to be open when you expect them to be. When you do not have to put all manner of plans on hold because the rest of the world has descended into temporary madness.

Actually I am going away as soon as it gets back to normal, on autism business I suppose you might say as I am going to the Uta Frith Festschrift. After that I have some volunteer training to do. One needs to be properly trained of course before one becomes an NAS befriender, even I am not exempt from that for all I might be the most qualified one there.

I am also looking forward to transport being normal (although the fares are going up) and being able to get my landie sorted out with a new clutch.

I also have a number of modifications I want to make to the camping arrangements in my landie that will make it altogether more convenient than it was this Christmas, more storage space, maybe even some space heating.

As for the rest of Autism, well I have no new years resolutions, I will continue to go my own way, and never mind what anyone else says or cares about it.

Lau(w)rence of Wales

Perhaps it is significant that I took a DVD of Lawrence of Arabia with me to watch in the back of my landie on Christmas Eve, a luxury El Aurens would never have enjoyed as I sat with a couple of degrees of frost outside outside watching images of the scorching desert.

I always had Lawrence as an image in my childhood, perhaps because my dad had served in Palestine, Egypt and the Sudan, and was a fluent Arabic speaker himself, who had read "the seven pillars of wisdom", and took me to the movies when David Leans epic came out.

Well Lawrence was born in Wales actually in Tremadog, one of the places I visited yesterday. He lived 46 years to my 51 so far and achieved more than I ever will in that time.

I guess I found the romance of the movie more interesting than the reality, and was taken in by it, as I expect my dad having known the realities of the Bedouin and the desert was also. There was something about the strangeness of Peter O Toole's portrayal that I could identify with, his insubordination, his aloofness, his strange manner notwithstanding the trick with the matches (I burnt myself with my lighter yesterday too –accidentally)

As Sherif Ali played by Omar Sharif said, after the fateful incident of the man El Aurens brought out of the desert “Truly for some men nothing is written unless they write it themselves”

Well Lawrence had a journalist who created his image, and a Movie director of the calibre of David Lean who enlarged upon it decades after his death.

The real Lawrence sought obscurity and the routine of service life after his brief sojourn in the floodlights of fame.

So what is the relevance of this. Well my journey into Wales probably seems more romantic from the outside than the actual experience in the miserable weather and the cold, and the cramped conditions spending the night in the back of my landie, like the difference between the cinematic crossing of the desert in less than half an hours screen time, complete with dramatic soundtrack.

There was no soundtrack to my journey into Wales and just like the cinema, what you get is an edited version of 17 pictures out of 102 taken, for you to enjoy and I hope they were worth the effort.

As for Lawrence, if I had been able to stand next to him, I would tower over him physically, he was only five feet five and weighed a lot less than me, who am no heavyweight.

My Christmas Card

“O Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in your mercy, grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last. Amen.”

My pictures for this year when they arrive.....