1. It’s supposed to be the hottest day on record in the UK today, we can expect temperatures up to 42C. That is too hot even for me. I hope this is the only reason I can’t be bothered to do anything. Although I have plans to make cold beetroot soup today, Polish speciality for days like this. No cooking required.

2. The Friend is coming tomorrow and I didn’t tidy the spare bedroom. I’m sure she will understand!

3. I finally started wearing short sleeves in hot weather. Do you have a problem with my self harming scars? Well, it’s your problem, not mine. Mind you, what is hot weather for most people in here is definitely not hot enough for me, but we have heatwave now.

4. I wanted to go to the park yesterday but after getting to town centre I decided it’s too hot and too far so I just stayed where I was and occasionally got into shops to cool down.

5. I really can’t be bothered to do anything. Did I already say that? Even watching a film seems like too much effort.

6. I saw this post of Facebook yesterday (yes, I’m back on Facebook but I don’t spend much time there at all, like I used to)

And I thought: yellow heart, green heart and blue heart. If you mix yellow and blue you’ll get green, and green is in the middle so it all makes sense.

I’m not sure why I want things like that to make sense.

7. I had that conversation with John on Sunday evening, that made me wonder once again wether the advice that if you are in any kind of relationship with an autistic person (not necessarily romantic one) every issue needs to be talked through properly, is right. It seemed to me that John is looking to start an argument, which could have been a form of challenging behaviour. He complained about a mini holiday we went for before pandemic. It was a village in Shropshire and we were there for three days. One afternoon, when we planned to go on a country walk it started raining and instead we ended up in a community centre browsing books. But apart from that weather was really nice and we had a great time.

On Sunday, two days ago, John suddenly mentioned that holiday and said weather was horrid. I was really shocked! I wondered for a bit if he possibly read my blog and the post where I analysed his shopping habits irritated him (he says he doesn’t read my blog but then how do I know? He normally reads a lot so it wouldn’t be a problem for him to read a post here or there). I thought there was no point trying to find out what is behind that comment, instead I reassured him that everything is fine in this order 1. Weather in Shropshire was really nice 2. We had nice time there 3. I’d happily go there again (I mean, with him, you know; that means our relationship is good) 4. I changed the subject.

Obviously I don’t know what he was really thinking but the rest of the conversation went ok.

I can see a couple of issues with the advice of explaining everything to us: 1. We are aware that things are only normally being explained when there are serious issues. If issues are minor people don’t explain anything, and they just turn them into a joke or something similar. So if you make an effort to explain minor issues to us, you will likely make us think we did something really, really bad 2. We find it really difficult to explain our own point of view and as a result may feel ignored 3. We will not understand what is going on anyway. I really do on know who came up with the idea that solution to us misinterpretting things is explaining everything 4. Probably some other reasons too, that I can’t think about for now.

And anyway, if we communicate in order to display challenging behaviour, then you can’t really reason with that. Everything that you say can be used against you, sorry! Been there, done that so I know.

8. I decided to keep blogging for now. I just hope I’ll have something new to add at least 5 times a week. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

9. Time to go to the polish shop to get some shredded beetroot and buttermilk for my cold soup.