April is one of my favourite months. It’s the time of year when we can be pretty sure that winter is over, and there’s Easter – not just about chocolate, but about a celebration of life returning as trees green over, there are lambs in the fields and birds are nesting and in my part of the world there is so much apple blossom.
We also take time to consider those of us who are on the Autism spectrum. Autism Awareness Day was on April 2nd, but this whole month we will be sharing facts and being mindful as part of R. J. Scott’s annual Autism Awareness blog hop.
At least 1% of the population of the world is somewhere on the spectrum, which in number terms for the UK means almost 700,000 people, and if you consider families and close associates too that means that for nearly 3 million people autism is just a part of their daily life.
For more blog posts, please click on the graphic above or one of the links like this one. I believe there will be gifts available from some of your very favourite authors. Since I don’t have much to offer at the moment, please leave a comment and I’ll pick a winner to receive a gift card.
Happy April. Stay home and stay safe.
The rhythm was always there, underlying everything.
Once Anna was a communications specialist with several UK government departments. These days she’s thankfully free of all that, and writing full time. Anna lives in the depths of the Nottinghamshire countryside with her husband and the Deputy Editor, aka Molly the cockapoo, who’s supported by Mavis the Assistant Editor, a Yorkie-Bichon cross with a bark several times bigger than she is but with no opinion whatsoever on the placement of semi-colons.
This is quite hard to establish. Children’s toys need to be small, portable and, usually, organic – soft and cuddly with no sharp edges. Sadly organic things tend not to survive for very long so we are left with more robust materials, ie harder to work, more valuable, more highly prized. Such valuable items in metal, stone or wood have usually been attributed either to use or ritual. If one digs up a human figurine painstakingly carved from stone or bone can one say for certain that it’s a votive offering to the gods – or a dolly?
Sometimes we’re lucky and not only find objects, but also find illustrative material. It seems that grooved clay discs that were initially assumed to be parts of a loom are actually yoyos.
Elin Gregory 