Oh well , I got the old voice recognition going again. I have used most of the versions. A lot of money for very little result. It absolutely infuriates me using it because it reminds me of my handicap , I can only type with one hand and I can't even do that ! I am suffering from massive humour failure about this . Well writing this has cheered me up . Nothing like moaning at yourself to realise its not as bad as you think it is . Its bloody worse! Voice recognition is good but you need your own separate space to do it . The speaking can bother the rest of the family . So I have to move around the house to do it which means sometimes moving out of my very comfortable perch in our purpose built study room, or the college room as we call it .

The lads are busy in there at the moment, Clifford with his A Level maths and Miles doing his further maths mocks. He is really rocking with it at last after an initial shock last week. Total respect to the lad , he is doing it all on his own. Few believe this they think I teach him but I don't , never have when I think about it . I facilitate but I don't teach and don't ask me what that means because I only know what I don't do I have a very imperfect understanding of what I do do.

I have very mixed feelings about playing my harmonica. I think it is just a survival thing. When I was 14 I realised I could get nowhere in life because of all the education that I had missed because of all the hospital treatment I had had due to my crippled arm, so I thought that music was a good way to go. For while it was but I completely underestimated my interest in the natural world as well as historical stuff. I only regained my interest from about age 20 on when I was living back in my home town Richmond North Yorkshire and I made friends with a young local history teacher called Tom Owen who worked in Richmond comprehensive School. I am forever grateful to him for boosting my self-esteem and helping me get to York University which I did when I was 30 years old. It was a long journey Tom but I got there.

The point of this, is that now I am nearly 54 years old, still physically handicapped but I have an additional problem which is this annoying RSI and it is a major barrier at the moment to pursuing my goal of becoming a maths teacher. Frustrating because I have home educated my eldest child to a level standard in mathematics and he is doing very well(A mathematics and he is well on to getting an A in further mathematics) but the mathematics Road appears to be closing for me. So I get interested in music again because I feel it is the only thing I can do. It's pathetic. Any job using a computer or any form of inputting with the hand is closed to me. I am practising my harmonica again and hope that I can get into a blues band, set up a duo, trio or band so I can work into my old age which is what I want to do. I am also learning countertenor singing. What I want to do best of all is be a maths teacher in a local Middlesbrough school that would be good for me, my family and the community. There are also quite a few people in the Tees Valley who I have got to know very well and would like to continue to know them for a long time.