Weekly Update

It’s half term in the UK and so far we have just done the pumpkin patch trip. My youngest son has autism as I’ve mentioned before and can’t deal with too many outside activities. He’s becoming slightly more social which is good. I am also reach burnout fast with “family” events and activities so we work well together.

I binge watched “Haunted”, a new true life series on Netflix. It has a kind of Paranormal Witness format, which I sometimes like. I say sometimes because they can be terrible. This one was in the middle. It’s format is strange. One person tells their story to a group of friends and relatives in a room, with flashes back to re-creations of the events. The first one felt very awkward. It felt like an intervention. All the friends and family looking at him with these stern unbelieving faces, like they were going to drag him off to a mental institution as soon as filming finished. That was “The Woman in White” episode. I think the most horrific part of the stories is how many of them came from abusive backgrounds. He was genuinely distressed by the story. “The Slaughterhouse” took it to a new level and was difficult to believe as a real life story. They lived with serial killer parents! Yet no one reported these murders. You’ve kept this under wraps for most of your life but will tell Netflix…will there be an investigation now? The ghosts are the least of their worries. The boy wandered off half way through and was laughing at me that I watched the whole series. I wouldn’t recommend this series particularly, except if there’s nothing else on and you want to be amused.

In comparison, I watched a British version on Channel 4 called “True Horror”. I enjoyed this much more. The Hellfire Farm episode was very creepy, as was “Terror in the Woods”…the theme of the tall, dark man seems to appear in both these and a completely unrelated true story book I’ve recently read which I found quite interesting. The middle one I had a hard time believing, “Ghost in the Wall”. Googling it today to refresh myself, I found the site of the mum in the story as a “psychic medium”, I feel this episode promoted her business and the idea of the little girl being trapped in the wall…felt so unbelievable. Such tangible evidence of the supernatural and we only have the families say so.

Last night, the boy insisted we try an episode of Riverdale….what did I watch? Are American teens all like this, full make up and witty one liners? Teenagers here in the UK, draw on their eyebrows and barely string a sentence together. Putting the two together, our teenagers would like a bizarre caricature. What’s with the ginger kids? Is it like a ginger version of “Village of the Damned”? Or some very indiscreet reference to them all being related? Is it worth watching? I was actually horrified that The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a spin off….I was actually looking forward to watching that! Please tell me it’s not going to all spell casting mean girls and jocks and token gay characters (Gay? Let’s be best friends) *dying a little inside. 

I’m currently reading, “The Toy Thief” by D.W Gillespie, which I am enjoying immensely and hoping it continues being as good all the way to the end. I look forward to writing a review on it. It’s like a dark coming of age fairy tale.