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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 30 Oct 2022, 15:18

A collection of foraged mushrooms. All edible???

I am always up at 4.00am or 5.00am, sometimes a lot earlier, or a bit later. I 'do' ... anything between 1 hour and 90 minutes of social media, then return to sleep it off.

Today I transcribed a 53 minute podcast of an American academic discussing why the US eventually sent combat troops to the Western Front in April 1917. This caps, or continues my seven years tenure at The Western Front Association. The US engagement in  #WW1 has been one of several themes I have dug into with the kind of passion only someone with ADHD can muster ... I lasts a few weeks and then I move onto something else, In my case it has been the African American in #WW1, the British Caribbean experience in #WW1, various creatives, artist such as Paul Nash, authors like Richard Adlington (and a dozen others), by way of 3D images,, virtual tours, pension records, photographic archives, Spanish Flu and for the last year ... lessons to be talked about in relation to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, compared to the German Invasion of Belgium/France. 

And then a couple of hours doing a Woodland thing, out under ancient trees: oak, beech, hornbeam with my eyes to the ground and my nose sniffing out stinkers and the pleasant. This started as a year long project to get myself employed by the likes of the Woodl Trust, or National Trust, or the regional National Park ... I do work a few hours for a local nature reserve. So I do get to indulge stories and photos of river courses, streams, fungi, trees in various stages of abundant growth ... 

I have been cooking the occasional mushroom: field mushroom, puffball thingey ... and a porcelain mushroom. Anything else I tread very carefully and have of course acquired three or four physical books, an App and a e-book. I defer to all of these.

And instead of writing this I had set out the dinning room to paint up a collection of life drawing images ... I will be in a life drawing session at Charleston Farmhouse on Tuesday.  I create initial sketches in wax crayon on wallpaper lining paper. I then create something more substantial with them when I get home.

All this, and I have various 'Green' duties: leafletting, door knocking and just being a local councillor. 

And I am just about to vanish off to the swimming pool for 2 1/2 hours of swim coaching, The session plans I create operate by the minute ... I am flexible but like things to tick off by the minute. I want the swimmers to remember, enjoy and engage with the session. It's a performance in a way ... they are the players, I am the writer/director.

Talking of which, lovely to see my friend .... directing Disney Channel Star Wars stuff. 


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Esther Crespo Ruperez

Thank you for sharing your ADHD

It is lovey to read your article. It motivates me to carry on.

Thank you for sharing your ADHD. I am also an ADHD student.