Sara Cheeld

@Colchesterviews And today’s date is?

@CrazyVibes_1 ❤️

My son hasn't spoken at school in four months. Complete selective mutism since the kids started calling him "the weird craft boy" who makes things instead of playing sports at recess. He's eleven and autistic, and art class used to be the only place he felt safe until his teacher told him his projects were "too babyish for middle school." He stopped making anything, stopped talking about his ideas, just came home every day and disappeared into his room with the door closed. Last week he was watching me work on snowman decorations for my online shop, these whimsical couples I make and sell for people's holiday mantels. Didn't say anything, just sat on the couch observing while I hot-glued fabric scarves and painted faces. Then two days ago I came home from work and found him in the garage surrounded by foam balls and fabric scraps he'd pulled from my supply bins, hands covered in paint, completely absorbed in creating these two figures. He'd been working for six hours straight without stopping, something he hasn't done since his teacher destroyed his confidence. He made himself and his little sister. The boy snowman has the same serious expression my son gets when he's concentrating, the same careful attention to detail in every button and hat decoration. The girl snowman is wearing pink because that's all his sister will wear lately, has flowers on her scarf because she picks dandelions for him every day after school. This is his first complete project since September, the first thing he's made that wasn't for a grade or an assignment, just pure creation because he wanted to express something he couldn't say with words. When he finished he asked if people would think they were stupid, if kids at school would make fun of them like they make fun of everything else he makes. I told him they were incredible and he needed to see that I wasn't just saying it because I'm his mom. He finally agreed to let me post this after two days of me begging, but he's been refreshing my phone every ten minutes checking for comments, needing to know if anyone besides me thinks he's talented. I buy a lot of my supplies from other crafters online, and I keep showing him their work trying to prove that handmade art matters, that people value things made with this much heart and skill. So what do you think? He's reading over my shoulder right now, hands still shaking slightly, waiting to see if anyone else sees what I see. Credit - Katie Thomson

@IronBornJonny @Fennerby @JohannLamont Yes but my point was that it’s a very small minority making all the noise

Girlguiding decision important yet it all makes me sad. The Guides meant so much to me but the announcement is so grudging, so reluctant, so concerned about the impact on boys, I wonder if it can ever again give girls the brilliant, confidence building space in which I thrived.

@Thebestfigen Beaver

Can anyone help identify what this is…?

@LucyHunterB Every word. I was so disappointed to see so few at the top have any day to day or even week to week connection with the ‘grass roots’ unit level of leaders and young members.

@Fennerby @JohannLamont The comments also make it sound like units are over-run with boys who want to be girls - they’re not, but the minority are always the loudest. The vast majority of local guiding is a safe space for girls to grow and be themselves.

@JohannLamont Their statement was awful but it is the volunteers who make or break the girlguiding experience not the stupidity of the organisation’s leadership group.

@Real_RobN Do the American people really believe this 💩

This is: The Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem: The Democrats picked up over 700,000 illegal aliens from all over the world, put them on private jets, and escorted them to the city of their choice at the taxpayers’ expense—including luxury hotels, sex-change operations, and paid airfare—to move them from one Democrat city to another to evade law enforcement for rape, murderer and pedophilia.

@alphafox Not a problem if they put the ‘skirts’ on the lights. Our streets in Essex go from light to dark to light to dark along the roads - makes it very difficult to see pedestrians. Plus LED headlights exacerbate it & make driving at night very challenging.

Thanks @Barclays for totally disconnecting me by cancelling my membership number then trying to put it right by sending online chat. Muppets.

@Artemisfornow @sharrond62 First the farmers, now allotments - home grown food is under threat. We have many happy, healthy allottment holders round here.

🚨 Angela Rayner has given councils permission to sell off allotments to raise money. 8 sell offs of ancient rights have happened so far, including to build houses. The history of allotments goes back to the 1500s and is tied deeply to land access, food security, and social reform, it’s an ancient right. It’s the bedrock of the right to grow your own food on shared land. But Labour doesn’t care about citizens’ rights…. Not even our ancient ones 🔥

How are you feeling right now? Reply with just a gif.. #BBCCricket #ENGvIND

@HighwaysSEAST @HighwaysEAST @DartCharge So far taken us 30+ minutes to travel up the slip road from the A2 eastbound. Not going to hold my breath

@DartCharge We've cleared the broken down motorhome and #A282 northbound #EastBoreTunnel is OPEN. Please allow time for delays to ease. Approx. 7 miles of congestion remains in place. @DartCharge

The #A282 northbound #EastBoreTunnel is closed due to a broekn down vehicle. Delays in excess of 1 hour on approach to the tunnels. Traffic is being diverted via #WestBoreTunnel @DartCharge

@SocialistNHS 🧡

The Government wants Resident Doctors to believe they have no support If you support striking Doctors in their demand for pay restoration and fair treatment reply with a 🧡 #OurNHS

@Colchesterviews Missed the carnival but visited the always excellent Farmers Market with extra stalls that was sadly under-advertised.

Did you go to the #Colchester carnival today, we did not. Received a few messages about it, but just wanted to ask you, your opinion. How was it????

@Heccles94 I would also connect it to the need to run up huge debts training. The old scheme where student nurses learned on the wards worked fine.

Nursing applications at an all time low this year after years of decline. 📉 Could it be connect to the years of pay erosion? 🤷 #FairPayForNursing

@StephensTe92994 @yellowchair4 @KateBMwriting @Girlguiding So pleased. It’s what we aim for at my unit - and we have 50 girls. What we need are adult volunteers who also want to give young women their own space to grow and develop their best self

@SaraCheeld @yellowchair4 @KateBMwriting @Girlguiding My daughter has had brilliant experiences thanks to the volunteers who run her unit. Lots of craft, cooking and outdoor activities and no ideology.

Girl guiding rounds off Pride month with a celebration of well known ‘woman’ Marsha P Johnson and then goes on to list 23 other women - of which FIVE are men.

@yellowchair4 @KateBMwriting @Girlguiding Thank you for recognising that those of us running the weekly meetings are not ‘pushing this agenda’. Each Guide is an individual negotiating their journey to womanhood.

@KateBMwriting @girlGuiding must have some serious TRAs in their head office or they are simply very thick. Meanwhile the poor volunteers doing the good work have to try their best to ignore the constant indoctrination attempts on the young girls they care about.

@sharrond62 Brilliantly and accurately observed.

Observation…if sex is a spectrum (it’s not & non binary doesn’t exist) why do trans identifying men always identify as transwomen? Or vice versa. Like there’s only 2 choices? Which of course there is really. Even people with a DSD are still male or female. The whole thing is stereotypes of society’s ever narrowing version of femininity or masculinity but really there’s infinite ways to express ourselves, but that’s not biological sex, that’s personality. It’s regressive to suggest cloths, hairstyles or make-up makeup a sex. Biological reality is our sex. It’s not changeable. We can’t pick it! Presentation is personal & unique & real progress supports that - not telling a sporty short haired competitive young girls who loved kicking a ball around with the boys, she’s born in the wrong body! She’s born in her body. The only one she’ll ever get. And it needs loving & looking after. Away from medical intervention that makes the pharmaceutical industry ever richer, puberty blockers & cross sex hormones that will very likely shorten her life & most definitely harm her physical health & very probably her mental health as she struggles against reality & worst, becomes a life long medical patient:customer with a ‘once’ perfect body she destroyed with regrets. Progression is appreciating who we are not trying to be someone else, that’s doomed to failure ultimately. I’m so glad I grew up in the 70s & 80s when we were told to be unique & individual. Music bands full of boys wearing make up & dresses, crazy wild cloths & girls with elfin hair, flat chests & doc Martins, whilst feisty women were encouraged to break down the patriarchy & achieve incredible things in jobs once never open to them. We are regressing.. by suggesting we must all fit into stereotypical moulds, but worse still by enabling predatory men to access women’s intimate spaces we are putting more & more women at risk. When women already suffer abuse & death every single week just because they are women. I’m 100% sure in years to come we will look back at this period in history with utter horror & disbelief. But I for one can at least say I didn’t stay quiet & just let it happen because it’s always the vulnerable who pay the biggest price, gay & autistic children, children in foster care or who feel ostracised - all massively over represented as identifying as trans. Trying to find their place. Thinking this will fix their anxieties. And don’t forget the other group - middle aged men with a predatory fetish desperate to access women’s spaces & force women to comply! Determined to take as many pictures as they can in women’s toilets & changing rooms. DOJ figures (below) show us that. The world’s media continue to ignore the actual statistics & inconvenient facts! They have played the very worst part in all of this… virtue signalling deliberately bias & ignorant, along with some evil but now rich dr’s who I hope one day will end up in prison. Remember the part you played, pro, against or head down & hope it goes away. Bad things happen when good people stay quiet! The tide is turning. Common sense is returning, please keep the pressure on, for our young people & particularly our girls. There’s no full coming back from heavy testosterone use as a female & our sporty girls also deserve their place in the history books, just like the boys still get.

🚨 Attention all river polluters! 🚨 👩‍⚖️ If you fail our rivers, we will take you to court. If you're a mismanaged water company, a regulator asleep at the wheel, or a council rubber-stamping pollution. This is your warning❗️ Do not fail our rivers. We are watching. 👀 Please repost, so that all polluters can hear this message. @ChrisGPackham #ChokedbyChicken #RiverPollution #ChrisPackham #Rivers #LegalAction