Affection

We had a good day today, met up with some friends holidaying from Cambridge who have a severely autistic son and descended on Bigbury en masse for a surf. Archie apparently had the best surf ever with Harry. There were big waves and in-between sets he sat patiently out the back waiting without any fussing. This may have been in part due to him being half asleep having been up from 2am this morning (he was staying with my parents thank God),  but anyhow it led to a good surf. I managed to actually turn the board and ride along the breaking wave for the first time ever, although I had to jump off to avoid someone standing in the way. Louis had a fabulous time, happily falling off and attempting to stand, he was getting  deeper as well tackling waist deep water. Joseph wasn’t so keen on the slightly bigger swell – put him on a stage in front of a thousand people to sing a duet with a household name and he’s relaxed and happy, excited rather than nervous. Crank the swell up to more than a foot and he’s worried. It’s times like today that I’m  aware how much my children really are their own people.

After the surf we headed back to our friend’s holiday apartment. Joseph and Archie messed around on the couch together, Archie really enjoying his brother’s attention. They were snuggled up messing around happily entwined. So often I find that people assume that those with severe autism are incapable of affection and do not desire human contact. In Archie’s case this simply isn’t true. He often settles himself down on my lap and as the photo shows is fond of this brothers and will seek them out to mess around with.