Beyond Boundaries 3

I haven't been posting of late mostly because I'm so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. So you will notice that some of my postings are a bit late. But hey, better late than never huh?!

So who saw last months Beyond Boundaries? You may recall and even look back and see that last year I was quite critical of it then. It seemed it just didn't work then, and that the BBC had contrived to make it as confrontational as possible.

Fortunately this year was a lot different I felt anyway. A group of young people with ages ranging from 16-21 roughly was an eye opener at times. Despite the commentary doing its best to inject some drama and conflict into the adventure, for the most part they worked pretty well as a group, and all but one made it to the end. So I wonder does this mean that you are more resilient if you have a disability at a younger age? Perhaps so. I tend to think this way although there is no obvious right or wrong to this answer. Ive come across and known a variety of disabled people of all ages and the younger ones and the ones who were born with their condition invariably seem more positive and more life affirming. I'm sure that people who do become disabled later in their lives end up looking back down the road of their past lives and find they cannot cope or adapt to their new situations. Many don't accept their lives and some have chips so large they end up with a bag of potatoes on their shoulders. I understand this, really I do. But what I don't understand is the constant wishing for the past, for we can never turn back the clock.

So all in all I think that Beyond Boundaries 3 was very good and perhaps a tad inspirational , without wishing to sound patronising.

Lost

Ive learned the hard way... never, ever ever, remove the axle pins from your wheels. Just don't do it, because it will end in tears.

As we were leaving Liverpool, with the car crammed over full my husband was wrestling with my wheels, trying in vain to get them anywhere. The thing is, the axle pins stick out and as a result you always need more space than you think, just to accommodate this. So I foolishly foolishly suggested he remove the pins and then he could slide the wheels in. Easy and hey presto it worked. Only that was the last time I ever saw them. They have completely and utterly vanished, as if they have slipped through the ether into another universe, gone, vanished without a trace. We ransacked the car and checked the luggage and went through every pocket my husband has with no luck. Nothing. So at the moment I have a chair I cant use and the pins in my other chair just don't fit by about a millimetre or 2. The just don't click in properly. Typical. So I'm going to have to bite the bullet at some pint and order some more. Looks like its going to cost me about £70 from RGK for the pair. I'm not amused.

The Revolving Door

Despite lifes surprises over the last few years, I’ve always tried to maintain a certain level of dignity or could that really be vanity and pride in disguise? To be honest I give off a certain level of smugness when talking to friends. ‘Fallen out of my chair, in public? Oh no, not me, I’ve never done that....’ I say with a Mona Lisa smile. Granted Ive fallen at home many times with a crash, and yes I did do a back flip against the back door and got stuck between the bin and the recycling..... but no one apart from my husband has ever seen it, because I always brush down very well and sail onwards as if nothings happened.
Of course all good things come to an end eventually, and so my enviable record of not humiliating myself in public bade a final farewell on a recent trip to Liverpool. I’d booked a room at the Crowne Plaza, Liverpool’s premier hotel so I’m told and indeed the Concierge did meet us on arrival and took our bags up to our room. About an hour later we were to be found getting refreshments in the lounge area and it was then my husband realised we had left something vital in the car. ‘Don’t worry’ I said ‘Ill pop out and get it.’ Now, the Crowne Plaza has a revolving door. Not a big revolving door, nor is it a fast revolving door, in fact as revolving doors go its fairly unremarkable. I can tell you I’ve happily negotiated much more challenging revolving doors with ease, so its all the more galling that I got caught out on the one that seemed the most innocuous. Within about 2 seconds of entering the door I got that sudden horrible feeling you get just before you flip over. There’s a mad scramble to grab anything in a vain effort to stop gravity doing its worst, but by now its no good, once you’re gone, you’re gone. With a whack on the back of my head, I was on the floor, only in this case I wasn’t quite on the floor as the space wasn’t large enough. I was actually jammed a couple of inches from the floor with my legs dangling over my head and my backside flying high. As I said before I have a thing about dignity, which is funny because I guess it saw me coming and ran through the revolving door without waiting for me. Within seconds, 3 men appeared, one squeezed into the door with me and then the 3 of them pulled me up and vertical again. You can imagine I was feeling so very ‘dignified’, my face, burning with embarrassment. I felt very stupid, how it happened I shall never know but needless to say my husband was totally oblivious to the whole incident as is usual and I nursed the brusies for a week. As for my smugness, lets just say its something I no longer indulge in, a bad habit best forgotten!

K4

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..................Snore, Oh what? Hmm let me see. Oh yes time I woke up and wrote a new entry I guess. So given that I will be doing Olympic Sleeping this year in Beijing, what else is new with me? Well first of all Im getting a new chair. Thats right a brand new, spanking -just for me- one. How come you might wonder? Well I got a call from Wheelchair services to go and see them. It was I must admit a bit of a surprise, but I went off to Hexham thinking I might get a voucher for a few hundred squid if I was lucky. So the lady who runs wheelchair services there, single handedly I might add had arranged some nice men to come along and suggest a few chairs to me. In the end they said would you like the Kuschall K4 or The Airlite, and as if by magic a couple appeared. So I picked both of them up and twirled them around a bit and decided that to be really honest I couldnt tell the difference in weight, so decided on the K4 in green with BLACK tyres please. So thats what Im getting, waiting time 3 to 8 weeks. That was 3 weeks ago so Im hoping it will turn up within the month now.

You see the NHS can supply the right thing sometimes, its just a pity I get it and someone living 20 miles west of me wont.

A Time goes By.

Crikey, its getting on for a month since I last posted anything. You must have thought Id done an Agatha Christie or something. Thing is my life is unfeasibly busy at the moment, for no real reason I can actually fathom. Being the token disabled person up here means I go to a lot of meetings......always good for a lunch I say! And in between that I'm juggling all those parental activities, plus being a wonderful hostess to everyone who decides to visit. I also seem to be running a Chinese laundry as I have endless amounts of washing to do, so if I find I'm not busy (!!!) then there is always some washing to be getting on with. Surely I think to myself this cant be all ours can it?

So 8.30 rolls round and by this time I am slumped in front of Euro 2008 staring at the screen but not exactly watching it. By 9.30 I'm pottering off to bed. And to be honest that's my life, bed/house/meeting/bed..... I'm knackered really I am, but I suppose I'm not likely to get any decent sleep for years. Cant wait!