Places to go, people to see...

It's the time of year for making New Year's Resolutions but I don't generally follow the crowd on these things. I made my New Year's Resolution last year in May, when I got back from the Norwegian Fjords and realised I was the heaviest I had ever been. Fortunately, just as I was working out how to get healthy and lose some weight, along came the BBC with their Get Inspired challenge and I did. Their challenge inspired me to set some short term goals and start working towards them.

So it's the beginning of 2017 and I'm not making resolutions. 2016 was quite a tough year in some ways. Hardest of all was losing Neil's dad and my childhood best friend in April. I guess you'd have to be quite a tough cookie for deaths not to prompt some degree of reflection. Although we would have liked Neil's dad to keep going for another decade or two, he was an older man who had seen the world and done a lot of stuff. He had children and grandchildren, who all loved him very much. My friend, on the other hand, died young. She left behind young children and never got as far as grandchildren. It was yet another reminder that we really have no idea what's just around the corner.

So with that thought in mind, and knowing how easily time slips away, I've been thinking about what I really want to do during 2017. Mostly, it's really simple stuff... nothing amazing. And these are in no particular order.

Places to go:

1. Rother Valley Country Park - one of many local places that we haven't been yet.
2. Cairngorms, Scotland - I'd like to go skiing there sometime.
3. The beach - probably Scarborough - I want to take a rug and sit on the beach and paddle in the sea. I haven't done that for years!
4. A European capital that I haven't been to yet. It doesn't matter which one. It would just be nice to see somewhere new.

Things to do:

1. Sitski without tethers. My goal is to be able to use a lift by myself, get myself ready to ski and then ski down without needing any help. 
2. Find something that I can do to serve the church. I miss being an active member of the community and would like to feel that I am not someone to be looked after but someone who has a lot to give.
3. Finish my Masters degree. All being well, I should complete it in October, if everything goes to plan.
4. Improve my photography skills. I did a course last year so I know how to use my camera properly. It's just a matter of practice now and being more observant.

People to see:

1. Family and friends. As much as possible, I want to take every opportunity to spend time with the people I love. You just never know when something might happen and I don't want to regret losing touch with anyone.
2. I'd like to meet other disabled people who are into sport. I'd like to talk to someone who has inspired me and I'd love to ski with Jo Willoughby.
3. I'd also like to be able to help or inspire someone else. That could be in person or online. 

So that's my plan for 2017. Nothing major. Nothing life-changing. First of all though, and most importantly, I'd like to get rid of this nasty cold that's been making me feel so poorly the last few days. I have to say, the Queen has my sympathy. I didn't make it to church on Sunday either and I don't feel like going anywhere... and I'm not 90!

Catch-up from Helsinki and the Humber Bridge

Long weekend in Helsinki

I could write forever about how much I had been looking forward to being back in Finland for a weekend, even though we didn't make it all the way to Oulu. I could bore you with pages and pages about meeting up with friends, which was so wonderful. But what is Helsinki like from an accessibility point of view?

We arrived in Helsinki by train and had planned to walk to the hotel - about 1.5 km towards the harbour. The trains were brilliant! There was one wheelchair accessible carriage on each one, with plenty of space and if you press the lower wheelchair door button, the floor slides out to meet the platform to provide level entry. I thought that was quite impressive.

The city itself has a range of wheelchair unfriendly surfaces, such as cobbles and gravel paths but I knew this before we went, so I took my Freewheel with me and that helped immensely. It was also noticeable how effective my Loopwheels are at taking out some of the bumps. I was very grateful for both!

Also, most of Helsinki is on a hill. I wouldn't say a steep hill, more like a long, slow, consistent hill. It was one of those places where I would have needed to be pushed all the time before I did that BBC challenge thingy. Now though, my arms and shoulders are much stronger and I managed to self-propel for the most part.

Perhaps the things I was less prepared for are more about people. I'd forgotten about the door-holding thing. Finns don't hold doors open. They don't automatically look over their shoulder as they go through the door and see they are being followed and pass the open door to the next person. It's not in their culture like it is in ours. Also, there are less automatic doors in shopping centres and railway stations that there are here. I got the feeling that there's a basic assumption that a wheelchair user wouldn't be out on their own... and actually I didn't see a single other self-propeller all weekend.

What made me a little more sad was that children looked at me with a very suspicious look. I couldn't work out whether they were scared of me or just unsure of what I was. If I'd got a euro for every frowning child that stepped back and hid behind their parent, I could afford another visit very soon. Thankfully, our friends' kids weren't like that and we had a great afternoon with them!

Humber Bridge Santa Run

Last Sunday, me, Neil and the boys and my sister and her girls did the Canine Partners fun run across the Humber Bridge and back. I've wanted to cross the bridge as a pedestrian for ages but never got round to it, so I was very excited.

Neil had warned me but I hadn't really believed him... the bridge is quite a hill until you get to the middle. Of course then it's still a hill but going down! I paced myself well and managed to do the whole thing unaided, except for the ramp up to the bridge, which was so steep I'd have gone over backwards without Neil there.

It was lovely to be part of a proper event, fantastic to cross the bridge and take in the views up the Humber estuary, and great to cross the finish line with my niece. We ended up going ahead of the rest of the family and she jogged the return crossing with me.

Adaptive skiing lesson 6

It was really busy last evening, when I had my 6th lesson! The slope was partially cordoned off for freestyle stuff - jumps and pipes - so parts of the slope were quite narrow. The combination of obstacles, a lot of people and lots of lumps and bumps in the snow made for a challenging lesson.

Adam had got the new lift pull working and it is much better than the old system! In the video, when I'm at the top, you can just see a yellow strap, lying loose around my legs. That is what now pulls me up the lift. When we get to the top, there's a catch on the handles at the back and Adam just pulls it (like a bike brake) and off it pops. Unlike the previous system that bursts off and hits you on the head and then has to be totally taken off and carried down, this just reattaches and you can ski down with it in place, ready to get back on the lift.



Thanks to Dan (the only helper to come back a 2nd time) for videoing when it was so busy.

Neil also had a snowboard lesson at the same time as my lesson. He looked to be doing well. He's on the main slope now but mainly from half way. I passed him a few times but I was concentrating on not taking out any kids or crashing into anything, so we didn't chat much.

I've got the hang of moving myself around now. Although I'd feel a little nervous about going up the lift on my own, I'm pretty sure I could get to it and get on by myself. The pull that I would use for getting off is tricky though, so Adam's going to work on some adaptation to make that better. Then, next lesson, the plan is to go at a quieter time and learn to do the bottom half by myself - lift and no tethers. That is a really scary thought but exciting at the same time! It's easy to take risks and just go for it when you know someone has got hold of you but ultimately, I want to ski free.

Adaptive skiing lesson 5

Oh my goodness! I am still on a high from last night's skiing lesson! For the first time, last night, I really believed that one day I will be on the slopes with Neil and the lads, doing my favourite holiday thing.

Let's just go back four years. It was October 2012 and the first slopes had just opened in Levi. The boys were desperate to get out there and I wanted to know whether I would be able to ski at all. So off we went. They bought their ski passes and hit the lifts. I went over to Lastenmaa (children's world) where the slopes are easy. I tried but half way up on the lift, I was in agony and I couldn't ski down. I had no control over my left leg at all and my back and calves were killing! I went back to the car and sat and cried and cried for ages. I felt stupid! People in the third world are starving. We were supporting a friend who had lost both her children as a result of human trafficking. Not being able to ski was really not a big deal. It made no sense. But of all the things I lost through cauda equina syndrome, that was the one that hit me hardest.

So, back to last night. After my last lesson, I felt like I was making some progress and would be able to eventually ski with a ski buddy, on tethers... which is better than nothing. So I started thinking, what would I need to do to ski independently and there are some things I figured I would have to learn to do:

• get into the sitski and fasten myself in
• move myself around on the flat (to get to lifts, etc)
• do the lifts myself

I was really excited when I arrived because Adam showed me a new lift gadget they had bought, which would make the lifts much easier and almost independent. That was great! Except that it wouldn't work, so we had to use the old kit. Shame, but they'll probably fix it for next time.

I had a go at moving myself around before we set off up the lift but I couldn't get the hang of it. When we were at the top, each time though, I practised... and now I can do it! By the end of the lesson, I could move myself forwards and backwards and turn around. 

As usual, I got our extra helper - Dan (I think but I'm awful with names) - who was by far the best helper we've had so far, to video one of my runs. Here it is...

I can't wait for my next lesson! I can really see the possibility of complete independence now. So what else do I want to learn, apart from continuing to practise my turns? Well for independence - as in, no tethers - I've got to think safety. So the next thing I have to learn, is to stop mid-run. If I was on a proper piste and something happened, I would need to be able to stop immediately and help out. I guess the other obvious thing is to be able to get upright again without help if I fall over. 

Got my Freewheel back

You may remember that several months ago (July), my Freewheel broke. Now don't get me wrong, I know that I have a lovely wheelchair that is easy to get around in and I am very grateful for that but having a Freewheel enables me to go further and do things that I can't do easily without it. I know that sometimes things break and have to be fixed or replaced but this just didn't happen as it should and we ended up having to get quite shirty with Recare, who had originally supplied it.

Now that the matter is sorted, we know what went wrong. My Freewheel was originally set up by Recare... by a bloke who no longer works there... but it was set up incorrectly, with a significant missing part, that we knew nothing about. We should perhaps have suspected something when we sent it back and Freewheel (via Recare) apparently accused us of misusing it. Well we got new parts to replace the broken part. We did research online and discovered information about the missing part. Eventually, we contacted Recare and explained what the issue was and eventually agreed with them that they would send a completely new, boxed Freewheel and we would set it up ourselves. Even then, that came with warnings (bordering on threats) about how we would have no comeback if we set it up and it broke again. I think they still thought it was our fault!

Well it came just over a week ago and last weekend, I used it again for the first time. It felt so lovely and smooth. Rough ground was like nothing! We went for a family walk in some of my favourite places that would have been really difficult without it. So I just want to share today that I'm very grateful that I have this dandy little attachment...