Grolly and Ben

We've been away for three weeks. Finding a house sitter (actually, finding the house under all the general summer holiday clutter combined with the camping debris) seemed a little unlikely, and so it was cattery time for our four legged fluffers.

Eschewing the cattery which has contained Grolly reasonably happily in the past, we had a hunt around for somewhere a little larger. The thought of Grolly trying to avoid Benjamin's leaps to the head in a 1m by 2m pen didn't really appeal.

So, deciding they were probably entitled to their own holiday too, we hunted around at the higher end of the cat hotel spectrum. And found a place which had plenty of space for their cat tree and tunnel, and a chap employed to play with the cats all day long. And hoped they'd survive in such close quarters.

I think it's safe to say they did. Not best of friends now, but I haven't heard a single hiss since they returned. Grolly is busy being deeply affectionate, and Benjamin, well, Benjamin is wrestling with the concept of bedding and apparently prefers to climb into the duvet rather than under or over it. It's a disconcerting feeling, to wake up to a purring perambulating lump of duvet under your hand. There are worse starts to the day though; I'll take this!

Tia

Week 3

Collecting the pretty photos now as the rain is due for the rest of the week. Normal service (whatever that is) may be resumed reasonably shortly.

Friendship

It never gets old.

And the morning after...

View from my sleeping bag

Too little connection, too much to talk about, but in the meantime a snapshot from New Wine to show we're all still here.

Mud outside, and now flood inside - ribena scented due to a feed connection error - but friends and fun and God and generally Good Things.

Catch up properly soon,
Tia

Merrily we roll along

After a certain amount of unorthodox use (see earlier blog posts for details), the Little Princess' wheelchair decided to celebrate the end of term by going on strike.

We had, a few weeks ago, overridden its ability to take a holiday by bursting a tyre. Two puncture proof front tyres followed shortly by two puncture proof rear tyres, and it decided it needed a new way of getting a rest.

With fiendish timing, the heavens opened at 3.10 precisely on the last day of term. The one day of term when I collect tLP personally rather than letting the bus bring her home.

We dripped a couple of hundred yards from school, at which point the Tank beeped at us and juddered to a halt. We turned it on, it switched itself off. We switched it on, it limped across a drive and switched off again. Leaving me with no choice but to push the 125kilo chair with 25 kilo child on top, in the pouring rain, all the way home. It's not all that easy, when the road is cambered and the chair has no push handles. And steers from the front. Marvellous.

Still, phoned the company and they cane out within the hour and armed with a standard set of override the off setting instructions. Which didn't work. And so the tank went back to the workshop, its second home.

And it's been there a week, and although they have tried everything to get it working, the part it needs had not arrived from Holland yesterday, and so we aren't going to have it back this weekend. Which is a problem, because we're camping from tomorrow, and although tLP has been building muscles wheeling her manual to the park and back, mud and gravel and manual wheelchairs just don't mix very well. And the lightweight manual has two flat tyres and is just a bit too big, and the heavyweight NHS issue manual she can't push outside for more than 20 yards, and not at all on grass.

An immobile Princess is not a good thing. Natural imperiousness becomes exaggerated to a ridiculous degree. And she's stuck with whoever is willing to push her.

And so, I had a look online to see if I could find something, anything, that would get her mobile again for our week away. And there on eBay sat a little yellow Permobil Koala, the very chair we'd looked at when choosing the Tank (Skwirrel2). With three hours to go, no bids, and a very cheap start.

I bid. I won. And not only did I win it, the previous owner had to drive from Cambridge to London this morning and offered to deliver it to us at silly o'clock. And then apologised, many times, for not having washed it for us. I really don't think he understood when I explained it would be spending the next week in a muddy field.

So there we have it. Mobility for the Princess, fastest eBay delivery ever, and either a back up powerchair for next time the Tank sulks, or else something I'm sure I can put back on eBay and make back what we spent on it.

It isn't perfect; the armrests seem stuck at separate heights, the controller has definitely seen better days, the strap's chewed, and the charger is covered in parcel tape. But tLP is finding it easier to drive around the house, loving how it fits under tables so easily, and has gone off with Grannie to put it through its paces. I suppose I'd better get cracking on the packing.

Tia

Help

How many physios does it take to position a Mog? Two hours later, we have two very nice positions for Mog to work in. Shame we have to dismantle her bed, the sitting room and most of the playroom to achieve them, but nothing good without sacrifice, right?

And meanwhile today's help came in the form of a respite nurse and carer; just look at what you can do to tLP's hair when she's too embarrassed to protest. Now how can I keep her silent long enough to reproduce it?

Tia