Day Six

This post-a-day thing is quite hard work when you're spending up to 12 hours a day doing discourse analysis and editing research designs. Which reeeeeally don't make for interesting blog discussion material.

On the slightly more exciting side of things, I have a walker. This is not because I have given in to society's obsession with staying upright - Mike Oliver sums up how I feel about that, in his fantastic piece What's So Wonderful About Walking? But I'm just not that great at life in a wheelchair. I tip over. I fall out. I have to get out of the chair to do kerbs. I need powered wheels to get up hills. I'm in massive pain in my shoulders after a day of self-propelling (even with the aforementioned powered wheels). I can access nothing, because it hurts to lift the chair up steps (mainly because I need the aforementioned powered wheels, but not entirely). I tip over again. I fall out again. Yes, it's partly because I've only been using it about three years, but it's also because I'm dyspraxic, have crappy useless muscles thanks to FMS, and am generally a bit rubbish. I don't intend to stop using my wheelchair, by any means, but I like having a choice of mobility aids. One day, when I am very rich, I will have a garage full of them. I'm well on the way - I'm already getting on for a hallway full.

And that's the last time I *ever* give that explanation, because I don't have to explain my mobility-aid choices, and I'm tired of feeling like I do. Hurrah for self-determination and confidence in myself! (I give it a week.)

Anyway, I went for a (very) little walk in the rain. Which was probably rather dangerous, now that I think about it. But it was much fun, and I made it to the little cafe that's nearby, and had a cuppa before going home again.

Must go - Hamish the Little Girl Dwarf Hamster is running around very loudly in her mouse-sized wheel, and I'm taking every opportunity I can to persuade her that I am a non-scary person whose hand she can sit in. She hasn't yet decided whether I am Friend. She's been living with me for about three weeks. She'd better figure it out soon.