Monday’s Blog
It’s amazing when you can get away from the hum drum of daily life that routine can so quickly fly right out of the window! It’s half term and we have decided to take Annie and Lauren away to the beach for the week. For the first half of the week, we will be without Alice – she will be having a few days respite with our friend Louise – so without the need to get up for the routine of medication and catheters, we really are enjoying some lazy days. I’m already wondering how on earth we are going to get back into the swing of it next week when we return to the school run!
Our meal times are all over the place, we are eating when we are hungry rather than at set times. We are enjoying one another’s company and enjoying getting out and about without worrying about accessibility and disabled toilet facilities. Despite this, everywhere we go we can’t help but think about whether we would be able to do each activity with Alice. We very quickly notice that we wouldn’t manage the steep walk down to the beach – as well as the rocky terrain there are a number of steps which would be impossible with the wheelchair. We have not yet once seen a disabled toilet let alone a Changing Places facility.
Our highlight today was taking a boat trip out of the harbour. It was advertised as a boat trip to see the Smugglers Caves. It certainly did not disappoint. The views were spectacular, the commentary from the captain was brilliant. He had so much local knowledge and had a very humorous way of communicating it! We passed some beautiful places such as Hele bay, Rillage Point, Samson’s Cove, and Watermouth Harbour.
After hearing some of the tales of the smugglers we start to reminisce about reading the Famous Five books to Annie and Lauren when they were little. They don’t sit to hear us reading to them anymore. We will look forward to a time when Alice can sit for long enough to hear that kind of story! After all that sea air we were ready to eat again. We stopped at a local pub and enjoyed each others company with no drama over the food. It was strangely quiet.
A Less Ordinary Family Fostering Blog
