We're Back!
What have we been up to over the last four years? Read on to find out!
It's been over four years since we last posted. Where have we been? What have we been doing? Why are we back? All very good questions!
All the Covid lockdowns pretty much put a stop to our trips and once the lockdowns were over, we found that we'd lost our momentum. We were also a bit anxious about going out and about again, after being stuck at home for so long. We did eventually start doing things again - local visits and a few Opus trips, but nothing like the trips we did before Covid.
What have we been up to?
John had looked into applying for a guide dog. Someone from Guide Dogs had come out to assess him, but unfortunately his application stopped. While out for a walk with someone from Guide Dogs, to look at John's long cane skills, John almost stepped out in front of a bin lorry because he didn't hear it. The person from Guide Dogs was able to prevent John from getting splattered, but also stopped the assessment. The other problem that John has admitted to is that he doesn't know his left from his right. When I'm out with him and I want him to turn left or right; I use Watch Side for left - as he wears his watch on his left wrist and Cane Side for right - as he uses his cane in his right hand. It makes doing the Hokey Cokey interesting - You put your cane side leg in, your cane side leg out...!
Guide Dogs also used to have a service called My Guide. This is where a volunteer would take a visually impaired person out for a few hours. They might go for a walk and get a coffee. Maybe help the visually impaired person purchase a birthday card and write it out for them. Some guides would help the visually impaired person to be able to do a hobby they were interested in. John signed up for the My Guide service and was matched up with someone called Martin. When Guide Dogs decided that they were going to end the My Guide service, John and Martin decided to continue as they had been doing as they had become friends. John and Martin usually go out on Thursday mornings, which gives me a little bit of a break too.
George has somehow become an adult! I'm not old enough to have a child who is now an adult and a 6ft 2 tall giant child at that! Really, I'm not!
In all seriousness though, George has grown up to become a kind and helpful young man, with a very strong interest in computing. He had been in special education since leaving primary school, but for the last two years he's been in a mainstream college doing a computing course. He's going to be continuing at the same college for a few more years, doing some other computing courses.
He still finds some situations difficult - being in crowds of people or around people that he doesn't know, for example, but he has learned to remove himself from situations that make him feel uncomfortable. Meltdowns don't happen so often as they used to, but when they do it's usually me that takes the brunt of it.
George no longer has DAFOs. When he was very young he had Piedro boots, then splints, followed by DAFOs. He now has heel cups instead to hold his feet in the correct position, which just fit into pretty much any shoes. When he was fitted with his first pair of heel cups, the orthotist told me that he was able to have heel cups because we had persevered with all of the corrective foot/leg/ankle items over the years, so it was definitely worth persevering with those. His ankles still bend in slightly with the heel cups, but he's able to walk at least as well as he was with the DAFOs.
As for me, there haven't been any major changes for me. I taught myself how to crochet, using YouTube videos, during lockdown and have made some interesting items! The pictures below show John wearing a Viking hat that I crocheted and George wearing a Christmas tree hat that I crocheted.
The picture on the left shows John with his Viking hat, and George is on the left wearing a Christmas tree hat.
When I've had some spare cash I've also been building Lego sets. I find it quite cathartic and, as a result of my Lego building, I can almost build any kind of flatpack furniture now! The last Lego set that I built was the largest set that Lego currently does, and that was the Eiffel Tower. This stands at around 5ft tall but I have it on a small table, so it's standing at around 6ft6!
We decided to restart our blog again after reading about our past trips and watching some of our old YouTube videos, and realising that we actually miss going out and about.
Our first trip that we have planned is actually a Disney cruise, so stay tuned to find out how that went!
