Infant Prep

[ailbhe]

The cleaners came today and cleaned while we were swanning around town; they even got the scale off the sink, though I have no idea how. I think they scratched the porcelain but I'm not complaining.

There was also post; I got some tie-dyed baby clothes, which I can now pack in my hospital bag, and another cheque for the new book, and a wedding invite for self and Rob, and some junk. I'm very pleased about the clothes because I was looking forward to them and hoping I wouldn't have to buy nasty pastels or stuff from websites outside the UK with uncertain postal practices.

We bought lots of things for Linnea's lunches for while I'm in hospital, so that packed lunches will be easier, and we bought a vast amount of meat for roasting and slicing and freezing.

My mother got a ferry ticket and train tickets and should arrive sometime about 7 pm tomorrow, all going well. She also has a mobile phone, which I'm delighted about. I hope she likes it as much after a week's use as she does now.

Being in a wheelchair is massively liberating on account of not being able to walk around otherwise, and takes Attitude. It would be very, very easy to be invisible. One guy responded to "Excuse me" in a shop with "I'm leaving in a minute." A few minutes later a shop assistant asked him to move to let me past, in my wheelchair, and I said "Oh no, he's already refused to move once." He got Looked At by everyone else there, I think. (If he had any physical disability preventing him from moving swiftly and nimbly, it was cured by the shop assistant asking him rather than me asking him).

Reading town centre is beautifully set up for wheelchair use though, really - I knew it was good for buggies, and it turns out that that does translate to good for wheelchairs. In general, people in shops were pleasant and responded to me when I spoke, though a few people responded to Rob. I have been wondering how to find out what it's like to get a wheelchair onto the buses that give me trouble with a buggy, but I can't figure out an honorable way to do it, since it's clearly a misuse of the free loan of a chair from the shopping centre.

Comments

[barberio.livejournal.com]

I dislike wheelchairs. They're generaly uncomfortable to sit in. And I really don't like the way people look at you when you're in one.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Huh. I keep forgetting you live in Reading. I think we might have studied your town center at school, as a model of mobility...

n.

[ailbhe]

Gosh, I didn't think we were *that* good! But certainly the main shopping streets are accessible, and most of the shops thereon. It's possible but difficult to get to the park.

[barakta]

One of the big publicity ideas used when making stuff accessible is that it often increases ease of access for more than just the 'target' disabled people. Wheelchair access improves pram and bussy access automatically. Good deaf awareness generally improves overall communication.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Once when we had an urban planner walking around campus pointing things out to the 17yo I work with, he asked them what the curb cuts were for. They came up with several other answers before wheelchairs (bicycles, strollers/pushchairs, etc). Then he pointed out to them the tradeoff that curb cuts make things slightly more difficult for blind people, and pointed to the different-textured yellow strip that had been added in an attempt to make up for that.

[barakta]

Ah yes. Blind man's trip-me-ups! All the blind people I know hate them. I have vertigo and once caused myself a painful injury tripping up on the bloody things...