Ordinary Hopes

I admit it, I dislike the long summer holidays.

Yet my son is home educated and I am used to being with him most of the time so why on earth would a six week school holiday present a problem?

It doesn’t. Not really. Most of our routines will continue.  We still see our fabulous circle of home educated friends and get to spend time with those friends who are usually at school. The difficulty comes from knowing just how much other children can do all summer. In this time of social media (which I love) there is no getting away from knowing just how many wonderful possibilities exist.

I love that they exist.

I love that your child gets to do them.

I love seeing the photos of your children living life to the full.

I really do enjoy seeing what my friends get up to and would never want them to hide their good times from me. (That would somehow hurt even worse!)

But it doesn’t hurt any less.

Last summer was not great for us. I hurt my back very badly and was struggling to even move. We got through thanks to a lot of support from family and friends and I tried to just look forward to a better time next summer.

And now it is almost here yet it isn’t looking much brighter.

I know we will “get through” but that isn’t really what summer is about, is it?

I wrote an article for My Family, Our Needs which can be found HERE

It explains the difficulties of inaccessible facilities because, in reality, we can overcome the challenges of the wonky body, what really disables him is inaccessible facilities.

This summer is not going to be easy but I have high hopes for next summer.

NEXT SUMMER we will be enabled.

NEXT SUMMER we will be welcomed.

NEXT SUMMER local attractions will be proud of their accessible facilities.

Next summer…

 

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I would hate for anyone to think that we don’t manage to have fun.

We do.

We do the best we can.

Just yesterday we managed a short trip to the beach, just one hour and fifteen minutes but it was worth it. It involves a lot of work and I can only manage it if I have extra help as we have to lift Adam into an all-terrain chair once we reach the beach and it is hard work pushing it across soft sand. It is hard work getting him in the sea (and out again after his wheels have sunk a bit!) and hauling the chair up the beach after really needed more than two of us but it was worth the effort, the exhaustion and the aches which the adults suffered afterwards.

Adam also made a difference.

Before leaving we spent some time looking for litter, inspired by some friends of ours at Little Bucket Beach Clean.  Adam has an eye for spotting litter. He was particularly pleased to find and clean up some small plastic bags. We recently watched a video of sea turtles who had eaten plastic bags and he was very glad to be part of a team saving more animals from harm. A lot of rubbish can be collected in a little bucket!

 

Every single one of us can make a difference to another life.