And Up Again

I've spent the last month or so having a bit of an ME flare-up, which hasn't been nice. What's positive, though, is that I've been ill for long enough to be able to identify that it's just a flare and deal with it accordingly. In real terms that means doing lots of things for ten minutes at a time. So, a quick run through of my usual topics...

Steve
Is lovely. He's not enjoying the heat very much (he prefers to be cold and add layers) but we've still been out in the sunshine a few times when it hasn't been too stiflingly hot - barbecues, cream teas, going to the park and suchlike.

Pip and The Boy
The Boy is fine and continuing to grow like there's no tomorrow. Pip, on the other hand, is suffering a bad case of Clumsy at the moment and has managed to sustain two entirely different injuries requiring hospital treatment in as many weeks (and on separate occasions). He says the most upsetting thing is that he is currently perfectly capable of making a cup of tea, but lacks the capacity to carry it anywhere. I desperately hope this is not the set-up for a "scald" injury to complete the set.

Wedding
Plans for the wedding are coming along nicely. We have fixed our date in May next year, booked the registrar, made an appointment to give notice, and chosen and booked our venue. We've also forked over the deposits, which means that even if we don't manage to decide on anything else, we now have everything we need in order to get legally married.

However, we haven't paid the premiums for an Approved Premises wedding (extra for venue hire, extra for the registrar to travel, etc) just to turn up in jeans and t-shirts and drag a couple of witnesses in off the street. So there's still an awful lot of planning to be done.

Business
The business is off the ground now, with "real" paying customers who didn't start off as personal friends, a website, some wonderful artwork, and best of all some really interesting jobs. Some boring ones as well, it is true, but one research project in particular I had an absolute whale of a time doing.

I really want to show it all to you, not least to give due credit to the terrific people I've worked both for and with. Also this blog, with regular-ish content, quality comments, and four years of archives, has a respectable Google PageRank which would give my business website quite a boost if I linked the two. But for now at least, I really want to keep my business and personal online identities as separate as I can.

Wheelchair
Allegedly due tomorrow morning. However given the previous issues and timelines so far (applied week1 February, assessed week1 March, approved week3 March, test drive week2 April, placed order and deposit week2 April, now it is week2 June) I am trying to not hold my breath and haven't booked any activities yet. However my friends and I have been coming up with lots of ideas for things I could do, including but not limited to:

• The Cancer Research UK Race For Life next year - I won't be getting a winning time, but I should be able to accompany a friend who is expecting to walk around.


• The Stratford Town Walk which is allegedly both free and accessible.


• Getting a Disabled Person's Railcard and going places by train.


• Going around Ikea and only needing one assistant.

Even if I don't do any of that, though, it will be nice to just go round the block and post a letter without needing help to open the garage or someone else to push or drive me. I fully expect Steve to have stuck a proximity tag on me within a month.

Anger at Current Affairs
Um, let's not. Even if I could whittle it down to just one target, we would be here far too long. Let's just say that I don't feel very represented by the new Cabinet (not that the old one was better) and can only hope that the extraordinary wealth and privilege that they do represent brings with it a sense of noblesse oblige.