Test Drive - the Missing Link
Mar. 19th, 2015 04:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidgillonI've been using the chair in the house, I've been using the chair out and about, what I haven't been doing is using the chair to get from in the house to out there - I've been pushing it out to the car whenever I go out. So yesterday I decided to actually wheel out of the front door for the first time. I realised this was a mistake when the chair jammed at a 45 degree nose-down angle and the cushion, with me atop, slid neatly forward... I caught myself before departing company with the chair/landing ass first on the path, but this doesn't look to have any easy solutions, especially as the steps in the path caused similar issues. I could potentially wheelie off, but I'm not actually up to that as yet (my wheelies are getting longer, and I'm probably on the edge of being able to manouver while up there, but not just yet). If I end up using the chair all of the time (more on that in a moment), then I may need to consider ramping the path.
Having stood up and loaded the chair into the car the old-fashioned way, I headed off and ran a couple of errands, and in the middle of PC World (nope, not paying that much for a can of air), I realised that there was something different, that I was enjoying moving around. Mostly when I'm using crutches it isn't actively painful, but it isn't pleasant, moving around is a chore. In the chair that's not the case, even with shoulders that aren't really up to the job yet. If things are going to get better than this (especially when I eventually replace the monster with something lightweight), then I'm not certain there's much justification for using crutches instead. This doesn't mean giving up on standing, there's still plenty of circumstances around the house where that's the easiest, but the whole point of the chair is that I find walking about with crutches enough of a chore that there are things I don't do anymore, and the advantage the chair offers turns out to also to apply to the walking I still do.
And in other news, I just had an email from an old friend/colleague asking if I'm up for sailing again this summer. We haven't done it in several years given families and kids, but the four sailing holidays we've done have all been great fun, so, fingers crossed, Mediterranean here I come (the Argolic Gulf west of Athens is the current favourite for where). And of course that then raises questions about whether I take the chair or not - if it's still the monster, probably not, if I've sorted out something lightweight and dismantable by then much more likely (as it may have to share a cabin not much bigger than my bunk with me). OTGH, Greece, not the most wheelie friendly country ever....
I guess I'd better get that passport renewal sorted (one of the errands was new passport pics).
Having stood up and loaded the chair into the car the old-fashioned way, I headed off and ran a couple of errands, and in the middle of PC World (nope, not paying that much for a can of air), I realised that there was something different, that I was enjoying moving around. Mostly when I'm using crutches it isn't actively painful, but it isn't pleasant, moving around is a chore. In the chair that's not the case, even with shoulders that aren't really up to the job yet. If things are going to get better than this (especially when I eventually replace the monster with something lightweight), then I'm not certain there's much justification for using crutches instead. This doesn't mean giving up on standing, there's still plenty of circumstances around the house where that's the easiest, but the whole point of the chair is that I find walking about with crutches enough of a chore that there are things I don't do anymore, and the advantage the chair offers turns out to also to apply to the walking I still do.
And in other news, I just had an email from an old friend/colleague asking if I'm up for sailing again this summer. We haven't done it in several years given families and kids, but the four sailing holidays we've done have all been great fun, so, fingers crossed, Mediterranean here I come (the Argolic Gulf west of Athens is the current favourite for where). And of course that then raises questions about whether I take the chair or not - if it's still the monster, probably not, if I've sorted out something lightweight and dismantable by then much more likely (as it may have to share a cabin not much bigger than my bunk with me). OTGH, Greece, not the most wheelie friendly country ever....
I guess I'd better get that passport renewal sorted (one of the errands was new passport pics).
no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 11:18 pm (UTC)Amd sailing is indeed something I'll be wearing a harness for, though not to tie myself to the mast - I'll be using it in the cockpit whenever we start to get a bit ambitious and you start looking down at the other side of the boat, not across, I'm just not strong enough to be sure of holding myself in place otherwise. We'll probably be looking at around a 40 footer single-masted yacht, possibly two depending on if my friends are bringing their kids and how many of the rest of us sign up. And I did indeed learn to sail on the ocean, in the Canaries. And because the waters between Tenerife and La Gomera are a 'convergence zone', you get very weird local weather effects, which meant our first lesson was in a Force 9, and we were heeled over so far the lower side of the cockpit was under water. (Our instructor admitted it was possibly a little excessive for a first lesson!)