Sport for all at the backyard-junk-sales.

"My haul"

"Lunchtime"

"The street with the best bargains"

"Views from other yards"
My house is behind that big tree

Saturday in St.Johannis was back-yard flea-market day

It sounds so much more romantic in German: “Hof-flohmärkte in St. Johannis”, and it really is a lovely atmospheric occasion.

This is the second year that this wonderful market day has taken place and this time I was determined that as well as taking a peek at the beautiful back yards, gardens and balconies of the neighbouring buildings, I would also buy some new toys for the conductive groups. There was plenty to be had, a wide choice from puzzles, book, garden games, ride-on tractors, bikes and scooter.

As you can see from the photograph I came home with quite a haul. In fact I came home three times between noon and four-thirty to unload my purchases.

This morning the littlies had fun with a basketball and a puzzle with three dimensions and this afternoon the skittles, boules and rackets were put to good use by the school children.

I spent just twenty Euros on the at least one-hundred Euros worth of toys that I transported to work this morning on my bike. The sale of paintings at the summer-fete last weekend had increased my purchasing power no end!

There was only one piece that I could not fit into the panniers this morning, the trolley with the crochet set. That is something that we will share with the Kindergarten and perhaps we will try it out tomorrow with my young autistic client.

After my first sortie I wandered downhill in the direction of the St. Johannis cemetery with the plan to have a coffee in the seventeenth-century Hesperidean Gardens but I was waylaid and went instead to a tiny café that I have wanted to visit for the past three years and have never got around to it. I met a friend, fellow artist and one time member of one of my groups for adults and we enjoyed a long planned but, never-come-to-fruition, meeting.

The atmosphere on the street at this corner was so friendly. Many of the neighbours were out chatting to eat other and there were visitors from all over the city on bikes, scooters and on foot with their bags and rucksacks full of recycled “junk”!

My recycled junk went down well and we have already had a couple of “spontaneous-sports mornings” with the little ones.

Love

Conductive work is really hard, not only for clients and their families but for all who are involved, conductors too.

Today work was wonderful

Little Princess was dripping with perspiration and outside the next summer-storm was building up as the skies darkened and the temperature reached the high twenties. But we were both really happy and smiling as we worked so very hard in what was the second shift for us both. School had been really busy for Littlie this morning and I had been working with the Kindergarten children who are sometimes quite a handful.

After Littlie's group had eaten lunch and we had all played a game of memory together we got on with some fun and games, walking through ladders and over obstacles, and then at last on to the blue mat that gives Littlie so much confidence when she walks as it is a bit softer than the floor.

Strength

Little Princess is bounding with energy these days. She eats like a horse, walks hand in hand with her friends at school or pushes her wheelchair to the classroom from the car. She comes into group announcing that she will go to the bathroom to wash her hands instead of doing it at the table. If we are not available to walk with her after lunch she simply kicks away her foot rest and pushes herself backwards on her stool, moving across the room in this way to wherever it is she wants to go.

There is something else that is giving her lots of strength at this moment. This is time spent with her family, she had a two week holiday and now her Mum has three months' leave. Mum is there at home waiting at the door each evening with a “cocktail”, as she calls it, when Littlie completes her long walk home. I can always see a huge difference in the children’s personalities, their behaviour and abilities when there has been a school holiday, and Littlie is no exception. Littlie’s athetoid body behaves so differently for her when she returns to us after a family holiday and since the Whitsun holiday that finished two weeks ago the improvements have remained. She is so relaxed and motivated and always has a smile on her face. I am sure that she can thank Mum for this. Granddad put it down to "daughter-love" when he asked me today why she is doing so well.

What was it that gave us and Opa so much joy this afternoon?

As Little Princess stepped on to our super blue-mat that is sometimes a swimming pool, sometimes a bowling-alley and sometimes a catwalk, like it was today, she half-turned to me and quietly announced to me:

“I believe that I will soon be able to walk alone!”

She is just eight years old, this little girl, and she knows her body better than anyone does. She can feel in her body what Évi and I have been feeling for several weeks now when we work with her.

This little girl has gradually been giving us the feeling that she is going not only to hop off her stool and stand up at the table as she is now doing every day, but as we look in amazement we think that she is going to walk off on her own too. She really wants to do it.

After making this announcement she went onto walk first three, then four, then as many as eight steps alone. On one occasion when she lost her balance and lowered herself to her and knees (she does not fall any more) she asked:

“Will I be able to stand up on my own too?”

I replied “Of course you will.”

The cheeky face turned to me with a grin and asked: “How?

So I showed her and on the second attempt she nearly did it herself.

Today was "learning to use the bus with the wheelchair" day, so Granddad came to collect school-bags and wheelchair that were now with us so that Littlie could walk home. When he arrived we put the mat in the hall so Littlie could walk towards him at the door. Granddad had tears in his eyes as Littlie achieved her best walk of the day. When she got to the last metre of mat he walked forwards to take both of her hands gently in his own in order to experience those last few steps with her. She carried on walking forwards; she did not fall into his arms as she would have done a few weeks ago.

Body and soul

That made all our hard work, the hard work from all of us including Granddad, so worthwhile. And there was more to come. Granddad asked me why I thought that his Little Princess is doing so well these days. I told him what I thought a combination of all sorts of things as I mentioned above; family attention, eating lots, strength of body and mind, motivation, lots of friends plus the will to succeed. It was at this point that Granddad added "daughter-love".

AP would have approved of what Granddad said just as much as I did, and I told Granddad that I believed that he is right.

The joy of cycling

I have just been offering some bike-buying advice to someone across the Atlantic.

I sent this link:

http://www.haverich-reha.de/pdf/Product_Catalog_2010.pdf

I thought that perhaps there are other people out there who would benefit from having this information too.

It is so important when choosing a bike, whether for someone with a disability or without, to get the measurements right and all the accessories too, it can make a huge difference to the joy one gets from cycling. I realised this when I purchased the bike in the picture above four years ago. Suddenly I did not get pain in my shoulders anymore! It was the difference of about half-an-inch between saddle and handbars that did the trick!

My Panama

I have always dreamed of owning a Panama hat

So when one day late in June my friend Geli and I took a trip to the Hat Museum, before sitting in a café for coffee and cakes, I treated myself to one.

It was quite a difficult feat as there were literally hundreds to choice from. There were none like the one that I have always dreamed of owning, with a weave so fine that you can roll it into a tube to transport it. A hat in a tube would be ideal for me so when I am on my bike, always with a helmet on, I would be able to unroll it and wear it whenever I reached my destination.

It was fortunate for my purse there were none like this available, in fact the man said that they do not exist. I did not argue with him although I know they exist as I have seen one at a car-boot sale and actually unrolled it and tried it on. These finely woven, rollable Panamas are very expensive, at least five times the price that I paid for mine, and even with a part of mine a present from my friend, a rolled Panama is way beyond my purchasing powers. The on I have is fine enough not to lose its shape if I bend it a bit in my panniers.

My Dad wears a Panama, as do most of the men in England who I know. I saw many Panamas on show when I watched the Paris Open tennis tournament on TV with my Dad and I am sure they were out again at Wimbledon, Henley and all the other British Summer events. I was very determined that this summer I would at last have one of my own.

I wore my new hat for the whole weekend after I had bought it, even in the flat, but ever since then it has been raining! I eventually got it out again yesterday while walking around town and I felt like the bees-knees.

The picture of me above, with the hats piled high on my head, was taken in 1988 in Denver, Colorado. I was with a photographer friend at a street party to celebrate the first day of summer. I did not buy one of them, but I still have the trilby that I bought a few days later. The other picture of me was taken today with the new hat perched on my head!

Another picture is of my Mum and Dad on the way to my nephew’s wedding. My Dad had told his Grandson that he would wear a hat and everyone was afraid it would be one of his many flat caps. We were relieved to see it was the Panama and everybody thought that they looked a stunning pair.

Summer Festivals

Busy weekends

Last weekend I was working. Well it was more a weekend of developing public relations than my usual sort of work.

There were two summer fetes to attend. The first was on the Saturday afternoon to raise money for a family who attend our conductive parent and child group, all organised by the local television company. The second fete, all day on the Sunday, was our annual summer celebration at work.

The television company had arranged for an actress, Kati Karrenbauer, who became famous when she starred in a series that was broadcast from 1997-2007, to attend the first fete. This actress, also a musician, now works mostly in theatre and also performs one-man shows as she did on Saturday evening when she read stories from her autobiography. I was there as the sole-representative from the conductive department and, fortunately for me, I was not called upon for an interview. It would, of course, have been better for the development of conductive work in the area if I had been called upon to speak.

At the summer fete at work I was also on public relations having done my preparations for the exhibition and sale of works of art from all my groups the night before.

It was a pleasure to have so many colleagues from different departments, approach me to ask me about my work.

A week has followed that was just as busy as the weekend thus a lack of blogging.

I have however been communicating with a family in Canada with a child with spina bifida and a family in America who are buying the first tricycle for their child with cerebral palsy.

First trips on bikes are one of my favourite times at work. The smiles, the speed and the freedom are all a joy to observe.

We have had two new bikes in the groups this week, a first bike and a second one. Even the arrival of a second bike is an exciting event especially if there are new baskets, tools, a helmet and other accessories arriving at the same time.