Young Carers

Someone from the local Young Carers support group is coming to see my kids this evening.

Over the last twelve months they have had to do far more than most kids would have to do in helping out around the house, and in particular helping their mother, who is in almost constant pain and has great difficulty in carrying out many normal, straight forward activities.

My daughter in particular is quite sensitive, and feels "different". My son mostly just notices that his activities are somewhat curtailed from what he used to be able to do. Sometimes it is just that if I'm late home from work, he can't go and do whatever activity was planned, because Mum can no longer drive.

Typical of the things they help out with is putting the washing on, fetching and carrying, and helping mum with socks and shoes. Some of it is fun (my son enjoys whizzing round the block on the electric scooter as he brings it from the garage to the front door); other stuff, such as cleaning the rabbit's house out, is not. Sometimes they'll answer the phone, because mum is in too much pain to talk to anyone (my daughter says she hates sales calls - don't we all?) Very occasionally they have to get themselves something to eat to put them on until I get home from work.

Tidying their rooms is of course a dreadful thing to ask them to do, but that just makes them the same as any other kids!

Uncultured

We had a family day out yesterday; me wife, two kids and dog.

We started the day in Crosby, just north of Liverpool, to take a look at the sculptures by Anthony Gormley, standing in the sea. The dog had a nice walk, kids got to run about on the beach, and we had our picnic looking out to sea towards the offshore wind farm.

After that we moved on to Liverpool. My daughter wanted to go to the Tate Modern, and my son went along with that idea when he found out they had a den-making exhibit.

The drive to the Albert dock was a nightmare. It took three quarters of an hour to travel about 5 miles. The waterfront seems to be one huge building site, and the traffic lights seem to be doing everything they can to hold you up.

Once we got on to the dock we discovered that it had just six disabled parking spaces. Six! And there are no concessions for the disabled. I ended up dropping the family off whilst Woody and I went to find somewhere to park up and wait. I came back an hour later and found a space, and decided to let Woody stretch his legs whilst we waited. Guess what? No dogs allowed on the Albert Dock. So, back in the car to wait for the others. At least they had a good time at the Tate, where the staff were very helpful, and the den-making was great fun.

Blue badge rant

Regular readers will know that my wife has had some major health problems. This means that if we go out shopping she has to use a wheelchairs. As a consequence, she has a blue disabled parking badge. The main problem with this is that all the disabled spaces in the car parks are often full.

The reason we need a disabled space is not to do with closeness to the shops (though I like that when I'm pushing the chair!), it is all about the width of the space, allowing the car door to open fully, and the wheelchair to fit easily between cars.

On Wednesday we had a trip to the Trafford Centre. We found a disabled space, next to the lift, on the end of a row, so cars alongside my wife's door weren't an issue anyway. We went off and did our shopping (credit card is hurting now) and came back about three hours later.

Parked next to our car, not in a proper space but in the roadway at the end of the row, parked so close that I would be concerned getting in myself without banging the door, was another car. A car with a disabled badge. A car with a notice in the passenger door requesting people not to park to close because they used a wheelchair! How can somebody who is a wheelchair user themselves park so as to so badly inconvenience another disabled person? There appears to be a small number of disabled badge holders that give the rest a bad name. They use their parking privileges to "abandon" their cars wherever is most convenient without any thought to other road users or pedestrians, and other people won't say anything for fear of being thought uncaring.

Unfortunately I didn't have a pen on me, or there would have been a very snotty note left on their windscreen. We also reported them to the centre staff, but I suspect nothing would be done.