Articles Tagged ‘Disability’
With current political news on benefits and social care funding cuts, my recent trip and more fundamental parts of my life would be compromised. I am now turning my thoughts to halting such political nightmares for disabled people and ensuring everyone can live a full, independent and self directed life, as I have done up until now. Without the government foundations underpinning my care, life would be very different for me and many others. Lets hope the recent announcements are questioned and stopped. More to come!
The drive to our hotel in LA, near to LAX airport took 4 hours. This would have been sizeable, but it flew compared to San Fran to Vegas. I was kind of glad to leave Vegas in the end. I would go another time with a bigger budget to gamble and maybe one crazier drunk night, but while our trip ticked everything I hoped for, I did find it a little over bearing and claustrophobic. It definitely had a big thumbs up on accessibility though.
Arriving at the Best Western hotel, which Srin booked while we were in San Fran, we hit the same initial problem. Yep, the shower was not a roll in. On asking at reception there was nothing …
Read all of California dreaming – teething problems and Jack Black
With our car problems behind us we embarked on the longest car journey I have ever taken in my life. It didn’t make sense to go to LA then Vegas, before back to LA for the flight home. So we plunged for the 10 hour trip to save time in the long run. It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought. We chatted, listened to tunes and I read my new Amazon Kindle (much easier for me than a heavy book). The video shows the vast amounts of desert and then the fantastic bright lights as you hit the Vegas strip.
We had managed to book the Vegas rooms before leaving the UK too. We went for the MGM Grand on …
Read all of Accessibility in Las Vegas
So this is the first of 3 blogs on my recent trip to the US of A. Part 1 will show the importance of planning and then layout the awesomeness that is San Francisco! ‘Awesomeness’ is a word as I heard it on American radio – ok.
It is not unheard of to say planning is key, but with my disability and additional needs it is 10 times more important. Having completed my trip of a lifetime to Australia 5 years ago much of the steps were the same. However this trips original idea was conceived back in May at the Sunnier Days event I ran http://martynsibley.com/video-of-sunnier-days-event-3. My friend Srin said during the seminar he was planning a trip to …
Read all of Travel planning – with my disability it’s 10 times more important
First of all do not fear! This is not a “I went away for 12 days and found myself” blog. I am still the same old me. However probably due to the time away I did gain some clarity on my blogs.
I know people follow my blogs because there is some fun stuff and inspirational pieces from time to time, but I have appreciated others would like more detailed information. For example in the holiday video I shot how I am lifted from the plane to my wheelchair. The trip also highlighted the many extra things I have to plan and think about. Therefore my new beginning starts with the coverage of the California and Vegas road trip by giving …
Read all of A new beginning
For the next leg of my trip I thought I’d try a different mode of travel. I had always heard that cruise holidays were really easy for people with disabilities and that it was a good way of seeing many places in one holiday. So I booked a two week trip with P&O on the cruise liner Oceana, which called at the ports of Gibraltar, Cartagena, Rome, Florence, Ajjacio (Corsica), Barcelona and Cadiz.
It terms of adaptations, I really couldn’t find any flaws with the cruise liner. It was easy to move around the ship, getting on and off the ship at each port was straightforward (although the ramp could be a bit steep depending on the tide) and my cabin …
Read all of The Ship Trip
I write this after returning from the second trip of my travels during my time off work. This was a family holiday to Orlando, Florida to visit more family and to allow my father to attend his college reunion which was being held at the hotel we were staying at.
I love going to the US. Everything always seems so straightforward and simple when it comes to all things “disability related”. I have been to the US many times before and I find people over there just seem to “get it” when it comes to disability. By this I mean staff at airports know exactly what to do, finding wheelchair accessible cars or taxis is easy, hotel staff know exactly what …
Read all of Floriddddddaaa!! (more thoughts on accessible travel)
So the long awaited and highly debated spending review finally took place. I was asked by Scope if I would mind watching the coverage, write some tweets and have them fed into their website. It was a pleasure to take part in such an event and interact with others on the issues. The first wave of emotion I felt was relief, just at the realisation we could finally hear the plans and not have to wait any longer. The normal prime ministers questions were a non event and a definite calm before the storm.
At 12.30 the chancellor took to the floor and began. The next feeling I felt was confusion. The …
Read all of A message to Mr Osbourne – the CSR from a disabled perspective
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is a book by Daniel Goleman, which I could suggest everyone should read. We all live in a world where hard facts and figures are valued much more than a pleasant hello and a nice thank you. But which are more important in real life?
Yes there are aspects of life and careers that require absolute knowledge. For example, a neuro surgeon would rarely be required to have a good bedside manner with their patient on the operating table. I for one however, will never be a surgeon, nor do I wish to be. It would involve to much responsibility for one such as myself who couldn’t handle …
Read all of How to make friends and influence people
Having thought about this for a long time, I have become more and more familiar with differing elements of fear. Now, fear as an abstract concept is a powerful device and a paralysing emotion. Fear can be used for good, for example when you’re teaching children about boundaries and developing their social structure. On the flip side, fear can be used to torment and can invoke an array of prejudicial emotions within the human race, that can often overstep the mark and lead to huge problems.
Whether you speak of fear as a personal concept or problem, it is interesting to me that people, who are often considered the strongest in …
Read all of What do you fear the most?
