Spring into... Adventure!

March is always a great time to be a gardener, it is when the earth begins to wake from her winter slumber and we get to start on our plans for the season ahead.

So far this march there has been very little sowing. The weather has been more like December and with a frost appearing most weeks most of my early sowings have died in a cold greenhouse or gone leggy on the window sills.

But I have been plodding along and everything is all set for when spring decided it wants to start properly.

What has been far more exciting is I finally have access to a mobility scooter. I have spent some time looking for scooters and as mentioned in a previous blog, I was very embarrassed by my condition

and found very little online aimed at people like me, young people who want to explore a bit more than the average over 60 mobility scooter user. I want to go to the allotment, get to my favorite fishing spots but be able to get the scooter in the car for family days out.

With so little info aimed at people like me, I decided that what better way than to start. So the advertiser in me got thinking…

There are reported to be 11 million disabled people in the UK, with a disposable income estimated to be worth £80bn to the UK economy. 1.7million being young working-age adults and with the way technology is developing I honestly believe there hasn’t been a better time to be a disabled people in terms of aids/adaptations to help improve our lives, don’t get me wrong I would rather not have a disability, but I do, it cant be cured and so I have come to realise that I need to embrace it.

So I wrote to various people and companies with my ideas and aspirations for a Vlog/Blog on my journey into the world of mobility scooters.

Cutting a long story short the lovely people at TGA liked my ideas and have loaned me a scooter. Now I know what you are all thinking. They pay me or control what I can write about. but they don’t. They even said to me they have no interest in any PR type reviews or recommendations, just get out use it and write about your adventures, in your own words. To be honest if any of you follow me on Twitter you can see I am defiantly not a “yes man!

The scooter arrived and the engineer taught me all the ins and outs of it and so I went for a spin around my street. I actually went to a park area, about 800m from my front door, that I have never been to before. I have lived here for 4 years and 800m away is unexplored ground, because I just haven’t been able to walk that far.

Now with a new found drive for adventure I then took went to the allotment. Was a lovely spring day, cold and brisk, but to be out and about in the sunlight, hearing the birds singing was amazing. Traveling around streets and avenues I haven’t seen from “street level” since I was in my late teens, even scooting past peoples gardens, getting ideas for my own, was amazing. You miss so much detail driving past in a car.

This first journey jump-started my creative side again and made me realise I need to start taking my camera out again. I loved taking photographs of obscure objects, as a student I would photograph everything from pavements to churches, looking for that special shot, so when a friend called to say he was going to RAF Cosford museum and would I like to come I jumped at the chance to get out and take the camera.

Being able to explore RAF Cosford in comfort was lovely I packed the rucksack strapped it to the scooter and off I went camera at the ready.

I was obviously enjoying myself as by the time I got to the gift shop I realised id been in the museum for over 4 hours! There is no way I could have spent 4 hours on my feet, walking and taking photos but on the scooter it was fantastic.

I have such excitement for the year ahead now I have a scooter, so many things I loved doing and thought were in the past are suddenly accessible again, and going around RAF Cosford I was reminded by Simon that this summer we get presented with our wings at RIAT (Royal International Air Tattoo) what an amazing adventure this will be. I didn’t get to look around many of the aircraft last year, due to my stubbiness to accept I needed a scooter. But this year I plan on photographing every single one! #AnyoneCanExplore