Limitations

No. 31    Wednesday 25 July 2012

 Almost another month since I added my random thoughts to these pages. I don't know where the time goes but I have some idea that this delay is due to inclination as much as anything else. It isn't that I dislike doing blogs, in fact it's an opportunity to stick some of my wanderings down on paper, but I sometimes need the time when I don't have anything else to do for a little while so that I can do something about clearing everyday thoughts into some sort of order.

The wheelchair assessment, which I mentioned in my last blog, went off satisfactorily and it was decided that I need another one. Next month they are going to bring me one (similar to the one I tried at the assessment) to try around the house and if it is still okay then they will order me a new one. The advantage of the new one is that the back is adjustable electrically as is the ability to tilt (the seat and the back together). This means that I am not going to be fixed in one position as I am in this chair. The chair which I use for outdoor use, which I bought myself, is even more adjustable than this - it can even raise the seat about a foot which I use occasionally.

My comments in the last blog about watching television have been borne out by the BBC channels going Olympics mad. So much so that I leave my television sets tuned to Sky News instead of the BBC, and I find that, apart from the batches of adverts, it is as good and in some ways preferable. I have two televisions one in the sitting room and one in the bedroom. The sitting room one is on the Virgin Media cable system and the bedroom one on Freeview - which doubles up the channel numbers which I have to remember.

Among the piles of storage which I have in the second bedroom and in the garage is my collection of LP records. I have ordered a machine which stores music in MP3 format which will record from most sources. As my record collection is quite large (about 800) I decided that this would be a good idea. I did get a cheap record player to see if I could work records with my hand limitations - and found that they are not really steady enough when putting the stylus onto the record nor is the grip sufficient to get the records out of the sleeves. Because of this I have found a firm in Birmingham who will collect, convert to MP3, and deliver the records to me. They will record the MP3 recordings onto a hard drive (which I can then use as a backup) and also on a USB stick (for each batch that they do) which I can load onto the machine which I have ordered.

 Today was a shopping day when I take a 10 min ride to the nearby supermarket to stock up for the next five or six days (that's how long bananas last). To help my memory I prepare a shopping list on my mobile which I normally check before I leave the store. Today I forgot to check the list until I got home and found there was one item that I had forgotten!! Fortunately it wasn't something urgent and I can get it when I go shopping again on Monday. At least that was a change from forgetting to take my mobile altogether!!

Mike