Since I was young my family have always had caravans but because I use an electric wheelchair, it is too big to fit in the caravan so I had to sleep in the awning outside.
About six years ago I started to feel the cold more, so we decided that we’d buy a caravan and get it adapted so that I could get inside out of the cold. We had the door widened, a fold up ramp fitted, my dad installed a profiling bed and the toilet was made accessible. Once I was in the caravan we used our portable hoist to hoist me onto the toilet and into bed.
We’ve only ever been away in the caravan around the UK, we’ve been to Silverstone for the F1, Carfest and the London 2012 Olympics just to name a few places we’ve been. However this year we ventured into France, to the Cote D’Azure in the South of France. First we got the ferry over and then on the way down we had three stop offs, the first was Calais, then Paris, then Lyon and then we
ended up camping in a place called Mandelou - la Napoule just down the road from Cannes. The weather was beautiful, it was very hot just a tad below 36 degrees. Luckily the campsite had its own pool. We took my shower chair so that I could be wheeled into the pool, so I went swimming a few times while we was there. My highlight of the whole holiday though has to be going in the sea. This was possible because all along the beaches there are plages where you can go on the beach, then they have wheelchair accessible beaches called Handiplages, where they have metal runways down to the sea, beach wheelchairs that have giant wheels and floats on and they have disabled changing facilities with showers. We found out that they have these all over the French coast and the beach wheelchairs are free of charge for the disabled. So I got to go in the sea for the first time in 17 years! It was perfect, I could sun bathe and then when I got too hot I would just wheel into the sea. Now that is the life! For more information visit www.handiplage.fr“So I got to go in the sea for the first time in 17 years!”
No comments:
Post a Comment