´óÏó´«Ã½

First off ouchers I must explain my recent absence from posting, my computer has been and still is feeling very poorly! I'm hoping that this will work, there are absolutely no guarantees; he is feeling VERY ill. (Any large computer companies that would like to make a donation to me are welcome to do so!)

Anyhow back to what I actually wanted to blog about, I'm packing for an adventure!

I'm disappearing off on Monday to train with my first , which is of course incredibly exciting! His name is Gus and he is a 2 year old black Labrador Retriever cross.

So I will be going away to train for 2 weeks and I'm having a few issues.

Packing is proving to be a tricky thing to sort out, I have never been away from home this long before. Attempting to pack 2 weeks worth of cloths is interesting. The problem I have is that I am the clumsiest person in the world ever, I posses absolutely no co-ordination or spatial awareness.

How does this relate to packing?

Well I need a lot of cloths to survive 2 weeks. I am the messiest person ever and regularly have to get changed during the day because I have spilt something on me. So to be safe I need to take plenty of spare T-shirts (I find these tend to get the worst damage) say 20.

That number is a lot to try and put in a suitcase, mine is huge but still with trousers and shorts and underwear and meds and everything else under the sun that has to come with me there is not going to be enough space.

The other option is I pack soap powder, but then I have the hassle of trying to dry whatever it is I have hand washed, it could go very badly.

The final and probably most realistic option is that my mum and dad come to visit me, collect my dirty washing, take it home, wash it and then bring it back to me at the hotel. I like this plan a lot as it does not involve me washing stuff!

It got me thinking even with a relatively straight forward disability so much extra planning and work has to go in to going away, whether that be for work or pleasure. (It's also making me wonder how Liz Carr does it.)

Then it got down to packing all the other stuff and it soon became apparent that I didn't have enough trousers to survive the training. Cue impromptu shopping trip!

This is my next rant!

I don't have a 'normal' body shape, my feet being the worst effected part of me on that score, buying shoes is near impossible but never before have I had so much of a problem trying to buy trousers!

I think I tried on every pair of ladies trousers in town and still there was nothing that fitted properly, there where all kinds of hip related fitting issues or they fitted ok but where then too short.

Eventually I came home with a pair of men's camouflage trousers that fitted perfectly; I really don't understand how woman's trousers that are the same size somehow don't fit my freakish figure!

So anyway I'm nearly packed and ready to go. I'm borrowing my dad's laptop (which brings with it all kinds of accessibility issues!) so I can hopefully blog whilst I am away training, I may even be able to sneak some cute pictures of Gus on to the blog!

• Visit