Firstly apologies for the typos in last week’s newsletter and thanks to all those who pointed them out – another person will now be proof reading them for me! Actually I had to chuckle as it proves the fact that I am so not a ‘visual’ person (more on that subject in a future newsletter!).

1. An Oscar winning performance

As mentioned last time, I have been glued to the Paralympics, which in no way can be viewed as the poor relation to the Olympics anymore. While more coverage would have been welcome, the BBC did pull out the stops to show Tanni Grey Thompson’s 11^th gold medal win live the other morning and the bronze medal match for our basketball team.

We ended with a staggering 94 medals: 35 of them gold, and second behind China in the medal table. There were some incredible performances from our swimmers, athletes, equestrian team, amongst others, and it was so inspiring.

It is hard to single out anyone, but I am going to: namely Oscar Pistorius. He is from South Africa and is a runner. He is also a double amputee. Now, the thing about Oscar is that he was entered into the 200m for double amputees, but was the only entrant. So he decided he wanted a bit of a challenge and decided to run against a tougher group – the single amputees - and he won, in an astonishing time of 21.99 seconds! He then proceeded to reach the final of the 100m against the single amputees again, this time getting a bronze (apparently this was the trickier race technically as, out of the blocks, you get away fast by using your calf muscles, so he was most definitely at a disadvantage against the other runners). He is 17 years old and I can only imagine what he is going to be like in 4 years time. The carbon fibre legs he uses are incredible, but prone to breaking and sending him crashing to the ground in training. All rather humbling when you think about it and it certainly inspired me to get back on my horse after a 10 month lay-off, after doing some rather nasty damage to my leg practising my kick-boxing – and I will come back to that at a future date.

So last week I asked ‘What motivates you?’ Do you have any answers yet and how does that question appear now you have heard/seen what people can do despite not having a 100% fully functioning body?

2. What’s stopping you from starting?

That is the question I am asking this week. Disability hasn’t stopped those athletes at the Paralympics.

Do you have an ambition a goal or a dream? Have you done anything about achieving it? If not what is stopping you? Who could you use as your inspiration to get started?

And the really big question – what is the first step you could take to begin to achieve this dream?

To quote another paralympian:

"The tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching for your goals. The tragedy of life lies in not having goals to reach for."

Natalie du Toit - South African swimmer and winner of 5 golds.

3. Up close and personal

Curry’s not in a pickle!

So the day arrived – my third attempt to get served in Curry’s who had the washing machine I wanted. There I was anticipating being ignored again and finally giving up and storming out to deride them to you all. But wait, I enter the shop, look at the machine and Sabrina comes over and asks if she can help and help she does, explaining the benefits over the machine I thought I wanted and the one that starts to call to me as I wander around looking. Friendly and efficient she manages to ascertain there is one in stock (which seems to surprise her more than it does me!) and then arranges delivery on the day I want. She is polite and helpful, even temporarily going off to try and find the rest of the staff, so someone can serve the poor chap waiting behind me, who only came in for a packet of batteries!

Also she does not do the hard sell on the insurance and I in return tell her I won’t make any jokes about ‘Sabrina the teenage witch’ as she has heard them all anyway.

The delivery day arrives and so does my machine within the 4 hour timeslot allocated. I have elected to plumb it in myself and the very nice gentleman delivering it shows me where the bolts are that hold the drum in place and reminds me to remove them first or face wrecking the machine! He was polite, helpful and on time. So full marks to Curry's!

Service with a difference

I had another interesting experience a couple of weeks ago. I was staying with my friend Sara who had just undergone an operation on both her feet. She was having to wear special shoes and, by the time I arrived to spend a few days with her, she was keen to get out. Even a trip to the hospital was considered a treat, having spent over a week at home.

So I agreed to take her to look at some curtains. I dropped her off outside the shop (so she didn’t have to walk so far with her crutches), parked the car, and rejoined her.

Despite there being plenty of staff in the shop she was completely ignored! Finally a woman walked up to her and asked if she was being served. Sara told her no and she needed to sit down. What struck me was, that when we went out the next day, I was able to observe the way people treated her and her ‘disability’ even more and I wasn’t impressed. Getting through doors and turnstiles with crutches is not easy, yet you could feel the impatience of the people behind her and she usually ended up standing aside to let them through. After the Paralympics it was interesting to see the day to day challenges of a temporary physical challenge and how it changed the way even total strangers behave towards you. Something to think about.