• ~ Behind the Scenes ~ My TEDx Talk: Dreaming BIG…and Being Invited

    You read that headline right, friend. I am on my way to becoming a TEDx speaker. (Click to Tweet!) Like, officially. (Yeahhhhhh!!!) Come May 9th of this year, yours truly will take the stage at the Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury to give a Ted talk, on a theme near and dear to me: Misfits and Pioneers. To say I am thrilled to pieces would be a huge understatement. Pause. Rewind to 2013. I sat my writer-speaker self down and wrote three lofty goals: To be featured on the Huffington Post To speak at TEDx, and To sell my Healing Boxes in hospitals. These goals seemed next to impossible. Unachievable. Especially, the…

  • Disability Creativity: Co-opting Clothing for Accessibility Part 2

    Living with disability can ignite creativity – at least it has for me in terms of my wardrobe. Check out Disability Creativity: Co-opting Clothing for Accessibility Part 1 – Outerwear here. Companies design clothes for people with disabilities, however, most of those clothes are what I imagine the companies think ‘elderly’ people will wear. But I’m sure most of us will value style and self expression, as well as comfort, at every age. (Click to Tweet!) Clothes that work for your body and life can be challenging to find. Maybe you need Velcro, not buttons, or perhaps things that are easy to pull on and off, or don’t get caught…

  • Disability Creativity: Co-opting Clothing for Accessibility

    Peek inside my wardrobe and you’ll see the evidence of a life spent in pursuit of adventure. From wetsuits and jodhpurs to ski wear and jewel-bright dresses. But the mix is misleading – they’re all ideas I’ve borrowed from other disciplines to make living with disability and dressing for wheelchair use easier. What’s neoprene got to do with life on wheels? Read on… I’ve lived with disability for 13 years and learned to get creative. Disability doesn’t have to mean dismal dressing. (Click to Tweet!) I’ve yet to find disability clothing brands that suit my sense of style, so instead I’ve co-opted clothes from other areas that work for wheelchairs…

  • Road Trips and Self Care

    A car is, to me, an incredibly luxurious mode of transport. We can go whenever we like! It’s a private pod that can be made comfortable and it’s something that needs to be considered seriously, bearing in mind the impact journeys have on climate change. A road trip can be fabulous, and difficult too. Travelling is tiring, something that seems to be forgotten nowadays. As though if one is sitting down then one is at ease. Not so! As a child, my family always treated travelling or spending time in the cities as an exertion. One had to rest after travelling home from London by train. Linus, my husband, was…