Health and hope of improvement

I know that this often sounds a little strange to people, but I promise you I am telling the truth; my health improves quite a lot when I am particular environments. At home my various medical conditions mean that I spend a great deal of the time in pain or experiencing extreme fatigue. I also have sensitivities that mean bright light, loud noises, repetitive noises and noises of particular pitches, certain scents or chemicals result in physical pain. The scents and chemicals part also mean that my skin starts of with a burning sensation, then goes red and will either blister or swell.

I go away to Wales, where I am out in the countryside and away from many of those triggers and I find that far from being forced to spend 80% of my time bed-bound, which is what happens at home, I can be in the living room looking out over the fields. There is a very good chance that I will be able to sit outside, still with dark glasses on, but I won't end up having to spend the next week recuperating just for sitting outside. I may even be able to go to the beach; several of the beaches in Pembrokshire have beach-wheelchairs, which have enormous tyres so that they don't sink in the sand.

One thing that I know I thought when I first became ill was that I didn't realise just how difficult things are for people with disabilities in this country. A lot of businesses just don't think about accessibility because the person in charge often doesn't have a disability themselves, or immediate relatives with disabilities. Current legislation does require them to ensure that their business is accessible to ever member of the public, if indeed it is a business that deals with the public. Reasonable adjustment is what it is known as in the legislation.

Now obviously a 12th century castle isn't going to have lifts inside and it would be difficult to do so; asking them to do so would not be a reasonable adjustment. The shops down in Kingswinford with large steps up into the shop should all, however, have a portable ramp so that wheelchair users can access the shop. The only place I have seen that has gone one step further and altered the entrance so that there is a built-in ramp is the Tenovus charity shop.

Pembrokeshire, which is where I go for my particular brand of respite, has worked hard over the past few years to ensure that all parts of the county are accessible to everyone. Even the coastal path, which is around 185 miles in total, has been made as accessible as possible. Not that I can self-propel anyway, but it is nice to hear that one county is taking its responsibilities to all of its residents and visitors seriously.