The story of the Little Red Hen.

Little Red Hen Ladybird book from worldwideshoppingmall

                                                                   

Is every one sitting comfortably, then I shall begin. Stick with me on this:

The little red hen is a story about a hen who finds a grain of wheat. She asks the other farmyard animals if they will volunteer to help her plant the grain. No animal steps forward to help her.

Then she keeps persevering with the other animals and asks them to help her water her wheat, harvest her wheat, no one helps and finally make the wheat into flour for bread and of course none of the other animals help.

Finally she makes a loaf of bread and asks the other animals who will help her eat it and  every one volunteers. However she tells them that as no one bothered to help her make the bread then they weren't going to get any and instead she turns to her chicks and gives it all to them.

My husband and I were talking about this story in the context of today's society. However today the story would need to be told from the animals point of view, little red hen would like help planting her wheat, cheeky git! Good luck Mr Cameron on your Big Society idea!

An old lady fell in the street ,yesterday, in Gloucester. She went flat onto her face,she was frightened and shaken and couldn't move. My husband waddled over to her as fast as creakiness would let him. Mean while healthy people, all nine of them, stood there,circling her,staring at her struggling. It was like watching animals,in fact my assistant dog wanted to help! It was a horrid scene. My husband, whose shoulders make him scream out in pain at 2am,tried to help her but couldn't manage,all the time others looked on at them both as freaks. Eventually another old gentleman came over and helped my husband get her up on her feet again. The crowd continued to stare,my husband called them all ignorant and left. Why was it the only people who would help her was a disabled man and an elderly man? Sure the dull Psychologist in me would waive the bystander apathy card, is that really an excuse though? Animals don't even act like that.

My main reason for this blog is to outreach to other disabled people. I am currently helping a uni student with his project to create stylish aids for the kitchen,I am doing this purely because volunteering to help him will not only keep his enthusiasm in the future to help design funky aids for my future use but also to help other young disabled people so they don't have to have ugly NHS rubbish cluttering up their home and making them look very "special needs". The chap went onto an arthritis forum to ask for help from arthritic people and only I responded. He e-mailed me,shocked at the lack of willingness of others to come forward and help suggest ideas or discuss difficulties within the kitchen. I really feel for him, it is so important that our youth are interested in design of aids to help us creaky people, we all know how embarrassing those NHS aids are and yet here is someone who has realised aids are awful and is wanting to improve the look and function of them. We can't sit back and do nothing, maybe people are embarrassed of discussing difficulties, I understand that but if it is for a greater good to help others and oneself in the future it is probably worth the awkwardness of admitting some tasks are difficult and that you hate your NHS black foam cutlery from your OT.

NHS style cutlery for those with poor dexterity.

Or these that work for those with poor grip and look nice! from Alessi

                                                                     
I write this blog to make change for disabled parents,parents to be and teenagers with disability, I write to say it is ok to be different, it isn't cool, special,it is just normal. You can manage without a house full of nasty aids, you can make subtle changes in life,look at high street equipment to care for yourself and a baby rather than spending thousands on something clinical that doesn't really meet your needs.I have a shoe horn that I use to shave my legs with,its hopeless as a shoe horn as I can't flex my hands or feet to use it,nice try though OT and at least it is useful. I stick shaving cream on the end of the shoe horn, rub shoe horn with cream down my leg, wash cream off the horn and then use it again to scrape the cream off! Hey presto, smooth legs,no "special" four foot aid or carer to do it, a long shoe horn I can hide from my friends in a drawer, can't do that with most aids or a carer!

Extra long shoe horn is good for shaving legs if you have fixed, bent arms from amazon.co.uk

  I ask any one reading this to get involved with these uni students projects, be you well or disabled, it will be these guys that ultimately make things better for us all in the future. One of them may design easy to use and groovy looking baby equipment so no disabled parent need feel isolated because they can manage a car seat or a buggy.Maybe one of us might give it a go at being a "dragon", we would want to think others were behind us. If any of you are that way inclined count me in to help you. x

This chaps e-mail if you can help is:

chris chapman clchapman2008@hotmail.co.uk