Counting my blessings

Both yesterday and today I have been mixing with disabled people.  Yesterday some members of Brighton Lions Club visited a local Riding for the Disabled group to see in use the carriage we had paid for for which we had paid.  We all came away full of admiration for the time and effort put in by able-bodied people so that some of the less fortunate members of society can benefit from carriage driving and the social side of their weekly meeting.  By my calculation there are two able-bodied people involved for each disabled person.  Most of the horses and ponies used are owned by private individuals and lent to the group although I understand that the group owns all the carriages - all seven of them.  Then there is the farmer who allows the group the use of one of his fields (which means he can't use it) and storage for the carriages.

As for the disabled "clients", there was one who had been badly injured when a lorry pulled out from a side road right in front of him on his motorcycle; one was blind; another had undergone an operation (at the age of 14) which went wrong; two were the victims of thalidomide.

This morning it was too windy for the Old Bat to walk unaided so I drove her to the MS Centre for her weekly oxygen treatment.  This meant I was talking with several people with MS, each at a different stage.  (The Old Bat doesn't have MS, by the way, but does have a vaguely similar degenrative condition.)

All in all it made me realise how lucky I am.

While the Old Bat was in the diving bell I did the shopping and then drove down to Shoreham Harbour and admired the white horses landing on the beach the other side of the harbour arm.