The First Fortnight at Elms Farm

I’ve been at Elm’s Farm for over 2 weeks and am getting used to it. Some things could be better, but we are trying to find the best way to do things.

The day we arrived, a big gantry hoist was set up in my bedroom that we hired from a separate company, which went over my bed. However, we soon discovered that it wasn’t working. Nothing happened when we pressed the controller button, which was disconcerting. So my PA phoned the company that provided it, and they tried to advise us on how to fix it. We tried many different things, but nothing worked.,

I needed the hoist to use the toilet, so I had to wait while the hoist was out of action. The company told us they would bring a mobile hoist over that evening, which is better than nothing, but we still had to wait 6 hours.

So, not wanting to wait 6 hours to go to the toilet, I suddenly remembered the miracle of changing places toilets. These have a ceiling hoist in them, and they are dotted all over the country. So we looked for some in Boston, about 2 miles away, and as luck would have it, there are 2 of them. We Jumped in the car, and away we went.

The first one was situated next to a car park. We arrived at 4:30 PM and discovered the toilet was locked at 4 PM. Drat!

No matter, we went to the next one, which was at the hospital. Imagine having to go to the hospital just to use the toilet!

So we went into outpatients and quickly located the changing places toilet. We were then greeted by the sign on the door which said:

OUT OF ORDER

I couldn’t believe it. Why is the world conspiring against me using the toilet??

We went to reception and waited for ages for a receptionist to appear. We asked if someone could check that the toilet was actually out of order.

After waiting a bit longer, someone informed us everything was working fine. Hallelujah!

We later discovered that it was the taps that weren’t working in the toilet, but everything else was fine.

And finally, nature could take its course.

So that was the first expedition into Boston on a quest to find a toilet.

Back at the Elms farm cottage, the gantry hoist in my room was replaced the following day, and it finally worked.

The downside is it doesn’t go as high as we would like. So it’s sometimes a struggle to get me onto the chair. My ceiling hoist at home goes higher, so it’s no problem there. We have worked out ways to make things easier, so it’s doable, but it sometimes involves a bit of pushing and pulling from the carers.

The hoist doesn’t work some mornings, so we had to use the manual hoist instead. But strangely, later on the day, the gantry hoist started working again for some reason. So it’s a bit unreliable.

But apart from the problems with the hoist, things have been relatively uneventful. Apart from me randomly pulling a muscle in my neck the other day while doing nothing in particular.

Frampton Marsh and the Boston Stump

Last week, we ventured out into the wider area and visited a nature reserve called Frampton Marsh. It’s a good place for birdwatchers with a lot of different types of birds sitting on little islands in the middle of a body of water. I also saw some geese flying overhead.

It was a sunny but very windy and cold day when we visited so we went for a bit of a walk with the dogs but turned back not long after. I didn’t have any gloves that day so my hands were freezing. We took refuge in the cafe, and I had a hot chocolate and cake to warm myself up.

I almost got stuck in the toilet! At the visitor centre, there is a toilet which I thought was accessible and I drove into it with no problem. But trying to get out was a different story as there was a lip at the threshold of the door so no matter how hard I reversed it wouldn’t go over the lip and my wheels would just spinning in place. Eventually, after taking a run up I managed to escape. We later learned that this was not in fact the accessible toilet; the accessible one was inside. But this wasn’t immediately obvious.

On another day we visited the Boston Stump. No, it’s not a tree stump; it’s actually the tallest church in England. Its nickname is the Boston stump, but no one really knows why. It’s not stumpy at all! Its proper name is Saint Botolph’s Church.

It is indeed an impressively sized church and there are some cathedrals which are about that size. I was able to drive everywhere inside including up to the altar. They had some ramps to go up steps leading to the altar which was nice to see.