Living with Cerebral Palsy 🍋🍋

Friday 25 March 2016

Pasg Hapus Pawb!!

Happy Easter everyone!
I have decided Easter is an awesome holiday. The same glorious length as Christmas (for those of us employed in schools, anyway) but without any of the stress or trying to pack in a million commitments. Added to this, if you're lucky, the sun will come out.  Today, we were lucky. The weather was beautiful. We shelved previous plans to take Elin to the cinema to see the new Disney film (save that for a rainy day!) and decided to go to the Zoo.
It was great! Elin did really, really well with her sitting and though she needed plenty of breaks we did get some good long walks out of her! The zoo is vast and even more so now that the new 'Islands' section has opened. We were very impressed - it was really lovely and could have been a day out in itself with the different countries represented in different areas and the giant 'tropical realm' dome. Best of all though, a boat ride. I do love a good boat ride. We were worried at first that Elin may not be able to go on as you had to be able to walk for health and safety reasons (don't start me off) However, it turned out the ride had several adapted boats for wheelchairs and not only this but we completely skipped the 45 minute queue before hopping onto our special boat!! Hurray! Well done, Chester Zoo!!! It really reminded us of Disneyland (a whole year ago!!! Sigh!!!) as we are simply not used to that kind of accessibility in this country. Sufficed to say Elin lorded it up in her elevated position at the back of the boat like the Queen of the Nile!!!  Chester Zoo also have a fully equipped disabled changing area with hoist and bed - no changing Elin not the floor- so it really is one of the best places to visit in the area if you need these facilities.
Mind you, before I praise the zoo too much I have to say the entrance fee is fairly astronomical and for an ordinary family of four or five you would be looking at over a hundred pounds for the day. Jeesh! Luckily for us they do provide disabled/carer rates and I know lots of my friends have yearly family passes which work out very reasonable if you want to go a few times a year. I would definitely consider getting one of these if we could be assured that Elin would sit in her chair from one day to the next, which we can't- we just have to keep our fingers crossed and see what kind of a week she's had! Well in any case, today it paid off. We have had a lovely day and hopefully the rest of the Easter holidays will follow suit. We are going to a hotel on Wednesday, the 'Quay Hotel' in Deganwy (remember how they promised us a free night after we had to come home early in the summer when Elin was poorly? Well, we're using it- on our eleventh wedding anniversary :-) Thanks very much, Quay Hotel! More on that later in the week) and I'm sure Elin's going to love it.
Hope all you lovely blog readers are enjoying the holidays as much as we are so far!! I haven't even opened any eggs yet!! So much to look forward to :-)
Will leave you with some photo's of Elin's grand day out. xxx


 Elin absolutely LOVED the squaking of the Flamingo's!! We stayed there for ages watching her laugh :-)

Thanks Chester Zoo!  

 Elin loved the gentle ride around the lazy river, feeling the boat wobble, listening to all the sounds and the other children in the boat.

Katherine Hepburn in 'Out of Africa'. Or is it Elin????? 


 Elin looking for Sophie's Mummy in the Giraffe enclosure.
Happy Easter folks xxxx
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