The Chronicles of Elin (Part One)

Hi Elin fans and lovely blog readers! Elin has had an uber busy start to her Summer holiday following her 8th birthday celebrations! I considered writing a post today about the price of special needs toys, which I have recently re-discovered are astronomical. I said in my last post Elin had enough birthday money to keep BHS afloat for another 12 months- well it turns out she doesn't, as SEN toys seemingly are priced to drain your funds faster than Sir Phillip Greene will drain 20 years worth of pensions. Anyway,  I digress. I think I'll have to save my rant about how extortionate specialised toys are for another day (lucky you!) because we've just been having too nice a time to post a miserable update :-) Let's keep things positive :-) Elin is having a wonderful break so far. She has even been sleeping through the night (that's it- I've jinxed it!). Not always good sitting but not bad on and off and then a miracle day today of fantastic sitting at the Zoo. Hurray! She has been enjoying playing with some new birthday toys that were bought for her, been to visit her Great-Nanny, stroked a horse at Erddig, been to the Disney shop in Chester to look for a treat and been to the Zoo today! Phew!!
I know some of you out there love to know what Elin gets up to in her down-time, so I am hoping to post a series of updates throughout the holidays which will mainly consist of photographs unless I have something very important to say! (who, me?) These will be entitled The Chronicles of Elin so all you lovely Elin supporters can keep up with her adventures. I hope you enjoy them. Here is Part One . I hope all of those of you out there are having an equally nice Summer thus far.

Elin listening to a fab present she received. Speakers filled with water which attach to her favourite MP3 Speaker  and play her favourite music through them whilst the jellyfish swim up and down inside and the coloured lights twinkle. Amazing!! Not even from an SEN catalogue. (Yes, that is Tom Jones you hear. Elin absolutely loves him!!) 

Elin enjoying a present of a mummy and chick who talk to each other, sing, chirp, share 'food' and can even take a recorded message to tweet back to Elin. Awesome! 

Light up tambourine hurray! 

Elin and Great -Nanny Audrey

Mummy please buy me a Nemo?!

Having an ice cream by the river in Chester.

At Erddig meeting Claire, the horse! Elin liked it when she puffed air from her giant nostrils all over her!

I love the rain, it splashes on me.......

My Daddy can't go anywhere without a cup of tea so I may as well join him!

 Chester Zoo- Just wanted to say if anyone in the vicinity is reading this and has a disabled child- Chester Zoo is AMAZING value when you get an annual membership. Elin's birthday present this year from Nanny was a membership (thanks Nanny!) It entitles the three of us to go as many times as we like in a year and get 10% discount in the cafe's and gift shop. Because I am down on the membership as Elin's carer, we only ended up paying a membership for Paul and Elin so the value is incredible. Coupled with the fact that it is one of the only leisure facilities in the area that has a proper adult changing room with hoists and moveable adult sized changing table etc, and also the new wheelchair-friendly boat ride (which I've mentioned in my blog before I think) you really can't go wrong. We're going to be going A LOT over the next twelve months! Today Elin listened to some noisy dinosaurs in the new exhibition (and laughed her head off at them), got sprayed with water along with Daddy by a particularly naggy dinosaur (how sad!) rode on the monorail, listened to some penguins splashing around, sniffed some elephants, laughed at a boisterous zebra (the noise was crazy!) and rode like the Queen of the Nile on the back of the riverboats whilst giggling at the monkeys climbing all around! Just a wonderful day. AND SHE SAT IN HER CHAIR ALL THE WAY AROUND. Who could ask for anything more? Until Part Two, folks.......

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PS Thank you so much to the GP who sent me the lovely email (you know who you are :-) I did respond I hope you received it) I am always SO touched to receive feedback about the blog and thoughts from others - any readers wishing to get in touch please feel free to email me anytime. Also anyone wishing to comment on these posts should know that, due to a recent change in my privacy settings, comments added underneath posts will never be published until I have read them first, I don't always choose to publish comments depending how personal they are to the writer. Big love y'all :-) xxxxx