Home and Away

Since we got home from Malta, we have had a few days at home and then off to Yorkshire for a short trip.

While we were at home, Racheal enjoyed meeting up with one of her friends from Rangers. Summer was caring for Racheal that afternoon and it was lovely to see the three of them spending time together. They went out for a walk in the rain to a café, spent some time at home showing off the scrapbooks that they’ve been working on and had fun making music together.

Auntie Ann was able to join us for a few days in Yorkshire staying at Beamsley Hospital. It’s an interesting, circular building, with rooms leading off a small central chapel. Once home to 12 needy ladies and a house mother, it is now a comfortable self catering holiday home managed by the Landmark Trust. The interior doors were narrow, so we transferred Racheal from her Treki to her smaller Convaid Cruiser for indoors. This is something we do in lots of places as the Treki is often too wide for older doorways, and to keep floors clean if we’ve been out in the mud, sand or wet.

For our first day of sightseeing, we went for a short walk at Brimham Rocks followed by lunch and a much longer walk at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Gardens.

On the second day we visited York. It was lovely to meet up with Rose, Ann’s niece, and see some of her favourite haunts. Particularly the chocolate shot shop!

We had been fortunate with the weather so far, but our third day was wet. We visited Skipton in the morning which was nearby and in the afternoon Summer made her debut as Racheal’s hairdresser while I took Nutmeg for a muddy walk.

The next day we made our way back to Norfolk via Chesterfield to visit the head office of Home Care Direct, the care agency which employs Summer and Racheal‘s other carers. It was great to meet some of the staff who we have previously only spoken to on the telephone. They had created a sensory room in a small downstairs office for Racheal to enjoy and even bought us gifts.

And now we’re back at home again, unpacking from our Yorkshire trip and packing for our next big adventure, four weeks in Spain and Portugal.