Simple Pleasures As our days are full, so are our pleasures many. We never fail to find excitement in the everyday things, like observing the antics of birds clamouring round our bird-table. We enjoy sampling a new recipe, using our home-grown tomatoes tenderly raised from seeds. There is added meaning in drinking home-made wines, while spending our favourite evenings together with radio or television for company. A selection of music cassettes makes a fitting atmosphere to browse through our stamp collection. Our interest in live theatre has increased, and we now attend more regularly. We even enjoyed the challenge of coping with a power workers' strike, when our total dependence on the supply of electricity for everything including our hoist and central heating presented considerable difficulties. But we had warmth from a paraffin heater, and I managed to make soups and hot drinks on a small camping stove. However, one advantage I did have over most other people. Having a 12-volt battery underneath me meant that Alec could rig me up with a bulb and flex, and my light travelled with me! Conversely, when the "lightening strikes" were on, I am sure that few other people lived in fear of being suspended in mid-air on a hoist! But our helpers and friends adjusted their times accordingly, and in fact the crisis was averted. We take a keen interest in watching my brothers' children grow up, and perhaps most especially in Eileen's little family. We also follow Gerry's aspirations to become a Social Worker. As a single man still, his only true commitment is to his work as an Assistant Warden in a hostel for homeless young men. But twice a week he will still interrupt his own social life, to become our official helper. Apart from this, he pops in to see us most days, anyway. Jack regrets that those unavoidable circumstances of the past caused him to become more remote from his family than I from mine. But he is always pleased to hear news of his sisters' families, from a telephone call or an occasional visit, or when meeting his mother at the Club on Wednesdays. Jack's biggest regret is that his dear old grandparents did not live to see his achievements. Naturally, we are still closely involved with Freda and Trevor and their children, Andrew now thirteen, and nine-year-old Rachel. We look forward to our exchange visits to their home, and to the home of Trevor's sister Thelma, her husband David, and their offspring James and Paul, who are our god-sons. With the opportunity to share so many other people's children, it seems we were denied little after all. We have witnessed a baby's first steps; an infant's first paintings; an older child's struggle with homework. We have encountered tantrums; children's ailments; the harassed mother; the proud mother of a perfect new-born babe. And, alas, we have shared the deep sadness of a mother bereaved of a young handicapped child. In all, we have been fortunate and privileged to enter the children's world, without having the responsibility of bringing them up! In many ways, since coming to this new life, we have been greedy for experience. Perhaps we were simply wanting to make up for lost time. Yet we know that, without those lost years, today would not be so satisfying. Despite our voracious appetite for life, and all it brings, we still relish every morsel slowly and gratefully. One often reads of disabled people as being the underprivileged, the forgotten ones, and we certainly know of some ourselves who could fall into those categories. But for us, the luck changed: public attitudes improved and society developed all at the right time. Above all, we met Elizabeth Barnes, who was willing to put her trust in our limited abilities and take a risk. And we were prepared to take a step into the unknown. We could not possibly know what lay ahead. We had to take a chance – the chance of our lifetime. It could have failed so miserably. "Why do you seem to attempt the impossible?" we have been asked. Our answer is simple. "Because we usually find it possible!" All those years ago, when we first held hands so shyly in that old hospital room, we could never have imagined that this new world of ours was even remotely possible. Being close to each other every day of our lives was all we ever wanted. We cannot take THAT pleasure for granted even now.