Lately over at Claire HQ:
As of this morning after a 3-month long wait, I Passed.
In other news, we are ordering a shiny, shiny new car with the shinyness!
Went to the showroom today to have a bit of a play, taking a test-drive on Friday (well, K is — I don’t/can’t/am not fit to drive).
We are trading our little hatchback in due to my current wheelchair giving the back window a royal thrashing. I think it’s going to take one more over-enthusiastic altercation with the brake pedal and the back window will surely shatter/crack. We are in dire need of a bigger car, having the weekly Tesco shop swim around over the back seats because sod-all-else fits in the boot besides my chair is wearing very thin. It wasn’t so bad with my old chair, but the tension-adjustable back canvas on my Lomax Active means that the push handles can’t fold down as tightly. Bugger.
Went and bought some bits of bungee in anticipation of the new car. Bigger car means bigger boot. Bigger boot means more room for the chair to rattle around with abandon. Rattling with abandon means chair damage, car damage and possible passenger damage. Abandonous rattling is therefore A Bad Thing™. A well bungee’d chair means I can accompany K shopping, the chair will sit still and snug, the shopping can fit in the boot and we can even consider taking other people with us.
This is a whole new concept for me. What with my requiring more accessories than bloody Malibu Barbie, we could never sensibly consider having others with us in the car, especially when shopping as there just wasn’t the room. Going anywhere in a group still meant going singularly and having to meet, or using someone else’s car. Which, was often difficult for me to get in and out of as I side transfer in a seated position and have limited knee flexion and rather unforgiving hip joints. This basically translates into: rear seats are a total sod and 4x4s/MPVs et al are a strict “you’ve got to effing joking, mate!”.
Am very excited. With knobs on.
A full-time wheelchair user since 1998, Claire lives in an adapted bungalow in England with her Partner of 10 years and their two dogs: 
Congratulations on the pass mark and the new car!
woo congrats!
I gave up with my online course lol! 
You could fit everyone/thing in then!
Stupid question but does the chair not fold flat? I just had a great image of a car heading down the road with a wheel chair on top!
Cheers, Rhys & Han
Han:
The chair does fold flat, it just doesn’t fold as small as would be considered ideal in an iddy-biddy hatchback.
LOL, you can store them folded on the roof (though probably not in the fashion you’d envisaged!) in a Chair Topper, but they’re expensive and add on to the fuel consumption. We’ll just fold it and bungee it in the boot for now, methinks.
Wooohoooo, really well done on passing the course.
With the whole new car thing are you buying it through Motability or are you buying it privately?
James: Cheers
As for the car, privately.
Good to hear that
Congratulations on passing! I hope your new car will be pretty 
(And don’t forget to post pictures 
)
Emsz:
Thanks
I do too! 
Congrats on passing your class! I found you through this site Not that I’m proud to have stumbled upon your blog this way, but still glad to have found it!
So, what car is it?
Congrats on the pass. I need to print off my application and send it in for the course you persuaded me into
w00t! Congrats on the pass!
Hopefully this should create inspiration to get my NVQ & BTEC finished… and that’s something of an interesting link from Tom there!
Tom:
Welcome, welcome
Jem:
Yeah, it’s best to send it in good time, especially if you’re not paying straigh-forward with cash/card etc (i.e. your boss is sponsoring you etc). Best of luck with it
Sensei: Hey, good to see you
How much of it do you have left to do?
Yes… certainly a new one, isn’t it? Dare I take it in the spirit it was intended?!
Congrats on passing. Congrats on the new car. Things sound like they are going great for you right now. I am so happy for you.
well done..:)
What car do you have now? I’ve been fortunate in the past to be at disability roadshows etc, and get to play with all the demostrators..good fun.
I need a car with wide opening doors..Astra’s have that. My previous car (The white Maestro of doom) was an adapted one for the last owner..much uprated power steering, and an electric raise/lower “transfer” seat on each side, next to the main car seats. I still have those, but no car to put them in now..
They were useful..when nan had her hip replacement done, she could get into my car by lowering herself onto it, and then having me lower her far enough to swivel onto the seat. They were also brilliant for using raised to wash the roof, or drive with a shelf for McDonalds..:lol:
Hev:
Karl: A Fiat at the moment. Plenty of legroom, decent sized doors and it was great with my old chair boot-wise, but since I’ve gotten my most recent chair it’s not big enough as the chair folds differently.
Congratulations on passing your course.
I am really, really thinking about doing an Open University course this year on top of my internal course I’m doing at work but I worry about the costs and budgeting for it…
Melissa: Welcome!
I see from your site that that you’re from Scotland, try this to see if you can get financial support for course fees with the OU.
I really recommend giving the OU a try, if you can
That’s wonderful — you deserve it! Congrats!
Quote of the week.
V xx
Vixx: Hey V! Good to see you back!