First post for ages and it's a bloody list

Been a while since my last post and the internet still loves lists, so here goes.

Let's start with the good: 

1. Melatonin
This magical stuff gets kids to sleep in no time. This has given us our evenings back and meant we can now get our kids to bed at a reasonable time. It doesn't keep them asleep but it's still awesome. Doesn't seem to be as effective at 2am as it is at 7pm either.

2. The Delichon Delta All Terrain Buggy
This has changed our lives. That might sound like a big statement but it has. We got beach wheels and bike trailer bits. This means we can get J on to the beach easier and take him out on bike rides. And that's just the beginning.

3. The Sunshine Fund

Great local charity that paid for our Delta. It did cost well over three grand.

4. Getting the opportunity to do things for yourself

Last year I got away for four days to ride the C2C. Not the standard one, we done a 200 mile off road one. It was tough but rewarding and best of all I could forget about my usual life for a few days and just ride my bike. Things like this are few are far between though. However with a bit of effort and planning it can happen. More recently than my C2C trip, the wife went to Nepal and trekked to Everest Base Camp which was an incredible achievement. 

5. Books

Specifically books by Oliver Jeffers and Julia Donaldson. There's a lot of crap children's books and you wonder how they made it to print but you can't really go wrong with these two authors.

And now the not so good: 

6. Special needs equipment

All too often it's seriously overpriced and junk. Wheelchairs are welded pig iron with components left over from the BSO (bike shaped object) industry. I got a new wheelchair recently, the grips supplied were horrible cheap push on rubber things you'd never want on a bike. The brake levers are cheap plastic things and one of them keeps sticking. The solid rubber tyres don't provide any grip, when you're using the brakes to control speed down a slope it really doesn't help when the tyres start sliding. It was a good job I had decent grip on my shoes and he's still light enough for me to hang on to. I don't know how much this wheelchair cost but the last one was about two grand so I'm guessing this was more. At the moment the nhs is supplying them but when we start paying for them I'll be a lot more fussy about components and quality. I could go on about other issues and equipment but I'll save it for a dedicated post.

7. Going out for any length of time

This is getting harder and harder and it's mainly due to poor facilities for changing J. He's getting too big for baby changing rooms and while Changing Places are great, there's just not enough of them at the moment. This means we often end up changing J in the back of the car or on the floor somewhere and that's just not good enough for anyone.

That'll do, don't want to make the list too long and my sleep deprived brain has lost the ability to think now.