TandemKate

@tandemkate

Active travel enthusiast, mobility impaired, enjoy outdoors, making stuff, reading, games, music I work for Wheels for Wellbeing - all views here are my own

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TandemKate@tandemkate· 4d

Diversifying from the Bilge Pump In Bath (currently on pause due to the ongoing Broken Bath Shower situation) & Washing Up Tub With Handles, we now have Extended Washing Machine Hose To Garden & Bucket In Shower grey water Keep Plants Alive & Kate Climate Anxiety Reduction strategies in play!

A washing machine hose attached to an extension with two jubilee clips - one screwed on straight, the other worryingly wonky

A large building bucket with handles, half full of water in a shower cubicle

TandemKate@tandemkate· 28d

Lime tree honeydew plus manual wheelchair equals very sticky, very grubby fingers! Lovely shade from the trees so worth sticky fingers though.

Extremely dirty fingers on a hand wearing a fingerless wheelchair/cycling glove

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jul 4

Yesterday, the tandem was a good way to transport trees. Today, the van is in use. Right tool for the job (but I’d love to have a percussion-transporter e-cycle!)

A van full of percussion including a big white bass drum and timpani

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jul 3

Trees by bike. Three dogwoods to complete the “pretty winter stuff” collection for the front garden. Looking forwards to having crops of yellow willow and red dogwood to weave!

Photo of green plant sticking out of a grey bike front pannier. A person is holding the rear handlebars of the tandem bike

TandemKate@tandemkate· Mar 26

Passivhaus & heat recovery ventilation bonuses nobody mentions: Really easy herb drying. Clothes drying also, & no mould. But this week, celebrating the bonus parsley!

Bunches of parsley tied in string hanging from a metal rack against a bright patterned wall with sheet music and bikes all over it. There are also trays of thyme drying on the rack.

TandemKate@tandemkate· Mar 22

Nice gardening problem:The self-seeded parsley is crowding out the lavender (under the fig). Looks like I need to dry lots of parsley!

Parsley looking very green and happy, A big mature lavender looking grumpy poking through parsley

Ginormous amounts of flat leaf parsley on a pretty aluminium table in our greenhouse

TandemKate@tandemkate· Mar 3

Disabled persons railcard rules have changed! Still a huge postcode lottery, but it’s a bit better: Blue badge holders and Disabled bus pass holders can now get Disabled persons railcards- I got mine today - only applied yesterday!

Screenshot of an email telling me my Disabled persons railcard application has been processed and I now have a railcard

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jan 24

Yep, I’d brought minions! Husband is 6ft 2 and non disabled. Lifted the gate off its hinges. Then couldn’t rehang it alone - so minion 2 helped realign hinges. I couldn’t actually have got through any of the 4 other gates unaided, either - just the aid required for this one was rather silly!

Me driving a tramper scooter through a muddy gateway, with the gate off its hinges leaning at a jaunty angle

A big man in a blue coat and a teen in a pink coat just finishing rehanging a wooden pedestrian gate which has a very tight auto-close spring!

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jan 24

I tried a tramper scooter today! It was great, even with top speed set to 2-3mph - “promenade” not “brisk walk”. Handled very muddy ground. Didn’t handle the kissing gate, though. Would be lovely if the places that hire these things made the walks they tell you you can go on #accessible …

Me, trying to see if I reversed and positioned a tramper scooter really carefully it would be possible to get through a kissing gate. So, I’m kind of stuck on a mobility scooter in a wooden kissing gate on the middle of a field.

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jan 17

Ivan the Invacar! I’ve just splashed £2.22 on “Ivan the Invacar and the Cave” The question is, does this count as work, and should I therefore not be reading it on Saturday? Also, is that £2.22 legitimate expenses?! #Accessibilty #disability

Cover of Ivan the Invacar and the cave has a cartoon picture of a little blue one-person Invacar with a white top, big expressive headlight eyes and a big fluffy brown dog leaning out of the window.

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jan 9

Effective action against obstructive pavement parking is desperately needed. This was my daughter’s school run earlier this week!

A busy multi-lane road, and the pavement is totally blocked by a parked Jaguar car

TandemKate@tandemkate· Dec 13

Hmm. Looks like rail booking might have gone a bit loopy this weekend ahead of the new timetable tomorrow. This was the only train Derby-B’ham this morning that wasn’t “full”. First class ticket only available. 8 carriages. Kid2 reported finding 3 other people on the train. Oh dear!

TandemKate@tandemkate· Dec 9

New discovery! I appear to have got away with fixing a puncture by filling the inner tube with sealant and pumping it back up again! I’m ridiculously chuffed about this. Also still slightly nervous it might not hold the whole way across London this morning…

A part folded orange Brompton with a grey front bag and black crutches leaning on it on a train station platform

TandemKate@tandemkate· Nov 1

Sustainable drainage feature nearly finished! It’s only taken 2 years… “If we do this, the drive won’t end up as a lake when it rains & you won’t have to cycle through mud all winter” was a great excuse to motivate teens & husband to dig, but honestly I just wanted to grow pretty wet-ground flowers…

Photo taken from a red asphalt driveway shows a trench filled with gravel running away from the camera to a big muddy dip like an empty pond in the middle of a front garden. There are lots of trees in and out of shot, giving the space a woodland feel

TandemKate@tandemkate· Oct 22

Figs (outside) and grapes (unheated greenhouse) still ripening. In the midlands. Climate change? What climate change?!? Aargh! (I am enjoying the fruit, but…)

A bunch of green grapes and a purple fig on a wooden table

TandemKate@tandemkate· Oct 17

Turns out figs can ripen in October, in the midlands. This has not happened to us before! Good thing that having this fig tree has trained me to like figs… or something…

A load of very ripe figs in and next to a plastic tub

TandemKate@tandemkate· Oct 13

OK, took me a bit longer than expected to get this finished - but here’s my new-from-old pannier - complete with buttons from my grandma’s button jar! All reinforced and ready to hold my lock, mending kit & folding crutches. #cycling #disabled

A very, very pink oilskin pannier clipped onto a black tandem that is covered in unicorn stickers. These aesthetic decisions were not mine!

The back of my “new” pink oilskin pannier, showing off the 25-year-old Altura / Rixen & Kaul pannier fixings, still going strong!

TandemKate@tandemkate· Sep 23

Good deed of the day: Cutting overhanging branches obstructing a busy path. Turns out a backful of steroids is all I need to be able to use light tools! Told off by 1 person, thanked by 2. #ActiveTravel #Maintenance #Access

A 3m wide shared path with low overhanging branches about 1m above the surface

TandemKate@tandemkate· Sep 16

I’m a bit overexcited about this: Our council have new bin lorries- and they’ve got low cabs! Wooo! Big win for road safety. Going to be much nicer walking/wheeling & cycling around these. Thanks Derby! #ActiveTravel #disability

A low cab, direct vision recycling bin lorry on a residential street

TandemKate@tandemkate· Aug 26

Today, I have succeeded in raising the ghost of my 25-year-old, very loved pannier. New fabric, old hardware should last some more years. Tomorrow- full reanimation out of traditional ghostly Old Sheet - it’s going to be Pink! Really enjoying puzzling out how to end up with what I want for this!

The pannier frame covered in a trial fabric cover, which has worked rather nicely! Although I sewed it the wrong way around. Oops. Next to it is bright pink waxed fabric, which will be used for the real outer and inner fabric layers. Tomorrow. Tired enough to make even more silly mistakes now…

Plastic parts including rigid black reclaimed pannier back and cut-up plastic bottle (ironed into shape) aligned, bolted and stuck together with blue airtight Tescon tape leftover from house renovation and gaffer tape. Now a freestanding rigid pannier frame which hopefully won’t bend alarmingly into the brake disc when carrying a heavy lock. Large panniers, it turns out, do not work on 20 inch wheels. This size is perfect… but it broke…

Pannier frame bits laid out on dressmakers’ squared paper to make a pattern for the fabric parts of the new pannier

Old parts of a broken Altura pannier and a 5l square plastic ecover loo cleaner bottle ready for remaking into the internal frame and fixings of a new, rigid pannier. Hopefully. If not too many things go wrong.

TandemKate@tandemkate· Aug 3

“Close Encounters of the Kerb Kind”? Symptom - mysterious regular bumping from rear wheel with worrying increasing size. Fortunately curable with a new tyre. Not really sure how this happened though - We’re not regular kerb-hoppers or vigorous riders. Wonder if it was a manufacturing defect.

A bike wheel with a tyre that’s worryingly shredded-looking and bulgy along a section where it goes into the wheel rim

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jul 22

There I was, thinking our current living room setup of piano obstructed by bike trailer with a bass clarinet on it was relatively unusual!

A bike trailer with a big bass clarinet case covered in a bright yellow cover and front Brompton pannier which is also full of clarinets left rather inconveniently right in front of an upright piano.

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jul 22

Me, repeatedly including this morning: “there are no pens in my bag, I’d better remember to put one in.” Me, this afternoon: “What am I stabbing my fingers on? Why are there all these spiky things in here? Which fool managed to put 7 pens in one small bag side pocket without noticing?!” Oops.

A surprisingly large pen collection retrieved from a surprisingly small bag side pocket which, I would swear, contained no pens this morning, and hasn’t had any added to it since. Which is odd, really…

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jul 18

Here’s the best limbo tree on a different bit of the route! It’s now the full asphalt path width (there’s an extra bit of setts but it’s too bumpy for me to ride on) and branches when dry are now maybe 1.2m above the ground. I’m contemplating bringing loppers on the school run…

An oak tree overhanging a path, probably about 1.2 metres from the ground

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jul 18

It’s the season for path maintenance. Local NCN route today - & it’s time for the regular reminder that the brambles & bushes need cutting back *as well as* the soft grass and herbaceous plants! Nobody wants to walk, wheel, cycle or run through thorns.

Edge of an asphalt shared cycle and pedestrian path. The grass and nettles etc at the very edge of the path have just been cut, but the big arching brambles are still reaching half a metre or more onto the path.

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jul 14

On the down side: Climate breakdown killing loads of people, harming many more, age of extinction, loss of biodiversity… On the up side: On track for amazing grapes this year. Sadly the second does not even close to make up for the first.

Photo up into my greenhouse roof with lots of bunches of grapes hanging down from a vine tied to the roof supports. A tomato plant is photobombing the shot somewhat too (the greeenhouse roof is low on this side - it drops to about 170cm at the eaves)

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jun 27

Kid just took this photo at a nearby building site. We’re feeling that “site team, please don’t be so incompetent you kill each other, ha ha ha” is a worrying either asa “funny” sign or as a bar to be setting for safety notices on a construction site?

Red and white sign on site railings reads “no reversing over banksman: banksman please ensure whilst providing guidance and warning to the operator/driver you do not get yourself injured or killed” below a blue sign reads “deliveries here”

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jun 26

Little miss has “behaviour charts” at school regularly. Feel this one encapsulates the sheer futility of charts/stickers etc with a person who doesn’t yet understand cause & effect except very concrete & immediate. Fortunately staff are great & provide lovely constant support. #disability #inclusion

A school behaviour chart with names blacked out. Smiley faces on each lesson down the right hand side. Comments next to smileys are mixed, including “rudeness to staff and students on bus”. At bottom, big comment reads “throughout the day, X has made threats, swearing, shouting and banging. However, when asked to complete tasks she has enjoyed and participated, gaining her smileys.”

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jun 25

Look at the amount of flexible space on this train! And there are actual seats near the wheelchair spaces & more than one wheelchair space so I could- whisper it- travel with friends and family! Nice one Northern Rail

A big open space in a train carriage with two seats facing away, two seats facing the space and a folded orange bike in the far corner of the space

TandemKate@tandemkate· Jun 18

Simultaneously feeling sorry for the people affected by serious incidents which closed roads in Derby Mon & Weds this week, & glad I was cycling not unnecessarily driving both days. Pretty sure I’d still be at the station if I’d driven today. Or taken the bus. Instead, mallow flowers & orange juice!