a low-level yomp in a glorious landscape
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All articles filed in disability
Around Diabaig
thanking my walking body
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“you’d never know”
what not to say to someone who has had a stroke
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a coat for falling
Good morning! Are there garments in your wardrobes from which a particular event or association is difficult to shake? I have friends, for example, who after wearing a certain dress at a funeral, have found that putting it on again becomes difficult. I’m a particularly garment-attached person, and there’s perhaps no garment to which I’m…
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protective measures
Good morning, how are you all doing? Tom really enjoyed all of your wonderful (and hugely helpful) responses to yesterday’s post – and I suspect you’ll see him following up many of these paper folding leads quite soon. . . . It’s rather blustery and rainy here today (though the weather is less severe than…
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walking words
Good morning, everyone. Today I thought I’d share with you one of the poems I recently read at Write by the Sea. I’m someone who loves walking, and since my stroke in 2010, I’m also someone who has a disabled body. If you’ve read Handywoman, you might remember that a really formative moment in my…
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Write by the Sea
The inaugural Write by the Sea Festival in Argyll, celebrated writing and writers exploring themes connected with the sea, food, coast, nature and place
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wheesht
Wheesht is published! You can now buy the book in the KDD shop, find out more about it at its dedicated website and we’ve even produced a set of 12 jolly postcards featuring the wonderful illustrations that Tom created for each chapter of the book. If you were part of our club earlier this year,…
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Etac and me
One of Handywoman’s central themes is the importance of tools and made-things in everyday life. I have a different, and much more nuanced, understanding of well-designed tools and objects post-stroke simply because my own physical deficits forced me to notice, and to reflect upon, how such objects addressed (or often failed to address) my body…
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grey: not pregnant
Hello, here is my new hair, and my new cardigan. For quite a while it has been obvious (to me at least) that my hair was no longer naturally brown, but grey. I got to a point a few months ago when I was just tired of the continual touching up. What might my hair…
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a question of proportion
I’m working on new designs and have found myself musing upon questions of proportion. (please don’t laugh at my shoddy sketching. I am useless with a pencil and Fashionary is a genuine godsend for me!) It recently occurred to me just how much, over the past twelve months or so, I have been enjoying experimenting…
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Handywoman – preorder!
We are now preparing for the publication of my new book, Handywoman! I’ve been working on this book (in between my other projects) for a couple of years now. I am more proud of, and happy about, completing this book than any other I’ve ever written. Probably the best way to understand what Handywoman is…
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back here
When something really major happens in your life there is always a before and after. And when that something is a massive transformation that alters your body and identity, when that something is a stroke that suddenly changes you from an able-bodied person to someone who will spend the rest of her life managing the…
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branching out
On Thursday it will be eight years since my stroke. I am doing pretty well now, and think that I am doing well because I have learnt that dealing with a stroke is at least as much about managing limitation as it is about recovery. I know that I need an unusual amount of sleep…
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Strathendrick (and a personal note about modelling)
This week, the West Highland Way Club passes through Strathendrick and Strathblane, close to where I live. I walk through these beautiful valleys (or straths) every single day, enjoying the changing seasons and my surroundings. It is a landscape of great variety: the bare muir blooms with colourful flowers, pasture meets rocky outcrop, and verdant…
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then and now
Last week I was in a bookshop in Glasgow, perusing the outdoor bookshelves, and became absorbed in a tome about the West Highland Way. “Is this you getting ready, then?” asked a friendly assistant, assuming I was preparing myself for a 96 mile walk. “No,” I replied, “I actually walked the West Highland Way back…
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KDD & Co 