Category: Blog

I built this

On By Katy DalyIn BlogLeave a comment
Image Description: A 4 level grey cat tree with hammock and condo.

So it’s been a while since I posted here and I don’t really have a reason for why that is apart from life did its thing.

Honestly, I can’t remember when the last time I posted was, was it after dad died? I don’t know.

I now live alone, did you know that? Isn’t that cool? That’s something I never thought I’d be able to do, just like building this cat tree independently. If I do say so myself I’m doing pretty well, the cat tree looks nice and I haven’t burned the flat down yet.

It hasn’t all been easy. Recently I had to go without my Chair, and more importantly, Imogen while I didn’t have my chair, that wasn’t fun. But I think I handled that well too. And things are supposed to be hard some of the time right?

I don’t know when I’ll next write on this blog. It might be soon, it could be tomorrow, next week or next month. I don’t want to make promises I won’t end up keeping, so let’s just say we’ll see what happens. But I just wanted to say I’m still here, life is still ticking on. And I hope if you find yourself wandering the blogs of the world, and stumble across me, you’re well.

To the people.

On By Katy DalyIn Blog2 Comments

To the elderly people who wouldn’t move out of the wheelchair space on the bus, for me a wheelchair user. I would feel bad for swearing at you if you didn’t wave as the bus drove away.

To the bus driver, who tried to get them to move but gave in and just wouldn’t let me on the bus, grow a backbone and enforce the rules, that’s part of your job.

To the person reading this, who thinks I was too harsh, while I admit I acted in emotion and not logic, being older doesn’t make you right or deserving of special treatment.

To the person who doesn’t understand why this made me so upset, in part it’s just because it was yet another thing today, but missing this bus has also ruined my plans for the day. It’s pushed me back at least an hour due to connecting buses.

To the people who aren’t reliant on public transport, driving isn’t so easy for me, both physically and financially, that is to say if I could do it all. Access to public transport is not only my freedom, but my right.

The bus has been reported, not that I think it’ll actually do any good. And I’m now sat here waiting for the next one, hoping it comes in time to not delay the next part of my journey, that is of course, if I can get on it at all.

My last concert

On By Katy DalyIn BlogLeave a comment

Almost a week I attended what will be my last concert, and it has taken me a week to fund the strength to write about it, due to just how automatic the experience was.

Music is a freeing experience for me, it is one of few places in this world where i do not feel constricted by my disability, where I do not feel disabled. But concerts often have the reverse effect, and they really did this time.

I went to a Dean Lewis concert, and I suppose as final concerts go it was a good way to finish a bad run. I made the mistake of going back to a venue I already knew was inaccessible to me, by this I mean that although the venue was technically wheelchair accessible, I knew the view it would provide me with wasn’t. Contrary to popular belief just because the venue in wheelchair accessible, doesn’t actually mean it will provide an accessible view to wheelchair users.

I was told previously that I would be able to go on the main floor when visiting that venue again, after my first very poor experience of it. However, when I went this time, I was told this was not possible due to there being no risk assessment of a wheelchair user being on the main floor. I found this confusing as I can’t really understand why I would have been previously given permission to do something that I was never going to be able to do due to lack of risk assessment.

I also don’t really understand why I’m more of a risk in a crowd full of people than the drunk people in that crowd are. Of the many concerts I’ve been to at this point, I’ve never once been the person that needed help of any kind. It isn’t about my safety. It is about the venues, fear of being sued. I argue that I in fact more safe to be in that crowd than many other people, once I’m in it, I do not move. And surely the people within the crowd have some responsibility for their own safety, is it not their job to ensure that they are not injured by someone in a still and unmoving wheelchair?

We really need to move past the idea of the accessibility for disabled people is just getting them into the building, that’s it’s just taking a box to say we tried. In some ways this is where the legal requirement for accessibility hold us back. People don’t actually consider the accessibility of a venue as long as it meets these legal requirements and the legal requirements are outdated and basic.

I cannot put myself through this again, I’m scared if I keep trying it’ll ruin music for me. Music saved my life. I’ll take a lot of it that’s freeing, over a little more of it that’s debilitating.

Disabled people deserve fun. And I’m tired of that being an argument. I’m tired of nice excuses, and lovely people not be able to do anything about it, and feeling bad. But nothing changes because no one sees that it should.

I just want to dance.

The venue was – The Victoria Warehouse,

Why are accessible services so complicated?

On By Katy DalyIn Blog, My Disability TruthLeave a comment

So I’ve been trying to get on to a transport service in my local area, specifically aimed at those who would struggle to use public transport or drive for whatever reason. While they are technically accessible if you use a wheelchair, like most of the things in society, they are still extra complicated for wheelchair users.

I expect things to be more complicated when I try to access them as a wheelchair user, but there’s something that little bit more annoying when trying to access a service specifically aimed at people like me. You would just think they’d be more prepared, that they would know what they were doing. That there would be less steps, if anything,,but definitely not me.

I know I’ll get through all the extra nonsense yet again and be able to use the service. But there’s just so much of it, and it keeps happening. It really feels like society is punishing me sometimes for being disabled.

Sleeping in my chair.

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This is where I’m spending my night tonight. It’s not good for me but it’s worth being able to spend time with my siblings. But that’s the way it has to be sometimes, when you live in an inaccessible world. You have to be the one to sacrifice to spend time with the people you care about.

Nobody puts baby in the corner.

On By Katy DalyIn Blog1 Comment

But sometimes it’s best to put me in the corner.

And that’s just the reality of living in a society where 99% of the homes are inaccessible to you. But you still have family, you still have people you wanna spend time with especially unimportant dates, like today was for me. So you allow yourself to be put into the corner to be out of everyone else’s way.

To be fair to them, it was the best place to put me to give me the best view of the room. But it did feel very very much like I’d be in the way if I was anywhere anywhere else. So is it really a choice then, if I feel like like I have no other options?

At least I got to be involved. At least I can get in the house at all. At least I was some consideration when they were looking for a home. Even though I do have to go up and down a very dodgy and frankly scary ramp to get in and out. At least I have some access which is better than none.

I worry that I’m never going to feel as if I belong anywhere. Even in my own home but especially in society as a whole. And being in someone else’s house is just a reminder of that.

I know it’s wrong for me to make their home all about me. But I also feel like I have to think about about me because someone has to think about me and the rest of society has failed to do that. But can I judge the people I care about about, the individuals themselves for the home they choose, when the majority of homes are inaccessible to me to begin with.

The answer is it would not be fair to. And yet I wish I could, I wish it would be fair of me to blame someone sometimes for how inaccessible the world is to me. Not just be mad at the somehow non-existent yet also everywhere “society” that is to blame. People caused the ableism I am forced to live with, and yet in most situations I can not be mad at people for it. I know why but at the same times, it makes absolutely no sense.

But at least I can get in the home of the people who I care about. Despite my the fears and difficulties and only being able to get in one room. At least I was a thought, right? And something is better than nothing.



Sometimes disabled people need to travel together.

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But unfortunately, public transport is rarely built for us to do this. And neither our taxis, in reality.

The truth is society doesn’t really seem to want disabled people to travel anywhere, never mind together. but sometimes we’ve got to do what we’ve go to do just like everybody else sometimes travelling with the disabled people.

It’s funny, in that way that’s not funny, that I’m here justifying travelling as a necessity, because doing any thing for fun is just unthinkable as a disabled person.

But public transport really needs to be accommodating of more than one visibly disabled person at a time. Can you image if it only accommodated one (visibly) non-disabled person at a time? Society would all be mad and be saying it’s a waste of money, but when it’s disabled people it’s justifiable.

To make matters worse society often pushes disabled people together, especially when we’re young, they believe we should all be friends. And maybe that’s because they don’t want us to be friend with non-disabled people, but they don’t want to feel guilty for us having no friends.

I don’t know if this is true, but it is something I’ve always believed. I’ve definitely had non-disabled people introduce me to disabled people with the assumption that we’re going to be friends just because we’re both disabled.

And then they create a society that’s not designed to have us in it together. Which honestly makes no sense.

Can we not give advice to people that didn’t ask for any?

On By Katy DalyIn Blog, My Disability TruthLeave a comment

I don’t understand why people do it. That’s a lie I do understand it. I just don’t like it.

Today someone gave me “advice” that I didn’t ask for, and it’s less what they said and more the implications that came with what they said.

I was travelling with someone else who need some assistance to walk independently. This could not be achieved safely on the pavements, due to the uneven nature of the pavements, and so it was safer for us to be in the road.

But someone decided to pull up and inform me that doing this was dangerous. The way you would tell a child not to walk in the road, or play in the street as they say.

Firstly I am an adult. I am cable of keeping myself, and the person I was with, safe. You wouldn’t assume a non- disabled person wasn’t able to do this, so why are you assuming this of a disabled person?

Secondly, if you see a disabled person doing something you don’t understand, don’t immediately assume they’re doing it wrong. A lot of disabled people learn how to do things safely, but differently to how you might consider something should be done. You’d be better of assuming that they just know what they’re doing unless you are sure they aren’t.

I promise you, no disabled person, and especially no wheelchair user, is going in the road for fun. Pavements are a lot less accessible than you might realise.

I promise I know how to exist in an inaccessible world as a disabled person. I’ve been doing it long enough.

Your advice isn’t needed or wanted, and is frankly very insulting.

Concert equality example

On By Katy DalyIn Blog2 Comments

Why is it not fair to assume that those that need accessibility seats at concerts have the same chance of getting tickets for a show than those that don’t. The answer is it’s simply not true.

On top of the fact that disabled people, who need accessibility seats, are massively limited in where they can sit in a venue and they can only go with one person. Is the fact that there isn’t as many tickets available to them as non-disabled people. In fact the numbers are dramatically different, I’ve worked out an example to show you.

I did some rough maths (I can’t do the actual figures because of course they hide them) to show you just have few accessible seats there are at the AO Arena as one example.

They’re 4 blocks in the ao arena which have accessible seating. There’s roughly 650 seats per block. I took one block and then rounded down as they’re are smaller blocks. So if every seat in the AO arenas 4 blocks was accessible, which it clearly isn’t they’d be 2600 seats for disabled people. To match the roughly 20% of disabled people in society (the figures actually 24% of people are disabled but not everyone’s going to go to a concert) this means to match the capacity of the arena they’re should be 4600 accessible seats. Split across the blocks they’re should be 13 blocks of completely accessible seating. And if you think there’s ever that you never been to a music venue. Usually maybe 30 seats in a block are accessible split across the 4 blocks that’s 120 seats because I guessed let’s say 200 give them the benefit of the doubt. Still nowhere near the 4600 there should be.

And yes I know it’s not perfect. They hide the figures so disabled people don’t have exact numbers to prove to you all how unfair it actually is. And not all disabled people are going to need access tickets. But even with these rough figures the AO arena has less than 5% of the amount of accessible tickets it should have to reflect the percentage of disabled people in society.

Having us in the room is not equality, it is not the equity we deserve. We deserve to have the same number of tickets available to us as non-disabled people do. We deserve to have fun, we deserve to have friends, we deserve to have fun with our friends.