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Dumyat Delta Adventures

qtandcp, , , , , 2 Comments

I’ve dreamed of getting Quinns up Dumyat for quite a few years now. Our local hill is well trodden by anyone and everyone. Quinns’ friends started their climbing attempts in nursery or early primary school. 

Six children with their backs to the camera including Quinns in his Delta buggy look out over Stirling. In the distance you can see the Wallace Monument. It is very small.

A friend and I started scouting the possibility for Quinns while he was still in nursery. We wanted him to experience the great outdoors, the change of perspective and the clarity that comes with being so high up looking out over the land.

We are very lucky to have been gifted a buggy style wheelchair, Delta Delichon, which lets us get off road with Quinns. Over the last few years we’ve taken him on various walks in attempts to get fit and to feel comfortable with the Delta. Our experiences have included flat tyres on the coldest of days and upset ankles following the rough terrain of the Darn Walk on a sunny day when we got carried away.

All thoughts of climbing Dumyat were put on hold while my ankles recovered and as busy lives took hold. It took a major health incident and a good friend permanently returning to Australia to give us the push we needed to actually do it.

All the plans we had previously made didn’t seem so relevant now. We definitely weren’t as fit as we intended. We didn’t have the team of people we needed. We had none of the extra equipment we thought necessary.

There were only three weeks between the date we decided to go for it to when we actually climbed. These days I am far more aware of Quinns’ vulnerability so I notified Mountain Rescue about our plans. They were realistic but positive about our attempt deferring to my mother’s instinct about what was possible.

Packing for the adventure I needed Darth Feeder (Quinns’ feeding pump) as we would be walking across a feed time. I also needed hand sanitiser, test strips, syringes for flushes and cooled boiled water as well as pliers in case I couldn’t get the NG cap off.

On arrival at the car park we unloaded the parts of the Delta which had to be built in its entirety before getting Quinns out of the car. We sat him on a sling for the hoist just in case for any reason we had to get him out. I had my set of allen keys in case of minor issues with the Delta and a mountain biker on call in case of a more major incident.

Quinns smiles in his Delta buggy on a grassy embankment under blue sky. I am only just visible adjusting the feeding pump behind the Delta.

We were a team of ten. Four adults and six children. Of course the children were all much older than when we had originally planned this adventure. I felt confident now that Big Sister is bigger, stronger and more capable of handling her brother.

The weather had been dry for days so the path was dusty not muddy which made it easy underfoot/wheel. We modified the Delta to have two handles on the front to allow support from the front and lifting if necessary. The majority of the path was reasonably accessible to the wheels but some bits were harder to get over. 

Three adult women manoeuvre Quinns in his Delta buggy across rocky terrain with a view of the Wallace Monument in the distance. A seven year old boy is in front of the Delta.

It was a beautiful evening. The sun was shining. There was a slight breeze. It was neither too hot nor too cold.  We took it slowly just enjoying; the journey, the company, the attempt. 

We stopped roughly half way for a snack and to put Quinns’ feed on. After the break everyone was keen to keep going. The path was flat and easy until it wasn’t. With the rocky slope ahead of us too tricky for this attempt we explored going around the longer grassier route. It would have been possible but we decided not to this time. From our previous scouting trips we were also aware there was a second really tricky part. 

It was never our intention to get the whole way up on this attempt. Whatever distance we managed we would have been happy. It was about the journey, the going for it and seeing how far we could get. As a result the whole adventure far exceeded our expectations and who knows how far we might get next time with more preparation.

Quinns (in his Delta buggy), Big Sister and I smile at the camera. We are half way up Dumyat hill.

e-Sgoil

qtandcp, , , 3 Comments

Zoom has become a big part of life in the past year. Video calls are no longer the medium used solely by the Open University. Everyone across all areas has had to adjust to it and as a result it’s made work, meetings and socialising more accessible. Big Sister now provides tech support for Granny’s online Guild meeting. 

10 year old girl sits facing the camera looking down at an open laptop screen. She is wearing headphones.
Big Sister taking part in an online class at e-Sgoil.

When we made the decision to remove Big Sister and Quinns temporarily from their local school in November due to Quinns’ shielding status Big Sister was enrolled in e-Sgoil. Based in the Western Isles it is a remote teaching facility which provided her with an online teacher, a timetable of online classes and a new set of friends.

It came recommended by other schools who used it when pupils were shielding or isolating, saving school teachers from having to create individual lesson plans while also teaching an almost full class. For me the great benefit was that I didn’t need to be very involved (unless I was pulled in to help with French pronunciation) and that left me more time to work with Quinns. 

Big Sister enjoyed the structure provided by the e-Sgoil online lessons. There were certain times each day she knew she had to be online and outside the core hours there was flexibility for her to work at her own pace on Masterclasses. She got very engaged with the work and built a great rapport with her teacher, often showing off work she’d done at home. The option to respond in text chat in online classes rather than having to speak up in a classroom setting meant she was more likely to be heard. 

She made new friends at e-Sgoil. Children from all over Scotland and for all sorts of reasons joined the class. She was part of a P5 – P7 class (and briefly a P2 – P7 class) so there was a wide range of abilities. There was a playground space where she could get to know the others in her class. Book, film and activity recommendations were bounced around the country while everyone was taking a break from set activities.

Even when everyone across Scotland moved to homeschool she stayed enrolled in e-Sgoil with the option to do additional work provided by her own school. Although she didn’t do very much of the work she did take the opportunity to join in on calls with her class. We knew she was capable of slotting back in to school when the time came.

She was sad when it was time to leave e-Sgoil and go back to school even though she was keen to see her school friends again. Given the choice now she would split her time between e-Sgoil and school. Contact with both sets of friends and being taught in two different ways may be the best of both worlds!