Quinns has absolutely loved taking part in Your Art World, an art project, at the National Gallery in Edinburgh over the last few months. As well as exploring the gallery he has used various techniques to explore artistic techniques and as a result produced some interesting artworks.

He has taken part in so many ways; cutting strips of gold foil, pressing down on paper for prints, holding onto stretchy material, choosing colours for ink and paint, rolling over paint in his wheelchair, decorating the walls etc. It is a challenge to find activities that Quinns can be fully involved in, and this has been a wonderful opportunity where he has been truly valued. Thanks to PAMIS for the opportunity and the lovely artists who have helped him explore the materials and techniques.

Edinburgh is an hour away. There are  always complex logistics involved with travelling far from home with Quinns. The main things to sort out are how to get there and how we care for him while we are away. I feel reasonably happy visiting the centre of Edinburgh because there are several Changing Places we can use; Waverley Station, Wetherspoons, St James Centre. There is also a facility in the Gallery itself which although it doesn’t quite make the specification for a full Changing Place is fine for us.

We all know Quinns loves the train so travelling that way is a good option for a fun day out in central Edinburgh. For three out of the four sessions our train travel went smoothly. However, the day there was a bus replacement for a tiny fraction of the journey it went spectacularly wrong.

A normally 4-minute train journey took one hour! Even although we arrived in ample time for our train, as a result of inaccessible replacement buses and having to wait for a replacement taxi, we missed two trains and ended up in Edinburgh an hour later than planned. Sadly, it was the same on the return journey. What should have been a total of two hours travel there and back took us four hours!

I trusted the Scotrail app when it said the replacement buses and coaches were all accessible. Generally we have experienced good service on the trains and have also travelled by bus and coach with Quinns, so I had little reason to doubt it. We didn’t set out that day entirely naively so we made it to the art gallery on time but only because we had left a large enough margin of error.

It may have all worked out but we arrived home that day thoroughly exhausted and in shock at how badly the service had failed us. I have, of course, written to Scotrail detailing what happened in order to highlight the issues we faced. The response was an apology and assurances that the issues we flagged have been noted. The third party bus service have also been notified of their failures. All we can do now is hope that changes are made and next time we try we don’t receive such a disappointing service.

It is easy to highlight the good things that happen to Quinns without really sharing the difficulties. He has had some amazing opportunities recently which are good to share but none of them come without challenges. For every photo of Quinns smiling there is usually also a story to share about how he got to that point.