11 THE LEARNING CURVE

the next few years were testing, I had to learn new skills from the handling of a wheelchair to the sorting out of bills to go shopping with a wheelchair, trying to navigate the aisles some people gave us dirty looks, but some others gave us smiles the thing I found most hard to bear, was other people's attitudes a lot were just plain ignorant, some others just downright rude and when people meet my husband when he's out in his wheelchair they talk around him or above him, like he really isn't there we made a series of adjustments, to help us navigate this life it was then that I decided that I would learn to drive but what a terrifying prospect, to have to get behind the wheel and to venture on the roads, I really needed nerves of steel so, I took up driving lessons which brought me very near to tears but I finally managed to conquer it, and allayed all my fears once I'd passed my driving test, and knew that I now could drive we gained a sense of freedom, and we both felt so alive we would go to visit places that we had never been before it was like a big adventure, and we both loved to explore when it came to taking holidays, we didn't want to go abroad we'd find somewhere nice in England, once we hit the open road.