A Grand Day Out

The Country Show

We had a wonderful day today at the the local Country Show. Last year it was terrible. Ram spent most of his time on the ground whining and crying that his feet hurt. He was ok when we were sitting at the arena watching the show, but as soon as we started to walk around his behaviour deteriorated.

When I got home that day, I remembered seeing another older child in a buggy, so I decided to get the old buggy out of the garage that I never used! I had Ram in a backpack the whole time because of walking the dogs in the fields, and when he was too big to go in it, I had to stop walking the dogs. I always thought it was the autism that made him not like walking. It was only when the physiotherapist assessed him that we realised he actually had a problem that was causing pain.

Anyway, it was last years visit to the fair that got me thinking about a buggy, and after trying out one shopping trip with the little buggy, Ram's knees up to his ears, that we bought the Mclaren Major buggy.

So this year with the buggy I knew it would let us know if it was just the pain of his feet or more than that, that caused the problems last year.

And the verdict! It was the pain in his feet!

We had such a lovely time this year, with no tears, or behaviour problems. No lying on the ground or whining. In fact he sat and watching a lecture on the history of shotguns!

The day started well with a trip to a stall where you could shoot an air rifle at targets in the grass. Ram was very good and hit several of the targets. In fact they said he was the best they had had that day so far!

We discussed our rabbit problem and they said that no only would an air rifle be good enough to kill them, but that Ram was skilled enough to hit them in the right spot. So it looks like we will be getting an air rifle.

Later in the day we had a try at another stand where it is just target practice. Both Ram and the Dxh had a go. Ram did very well again getting all but one of his shots in the centre of the target. Dxh didn't think he would do so well as his eyesight has deteriorated since he used air rifles at school and he couldn't even focus on the target, but he surprised himself and got all his shots in the middle too!

We had our lunch by the arena watching the dog show and the White Helmets. Because Ram already has a seat with his buggy, and the bag we carry on the back of the buggy is actually a little stool that Dxh's mother used when she was out painting, we also took another camp stool hooked over the handle bars which meant that we all had somewhere to sit and have lunch.

Ram was so much happier that we managed to stay much longer than last year. Last year we actually left quite early, but this year we stayed almost to the end.

Ram's feet may not have hurt, but mine certainly did!