Parallel Windsor 2023 - Part 1

On Sunday, 02 July, I took part in Parallel Windsor. What a crazy but amazing day, it was overwhelming but absolutely phenomenal! You have probably heard me talking about this event over the last few months, but let me explain what it is…

Parallel Lifestyle is an organisation that holds fully inclusive events. These events are festivals of celebrations and inclusivity. I have been to three of these; the first two were held in London, at the beginning of September in 2016 and 2017, and this time it was in Windsor Great Park.

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In 2016, when it started up, I think that the event was meant to be held each year but from what I can gather, although it’s pretty difficult to imagine, it outgrew London’s Olympic Park. I think it took the organisers a while to find a big enough venue to host the upcoming years, and then covid happened, so they had to miss two years because of the pandemic. In 2022, they held a virtual Parallel Windsor event. I’m not sure how that worked, but there was a video of one person in Windsor Park, and I believe that the people who signed up for the event got exclusive access to some virtual tours. I don’t know if this is exactly right because I didn’t sign up for that one as at the time, I was living at my parents’ house and there isn’t really a good place to walk that far safely. Plus, I didn’t see any point in buying a ticket to walk around your neighborhood.

In the last two events, I have been pushed around the course in my manual wheelchair, and only walking the last 50 meters or so with the help of my mum. The last year that they did it in London, I was waiting to get my walking frame and I had hoped that I would have it by this event but the charity let me down as we didn’t hear from them again after the initial assessment, and eventually, I had to start fundraising for the cost of the walker myself. This took a long time, so I didn’t have the frame in time.

As I had previously only walked 50 metres at these events, I was sceptical about whether I would be able to walk 1km using my frame. From about February time, I decided that I wanted to raise some money for doing this event, and I thought about all the charities that I could support… After a lot of thought and consideration, I decided to help Ukraine. When I was looking at all the charities that I could set up a fundraising page for Ukraine, only one came up and that was the British-Ukrainian Aid, so I selected that charity and managed to raise over £1,000! Whilst training I found myself getting stronger and more familiar with the walker and found it easier to manoeuvre. When I first started using it, I could barely walk forwards. Over the months, I have been going out with my relief carers, I have had more experience with how my walking frame works, and although I thought I knew my body well, I also got to know more about how my body moves.

When I started using my walking frame, I really struggled to keep my body upright and I would be leaning backwards and sitting on the seat whilst I was walking, but now with practice, I have managed to train my body to stay upright when I’m walking. I have also realised that technique is key to moving in the right direction with a steady pace; I used to get my feet muddled up with each other or run my foot over with the wheels… My splints hold my feet in one position, and for some unknown reason, when I have my splints on, my feet turn outwards, and they’re fixed like this, so I can’t rotate them at all. I have to place my feet closer together to avoid running them over…

Come back tomorrow for Part 2!