The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan

I have written here in the past about having dyspraxia, a minor special need which makes me clumsy and hopeless at anything remotely practical. Today I'm going to share my story of learning to ride a bike, something which was greatly affected by dyspraxia though I didn't know as much at the time. The story begins much the same as everyone else's. The time came when my parents decided I was probably old enough to ride a bike and purchased one for me. It came with stabilisers and I rode around the patio on it perfectly happily. But then the time came to remove the stabilisers. I was taken across to the playing field at the end of the street and sat upon my small bike. My Dad would start pushing me and telling me to pedal and I would obliging do so. Then eventually my Dad would try letting go and I'd quickly lose my balance and topple over. This is normal but the difference with me is I never seemed to get much better. The best I'd get was falling over a short way ...

Coming up with a theme to write about week after week is quite challenging, especially when I've not been doing anything of particular interest. This week I thought I'd just ramble on about various things which are happening this week. It's proving to be a challenging time at the moment. For various reasons work has been particularly challenging of late, I've still been suffering from hayfever and I've a thing I'm waiting to hear about which is constantly in the back of my mind. The hayfever has at least abated a little. My eyes are significantly better than they have been though I have developed a twitch in my left lower eyelid. Apparently eye twitches can be caused by eyes becoming dry (a symptom of hayfever) or from taking antihistamines. This leaves me in a confusing situation where I don't know whether to use the antihistamine eye spray or not. For the time being I'm left with another reason to feel self-conscious. The main hayfever sympto...

Today I have shamelessly stolen an idea from a TV show. Room 101  sees celebrities share things which they really don't like that they think should be banished to room 101. Here are my three: Inconsiderate Pedestrians Walking along the street can be very annoying. It shouldn't be that difficult for people to be walking both sides along the pavement but so often this doesn't happen. You get couples holding hands or just people talking to each other and blocking up the entire footpath. You have little choice then but to step into the road and face the potential danger of vehicles. If nothing else it's just incredibly rude and gives an attitude that these people are more deserving of having space than everyone else. Then there's the people who meet someone they know and stop in the middle of the footpath to have a lengthy and usually tedious conversation. For me the natural thing to do is for both parties to move across to the side away from the road allowing...

I hate the spring. For someone who likes walking and spending time outdoors this might seem something of a paradox. The reason: hayfever. To many people hayfever might not seem like a big deal. But when you suffer as badly as I do, it is. My nose streams constantly, I sneeze literally hundreds of times a day, my eyes feel like they have acid in them and my whole face aches. I wake up every day feeling like I'm hungover. Studies have found that hayfever can have a significant impact on mental health. Feeling ill for weeks at a time is going to do this, as well as losing sleep because of it and finding leaving the house an unpleasant experience because it makes your allergies flare up. For me, hayfever, or "allergic rhinitis" started in my early twenties. My immune system is quite strong- I rarely get ill- but it got carried away with itself and started releasing an antibody called immunoglobulin E (IgE). This releases the chemical histamine which causes inflammati...