Armley Mills

This past Tuesday (29th July) Paul and I went to Leeds Industrial Museum. The museum is located on the grounds of the old Armley Mills in Leeds. Armley Mills, for those who may be interested, was once the world's largest woollen mill. Exhibits cover 3 floors, in addition to outside areas. Admission is £3.60 for adults, £1.80 for children over 5, £2.90 for concession tickets (students and OAPs), and £7.60 for families. Saying this, Paul and I got in for free as he's disabled/special needs and I'm his carer. It might be worthwhile to bring a letter from the DWP to prove that your child is in receipt of DLA, if this applies to you as well.

When we first walked into the museum, I was concerned that it looked quite small. As I said before though, the museum is larger than it looks and there's quite a bit to see and do there. You enter the museum via the gift shop. To your right is the café which serves biscuits and hot drinks, to your left is the museum proper. The gift shop is well worth looking around. There are several items there from toys to books to mugs and tea towels. All of which are high quality and would make wonderful souvenirs. Paul chose a model train which makes train noises. It's just the right size for his wooden train tracks.

The first room you enter after the gift shop has several exhibits as well as a few activities. Paul really enjoyed playing with the train tracks.

Further into the museum is a small playhouse which is made completely of material knitted by the public. I thought it was pretty neat; Paul didn't seem too impressed by it, though he did go inside and sat down for a minute.

A few of the more hands on activities consisted of a faux phone operator's control panel and some optical illusions. Paul listened to one of the operator recordings, but they didn't hold his interest. He did love the optical illusions however. He loves spinning things, so that's what he started doing. After I showed him how to see the pictures "move", his response was "Wow. That's cool".

Armley Mills also has a working replica of a 1920's cinema. You can sit down and watch a short film clip from that era. Most kids aren't going to be impressed by this, unless they're history buffs. Paul just wanted to completely bypass the whole thing, but I convinced him to sit down long enough for a photo. You can probably tell he was just humouring me at this stage!

Paul's favourite exhibits of the museum by far were the trains. They had several restored engines inside and several more outside. Paul really enjoyed looking at them all. He was a bit disappointed that he couldn't ride on any of them, but that didn't stop him from walking along the short length of disused track and making train noises!

If you visit the museum, you'll want to bring a picnic lunch (or get takeaway from the nearby Pizza Hut) in order to take advantage of the beautiful outdoor picnic area.

Overall, the museum is quite nice. Whilst it might not hold the interest of really young children, there are enough hands on activities to keep slightly older children occupied. Paul certainly seemed to enjoy the outing and we spent just over an hour walking around looking at things. If you do the activities, read the exhibit signs, and watch the film, it will probably take upwards of two to three hours to get all the way through the building.

Leeds Museum

My boyfriend and I took Paul to the Leeds Museum yesterday. I was pleased by how well he handled the crowds and loved that he really seemed to be enjoying himself. All of the staff we came in contact with were really nice and understanding as well.

The only thing that caused a bit of a problem was they had some of their "do not touch" exhibits right out in the open and often right next to a hands on exhibit. Needless to say, this confused Paul to no end. He just couldn't understand why he could touch the little blocks, but not the big ones in the Ancient Worlds exhibit (as an example).

For anyone who may be thinking about going, it's a nice day out, but you may want to prep your child before hand so they will know what they can touch and what they can't. I was thinking a social story might work in this instance. Something to explain how we look for "do not touch" signs on exhibits and if there isn't one, it's OK to gently touch the object.

Here are a few photos of our visit.

A photo of a photo of a fox with chicken egg

Paul

Me

FTM Pathway for Halton and St Helens PCT

I received another email from the Interim Chief Operating Officer of Halton CCG today. In his email, he listed the Female to Male (FtM) core surgical procedures. These are the surgeries that are recommended for support and funding by PCTs in the North West of England.

The recommendation of the North West Specialised Commissioning Team is that PCTs support and fund the following core surgical procedures for female to male (FtM) patients where an application has been made by the patient’s clinician:

 

·         Mastectomy

·         Hysterectomy

·         Vaginectomy

·         Salpingo-oophorectomy

·         Metoidoplasty or phalloplasty

·         Urethroplasty

·         Scrotoplasty and placement of testicular prostheses

 

The recommended non-core procedures are not routinely funded.  Requests for funding on an individual case basis can be made and these requests are considered for funding by a PCT in line with existing local

policies for plastic surgery/cosmetic procedures.  It must be stressed that this list is not exhaustive and any other procedure not listed would be considered as non-core procedure until further review.  The following

are non-core procedures:

 

·         Breast augmentation in trans women

·         Reduction Thyroid chondroplasty

·         Rhinoplasty / other facial bone reduction

·         Blepharoplasty

·         Face-lift

·         Hair removal/ electrolysis

·         Body contouring – e.g. suction-assisted lipoplasty of the waist

·         Voice modification surgery

·         Procedures to decrease areas of baldness

·         Storage of gametes

·         Skin resurfacing -  e.g. acid peel (a method of removing the upper layer of skin in order to improve skin smoothness)

 As you can see, mastectomies are considered to be a core surgical procedure for FtMs and PCTs are supposed to fund them.

He also attached a document which details the pathways for transgender people. You can find it after the jump, but be warned that it seems to be out of date in regards to the Gender Identity Clinics that are listed. The document lists Leeds Becklin Centre and Claybrook Centre in London. This is incorrect. The current GICs are located at Seacroft Hospital in Leeds and Charing Cross (CHX) in London.

I have emailed my contact asking for further clarification and will post another blog entry when I receive it.

Two Days In Leeds

Paul is on his monthly respite care until tomorrow, so as is my normal habit, I travelled to Leeds to stay with my boyfriends.

Today, we went into Leeds city centre. I had some Wii, PC, DS and Xbox 360 games that I no longer have use for and wanted to sell, so we went to Cex where I became £74 richer. Afterwards, we stopped off at a nice cafe for chocolate muffins and tea. While we were in town, we walked through some very nice shopping arcades. According to Tigz, these arcades used to be actual streets, but were turned into pedestrian areas and ceilinged in, thereby turning the entire area into an indoor shopping district. If it hadn't been pointed out to me, I wouldn't have been able to tell. The architecture is so well done that I couldn't resist taking several photos. I will probably use them to make some paintings in the future.