Boating.

I've just got back from a week's holiday. I feel all refreshed, after spending some time on the canals in a narrowboat. It's something we do about once a year, because it's so relaxing.

For anyone who hasn't been boating before, the premise is very simple. You board your boat, head off at up to 4mph (walking speed), and then when you reach a convenient spot you stop, moor up and spend your evening relaxing however you choose. For us, that is to cook a meal in the small galley, watch a DVD and then get an early night. For many other boaters, it is a great way to visit every pub within walking distance of a canal over the course of a week. Basically, it's a plusher form of camping with the tent carrying you between pitches rather than the other way around.

At the start of every holiday on the boat, I look down at the ladders to get in and out of the living area, and can't imagine how I'm going to manage the whole week. I wobble, I groan, I heave, and I manage to get back up onto the deck. I spend a couple of hours at the tiller, and then I start to feel relaxed, refreshed, and even a little bit more human than usual. I don't know what it is about the boat, but something manages to really ease my condition. It might be the slower pace of life that you experience when nothing happens faster than 4mph, it might be the extra sunlight I get as I sit outside all day, or it might be the fresh air. All I know is that by the end of the week, I'm leaping up and down the steps like a seasoned seadog.

As you can imagine, it is a very peaceful experience. If you take enough food with you and choose to stay on board and moor up in the middle of nowhere, you can pass a whole week without really colliding with non-canal civilisation once. You might pass roads and pubs, but they are gone just as quickly as they arrived.

I know that boating isn't for everyone, and that there are plenty of people physically worse off than me who aren't able to give it a try. I think the point I am trying to make, though, is that there are activities out there that look horrendously painful at first, yet seem to actually provide a sense of enormous relief if you persevere a little. For me, the benefits of a week on the boat each year definitely outweigh the initial pain of trying to manage the steps on the first couple of days. I have a special stool to allow me to sit at the tiller rather than try to stand, and I have a very helpful man who bends down to fix the ropes to the moorings in exchange for me tying the knots (I am a Girl Guide, after all!). My boating experience isn't entirely disability-free, but it does feel like a very 'normal' activity, harking back to my pre-accident days.

That said, narrowboats can be adapted for wheelchair users, so there's no reason why the physical limitations should be the be all and end all...