Passenger Confusion

Picked up my tickets for my trip North on Tuesday and realised that the Passenger Assistance booking I'd gotten by email was wrong when I compared the two.

I have a 1st Class Ticket (wouldn't normally buy one, but this time the difference was only £13 and I'll save most of that from the food and drink you get in 1st), but now I'd noticed it, the Passenger Assistance wheelchair space booking was for Standard - ticket and assistance were both booked on the same web form, but I'm pretty much convinced they then read the PA stuff off it and do it manually.

So I phone PA, convinced that by this close to Christmas the 1st Class wheelchair space will already be booked by someone else. Get through to someone and explain what's happened.

He is confused by the existing booking: "So, there's three of you travelling?"

Me: "No, just me."

Him: "But they've reserved three seats"

Me: {Sigh} "That's because you have to fold up the other two to use the wheelchair space." (Seats F99, F003, F004. Seriously, how can he not know that!)

Him: "Okay, give me a minute and I'll reserve the 1st Class Wheelchair Space"

Me, to myself : "You'll be lucky."

Amazingly enough he was: "All sorted. I'll send you through the email confirmation"

20 minutes later, confirmation arrives. It still lists the Standard class reservation.

I ring back, amazingly I get the same guy (not sure how many Passenger Assistance operators they have, but I could hear at least two more in the background).

Me: "It still says Standard Class"

Him: "I definitely changed it and reserved seat L99 for you." [and I know that's the 1st Class wheelchair space] "The system probably hasn't updated itself. I wrote it into the text. Here, I'll send it again."

New email arrives almost instantly. It won't let me in initially, but eventually does, I scroll down to the relevant section:

"

COACH:

F    SEAT: F99

 

COACH:

F    SEAT: F04

 

COACH:

F    SEAT: F03

 

Seat reservations (shown only if made as part of Passenger Assist booking

 

MEETING POINT:

 

ASSISTANCE:

Assistance at station for boarding. Wheelchair user requiring ramps at origin station. Luggage assistance. OWN WCH, Seat L99 (KGX) Assistance in transferring between trains, Assistance at station for alighting, Wheelchair user requiring ramps at destination station, Luggage assistance, OWN WCH, Seat L99 (DAR)

"

(My highlights)

So it's entirely possible I have both the 1st and Standard Class wheelchair spaces booked, plus my original non-wheelchair 1st Class seat (it's a great system, it allocates you a normal seat and prints it on the ticket before it allocates you the wheelchair space). I'm definitely going to be interested to see where I end up on Tuesday, and I'll definitely need a drink, whichever it is.

Why is everything so complicated when you're a wheelchair user?

Clinging to the ceiling

Me, head down looking at a display of jewellery for a Christmas present for my sister.

BOW-WOW-WOW-WOW!!!!

I damned near hit the roof! (And I could so easily have headbutted a pane of antique glass).

Looked down and there was a little scottie standing just behind me. The shop owners were so embarrassed (their dog) they gave me a fiver off.

Conversation with my sister about it later:

Her : Hope you bought me something else with the fiver!!!

Me: I'm sure I can find something suitably chocolatey

Her: Or drinkable!

Me: Or both

Her: Now you're talking!

Municipal Improvements

So the new Rochester station (it's been open about 18 months) had the pedestrian crossing offset by about 100m from the station itself. So you came down Northgate, walked 10m to the right, crossed over the dual carriageway (the A2) and and went along to the station. And that 100m was about the best surface I've ever wheeled across - perfectly flat, modern flag stones that don't suck away your momentum.

But of course everyone on foot just came out of the station and tried to charge straight across the busy dual carriageway right in front of them like any herd of lemmings.

So they moved the crossing to be opposite the station. And now, instead of the best surface for wheeling across, which you can still see on the other side of the road, it's the worst. It's up, and down, and old garage forecourt entrances in that big-chipped tarmac that just grabs your wheels and sucks your momentum away, and where there is footpath it's cambered so steeply you're pushing forward with one hand, and back with the other to try and keep a straight line. I do seriously wonder if anyone at Medway Council has ever actually read Part M of the Building Regs, because when I finally got to the crossing I couldn't help noticing that the only safe place for me to sit while waiting for the lights to change actually blocks the entire footpath!

And it's just possible my impressions were coloured by the fact it was pissing down.

Tremors

I thought I was handling the election result, I'm used to being represented by Tories here in Kent. But then I found out that Bishop Auckland, my home town, which has been Labour since forever, went Tory, and that shook me. And then I found out that Blyth Valley, my parent's home town, that's even more Labour than Bishop, where my great uncle Tol was the Labour mayor, and where I spent every weekend until my teens, went Tory, and that, I have no words.

That isn't the sound of 'the red wall falling', it's generations of miners, including my grandfathers, spinning in their graves.