David Gillon

So I went into town for my usual Saturday coffee - ideal timing for once, I actually got to where I normally park as my friend was walking past, and the car parked 5m away pulled out as I told her 'I'll just go find somewhere to park."

So I got the new chair out of the car, I'm going to take advantage of having it even if it is going back, and we headed into town, cutting through the little disabled car park to get to the High Street. The kerb cut in the car park, the one that flipped me out of the other chair back at the end of October, is getting worse by the day. Rather than put a proper kerb-cut in, there is a projecting vee of paving that is slightly lower. The drain at the point  of the vee (because clearly you want a drain grate right where people are going to wheel) has clearly collapsed and the road side of the ramp is slowly sinking as the ground under it is eroded away. It's now caused a paving stone on the pavement side to flip up by a good inch, making access from all sides dodgy. I need to get back there during the day and take a picture, then send it to the council, copying relevant councillors.

Next up was our normal venue, with its three steps at the entrance, I'm used to it being a nuisance and having to climb out, but with a rigid-framed chair I now need to unbolt the other side of the door, rather than just squeeze the clown chair slighty narrower. We'd picked up another friend on the way, so I did have plenty of hands to hold the doors and help me lift the chair in. So we get in, the only empty table has a reserved sign on it, and we catch the eye of one of the waitress to ask if there any free tables right at the back and around the corner.

"No," she says, "We could possibly put you upstairs," then looks at me and visibly winces at what she just said.

So turn around and unbolt the door again.

Back on the pavement, I suggest to everyone that we head across the road to the little Italian coffee shop, then realise that while I can hop down onto the road (pedestrian only on Saturday) I can't actually get up the kerb at the other side as the anti-tips won't let me wheelie high enough.

"I'll just nip back to the kerb cut further along," I say, which I'd already come down once, but then realise a) someone has put up scaffolding against a shop front between it and the Italian, b) they've taped off between the scaffolding poles to block access (in no way normal practise) c) the rest of the pavement is blocked by a bollard. *headdesk*

So it was climb out of the chair for the third time in three minutes and lift it onto the pavement.

At least we had no problems getting into the Italian, though by the time we'd spent an hour and a half nattering my hips were definitely protesting at being squeezed by the GPV's too narrow seat.

Heading back to the car I had to rely on my friends to steady me on a kerb-cut and a short steeper section of pavement, as the chair wanted to flip into a wheelie, but those are more the fault of the overly tippy chair

Despite all the hassles it was actually more confirmation that a rigid framed chair is distinctly better for me for getting around, but so many problems in such a short distance, and if I hadn't actually been able to get out and stand we would have been completely stuffed.
 

I was in town earlier, just as it got dark, picking up a repeat prescription and I wanted some cards as well. So I came out of the chemists and headed for the art shop, which meant crossing the road, but there is at least a kerb-cut half-way between the two. Only as I came in sight of it I realised there was a car parked exactly where it is. No cars parked for a hundred metres in either direction and he picked the kerb-cut to park across.When I got right up to it he was only parked across a third of it, the side-slope if you like, but the effect was me being completely masked from oncoming drivers as I tried to cross the road in the dark. (I'd already had narrow escapes from a cyclist and a car on the way to the high street). Now there wasn't actually anything coming when I crossed, but I think I can reasonably say it was a pretty irresponsible piece of parking.

It was a police car....

So into Rochester for my usual Saturday lunch date, though solo, sadly, as one of my friends is in India and the other two just got back from a six week cruise from Portsmouth to Manaus and back (yes, the Manaus in the middle of the Amazon, yes I am somewhat envious). I took the chair again, and cobbles are still the bane of my existence.

Having done it once I did manage to find a route onto that pavement with the foot-high kerb so I wasn't reduced to wheeling along the road again, however the only way to avoid the kerb involves, you guessed it, going over a set of cobbles. I'd barely gotten ten yards from the car when I had the first call of 'Do you need help?' Admittedly I had stalled, but that was purely while I got myself arranged to bump up my first kerb with a semi-wheelie (yay me!). All told I think I had 5 offers of help in the 700 metres or so to the restaurant and back, including one from the proverbial little old man who must have been in his 70s at least, headed in entirely the opposite direction, who enquired if I needed 'a push up the hill'. Wheelie friends tell me this doesn't mean I was looking particularly incapable, it's just part of life in a wheelchair - even friends with powerchairs get asked if they need a push!

I made it to the restaurant without incident, but of course the doorway is a step up, opening onto two more (and the rear entrance is worse), so it was a case of get out of the chair, semi-collapse it to fit through the door, and drag it in behind me. And of course there was someone insistant on helping, and then on letting me past him, even though I wasn't going past him, I was heading off to the side - I can see now how the proverbial VI person being dragged involuntarily across the street happens.

Back to the car was mostly a repeat, though actually wheeling along  the road of the High Street (pedestrianised Saturdays only) turns out to be a hell of a lot easier than wheeling along the footpath. And if I missed my cruising friends I did bump into their son and his family, so that's the first time meeting someone I know in the chair taken care of. I got right back to that set of cobbles near the car without running into anything I couldn't manage, including several more instances of bouncing the chair up kerbs (though the slope outside the front of the cathedral nearly killed me). And then I grounded out in a gutter (a deep, old-fashioned one with sloped sides), with the left wheel only touching in a couple of spots and insufficient traction to get out. Another shouted offer of help, but I'd gotten it myself by them, by sticking my foot down and giving myself a good heave, and that was that.

Realistically I need to change where I'm parking, but I need to renew my Blue Badge to park any closer to the high streeet (8 week delay on that, and I need to get passport style pics first), and even then parking is still a nightmare, particularly on Saturday, I think I can count the number of times I've successfully found a disabled bay on a Saturday on the fingers of two hands. Pushing is still really hard work, but showing some improvement. I think we're at the intersection of inappropriate chair, insufficient upper body strength, and inept shoulder joints. I'll figure out a plan of attack when I talk to the physio on Thursday.