David Gillon

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.