David Gillon

 Lunch with friends yesterday, for I think the first time since pre-Covid. And just by chance we got an absolutely beautiful day for it - blue skies and warm. We've had a couple of other days with blue skies, but they've been bloody freezing. Definitely the best day of the year.

We were trying out a pub that's been refurbished. I've drunk there before, but not in ages, certainly 10 years, possibly 20, it's not as if there's any shortage of pubs on Rochester High Street and this one, formerly The Norman Conquest, but now (and apparently historically) the Royal Crown is at the absolute end of the high street, another hundred feet and you're in the river. It's definitely moved upmarket, one of my friends had hake in lobster sauce with samphire, another had mussels, this is not normal pub grub. Unfortunately the haddock from my haddock and chips had been a bit overdone, so the fish was too chewy and the batter too crunchy. OTOH it still tasted very nice, as did the chips.

I ended up parked where I normally do, which made it a little bit of a push to get to, "Oh," said the friend who'd suggested it, "I thought you'd park on the esplanade", at which point I did a slight head-desk, having completely forgotten there is parking on the esplanade, literally outside.

I waddled home three-ish and spent the entirety of the afternoon and evening trying not to fall asleep.

Could do with a few more days like that.

(But could do without feeling quite so shattered as I did this morning, need to do a bit of work on post-hibernation stamina).

I just spent the afternoon sitting in the garden in shirtsleeves. Even better my next door neighbour was barbecuing and passed a beer and a plate of food across the fence.

It is the 5th of October. Nature is wrong.

2 hour meeting with the Rochester High Street Traders forum and the councillor for the high street ward this morning. It actually went well, and we got our point across that they just hadn't understood what is an issue for wheelchair users. I'm not 100% happy with their idea of putting ramps down as a solution to stalls blocking the pavement. They'll let wheelchairs have access, but they'll be a horrendous trip hazard, particularly for the VI community. I'm not convinced "well, all the stalllholders have £5m insurance" is the ideal response to a safety risk, but the councillor agreed it needs to be discussed with the Highways department.

"Very successful Artisan/Collectables MARKET on Saturday" says the Rochester City Centre Forum (apparently a joint effort of the council and the High Street traders) on their FB page.

To which I replied: "Very successful, except for those of us who are wheelchair users and find ourselves barred from the footpaths. What you can't see in that top picture is that it is the exit from the disabled car park and the pavement is blocked in both directions, as is the kerb-cut directly in front of that stall - to use the kerb cut safely a wheelchair user needs to start/finish at least as far back as the orange box visible in the picture. In fact it was significantly worse than that when I was in Rochester about 4PM on Saturday as the stall had boxes down the side that meant there wasn't even space to squeeze a narrow wheelchair like mine between the lamppost and stall, taking the unsafe approach down the side of the kerb-cut. For anyone in a wider chair or a powerchair, forget it. Remember, the space in front of the stalls is going to be occupied by customers, so there is even less space available. I ended up having to hop off the kerb, which nearly threw me out of my chair and didn't even try to use the entrance on my return, despite that being my normal route back to the car.

The steep camber of Rochester High Street makes it difficult to wheelie from road to pavement without risking tipping - I can't do it at all if I have the anti-tip protection deployed on my chair - and many people have chairs, powerchairs or scooters which are completely incapable of kerb-climbing. The reality of the choice of stalls which block the full width of the pavement is that they completely block wheelchair users from accessing the shops between them, or even safely exiting the disabled car park.

Rochester High Street is an obstacle course to wheelchair users at the best of times due to paving, camber, and cobbles, but these stalls leave it completely inaccessible. I raised the issue with the Council after their previous appearance, and was assured my concerns, particularly with respect to the kerb cut would be passed on, but this time things were even worse. To use the space in front of the disabled car park, blocking wheelchair users from exiting, really shows a careless contempt for the needs and rights of disabled people."

I had a reply within about an hour from the chair of the Forum. He did promise to do something about the kerb-cuts, but did not impress by first launching into a rant about cyclists on the pedestrianised High Street (why yes, I did know it's pedestrianised on Saturday, that's beside the point, the road doesn't help if I can't get from road to footpath) and then protesting "It's only 12 times a year," and "it's for the community". Do I not count as a member of the community?

Grrrrrrr!!!!

I seem to have been lacking in energy the last week or so, which is probably mostly down to travelling back from visiting my folks - a tiring journey, adjusting back to coping for myself, plus being away from family again and all wrapped up in the end of summer seems to leach the agency out of me. I've even been failing to keep up with DW reading, which is most unusual. Hopefully I can get back in gear this week.

I did get out to a quiz with friends on Thursday, which had quite a setting - the crypt at Rochester Cathedral. As crypts go it was very cosy, they've turned the oldest half (c1083) into a display area for the Textus Roffensis (c1122-24, which contains the only known copies of the codes of laws of Aethelberht, Alfred and Cnut, and minor fripperies like the coronation charter of Heny I), while the area we used , a brash newcomer, built in the 1180s, has just been reworked as an event space - I think we may have been one of the first events to use it. A crypt with a bar gets my vote! Fortunately the refurbishment included a wheelchair lift (doubly so as we had another wheelchair user on our team), though my friends who volunteer as cathedral guides tell me it isn't where initially intended,  when they excavated that area they found a completely unexpected Norman staircase and are still trying to figure out where it went to..

A picture of the bit we were in here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester_Cathedral#/media/File:Rochester_cathedral_011.JPG, for scale the capitals on the columns are probably about 5 feet off the ground. They comfortably fitted a table for 8 in each of the bays. We won, of course, though the prizes caused a raised eyebrow or two - 200ml cans of fizzy Hungarian pinot grigio. 'They seemed like fun' according to the organiser. Umm, yeah. At least the fish supper was reasonably good.

I went out yesterday for my usual Saturday lunch, which was a little disappointing. I had the duck confit flatbread and the duck had clearly been overcooked, it was tasty, but very, very dry, where normally it's quite moist. So dry I decided to stay and have another drink, which was actually fortuitous. Just as I was finally about to ask for the bill the friend I used to have lunch with every Saturday appeared.. It's the first time she's been out on a Saturday since spring last year, having spent the year nursing her son through terminal cancer. Hopefully it's a sign she's getting her life back to normal. She had her eldest daughter with her, plus her 7 month old granddaughter, who is a little cutie. So we talked babies and it turned out her daughter had just moved house earlier in the week. 'Where too?' I asked, lazily assuming they must simply have swapped from one London suburb to another, and was puzzled when she started with a street number, but then laughed when she completed the address - she's moved just opposite the end of the street her mum lives on, granny is obviously quite firmly on tap for babysittting!
 

The entrance to the George Vaults has the door a step up, with another step inside, so the only way to do it is to get out of the chair, push the door open, cant the chair back and bump it up a step at a time, which I'm quite capable of doing.

First off someone sitting outside smoking offered to help, which set up the rest of it as fending her off (holding the door open from outside makes the doorway too narrow) made me forget to fold up the anti-tips and blocked me from my normal angle. Which led to the chair jamming half way in as I couldn't cant it far enough back and I'd hit the door frame.

It's 5:30AM and I'm eating pizza and drinking G&T, which means my schedule is really shot again.

I'm heading up to Durham on Saturday for a fortnight, so expect postings to range from occasional to non-existent. I was out running a few pre-trip errands earlier and apparently a little bit of exercise, a little bit of sun and a beer with tea on the patio added up to fast asleep on the couch from 6PM til midnight.

I did get a smile from the GP's receptionist. "Hi, I'm here to pick up my repeat prescription -- aaaand I'll need photo-ID for that, which is in the car. Hang on, I'll be back in a minute." OTOH they're still trying to figure out their new process for controlled drugs, never mind me. I had to remind her I was supposed to sign for it.

The other reason for heading into town was to pick up a birthday card for my sister, which hopefully will get to her today as I really had left it until the last moment. I'll see her on Saturday if not. Unfortunately I also had to pick up a condolences card as I found out on Wednesday night that my close friend Angela's son has died. It wasn't unexpected, Chris was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer a bit under a year ago, and I've hardly see her since as she's been caring for him almost 24/7. This is someone I've watched grow up from age three or four and he really had turned into a decent adult who was starting to build a reputation as a stand-up musical comedian (which was a completely unexpected turnaround as at 8 his mum was lamenting to me "he's so serious, I have this nightmare where he grows up to be a Conservative MP") .  I last saw him a couple of months ago when I gave him and his dad a lift home when I bumped into them in Rochester and stayed for a cup of tea. I'm glad my last memory of him will be him poking fun at the questions and answers on Pointless, but I can't imagine what this is like for Angela. Just thinking about how she must feel is making me feel sick, and givng me a new appreciation of that line that parents aren't meant to outlive their children.
 

I'm currently stuck in that thing where my body keeps insisting I fall asleep on the spot. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if I was getting 8 hours as a result, but it's been more like 4 or 5, or even 1 or 2, and that's just not enough. Worse, it means I'm tired enough any activity is triggering the fall asleep on the spot thing.

It's a good thing I'm off to spend Christmas and New Year with the family on Wednesday, as that will probably break the cycle. I haven't quite decided what I'm doing about internet while I'm up in Durham, it may just be intermittent access whenever I pop over to my sister's, or if I can find my MIFI hub I may buy a SIM and hope it lasts longer than the 2 hours of the one I bought last Christmas.

On the plus side, two years ago today I was being rushed through A&E with acute pancreatitis, so at least I'm doing better than that.

I spent 5 hours running errands today, and I think my body hates me for it. It wasn't meant to be 5 hours and it started quite well, I whipped through the stuff with my banks in Chatham - there was a really helpful guy on their helpdesk who did everything for me on the spot rather than sending me off to the teller windows, which made things much simpler. OTOH the Coastguard SAR helicopter was overhead and searching the river, which was a bit grim. But then I went to Rochester and it was full. I literally could not find a space to park at lunchtime. Presumably that was down to the Christmas Market in the Castle, but I couldn't park so I never got to find out. I went off and did some grocery shopping instead - okay some booze shopping, the bar is bare - and tried again at 3:30. Even then I only just managed to find a space, but at least I managed to get my repeat prescription (the one my GP forgot to do on Tuesday) and finally picked up my train tickets for the trip to Durham. God help anyone trying to park tomorrow if it was like this today.

So I came in and fell asleep. For 6 hours.

I hit a milestone on the car while I was out - 20k miles on the clock.

Since 2001.

And no, that isn't missing a zero

One of my friends was complaining on FB this morning that they'd just had an email about a delivery that excluded any useful information whatsoever about what was being delivered and who it was from. I'd no sooner commented on that than I found a card through my door from the post office. They have a parcel for me, with inadequate postage on it (fortunately only £2), and I need to pay up to get it. Of course there's no indication whatsoever of what the parcel is and who it's from.

I suspect it's the stuff I ordered from the States. In May.

I knew I was ordering in advance, I just didn't realise how much in advance. As soon as they indicated they'd started shipping a few days ago, it's been a nightmare as to whether it would arrive before I disappear North, because I'm away for longer than the post office hold onto parcels before sending them back. The postage is already extortionate, I really don't want to have to pay it twice. Delivery on Monday, hopefully.

On a completely different topic, one of the webcomics I read stopped updating over a year ago, with no real word as to what was happening. I noticed today it had been updated, and it's the author explaining how she had a breakdown, but is now recovering. Its fascinating to see someone talking about it so openly, and in graphic format.

c950m back with a 22m rise, 2m of which happens in about 10m on a corner. I'd have to choose a different route if I couldn't get out and push those 10m. I in 5 is not practical. But apart from that I pushed it non stop, if very slowly in places. I did have the traditional little old lady asking if I would like a push, but she did it aboot 10 feet from the crest of a slope, and there's a straight 150m with a slight descent immediately after, so of course I whipped by her as soon as I crested it.

So total distance about a nautical mile, which I think is the furthest I've pushed apart from the couple of days in Athens (and that was all downhill).

What taking the two slightly different routes confirmed is that I have substantially more difficulty on cambered pavements, and that my left arm is only capable of getting me up a kerb with difficulty. Because of a car being awkward, I ended up doing one slope on the opposite side to usual, The side I usually do it on has flat paving, the opposite side has the same slope, but is steeply cambered, it was far more difficult than it normally is (this is where I had the little old lady intervention). It's not simply a matter of me, though, the new chair isn't great at holding a line on a cambered pavement, it has a strong tendency to turn into the slope. The clown chair was  just as bad, the GPV, with cambered wheels, made it not an issue.The particular problem I have with this is it means I need to brake with the uphill arm while pushing with the downhill, and if my dud left arm is the downhill one, this is massively less than ideal.

I rang Wheelchair Services on Friday to say I definitely need a 3" cushion as discussed (and noted) at the handover, the seat to footplate gap is too short otherwise and my legs aren't flat on the cushion. I strongly suspect they measured me while I was sitting on a 3" cushion. I'm currently using the 2" they gave me, with a 1" I had in the house under it, which makes the difference between being in intolerable pain within an hour or so, and being able to sit for at least three hours.. Apparently fixing this will need one of the therapists to ring me back and discuss it. I'll raise the camber issue at the same time. I've checked the manual and the XLT can have cambered wheels, but you need an extra part in the wheel mounting to accomplish it, rather than just adding a couple of extra washers as on the GPV, so that'll probably need to be ordered in if I can get them to agree to it.