YesWheely

My wife said to me the other day that my blog is boring and I need to find one thing and write about it. I've been thinking about that and looking at other blogs. Maybe this is my Niche. Drivel. I'm not looking to do this professionally. It's a hobby. I just don't do things by halves. This is my blog. It's full of drivel. It's a dot com, it has a favicon(the little wheelchair dude above) and it has a logo. Those are things I did because it's bread and butter to me. Not because I have illusions of grandeur. One day I'll make my own unique theme so this blog is unique... The background photo I shot, from Westminster Bridge.

Made in China. Souvenirs

London is the greatest city in the world. It's big, I love the automatic ramps on the buses. Oh how the able sit and stare at the cripple as the ramp extends. I've been to Southbank several times. Waterloo is where the train goes. I hate people too busy to watch where they are going. Emailing on their iPhone. Yes it will hurt you when you hit my beast of a wheelchair. Make an issue of it. I dare you!

A few people stop in front of me. "You have presented your Achilles heel my friend." I have a condition where I can't suddenly change direction. I have momentum. It will hurt you when my footplate strikes and then you will be obliged to apologise. I don't care, you shouldn't have stopped in the vector (I move in relatively straight lines because a three wheel chair would be hard to keep straight so the guy who designed it made a way for the back wheel to lock unless the desired amount of unilateral force is applied).
"Ow you idiot go around!" I stopped and circled him slowly. "A wise guy ehh, in a suit" I thought "...we have time, let's tango." "Excuse me?" He looked down "What? You could have gone around." "Well I'll just turn around because obviously it was my mistake, the sheer intensity of the light shining out your ass. Blinded me." is not what I said. What I said was "Do you have any idea how difficult propelling a wheelchair is?" Ok so to that he had no answer. "Well that was shorter than we wanted" the voice in my head piped up as I rolled on...

Anyway just before our wedding we took a trip to Soho. My wife needed make-up. Soho is trendy, it's full of obnoxious self involved idiots. People stared like we had the plague. The pavements(side walks) are not accessible. Less of an issue for me but my partner has a conventional wheelchair. After the make-up was purchased my wife wanted, well needed, to go to check the antique shops. It was quite a tricky journey mainly in the path of taxis because the streets where often the only option. We'd spent a while in the make-up shop, a nice one, they didn't treat her with the respect she expected so we didn't buy too much. Here's a tip to people who would like tips or more commission. Mainly this is for cab drivers. I'm no less generous because I can't walk. So if you don't add extra charges for folding up my chair or act all weird about needing to get a ramp I'll tip you good. Unless you're an arsehole then you better add extra charges.
We were rolling around the street and some guy out drinking sniggered at me, pointed and jabbed his mate. Apparently mocked me and it upset my wife who could see.

Later on that evening we were in Carnaby Street. Sitting opposite the curiously named La Concepta a restaurant without food. A queue of people appeared, like a herd drive of sheep, they were led up and stopped just outside. We were already leaving and that was the way to the street. "It's formula One" the 'performer' shouted as I passed. I should have stopped and replied "Do you think that's an appropriate thing to call out as a wheelchair user goes past?" But he's a performer. I'd sooner heckle a comedian. "We have to pick our battles. We'll just write about him in a blog in a years time."

Yes the staring is annoying, the questions too and the silly things people say. In the summer of 2012 I cant tell you how many people stopped me on the street to ask "Are you training for the paralympics?" "Why yes, That's literally the only reason they let me out." I didn't say that I often smiled and mumbled fu...ing idiots as I rolled on. Just roll on.

I was in Portsmouth and coming down a bit of a gradient (it's mostly flat here) so a woman was walking the opposite way right in front of me. Now there is a bit of a back-story here. My chair has independent hub brakes. If I use them too harshly I can spin, when I spin 9/10 times I capsize like Jeremy Clarkson in a robin reliant. It hurts, but it's the only issue the chair has.

Going down isn't always the easy part

One time I was in Hampstead Heath with my wife, she was ahead of me, and we were descending after our ascent. It started to rain so the breaks started to make noise and react differently, catching sometimes and screeching other times. I lost control and I was going too fast. I got into a bit of a tank slapper, it'd go to spin left so I'd break right then the opposite until I faced it was inevitable and let it go. I can only imagine what she could hear. By the time she turned around I was on the floor curled on my back like a potato bug.

Back to this little slope in Portsmouth, I've wiped out before in that spot so if some lady wants to play chicken with my wheelchair. I'm not going to risk injuring myself because someone is ignorant. I've already lost momentum because I'm carefully slowing down without tipping. Oh yeah I can tip straight but there are just two issues to this chair. So anyway she moved at the last minute when I had virtually stopped. "You shouldn't use your chair as a weapon dear" she said as she passed. "Ok we can take her pop on one break and bring the ship around to face her." The voice was getting excited. It told me to ask her what she said. Which I did. She repeated the same thing. "It's not a weapon and I don't use it like one." I don't know why I chose that response. It was weak. The voice refused to talk to me for a week after that.