Having got to Sevenoaks then by train… and there’s another story…I then followed my date.. she in her car ( a large ‘ car’ that people in the ‘ country’ have ) and me following behind in wheelchair/ Triride at 20 mph up a hill .. and 💥 – the front tyre explodes ( literally ) As I was going up a hill at the time, I slowed rapidly and stopped.

How many times have I been going along in a country lane with no other cars around?
Never

How many times have I gone up steep hills that a burst tyre would then naturally lead me to stopping slowly ?
Hardly ever.

How often am I in busy traffic, at 25/30 mph, with cars in front and behind me, and lorries coming the other way ?
All the time.

How often do I have someone in a car driving along and looking in the rear view mirror to check I’m ok?
Never. It’s the first time ( ever ).

So how often would a burst front tyre on my Triride whilst going along on a road have led to me crashing?
Well always.

How often would that crash have led me to being run over by the vehicle behind, or veering into the opposite carriageway and being run over by an oncoming vehicle, quite possibly a lorry ?
Nearly ALWAYS.

Looks to me like YET AGAIN then i ‘ got away with it’ and cheated death.

Do I feel any sense of relief…?
No of course I don’t! 😂🤷

But it’s almost unbelievable that things happened today like they did. You have to admit that the chances of me being alive to write this.. are slim.

A film called ‘ Any one of us ‘. It’s on BBCi player.

it’s about all the people that find themselves suddenly paralysed, and their lives after that.

About half way through I realised I was crying. Not a little bit, but a lot. Properly, properly sobbing.

The film does have some ‘ hope’ in it, some people get some recovery of functionality… but most people with spinal cord injury don’t get a lot, and plenty ( like me ) don’t get any at all.

After the deep depression you are in for many years comes an adaption, an adjustment to the severely compromised ‘life’ that you now have. It’s one that you’d do anything, anything at all to change. Except you can’t.

Is life still worth living when you are paralysed? Well sometimes it is, but I can honestly ( HONESTLY ) say that I’m completely indifferent to life ( and death ) all of the time. That doesn’t mean that I wheel around not smiling. because I smile most of the time actually, and I’m not pretending ( any more – because I did for years and years ) but it’s the smile of someone standing on a precipice, who’s indifferent to the strong gust of wind that might blow him onto solid ground, or blow him off the edge, and there’s not really a preference in my head for either of those two.

Please believe me when I say I’m not ‘ depressed’ because I’m not. I imagine a soldier running into gunfire that may hit him or kill him has the same mindset. It could go either way for him. He has to be cool about it, or he’d never run. He’s trained to be cool about it, and that’s me – my mind is trained to accept how it is for me 24/7 ( though in reality it’s more like 23 and a half / 7 because I defy anyone like me to just ‘ be ok ‘ all of the time. Most totally normal people are 23/7 about everything, at best, I reckon. But if they knew, just for a single day, what it’s like to be paralysed… then they may think differently..

From that song ( The Streets of London ) ‘ how can you say.. you’re lonely.. and for you the sun don’t shine … ‘

‘ let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London (ok the paralysis ward ).. I’ll show you something… that’ll make you change your mind ….’

So the other day… my blind mate came round.. with his wife and her paddleboard.. with the intention of borrowing my paddleboard and going out together. I mean it’s not like paddleboarding is difficult to do, on a canal. It’s not exactly the open ocean, and is actually about 3 feet deep if you fall in, so it’s very unlikely you’ll drown or anything.
Anyway between them and my date, who was also there, they got the ( for years unused ) board over my railing and down onto the towpath… and off they went, all romantic like, into the sun…

When they came back, my date helped Mrs Blind with her board back to her car, leaving me and Paul with the other ( my ) paddleboard, and the challenge of getting it back up over my railings.

So we’ve got a fella in a wheelchair giving verbal directions to a blind man with the objective of getting a 9 foot paddleboard up over a railing 10 feet above the towpath, safely, without either of us being killed in the process.

I ( literally ) had to tell him ( exactly ) where to step/ grab/ pull/ climb over… whilst I at one point had the end of the board on my head , with the other end up on the railing, whilst at the same time telling him what to do with his arms and legs.

It wasn’t like either of us thought it would be a better idea to wait til somebody able bodied and not blind came along.. we just got on with it. And that’s the thing… we did it and nothing went wrong either.

But F*** knows what a person watching would have made of it… cos you couldn’t really make it up!

😂

I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix today.


Wowser, that’s a must see.


Watch it and then delete all your social media accounts… or at the very least turn off all your notifications from those ( unnecessary and almost certainly not a positive in your life ) social media accounts.

Lizzy, thanks for the recommendation. ❤️

So a friend of mine knows an air hostess. And her best passenger story…?

An Indian guy who has his digit firmly pressed on the call cabin crew button, says to her in a broad Indian accent ..

‘ Missus .. I am fingering you for a LONG time.. and still you are not coming..!’

True story! 😳😂

Had an Unfortunates Club night on Thursday.
There’s a bylaw in Richmond I think that says you can’t hang around on Richmond Green drinking ….because you might start causing trouble.

Interestingly though, the Feds didn’t move us on. See, if only criminals could see that all you have to do to get away with breaking the law is to get couple of bottles of fine red wine and some M&S snacks ( and a wheelchair and a Labrador ) and you can do what you like after that !

🤷😂

From one of my best friends…

Sam who you have met has set up a company called Pot Gang—I think I may have told you?

Its all about growing veg at home for those who don’t have a garden.

He is delivering 3 lots of seeds plus soil and pots for growing this weekend and is at 45 orders but wants to get to 50—do you know anyone who may be interested or would you be?

Here is a link to his website https://www.potgang.co.uk/

Cheers ,

Mike.

Have a look folks and maybe even sign up !

And I’ve been cited in a psychology article.. as a positive example… well who’d have thunk it?!

https://wellbeingexaminer.co.uk/2020/08/17/how-to-keep-perspective-in-life/

These last 6 weeks or I’ve been on an online dating site. The one I’m on is one where the women are, well, I’ll just say it.. pretty smart and ‘ successful’ one way or another.
What that means is that I’ve actually made quite a lot of friends, as well as having the odd date.
And it’s really really dawned on me that having ‘ new ‘ friends ( to complement the bloody brilliant ones I had already, like Marky P, Chris Cats, Leigh ( that’s a fella ?! ) Toby, Roy, Cress, Pia etc etc, and not forgetting those in my family ) has altered my world quite a lot, in a very positive way.
I was already very positive, but now I’m even more so, and life is well, just good. The new ones weren’t there before my injury, didn’t know me when I was dying ( several times over ) or as a sportsman etc etc they just know me now… here in a wheelchair, and well, they think I’m alright.

So I’d like to thank Lizzy ( particularly ), Harriet, Susan, and others, for that extra bit I have now in my life.

And I’m going to recommend to you that meeting ‘ new ‘ people is a good thing! We all have long-standing friends, and maybe we think that we have enough and don’t ‘ need ‘ any more, but well, for me it’s been a revelation to be honest.

Just saying !