And thank you to Toby the wheelchair mending man!
I seemed to be forever sitting right back in my chair, to the point where I could have easily tipped over.
Turns out a bolt had sheered off!

Toby drilled it out, but then we had no replacement M6 35mm hex bolt

Ta – dah! The budgie’s cage was held together with 30mm M6 bolts!

So – choice. Me or the budgies?!

I’m now sat upright again!

Take a refugee to the Science Museum!
And then the Royal Geograpical Society..

Little gadget for predicting tide times back in 1872…

I went to the Chelsea Flower Show on Wednesday.
Blimey that’s quite something.
Thanks to Jo for the tickets, and really sorry she couldn’t come!
Going when hungover means it’s more likely I’ll buy something. I’ve had a lifetime habit of buying stuff whilst hungover. What’s that about?

Anyway, I didn’t even know you COULD buy stuff at the show. I thought it was just looking at plants. But it was like the most amazing garden centre ever, with the poshest stuff everywhere.
So as everything was very high quality, nothing was inexpensive.

Mmmm well I did the usual then.
My terrace is going to acquire 2 extras items… once they have been shipped from Canada
😳

Busy of late!

Went to see Kate Nash in the Brixton Electric on Tuesday.
Took Kerry, who seemed to know that the blond lady next to us in the ( strange combination platform of Disabled and VIP personages.. was some woman off East Enders. Not seen it since Angie and Den.. so ‘ Janine Butcher’ was lost on me.
Kerry spent the next 3 years trying to be as close to Janine as possible, but trying to not show it.
All very funny for myself – obviously. I have video but not gonna post it cos Kerry would get very cross.

I can’t actually remember getting home either… so we can safely say it was a fun night out.
I do remember making the very stationary fella in the wheelchair next to me ‘ arm dance ‘ by holding onto his wrist.. not sure he was that willing but hey I think I got away with it.

I’m sure it’s a night Janine will always remember… 😳

Fun with The Unfortunates last night.

Chris talked about how Ill he’s been with Covid for a week … for the first hour… whilst Blind Paul ( who has lung and throat cancer, as well as getting blinder and blinder ) and myself ( paralysed ) listened on in sympathy.

Poor Chris – he’s been very brave.
Thankfully neither Paul nor I have had Covid, so we can’t imagine his suffering…

😂

Kate Nash with Kerry M.
The disabled platform doubles as the VIP area in the Brixton Electric… some chick from Eastenders ( that’s a tv program) seemed to obsess Kerry…:!no idea, me.

Thinking that in the current world ..:: that actually ignorance might just be BLISS.

And I’ve had my bathroom adapted a bit.
Wheelchairs and small spaces – well you might be able to go into one… but you will almostcertainly have to come out backwards… and if you have a Triride attachment on, and then you want something last minute before you go out… and it’s in the bathroom.. then for me that’s a ten point turn, the use of a long grabber to try to get the thing I need.. and the chance that I can’t actually get it.
Yea I could detach the Triride.. get the thing. Go back to the Triride… reattach it, go… in about ten minutes.. but that’s assuming you have ten minutes..frustrating …

Now I have a doorway 2 feet wider.. and no actual door anymore.. you kind of have a reluctance to knocking down a wall in a new(
Ish ) flat .. but now it’s done it’s far better!
Still not easy but far easier than it was 3 days ago!

Thought of it/ contacted my amazing builder ( Vitaly ) and it was done – 5 days from thought to reality.

Tidy.

If you want a wee in private tho at my place… maybe don’t use my ensuite !

So I go online and I book to give blood. I used to, pre injury, and there’s always a shortage of blood.

I do it all online – answer all the questions/ look through the exclusions to see whether being paraplegic bars you from blood donation.
All is ok. I’m allowed to. Nothing on the site disallows me to.

I wheel the 4 miles to the donation centre.
When I get there, they sort of look at me.
I get that slightly patronising ‘ can we help you ?’

I say I have an appointment to give blood.

They say ‘ oh ok. Can you get into the chair to give blood? ‘

I say well I’m already in a chair. I don’t need a chair.

Oh. What if you faint ?

I said ‘ well If I do, I can’t fall out of this chair. That would be impossible. I’m held in by side arm rests and the Triride at the front.

Mmmm. We’ll have to check.

Ok I said.

Male nurse comes down. Another patronising look and tone….

Can I help you?

Yes, I’m here to give blood. I’m already in a chair and I can’t fall out.

Yes but it’s not OUR chair. We can’t let you give blood in your chair. You’d have to transfer to our chair, just in case you faint.

Well I won’t faint, and anyway this chair isn’t possible to fall out of.

Sorry – we aren’t allowed to use your chair.

I mean seriously? Is there a blood shortage or not? When I used to give blood you just sat in a regular little chair! You weren’t strapped into something so that you couldn’t possibly fall out of it.

I left and phoned the Blood line. She asked me a thousand questions.
Number 1001 was ‘ do you have a catheter?
Yes I said

Ahh you can’t give blood.

I said why not? It’s from my arm, not my bladder!

Well you might have an infection.

Anybody might have an infection, I said.

Well the rule says you can’t.

So I ring off and look it up. And also if there’s anything about HAVING to sit in their chair ( there isn’t )
If you have had a catheter inserted in the last 7 days ( not me, it was 2 weeks ago ) and IF you have a UTI infection.., you can’t donate.

Neither apply to me. I phoned again.

50 more questions.
Well you have to sit in our special chair in case you faint.

🤦‍♂️

I give up, but have made an official complaint.
It was as though they just really really tried as hard as they could to stop me from helping.
Bonkers.

Yesterday I met my chum Kerry at London Bridge station.
Since it’s her birthday, I got surprise tickets to see Straight Line Crazy at the Bridge Theatre, starring Ralph Fiennes, no less.
It was brilliant tbh, as were all of the cast, not just RalphyF.

Afterwards I tried to wheel across Tower Bridge to get to Tower tube station, but they’d shut the bridge altogether for some kind of maintenance.

My plan disrupted, I turned around and went back to London Bridge.
By now it’s about 11pm and the tubes don’t run after about midnight, so I do have to get on with it.
I got a tube and intended to change at Westminster. …

Deep in thought doing something on my phone, I missed the stop. Not only Westminster but also my second best option, Green Park.
Not many stations on the Jubilee line are accessible and I’d just F’d up as it was late.

I decided I just had to get off the train, so did, at St Johns Wood. This station isn’t accessible… and I’m now on the platform having dropped down a foot or so from the train, not really that easy, and a bit risky.
I wasn’t going to be able to get back on another train and anyway there wouldn’t be many more.

I wheeled towards the exit sign and there it was, a very, very long escalator, looking like a maximally steep angle.
Wheelchairs aren’t actually allowed on escalators, because they can just fall down them really easily, and the occupant be badly injured.
Well I didn’t have a choice and if I’d called a staff member somehow then he’d not have let me try the escalator.

So I asked a fella coming DOWN if he would help me go UP.

He looked a bit bemused but said he would.
I wheeled on and held onto both rubber sides really hard, and asked him to hold my chair at the back.
If I’d let go, we’d have gone down in one bloody tumbling heap.

I didn’t let go…

And I then got out onto the pavement.
It was now raining hard and I was a lot further away from home than I was when I started 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

I set off in the rain.

Now when I say rain, it was like someone was throwing buckets of water over me.
By the time ( an hour later ) I got back, all of my clothes were absolutely sodden. Not just wet, but as though I’d been pulled out of a swimming pool, fully dressed.

When you can’t move a lot of you, trying to undress and remove clothes that are stuck to you is very hard.

The bed itself gets very wet as trousers can’t come off until I’m in bed. …

It was a bit of a calamity really.
All my fault for not paying attention.

But Jeez.

Well .. 2 plays, a comedy club and the cinema… in less than 48 hours… I reckon that’s stamina that got me through.

Prima Facie was very good. One woman show about the (in )justice of sexual assault trials..
fantastic performance by Jodie Comer.

Comedy club was excellent too. A pub in Chiswick with really big stars performing. What’s not to like? Paul Zerdin, the comedy ventriloquist was fantastic.

Recommend seeing Wild Men at the cinema too – dead funny! Subtitles don’t diminish.

Thanks to JJ for coming to all 3. We had a fun time!

Invariably when I try to subtly find a drain or tree to water… someone IMMEDIATELY appears by my side. It’s almost spooky. If ever I was lost in the wilderness then I’d just have to try and ‘ Pee ‘ and someone would miraculously appear right in my face.
Yesterday as I found somewhere, I looked up to see a coach driver and a black cab both seemingly needing me to urgently move from where I was. No idea why actually, they could have easily passed me… but no, I had about 50 people all looking at me out of a coach window and Black Cab as I peed.
It’s as though some drivers think they need 100 feet of space to pass me. Very odd and actually irritating!!! 😂