No crashes in 10 years
Two crashes in one month

A pissy motorist who clearly didn’t like my presence on the road, after telling me so ( and to whom I verbally defended myself ) then proceeded to overtake me at about 60mph in a 20mph zone, only then to brake hard in front of me, causing me to crash once more into the tarmac.
This time it’s my left side… just as my right side was starting to feel ok.
Once more several guys picked me up and got me back in my chair.

Christ I am now feeling very nervous about even going on the road.

Unfortunately I didn’t get his registration number.

It’s very frustrating that I can’t get up from the chair and drag people like him out of his car. Some people just deserve a few teeth knocked out.

An amazing day in Taunton at the home and workshop of Phil Eaglesham.
What an incredible wheelchair Phil and his crew have invented.
After contracting a very rare virus in Iraq ( in 2010 ?) whilst serving as a Marine, Phil was rendered ( functionally ) tetraplegic .. and yet had the spirit/ drive/ determination to dream up a unique wheeled invention.

The Omni is a terrific machine – all terrain and 4 wheel drive, with a rising seat height, as well as being fully reclining to a lying position.
Oh, and 0-8mph like a Ferrari.

Phil’s own story took a dramatic twist when ( through his own research ) he found a really old drug that ( once he’d finally been able to get hold of some- by having to leave the UK medical system and go to Europe where the rules are different ) his theory was then proved correct.
He can now take a tablet, and literally miraculously, can get out of his wheelchair and be physically normal.
Imagine that … for me that is a fairytale.

Of course there’s a downside… the drug will only be effective for a finite number of doses, after which he’s permanently back in his wheelchair.

Well it’s an extra reason to be motivated to develop the best machine possible.

Phil and I are extra connected via my buddy Dan White.
Dan phoned me a year ago to say he was skiing with a friend of mine.
I asked who, and he said Phil E.
I said ‘ is he in a sitski ? How is he doing?’
Dan said ‘ no, he’s on skis ‘
I said that it must be a different Phil as the one i knew definitely couldn’t stand up, let alone ski.. at which point I heard about the magic tablet.

If it sounds incredible to you, imagine how it sounds to me ( and anyone else in a wheelchair )

Phil, you’re a legend of a man.

Oh, and today marks 13 years since my own terrible bike crash.

A lot of stuff has happened to me in my life, but yesterday I experienced something I haven’t before.
I was going along the road that borders Hyde Park, at about 20mph, and a pigeon flew into the side of my head ( at high speed ).
Thankfully it didn’t knock off the new glasses that I have just bought to replace the ones I smashed in my recent big crash…. that would have been a bit like I was getting a message from above that I should stop going out.
As it was, I was just a bit bemused.
Does this happen often to people?
Could I be the first person in history, in a speeding wheelchair, to have been attacked by a high speed pigeon?

I met Kerry, to see a play called The Truth. The play was great, very funny, but I’d forgotten how difficult The Apollo ( Shaftesbury Avenue ) is to get into.
If you have ever played Mousetrap and constructed that rickety railway thing for the ball to travel around, then that’s a bit what the wheelchair staircase lift is like at The Apollo. Very unnerving.
It’s too small to stay attached to my Triride, and so they have to separate me from it, which I also don’t like much, as I just don’t know what will happen to it once it’s wheeled away from me. People can be a bit clumsy with it and if it gets damaged, it’s only me that suffers the consequences.
The theatre inside is also on quite a slope, and there’s hell of a camber to navigate before I even get to the wheelchair space I go in.
Because my body is fixed with metal, I can’t lean sideways at all to counterbalance against the camber, so I feel like the chair is at tipping point for far too long.
I do think my recent crash has unnerved me tbh. My heart is in my mouth regularly now, as people continue to step out in front of me, or cars ahead of me brake unexpectedly.

It’s probably a good thing that my mind is on alert even more than before, but I’d like to rid myself of the fear factor that accompanies it …
It’s odd – I can do the 30mph through the traffic stuff, but a slow moving rickety staircase lift I’m afraid of.
It’s the lack of control ( my control ) that unseats me a lot.

As it’s 13 years on Sunday, since I broke my back, I think that’s been weighing on me too.
The profound changes to every aspect of my life are nearly all very, very negative ones, no matter how I look at them.
There are one or two surprising positives, but largely I can’t write about those.

Great to have Leighton and Bev to mine the other night, and I’ve seen some great stuff recently.
I went to a theatre talk about the SAS escapades in WW2 the other night.
Wow, talk about Boys Own stories- like stealing a train to access and liberate a concentration camp in Italy in 1945, and walking 250 miles through the desert with water or food. The mental fortitude of these men was what sets them apart from people.
The latter is what I have to tap into, to make the best of my situation.