Oh, as well as dabbling in online heterosexual  dating, it would seem that I have other options…

Whilst minding my own business down at the river yesterday, a very friendly gent approached me and said Hi.

Thinking i must know him, I responded cheerfully and politely.

When he asked my name I realised that I didn’t know him… we had a chat and he told me that I had the same name as his Ex.

Well I never, I said… and there was more passing of the time, where he mentioned that he’d just been sunbathing in his underpants.

Saying that I really ought go, he said how nice it had been talking to me, and ‘ you’re a very good looking man, Russ’

I thanked him politely , and said that he wasn’t too bad himself… before doing a wheelspin in my motorised chair and riding off at high speed.

I fear that that may have really done it for him…

I had a few drinks the other night. After drinking them, I felt very cheerful! ✅

However… the day after, I felt very depressed ?

Proof then… NOT a good thing for me.

Unless of course it’s just sleeping that depresses me?

Next I’ll try drinking a lot and then not sleeping at all. …

Last night, Pia and I went to Shepherds Bush and saw the truly incredible Macy Gray, at the O2 Academy.

After the gig, we very sensibly got the bus back, rather than taking the highspeedwheelchairinthebuslane option.

People have often wondered, and asked me directly, what my relationship with Pia exactly is? Last night it seemed to dawn on me properly, and in full.

When I’m with her, and because of the way she is with me ( always ) I don’t feel like I’m disabled and paralysed. Obviously it’s always there, that awareness, but Pia somehow makes it alright.

My ongoing challenges with getting a carer that fits  continues. This one, who is a very nice girl from Kenya, leaves next week, though had forgotten to tell me. – you see the problem ( right there ). Communication is something that is largely beyond my carers to date, despite them all having phones. Paper, pens and pencils are also readily available in my flat.

They even have mouths, that words sometimes come out of, but that’s not  something that I can rely on as a method of communication, I have found.

So i have a gap, from the 11th until the 18th, that approaches, without a gap filling solution as yet.

Bletchley Park… now there’s a place to visit. Obviously now famous, as opposed to top secret ( as it was for years ) for the code breaking activities that went on there. It’s all wheelchair friendly ( well, in the main ) and the staff are very helpful.

My date was subjected to my driving, which is actually fairly enjoyable for me now, after the very difficult process of actually getting me into the bloody car,  and the sun shone all day long. As well as the house itself, and the many outbuildings, the park and lake are beautiful

Thank you to my date for her tolerance etc. The place needs another visit ( or 2 ) as there is so much there to take in at once. As I’m not ten percent as clever as the people that will have worked there, I’ll need to go again to give my brain the opportunity to absorb some more, by going again…

So my great buddy Rob, after having the shits for 10 days, finally conceded that enough was enough, and pulled out of his race, a mere 3,100 miles in. The remaining 2000 miles, on a bike in the wilderness, were a risk not worth taking, he rationalised.

Good call Robbo. You have to know when to stop. And you did.

So… people ‘ ahead of me’ time-wise, in the paralysis game, told me that post injury, the dynamic with friends changes. Most friends drift away, they said. It’s all a bit too much for the normals to keep up the charity element, they said.

In my own case, I am paralysed and now divorced too, so there’s another reason why people might disappear.

The thing is, that no matter how much you try to logicalise it, for the wheelchairists there’s always the little voice that says ‘ it’s because you’re in a wheelchair that they are like that ‘. It doesn’t matter that you are told otherwise, the voice is still persuading you that the wheelchair is the real reason.

When i don’t get invited to things now that I definitely would have been invited to before, it’s really not a good thing for me to spend time thinking about it, and i try very hard not to.

Except the bloody voice won’t let it be..

Tomorrow is a party that I’d have been invited to, probably before anyone else was. Now I’m not invited at all. I’ll do something else, for sure, but the little voice won’t let up. ‘ It’s because you’re in the wheelchair mate, not because they don’t like you anymore….’

That’s a lovely choice, isn’t it?

Of course, it could be both. You’re in a wheelchair AND they don’t like you…

Having delved a little into the online dating concept, I’ve realised an obvious plan/tactic.

Ok, so I’ve worked out that :

Women are ( on the whole ) more caring, and better at ‘ looking after me ‘ … and that :

Men are ( on the whole ) stronger, and more technically minded ( so better at my various wheelchair attachments, involving nuts and lèvers etc  )

It would appear that on the dating sites ( and I’m only on one for ‘ straights ‘ ) there are a percentage  whose profile picture is say, of a male, but whose say, 3rd and 4th pictures, is the same male but in a dress and wig, with lots of makeup.   See, that’s exactly what I need ( not as a girlfriendboyfriend ) in a carer – a strong man that has a very feminine side!

Bingo!

When you’ve lived life at a certain speed for, well,  all  of it, it’s not that easy to adjust to people that live life at an altogether different speed.

I really DO expect/ hope that my carer(s) are ‘ in tempo ‘ with my innate pace… walking along the street/ doing things for me etc etc.

I was shown this today, by Pia, who’d helped me yet again to get something done.

This video is exactly how life is for me, in terms of my relationship with certain of my carers….

https://youtu.be/eIkgSJcRlF4

Having been elected to the Council of the British College of Optometrists,  I have used my newfound area of expertise, to good effect.

I wrote a ‘ Guide to testing the eyes of patients in wheelchairs’ . I won’t copy it to this blog, as it a bit optometrist’y, but I can  talk about it, obviously.

I am, after all, probably fairly unique in being on both sides of the table – having been able bodied and examined the eyes of lots of wheelchairists, and am now one of them myself! Who better to write the Guide, than myself, I reasoned….

As well as the practical stuff, there is always the ‘ interaction factor ‘ to consider.  I am continually surprised by the awkwardness of the public ( or some of ) when it comes to talking to me. I accept that I don’t look like I’d be that clever, but  before my injury people would talk to me without too much difficulty, but now some don’t appear able to. At the doctor’s the other day, I told the receptionist that I had an appointment at 2.45, and was here… she replied, not to me, but to my 15 year old daughter, telling HER where we should wait to see the District Nurse, as if I was completely invisible…. and that was in a doctors’ surgery. What chance do I have elsewhere..?

In my Guide I have addressed this issue, saying that physical detriment does not mean that mental detriment necessarily follows…

I’ve said to apply The Stephen Hawking Rule …

THE STEPHEN HAWKING RULE – HE’S IN A WHEELCHAIR, BUT HE’S A LOT SMARTER THAN YOU ARE…

( aka  don’t you dare talk down to him )