Well that’s a first. Another close shave with calamity.

I came to Portugal ( having considered every single possible mishap over and over again- like I just have to .. ) and when I got here, and after they’d damaged my wheelchair in transit, I then went on the dual carriageway to my wee apartment here… mixing it with the speeding/ hungover holiday traffic.. to find when I got there that I had no battery charger to recharge my Triride. Wtf. I’d even thought about packing a charger… but I KNEW that I had 2 here in Portugal.
Doh! They’ve obviously evaporated to nothing in the heat or just maybe I’d f***ed up and got it wrong ?!

So I now had 50% charge and a 10 mile return trip to the airport 4 days away.
Well I realised that I couldn’t risk depleting my 50% any further so I couldn’t use my Triride.
But wait! I kept an old, low power Tri in Portugal! Weyhey. After a lot of bracket changing and swearing and obviously with Gina being the least practical person in the whole world ( possibly in the whole Universe ) I got the old Triride on.
Fantastic! Until I pulled the brake lever and discovered I had NO BRAKES AT ALL. A full battery with 20 miles of possible travel .. but NO BRAKES.
Bloody hell.
Well there isn’t Amazon in Portugal so you can’t get anything the next day. You have to use Amazon Spain. Ole! I ordered a charger. 2 days it said.

So I then also looked all over the internet for e bike shops, phoned about 20 of them, to find that none of them had the charger I needed? I mean cmon?!

2 days later and we wheeled past a local bike shop. This is a small town and no one has a website… but the lovely fella diagnosed zero hydraulic fluid pressure. However he was officially on Portuguese siesta time ( most of the afternoon) so asked me to come back 3 hours later. I think my ( almost ) bursting into tears possibly helped me at that point and he syringed brake fluid in. I also said I’d pay whatever he wanted just to have a brake.
€5000 later I left with an old triride that had power AND brakes. Amazing!

Then I got a notification that Amazon was just coming to the rescue anyway, with my charger.
Then I got a notification that I wasn’t at home, despite being at home. … like you do.
Turns out that despite me allowing permission to the driver to see my EXACT location.,, they tried to deliver to somewhere else 4 miles away.

Anyway (!) today… I had to Triride in my 50% charged Tri to Faro airport. I felt the strong headwind against me as I set off northwards to Faro.
After a few miles I was already down to one bar of charge. That’s 25%. I’m on a dual carriageway and going slowly to save battery.
At less than 25% charge my MAPS tells me I’ve 4.5 miles to go, and most of it it slightly uphill.
I reckon I’ve a 1 in 10 chance of making it, with no back up rescue plan.

The battery indicator is showing NO BARS and I’ve 2 miles to go. The last half mile is uphill. I expect to break down and have to push along the hard shoulder.
Extraordinarily I get to the airport, to the waiting Gina. Literally as I get there my battery dies and won’t come back on. I had to push myself through the airport doors. Because of all my steelwork in my do spine, pushing isn’t very possible for me, hence my reliance on the Triride totally these last 6 years. The one I have needs replacement. I’ve done 10,000 miles In it. They aren’t like cars that can just keep going.
I need to replace it or it’ll just die on me one day whilst I’m in a very tricky situation ( like on a dual carriageway in the ALGARVE whilst heading for my flight check in… or something unlikely that you couldn’t make up , like that… )

Ok – so I’ve ordered new batteries ( £1300 ) and new spare chargers that I’ll keep in my attached wheelchair bag.

There’s no such thing as a dull moment in my paralysis life. Dull ( not that my life ever had been ) has been replaced with stressful as f***.

But yep, a bloody close one yet again. It could have read ‘ ran out of charge just as lorry came barrelling up behind me and got Squidged ‘

Now on a plane.
When I get to Brentford railway station, I’ll have no battery to get the half mile home. G will have to push me home. What would I do without her? For sure I give her a hard time because she’s not always the sharpest knife in the box of very blunt knives ) but blimey she’s devoted.
Or she’s just a masochist.
Or she’s just incredibly thick skinned and likes the daily dramatic life I lead.

I think there should be a Clap for Gina one night soon.
Pretty sure she won’t have ever had The Clap.

Anyway, thanks to Gina G for being there. Often next to useless, but they’re nevertheless.

She does have the odd unexpected idea. It is totally left field when she does come up with something I haven’t thought of myself… but it has happened!
Just can’t think of an example right now.

Her daughter apparently reads this diary.., Hello Emma! Thanks for loaning me your mum for a few days. You’re a teacher, I understand. It’s not immediately apparent where you got your intelligence from (😂) but I’m thinking you might wanna be extra grateful to your Dad.
But your Mum is a Saint !!

Having arrived in Portugal, I was met with the horrifying sight of my wheelchair having been mangled by the airport handlers.
A dangerous triride to my place here, me being so frazzled I went the wrong way …

Now here I have FOUR wheelchairs… and NONE OF THEM ARE OK.

Holidays are definitely consistently anything but.

Ffs

Lots of people to mention!

Thanks to my lovely ( first boss ) and great friend Damo, for coming and making me laugh for 5 hours, for Toby for his great practical wheelchair messing about with skills, Glenn for lunch out, Marky P for his ongoing devotion with an occasional pearl of wisdom chucked in, Natalie for coming to Abba Voyage ( well ok she should thank me really! ) Gina for helping me in Court ( cant do this stuff physically myself, Toby again for his advice, Kerry for her frequent 3 word messages of concern for me, to my mum for our daily chats, to Yasmine for her level headed wisdom and coffee, to Ranulph Fiennes for his bloody extraordinary talk about his life..

My lil budgie died – Fanny – now buried deep in my garden. I’ve decided to give away little Tweety to someone better able to play with her. Someone is going to get a MASSIVE cage and a weeny bird .. very soon.

Court was interesting. Best leave it there.
And we shall have to do it all again in about 5 months – last time though.
I’ve pushed and pushed for a chat and a solution, but it needs both parties to buy into that.
Legal legal legal then. Fun fun fun.

Last night I went ( in iBot ) to see Eels in The Roundhouse, Camden.
Was very strange to have beers with the guys ( Chris, Leigh and Ravi Oli ) and everyone be standing up?! They all said how great it was for THEM (!) – so what must it have been like for me?? Cool tbh.
Because everyone under 30 is now 6 foot 5 ( even those born biological females ) at 5 foot 11 in the iBot I still can’t see that well – BUTTTTT I was in the STANDING SECTION!!! Wow – first time in years obvs.
Trains worked ok too. Bloody complicated to arrange and coordinate just going out, for me, especially by myself, but it did work ok. If someone wanted to mug me though, I’d not have a chance.
Eels were really disappointing. I saw them in around 1995 and it was brilliant. Last night they just didn’t PLEASE THE CROWD … I don’t get it when bands that peeps have paid a lot to see, and travelled far to get to, don’t play their most listened to songs mainly. Instead they played mediocre stuff and the band members kept talking.
They’re American ie not that funny to Brits, but that was wasted on them as the lead guy crapped on about his Apple Watch step count. Mmmmm not funny or interesting – maybe just sing more? The peeps came to see a BAND .. not to hear about your FitBit equipment.

And yea, people actually come up and TALK to me, now I’m not 3 foot 6 – always about the amazing IBot admittedly but hey it’s a lot more interesting than your Apple step count to be fair. The £35,000 price tag doesn’t surprise people at all when they see it balancing on just 2 wheels.
Maybe I should be on the 5th Plinth in Trafalgar Square in it? I’d be a paraplegic David Blane type attraction. Obviously when it ran out of battery I’d crash to my death, so One Day Only plinth attraction.

Court on Thursday. Good Vs Evil Day of Reckoning. There is clearly a difference of opinion on who is G and who is E.
I know who the C is..

It’ll be a 4.30 am start to even get there for 10am. They make you all turn up at 10am. How archaic is that in 2023? Even though I wrote to explain my situation, it makes no difference – you get there by 10 and maybe youll be heard at 5pm.
Anyway, never mind. Gina will be coming of course – stuff like just reaching out for documents I’ll need her for, along with emptying of secretion bags.
But don’t forget – my Ex needs whatever money I have far more than I do! She has far more essential needs than I do, of course! I ought just accept and roll over. Ok I’d have to be hoisted out onto the ground, log rolled and then the harness put back on me to be hoisted back into my wheelchair. 🙄

I went to see A Little Life last week. Cried my eyes out I did. Young lad buggered senseless by the Priestly Brotherhood for a decade, then ends up in a wheelchair, then ultimately commits suicide. Ok well I’ve not been buggered ( other than possibly in Court on Thursday ) but the rest has happened to me already.

Weird though – standing ovations for the great cast, particularly the wheelchair fella. Obviously the crowd felt very moved by his plight.
Did ONE person look me in the eye / smile / nod as I fought my way out through the throng in the foyer ? Nahhhh … there’s fiction and then there’s actual real life compassion.
Never the Twain shall meet.

🤷♿️❤️

As a retired optometrist myself, I’m just wondering how I’d cope with having skied up the arse of Gwyneth Paltrow… regardless of whose ‘ fault ‘ it was.

Hmmmmm. Tough one that.

Have finally bought myself a car that I actually drive myself.
It’s a bloody great unit – more truck than car, but it’s gotta have me in it, plus wheelchair, plus room for the Triride, plus be a party bus for me homies.

Once I get the full wrap, my face on all sides and the flames up the side etc it’ll look ‘distinctive’ enough not to be stolen.

That’s quite exciting – being able to go places without a train involved.
The thing is so big that parking will be tricky. May just have to use fields or something. Can’t see myself driving into London at all in it tbh. Just too complicated and far slower than roaring off in my Triride.

Seen some great plays recently actually. Dark and disturbing most of em.

Spasms are under control. The antidepressant I was on may have been responsible for the spasms.
There’s an irony – the pill to cheer you up gives you side effects that make you want to kill yourself most of the time.
Gotta laugh.
Actually being off that pill has made me a fair bit ‘ sharper’. That’s handy in divorce court next week. My adversary ( she who shall not be named ) is up against my full mental faculties for the first time in a long time. Looking forward to a good old bit of British Justice tbh.
She can’t actually be sent to jail though unfortunately.

Anyway, lodger out this weekend. Weyhey! Instagram (and cosmetic surgery !! ) obsessed in your early 20’s just isn’t right?

No more lodgers.

Got to shift stuff to my wee pad in Portugal. Need 2 hoists there and a wheelchair that actually enables me to go onto the beach. Not been on sand for about 7 years.

The space freed up in my own flat here will be transformational.

I was once minimalist… but then disability and wheelchairs and hoists rather trash that option, plus a drastic downsizing gave me too much stuff!

That’s going to Change tho. It’ll be like the Conrad Shop in here soon, give or take a bloody great iBot and 3 other wheelchairs and 3 ceiling hoists.
Ignore those and see the minimalism beyond!

😂

Well, when I say they stopped, it wasn’t altogether. As I write, it’s a bit dire

And the spasms stopped this morning.
Was something else causing it.
Too distasteful to mention tbh.

But a blessed relief, after what, 3 months?

Can the person who once said that to me at 3am please get in touch????

I’d love that.

Russ

So.
No dislocations and no pelvic fractures.
That’s good.
They aren’t SCI specialists here but I reckon I’m in ok hands. They are talking about my spasms – myoclonus – and causes. Lots of.
One is drug side effects.
One drug I take – sertraline has a recognised connection with causing spasms.
Another I took 2 courses of – Ciproflaxin for a UTI – likewise a connection.. theoretically.

Knowing a possible reason is mentally far better than it just being bewildering.

Thanks for the messages and calls I’ve had.

Thanks to Gina G for being here.

If they want me to stay in I’ll resist. My own adapted home is far better for me than being here. I can always come back tomorrow.