And I’m in Court in the morning… Day 1 of the end ( hopefully ) of my rather prolonged divorce process. By the end of the week, but hopefully sooner, that chapter will have closed. It’s not exactly a fun experience, the whole divorce thing, but the Court bits I find ok actually. They don’t faze me at all. Paralysis has far more daunting aspects most days than that presented by a courtroom, and I’m quite ready for the whole thing, with my brain seeming to be processing quite rationally at the moment.

My Aunty Wendy died on Wednesday, lung cancer having stolen her away. My mum’s sister, Aunty Wendy was a lovely lady. I can’t recall a time ever that she didn’t have a smile on her face, which I would say was the measure of her. RIP Aunty Wendy x

Just now I wrote this to my neighbours and the estate freeholders, where I live. I can’t justify inconsiderate behaviour anymore, from anyone.

Facebook was my medium of choice for my words.

Dear Brentford Lock West Residents and freeholders,

I write to put forward my view on necessary adjustments to policy and behaviour.
It is currently forbidden to hang washing outside on terraces or balconies. This is an aesthetic measure, designed to ‘ make our estate more pleasant to the eye’. Whilst I agree that aesthetics are a consideration, I believe, indeed know, that changes to what is acceptable and actually now responsible behaviour and policy cannot be delayed.
The ban on using sunlight and wind power for external drying of laundry is against all that is environmentally now obligatory for each and every one of us. We all know that the biggest single user of power in the household is the tumble dryer. Whilst it’s use is arguably justified in the wet and cold months of the year, it is not in the warmer seasons. We can all reduce our individual climate change contribution by drying laundry outside.
I propose that everyone who can, does, making attempts to limit the ‘aesthetic downside’ by hanging washing low down, hidden by balconies and railings where possible. Washing dries at night too, when it is warm, and no one will see your hung washing when it is dark.
I know that this is a measure that cannot be delayed, to work alongside recycling and sensible thermostat adjustment. No one should have their thermostat set higher than 19 degrees centigrade ( this being the recognised acceptable internal temperature ) If people are not warm enough then more clothes are necessary. I myself am paralysed in a wheelchair, with temperature regulation that is broken, yet I already observe the 19 degrees rule.
Of course we would all rather that established rules are still feasible with aesthetics and washing lines etc etc but the aesthetics of large areas of London being underwater ( and Brentford is on a floodplain) through rising tide levels will make seeing your neighbours pants flapping in the wind seem rather insignificant. We all grew up with washing lines being the norm, and none of us were too damaged by the experience.

Please can we have an agreement that lifelong climate change reducing behaviour is absolutely essential, rather than just a politically correct short term measure. It’s really now not negotiable, is it….?

I went to Stoke Mandeville hospital today, to the place I spent 8 months when first paralysed. Jeez, even the thought of the place gives me the shivers, such is the horrible association.

However, I went, and I had ultrasound scans to my kidneys, bladder, prostate and middle area generally, then X-rays of my spine. Then I saw Mr Belci, my consultant whilst there, who is always very friendly to me whenever I go. He talked about my body and the state of it, saying that there was nothing that was going wrong that I wasn’t aware of, and pronounced me in good health, given my circumstances.

He did talk at length though about the coming years and the expected deterioration in skin condition particularly, with a lot of advice about wheelchair technology that I needed to survive in a reasonable state. Pressure relief from wheelchairs that stand me up artificially is the technology he says is essential. I listened carefully and obviously will take his advice, wherever I can afford it.

Thank you to my lovely helper for making it possible to even get there!

The ‘ gay dog’ disputed in the Court case the other day was named as Biscuit… the defence lawyer must have mentioned the dog about 30 times, presumably to try to tug on the heart strings of the magistrates, who she presumably thought were dog loving types. That’s the thing about dog lovers – they just can’t imagine that other people aren’t as moved as much as they are about canines. As I am indifferent to dogs completely, I didn’t see that losing a share of the gay dog justified the breaking of Swedish modular furniture, and if presiding as the Mag I’d have said ‘ please refrain from using dog loving psychology in my court, or I’ll send you down for attempting to pervert the course of Justice’ … or something.

Anyway, I told Wendy about the case, deliberately mentioning Biscuit several times to see what happened to her… foreseeably she was completely sidetracked by the fate of the dog, rather than the right sentence being passed. See what I mean?!

She stayed the night last night, and soon started talking in her sleep….

‘ No, that’s NOT a good idea!’ was the first thing. Then ‘ put him on your lap!’ Then ‘ put him on your lap’ again.

Then …. ‘ c’mon Biscuit, up you get!’

Obviously I try to steer her sleep conversation… I said ‘ Biscuit bit my fingers off!’ … which got no response from the sleeping Wendy.

So I tried ‘ Biscuit savaged the baby!’ ….

Yes, I know, a tad bad of me, but hey, it’s not actually true!

I think there’s a solution to the Biscuit issue. Half a Biscuit each, surely? Can’t say fairer than that..

When I saw Rhod Gilbert ( comedian ) with Roy and Caroline the other night, my carer G came with me. The show was entitled The Book of John, and was basically about the all the daft ( albeit unintentional ) wisdom spouted by his driver, John.

As I watched it, I thought a lot about the parallels between John and G, my carer, who is absolutely lovely but also not necessarily always… er… factually correct about things.

This morning for example she said ‘ the wind has got really strong, hasn’t it?’ I said something and then she added ‘ that’s because of all the new leaves on the trees’

I said ‘ what do you mean, it’s cos of all the new leaves?’

She said ‘ well the leaves make the wind stronger. because of all the movement of the branches and leaves ‘

I said ‘ I’m pretty sure that’s not how wind gets stronger ‘

G said ‘ you don’t know much, do you! The leaves act like propellers and make the wind stronger. Everyone knows that! ‘

Me – ‘ wind is caused by the flow of air from high pressure areas to low pressure areas, and anything in the way gets blown around, but doesn’t make the wind stronger ‘

She said ‘ no, you aren’t right’

I said, laughing ‘ I think I am… are you saying then that if everyone hangs out their sheets to dry, it gets really windy, as the sheets flap and accelerate the wind?’

At that point I think G began to doubt her own just prior absolute conviction that she was a semi professional meteorologist….

Blimey, she does genuinely make me laugh, bless her.

I’m in court as an observer today.

The first case features a moped rider using a cycle path ( though that doesn’t have seem to have been proven really) and then whether that person has committed an offence.
The woman who admitted to being the rider of the moped ( that belonged to someone else ) then ( a week later ) said it wasn’t her riding it in the first place…
Having checked the legal status. it seems to be the case that if there was no one else on the cycle path that was inconvenienced, then there was no offence committed, so there was no driving crime.
But… the other part became about driving without insurance, as the lady who had at first said she WAS the rider, who then said she wasn’t, was not insured to be on that moped.
So it became all about proving the identity of the rider, and the video footage provided only showed the rider from behind. To be fair, the rider looked more like a large fella than a 6 stone woman, but hey maybe she had padded clothes on… fit for surviving a crash while riding up a pavement/ cycle path…
The woman accused didn’t have her glasses with her today so she couldn’t read any evidence ( seriously, you forget your glasses when appearing in court? ) and protested her innocence, saying that she had mistakenly filled in a long form admitting to have ridden that particular motorcycle on that particular day, in that particular place ( like you do ). Her defence was that she had just been reunited with the mother that she had never actually known ( having been separated at birth ) who now had dementia, and couldn’t actually remember having had her in the first place…?! That was, she said, very stressful and there were lots of forms to fill in, with the one about admitting to a driving offence that she hadn’t committed being filled in by mistake amongst all the other forms…. well that’s how she described it, anyway.

There was footage, as I said. It showed what seemed to be someone else, and the magistrates ruled not guilty, understandably. That she was in the habit of riding motorcycles that she obviously wasn’t insured for didn’t seem to be significant , since that wasn’t the offence being tried today. It’s a bit daft, isn’t it, that she’s let off one offence despite admitting to others in a courtroom, and then goes home ‘ unpunished ‘?
I doubt it was her on that given video, but I’m also pretty sure she is in the habit of breaking the law by riding a motorcycle without insurance, but there is no absolute proof of that…
So… if you are minding your own business on a cycle path near Feltham, West London, and you hear a moped riding up behind you, be sure to avoid getting knocked over by it, as the rider probably isn’t insured to cover the repercussions of the injuries you will sustain in the collision, but only if it’s a small lady dressed like a much bigger man.

Remember where you heard that advice first.

Next up was about a gay tiff, where the accused had broken an IKEA chest of drawers, by pulling out the said drawers, with the main structure then collapsing. Also he damaged the glass in a picture frame and sprayed shaving foam over his ( now ex ) boyfriend’s clothes. Then he sent some texts, saying he was ‘ a storm about to break’ , and ‘ the target is you’, as well as texting the ex’s mum to say her son was a drug addict ( although he actually wasn’t ) and threatening to tell his ex’s new girlfriend (!) that he had been sleeping with a man for 24 years…
The accused disputed the £1500 value put on the damaged items, saying they were worth £250, and had been upset because he had been to a funeral recently and thought the other guy might have custody of the ‘ gay dog’ that they shared if they broke up……. well that obviously justifies his actions then.

The defence lawyer was amazingly inarticulate, mumbling her way through his defence, and mispronouncing words. It’s a first to hear ‘ ridiculing ‘ pronounced as ‘ridic- you- ling’ for example. I could see from her large print notes that she should have been wearing glasses, but opted instead to have 20 words per page of large print. What is it about court and glasses ( notes the optometrist in situ ) ?

If you get your hair done by a gay, middle aged hairdresser ( ahhh that’s most of you then ) watch out for his temper tantrums, and keep him away from your Swedish self assembly furniture, in case it’s this meek looking chap in the dock today, is my advice.

The overheads incurred in running a court must be WAY more in value than the ‘ costs’ being disputed, if today’s snapshot is anything to go by, but obviously a legal system has to exist and run.
I’m going to look into becoming a magistrate. It looks pretty easy to be honest. The clerk of court makes sure it’s all legal and the Mag’s just ask a few questions along the way.

And it’s all VERY amusing!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p077l017

Thankfully courts are now recognising this.

This blimmin site will not download my wedding pictures… I don’t mean pictures of my wedding btw, I mean pictures that are mine of the wedding Wendy and I went to on Saturday.

Moving on though… a friend of mine sent me this link. He identified me as being ‘ a victim ‘ of this. It makes sobering reading. Other than a very brief period of ‘ reunion ‘ I haven’t seen my children, or hardly seen them, for 3 years.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/co-parenting-after-divorce/201304/the-impact-parental-alienation-children