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.

I saw a terrible place last night.
Don’t go to see ‘ Teeth n Smiles ‘

Shite.

The audience were either leaving, or laughing ( at what, I don’t know though – given it just wasn’t funny at all ). I laugh pretty easily, but last night I think I smiled once, and I was ‘ trying to be amused ‘.

1/10 from me.

So I wrote to Mr Tucker, the Metal Man who made good all the spinal metalwork that Jonathan Lucas put in, in 2016 … and subsequently started falling apart in 2018… and I told him about my crash.
I told him that I didn’t seem bent, no bits of metal were sticking out of me, I had no haemorrhaging anywhere, and my spasms weren’t worse than usual.
He said that ‘ there were no red flags and to see how I felt in a week’. That’s what I hoped he’d say, as it’s actually a right palaver going to hospital ( and I really don’t like it ).

A week on and I think it’s ok, spinally.
My chest still hurts though, on the right side.

I’m currently in Triride UK and they are fixing what I did. The back axle shifted in my crash and it’s not been driving quite right… so they are re jigging it.
Top lads, Nathan and Lea.

As is GG who has once more stepped up to the plate and helped me in my hour(s) of need.
Well she’s not a lad, but you know what I mean.

And yes, it all hurts today.
Last night I actually managed some light exercise on the right side, to mobilise it ( always my go to ) and it felt a lot better.

A sleep… and it’s worse
But as it was ok last night, I know I haven’t done anything bad.

Just another lesson in road awareness.

Jesus… first crash in my Triride
I braked hard, thinking I could brake as hard as I wanted to… and I flew over the handlebars. Echos of 2013.

This time I didn’t break anything ( well as far as I know ) but F me my chest and right arm are now hurting, particularly when I cough.

Once again I was lying in the middle of the road – this time in Brentford and not on a remote mountain road.
I was at a crossroads and waited for the green traffic light, which I ‘ predicted ‘ as there was nothing coming. A cyclist on my left started ahead of me and I was focused on him in case he veered right at all .. but suddenly there was a man crossing the road in front of me, that would have been obscured by the cyclist..
My fault of course.. and I braked hard.

5 people came to my rescue. One strong fella put his arms around me and picked me up almost by himself I think. The Triride had come off, my glasses were broken, my phone was on the road, my lanyard had shot off my neck. Of course people asked if I needed help but of course it’s not every day that a bloke can’t do anything to help himself. I’m just lying there, explaining I can’t move my legs, but I was already like that before this crash.

People were extremely helpful, I have to say. It’s probably good I crashed in Brentford, where perhaps people are used to seeing me … I don’t know.

Christ I’ll be extra alert from now on.
I had no idea that I even would be able to fly over the handlebars, from a wheelchair attached to a Triride… but now I do. I think I assumed my powered back wheels had a braking mechanism ( to a degree) but they clearly don’t and it’s 2013 all over again.

I have a cut on my forearm and my head was bleeding a fair bit, but both stopped bleeding. I must have hit the road chest first, which is a bit weird but hey.
I had a science talk to go to tonight with Marky P… but I’m not going now.
I think the pain is going to get worse for a day or three.

I’ve probably been fortunate to have done so many miles on the London roads and not crashed before tbh.. I was thinking that just the other bloody day.
I don’t think I’ve done anything to my lower body, but how would I know?
The metal rods inside me are stronger than my spine would have been, or course… otherwise perhaps I’d be snapped in half again.

I’m at a coffee shop and I detached from my Triride ( which I seem to have done something to – electronically- as the function display shows an error ) and I now have to reattach.
The way I do it relies on a fair amount of arm strength and I can’t use my right one that much at the moment.

Let’s hope I can get the thing on.

And my ickle brother, Stu, and his ickle wife, Mandy came for the night.
Is it normal for 4 people to drink 9 bottles of wine?
The day after I felt like I’d had all 9 bottles myself.
It’s the Welsh – watch out for them 😅

Roo and I saw a play called 1536 on Thursday. It’s had a fair amount of publicity.
It can safely be said that 1536 wasn’t the best time to be a woman. Henry was chopping their heads off regularly and his attitude rubbed off on English men everywhere. The play made uncomfortable watching.

The Welsh may drink too much, but I don’t think they do/ did a lot of decapitation.

Women of the world – go to Wales to get a good man.

Today marks the anniversary of the surrender of all German forces, in 1945.
I’ll celebrate that by going to the theatre tonight and afterwards ( and before ) raising a glass to the Allies.
Obviously I’ll be voting before that. They have to make the polling stations Wheelie friendly of course, and I won’t be voting for the current lot ( not that I ever have, I don’t think ). I won’t be voting for the last lot, either.

Yesterday Roo n I went to the Science museum ( along with most of the children in London.. and an equal number of Frog kids ) Wheeling through ten thousand kids is worse than the same number of adults, as literally none of them seem able to see me.
As it was Roo’s birthday, we went out to dinner to celebrate.. of course. Very nice too.

I saw Bradley Wiggins speak on Tuesday, accompanied by my buddy Chris ( who is somewhat of an expert on Brad, having worked for Sky at the time, and particularly with the cycling team ). I think Brad’s public image benefited a lot from Chris’s wise input. Clever, that Chris fella, I can tell you.

Roo n I saw the Michael Jackson film on Sunday- I dunno but I can’t really see Whacko being a kiddy fiddler. I wouldn’t bet my house on that, but I just don’t believe it.
Anyway, the film is great, particularly all the music and of course the dance.

The mighty Bees beat West Ham 3-0 the other day, and of course I was there.. and I also went In my SpazVan to Stoke Mandeville hospital the other day to get Botox In my legs. As yet it has not lessened the spasm intensity, and nor do they look any younger.. doh.

Barely home from Richmond theatre and back there again for a matinee.. seeing Harry Enfield ( and no chums )

The fella is as funny as he always was. He has created so many amazing characters over the years and he did a lot of them.
Not seen an audience laugh so much.
He’s a fantastic impressionist and took off so many famous people today.
Go and see him.
Like going back in time to a funnier age of non wokery and no PC

10/10. HILARIOUS.

Saw the world’s worst play last night.
If you go to watch Single White Female ( brilliant film back in the day ) ‘ starring’ Kym Marsh and Lisa Faulkner… you’ll spend more time laughing than you do being shocked.
Given it’s supposed to be a thriller, that’s probably not what they wanted.

At the end, Marsh ‘falls’ backwards out of the 20th floor window.. to her death.
Had they put the window a bit lower, she wouldn’t have to have so obviously jumped backwards out of it…. another comical moment.

Kerry was a bit drunk and gets a bit ‘ intolerant of mediocrity’ when she is…. she must have said ‘ ffs this is like a school play’ about 20 times.

So not quite what we had expected then.

Kerry was nevertheless very excited to have been ( apparently ) chatting to celebrities at the bar, and regaled me again and again with her interval stories. She was particularly unimpressed by the celebrities calling the interval .. half time.

Fun day out nonetheless, having watched the Bees hang on to 7th place when drawing with Fulham.

Good day !