Just now I was Triride’ing to Faro airport on a main road in Portugal…
Two lanes and a hard shoulder.

I’m in the hard shoulder at this point..
A few cars have just passed me and there are 3 in the fast lane, say doing 40mph. They are say 20 meters ahead of me.
Suddenly.. an estate car RAMS into the back of the rear of the last of the 3 cars.
This bloke must have been doing at least 65mph.
What an impact..

The car he hits gets shunted forward at high speed yet just avoids missing the car in front.

CLEARLY the fella in the estate was looking at me ( well not often round here do you cop a bloke in a wheelchair doing 30mph?) and he’s so impressed he’s stopped looking in front of him for quite a while. He wasn’t even braking… he hit the car in front at high speed. I saw his bonnet crumple almost entirely.

If he hadn’t hit him square on one/ both of them would have probably shot into my path.

That’s another life, I’d say.

Never far away from certain death, me.
😳💦

Had a party last week- for my birthday.
Lots of people came.
It was brilliant to see so many totally cracking people in the same place ( mine ).

Thanks to everyone who came!
And to Leighton for doing the barbecue.
I found him on the internet. …

It would have been 30 years since I did a certain thing… today.
Or was it tomorrow?
You know I’ve never remembered which date it was.
😂

Anyway, it’s not.

Gawd if i could live my life again, I’d not have done it.
That’s for sure.
🤷

My God I’m doing some great arm exercises.
If you haven’t seen these ( and you probably haven’t) then you should get one.
Impossible to injure yourself ( it weighs less than a kilogram ) , portable, use anywhere ( though people might stare at you and wonder what on earth you are doing ) .. if you wear a wrist weight as well – I use a kilo one on each wrist… well if you can do a solid hour of it ( whilst watching tv/ YouTube/ listening to a podcast or something… then your arms will indeed suffer.
Always enjoyed the burn, i have to say.

This is from ALI EXPRESS btw… gotta say, I do love that site.

Aside from that I Went to see this very clever play this weekend.
In it this lady ( aided and abetted by her new boyfriend ) lied and swindled her way through the course of a good décade to persecute her ex husband and live a life that she couldn’t afford. She lied to banks, to mortgage companies, to her employers, to her friends and family, and with a straight face to a string of Judges in several Court appearances. Well dodgy character..

And then at the end, her boyfriend, knowing all he did about her … asked her to marry him.
The final act was so chilling. He was so haplessly cheerful that she had said yes, but then the camera zoomed in on her face and you just knew what a terrible mistake this man was making.
You just wanted to shout out NOOOOOOO to warn him. But you can’t… it’s just fiction and you’re in a theatre.

Very powerful.

And I’m also getting my sh** together with dating. Some lucky lady might soon snag me. 🤷😂

Thanks to Leighton and Bev for hosting myself and Gina GS at theirs for a BBQ! Leighton puts on a good grill, fair do’s.

We went there in the Mean Machine van.
It’s a process to use the thing, but is useful.
Of course I’m not used to going out and not being allowed to drink anything alcoholic. Very weird.
Not that I actually drink that much these days tbh. The more exercise I do, the less alcohol I even feel inclined to drink, and I’m doing a fair bit atm.

Saw an exceptional play – The Fifth Step the other week ( with my Friendo Helen ) and I saw a play ( for the 3rd time in 5 years – rarely seen anything more than once .. ) called Til the Stars come Down. Just such a good play. Go n see it.

I’ve persuaded my refugee buddy to lose weight… resorted to a straightforward lecture on the negative aspects of being 130kg when you’re 5 foot 6. Anyway, it’s working and he’s lost a couple of stone in a couple of months.

If you want a lecture about being fat, do message me. I’m not shy, nor ‘ body positive’.

Another life gone.

Had a shocker last night.
Tyre came off wheelchair when driving along.

I didn’t crash exactly. Tyre started to come off a few hundred yards from my place, and the right wheel’ seized’. I was trying to avoid a coach that was reversing towards me in the dark.. and I don’t think the driver could see me. I was shouting out ‘ I’m behind you and I can’t move’.
Christ.

The chair wouldn’t move at all even under full throttle.
Then the right inner tube exploded.
That was sort of a positive, as it would then at least go along the road but with a fully flat tyre that was half off the wheel.

Had I been doing 30, it would have been game over, as I would ould have slewed to the right, into the traffic, and I’d have overturned.

Thankfully Gina was at mine so once back I was able to replace the ( f’d ) tyre and inner tube.

My life…

Thanks to Chris for the invite to his to watch the Ladyball.

Great to see the English girls win the Euros.
Of course on closer analysis, it’s not just English girls, it’s English lesbians that play football.
Only one of the England team was heterosexual. That’s 8%.
It’s clear that in order to perpetuate this success there needs to be a clear strategy where lesbians are identified at a young age and encouraged to play football.
There’s no point in being all ‘ inclusive’ about it, where it’s ‘ football for all girls in schools’ We need a ruthless system where we focus on winning the major trophies, not fanny around ( excuse the wording ) with the straight girls. What’s the point? It’s a waste of resources. Women’s football isn’t cash rich enough to squander money needlessly.

Encourage the heterosexual girls into other sports like netball, where most will give up when they get iPhones anyway, and have centres of sporting excellence for our lesbians.
Boxing, girl football and rugby for example will all improve with a better calibre of hardcore lesbians all competing against each other for team places.

Obviously you’d have to bring back communal showers for them as part of the reward system.

My weekend help said – i think you’ve left parts of your wheelchair outside.

I said that i didn’t think so.
She said – i think you have.

I said ok .. can you bring them in?

She said yes and brought these things inside

I said – which bit do you think that is?

She said – not sure. The steering wheel?

Good grief.

I went to Kew the Music last night.
The ‘ headline ‘ act was Alison Moyet who was once part of a very big act called Yazoo.
She was very good, as was the singer from The Feeling who was a last minute support act.

Alison was a chunky monkey back in the day but now she’s slim. Good girl !

I was on the wheelchair platform – which didn’t seem to be so much for people like me, who have had disabling accidents… but for people who have eaten so much and are now so massive, that they stop walking and get NHS wheelchairs.
Whales in wheelchairs.
Maybe that should be an official category of society.

I ( kind of reluctantly ) got into a conversation with one 25 stoner, who told me she was a Druid.
A Druid ?
A Whale Druid ( I was thinking to myself)

As opposed to a Welsh Druid, that maybe I could become if I did the BTec in it.
Presumably they do that in universities now.

How can anyone go around and tell people with a straight face that they are a Druid?
Shouldn’t she be tall and lean with a long beard and a staff?
Rather than being 25 stone and in an NHS wheelchair, no doubt living off benefits and at an Alison Moyet posh gig in Kew Gardens?

What happened to the thin other half of Yazoo?
I think possibly Alison Moyet ate him one day.

Jesus fing Christ

Repairing a flat tyre on a rear wheel drive wheel of my Triride.

Really fing hard for a female help ( GG ) to get the wheel off in the first place. Not exactly obvious how to do it but we have done it before.
Then those tyres are literally fing welded on.

Eventually changed the tube ( 1 hour ) then the new tube suddenly exploded- as in like a gunshot
The shite tyre had come apart and the wire in the rim cut into the tube so it exploded… at least the wheel wasn’t back on and i wasn’t in the chair or out on the road.

Then Decided to change the tyre as had other tyres.

An hour to get the tyre off.
Had to cut it off with a sharp Brad awl and wire cutters. There was a massive amount of swearing and just as much total mystification as to how a wheelchair tyre should be so much harder to change than a bike tyre – given that the ‘ rider ‘ is likely to be far less able to deal with the challenge in the first place.

But the new tyre went on so much easier.
Think those Kenda mtb tyres they supply are just too small and therefore ridiculously tight.

A 24 inch Blackjack tyre went on so much more easily.
Used loads of talcum powder on the rim so next time it should be easier.

Possibly one of the most stressful 3 hours of my life, and I’ve had my challenges.

Thank god for GG s help.

I asked my mate Phil what he does.
He said he uses washing up liquid to stop the tyres welding on.
But when he goes out in the rain, his wheelchair becomes a bubble making machine.
Top tip 😂