So the other day… my blind mate came round.. with his wife and her paddleboard.. with the intention of borrowing my paddleboard and going out together. I mean it’s not like paddleboarding is difficult to do, on a canal. It’s not exactly the open ocean, and is actually about 3 feet deep if you fall in, so it’s very unlikely you’ll drown or anything.
Anyway between them and my date, who was also there, they got the ( for years unused ) board over my railing and down onto the towpath… and off they went, all romantic like, into the sun…

When they came back, my date helped Mrs Blind with her board back to her car, leaving me and Paul with the other ( my ) paddleboard, and the challenge of getting it back up over my railings.

So we’ve got a fella in a wheelchair giving verbal directions to a blind man with the objective of getting a 9 foot paddleboard up over a railing 10 feet above the towpath, safely, without either of us being killed in the process.

I ( literally ) had to tell him ( exactly ) where to step/ grab/ pull/ climb over… whilst I at one point had the end of the board on my head , with the other end up on the railing, whilst at the same time telling him what to do with his arms and legs.

It wasn’t like either of us thought it would be a better idea to wait til somebody able bodied and not blind came along.. we just got on with it. And that’s the thing… we did it and nothing went wrong either.

But F*** knows what a person watching would have made of it… cos you couldn’t really make it up!

😂