Getting to last night’s venue proved far more arduous than I could have predicted. I remember going there as an able bodied person to see a gig or 3, and the packed and crowded nature of it was a great sensation. The difference that those elements make now are only negative when you’re at child height and the staff are very ineffective at getting you through crowds. Normally at venues there is some side door that you go through – a fire escape or something. At Alexandra Palace there is no route provided, so it’s a total bun fight, and the guy in the chair is handicapped ( literally ).

The distance from the closest accessible tube line proved to be 4 Miles, and with a lot of very steep hills, with Pia and I using a combination of her running / her hitching a lift on my sensation free lap. The venue itself is at the top of a hill, and everyone has to go pretty much the same way. On thé way there I got stuck on a path and 2 people had to push me up a steep slope and over a kerb. On the way back, and  down the hill, my chair and Triride Combi tipped over whilst getting onto a pavement. It was at low speed so no real damage done,  as far as I can tell. I did land heavily on my right side but  other than a painful elbow, I think I’m ok, at least physically. Mentally the effects of tipping out are longer lasting, as it reinforces your incapacity to do anything about it. Four pissed blokes and Pia got my chair upright, with me in it.

The battle to get back had barely started. Thousands of people trying to get away at the same time makes a taxi very unlikely, so I opted for a bus to get me halfway back and then ‘ take it from there’.  I rely totally on my phone for bus times/ tube trains and navigation. I have to carry a back up power pack to recharge my phone all of the time, as I’m so dependent on the things that it enables me to do. To my distress, my carer ‘ had  forgotten ‘ to charge the back up charger, even though it’s a task that is absolutely her responsibility, and has been for weeks. So I have no phone navigation charge and I’m 10 miles from home, in an area that I don’t really know. I do however now carry a spare fully charged Triride battery so the mileage wasn’t the issue, if I had to wheel it back.

It was VERY cold last night, and the cold seeps into me from my feet upwards, but I can only tell once my core temperature has started to drop.

Getting a bus to stop and put the ramp down isn’t a job for a meek person in a throng of people – it needs someone to be forceful, to wave their arms and shout to the driver that a guy in a chair needs to get on. If the driver can’t hear the request then there’s a fair chance that they’ll ignore me at the bus stop. My eventual tactic was to just wheelchair in front of an oncoming bus and stay in the middle of the road, Indicating that I wanted to get on. That did eventually work and we got to Chalk Farm, and then got another bus to Green Park. From there it should be straightforward, but it wasn’t. The driver kept parking the door ramp in the wrong place – in front of bins or a lamppost, and the ramp won’t then even come down, and if it does I can’t get on anyway… because I can’t drive through a lamppost.

After 10 Minutes and 2 failed buses, I said goodbye to Pia ( who had bus and tube options that I don’t really, and anyway lives several miles from where I do  ) and decided to try my luck on the crowded A roads through London.

It probably took half an hour at least, but I was so cold that I wasn’t thinking about anything other than avoiding lorries to be honest, though even that, after the emotional day I’d had, wasn’t a bad outcome – quick end and all that. I don’t fear death at all – as I’ve written before it doesn’t matter to me, and matters even less when the odds against me seem to pile up higher and higher, as they seemed to last night.

The cold numbing effects have prevented me having a clear memory of getting back, but I know I adopted my usual tactic of recalling a time when I was much colder and survived ( last night it was a time in the Himalayas when I probably should have died of hypothermia, but didn’t ). On plenty of other kayak occasions I’ve been in extreme cold adversity situations and got through them, so I put my mind in that zone and ignore the suffering, and just focus on the objective.

I can’t remember arriving at home, or Rosanna letting me in, but I remember now that it was 2 am and I was shivering.

Anyway i made it. I’m not dead, and Liam Gallagher was his usual self – a bit of an uneducated and arrogant twat – but everyone there loves him anyway.. and forgives him completely.

Theres always a ‘ who was Oasis ‘ difference in opinion, but for me it was Liam, not so much Noel.  Liam fans are définately more ‘ hardcore ‘, thé fans there last night reacting to him as though he was a god, if not God himself ( depending on your religion, obviously ).

Would i go to the same venue again ? Well I will, cos I have tickets for another gig in the spring, but  I’d definitely go there far earlier and get in, BEFORE the thousands appeared. This disabled access stuff is all a learning curve, and until you know a place, you just don’t know a place. Thankfully I was able to navigate my way back via road signs, didn’t end up on thé Westway this time, and didn’t get crushed by an HGV, though I’m sure there were numerous close shaves.

I think that going to a Pantomime, just a mile away tonight is probably what I need, rather than a repeat of last night? I’m sure Cressida will excel, along with the rest of the amateur ( but great ) cast. I’ll see Toby there, and maybe sip one mulled wine, if they have any, and then get back and take a sleeping tablet. I have archery in the morning, and this time need to be fully conscious when I get there, and not like last week when I’d managed not to sleep at all, having not taken a sleeping tablet and assuming I’d drop off after getting back from Kasabian at the O2, very late, but I didn’t. My aim was all over the place, and really I’m not surprised.

Ok, so irrigation now done, I’ll get to the gym soon, to do what I can. Rosanna cooked something, after hér invaluable help with the water system, which I am unable to do by myself, as you need to be able to stand up to place thé réservoir high enough and fill it up. Hands up who wants a video of the procedure…. happy to post one, in all its glamour….