Flash Squirrel

Since disability issues were becoming a bit of an obsession on my other blog I thought I'd start this one.

It seems to be infectious; best friend, who a couple of weeks ago was acting as my 'pusher', because I had a wheelchair I couldn't manipulate onto buses on my own, has been interrupting her usual walks around London eyeing cracked sunken pavements, ramps or dropped kerbs that are too steep, and all sorts of general awkwardnesses and annoying interruptions to free wheeling.

A post or two ago, I was joking about 'Q-ifying' my new wheelchair. Now, it's long been the case that when Squirrel here makes a joke, events rapidly supersede and the joke becomes true and not much to joke about at all.

I picked up my new wheelchair on Thursday, and brought it home by train and tube. Fortunately, although I was a bit uncertain whether I'd be able to right up until the night before, I could push the thing around on on my own hind paws. Though I had intended to actually use it on the way back.

It was just as well. I'd carefully planned the route via what were labelled as 'wheelchair accessible' stations. Well . . .it turned out that there's 'accessible' and 'accessible'. The interchange between tube and train was supposed to be wheelchair accessible. It was.

If you either had a helper, or had just been competing at the Paralympics. Yes, each platform was linked by a ramp to the others. But it was very close to the maximum 'safe' slope for a wheelchair. Which would have been OK, except for the fact they were long. And there were no information signs anywhere near them to tell you what train was leaving which platform. They were all far away at the other end.

I got it wrong three times because I was given the wrong information. I missed one train simply because the person who told me where it was leaving from had no idea that it would take me about twice as long as them to get there. Even pushing the bloody thing (which is an ultra-lightweight one) I got pretty weary. It had lifts, they said, on the web. It had one lift. From Platform 1 (I arrived on Platform 4 and had to leave from Platform 8) to and from the booking hall. Which I didn't need to go to and wasn't much of an attraction anyway.

And the train? Well, it was c2c (National Express) and lovely. New, shiny, fast, one carriage with two good spacious wheelchair spaces and a huge wheelchair accessible toilet. Lovely. Those are the trains

I shall look for in future. But . . .I arrived at the station, and had I wanted to get on, or off, in a wheelchair I couldn't have. Despite the promise that I could arrange it. Unless another passenger had helped. The station was unmanned: the booking office closed "because of safety issues".

Ironic, eh? If I hadn't been able to walk a bit, if I had been entirely reliant on the wheels, what about my safety?

Now, as to squirrel jokes having a nasty habit of turning out to be true. That thing of mine about doing up my new wheelchair with flashing coloured wheels . . .Not such a joke after all. I got the wheels on a bus for the last stretch home, and decided (being pretty tired by then, and the hind paws being weak) to wheel myself to the flat. All went reasonably well, though next time, I'll remember to use my own borough's side of the street instead of the neighbouring one's. On one side it's relatively smooth going; on the other for about two hundred metres, the pavement's sunk so badly it was a roller-coaster ride.

But why the need for natty flashing lights? Ah. The original reason (apart from the fun, and giving people something to grin at) was I have been, and often will be, wheeling myself home from friends' at night. (Not to mention coming home after going out clubbing every now and then. I don't see why I should give that up.) But . . .in daylight?

It simply hadn't occurred to me. But I had to get across a road junction just a few metres from my flat. All four streets were lined with parked cars. So, with great caution, I poked the nose into the road , , , only to have to wheel myself back in a hell of a hurry. Five drivers simply didn't see me. The two SUV's and the van were the worst. The drivers staring ahead well above my head . . .

It was a bit like a dinghy being cut up by a supertanker.

So. Flashing lights. I've ordered some flashing orange-yellow fibre optic cable to wrap around the spokes on the wheels. Should be, as the pound coins used to say "decor et tutamen".  I'd really like something like those LED flashing 'gangsta' hub caps—you know, the sort that spin round the opposite way to the wheels? But that'd be really, really expensive. . .

And I've already fitted cheap flashing red bike rear lights to the back. Just, well, I want something more . . . flash . . . why should wheelchairs be boring? Why shouldn't you pimp your ride? Next, a leopardskin seat. And a holster for the Uzi.  Fridge for the booze underneath . . .Secret compartment for the coke stash. . .And . . .no, no, this is London.