Paving the Way

A bit further along my street here in London, there is a a paved pedestrian square outside a church. Correction. There was a paved square there until a couple of weeks ago.

Since then it's been a building site. But I'm sure it will be quite an attractive little square again when it's finished.

It's presented a problem, though. Or rather a small, but irritating series of problems. Just after they'd put all the fencing around it, I went off, on the new wheels, to friends' for dinner. Which was when I realised that whoever was thoughtful enough to put up the big notices that said 'Sorry for the Inconvenience' hadn't quite grasped how much more inconvenient they'd made it for people on wheels.

Instead of zipping along over the nice flat mini-piazza, I had to take to the pavement. That shouldn't normally be a problem, but it has a narrow cycle lane alongside it, and as I got to the far end, bowling along merrily, I suddenly realised that there was a bollard in the middle of it that I hadn't noticed before.

Of course, that's there, I suppose, to deter cyclists from using the pavement as a pedestrian bowling-down alley. But the encroaching metal fence surrounding the new paving work meant it was a bit of a squeeze for a wheelchair. A bit fiddly getting through the space it was. Bit like what those Virgin cable vans have on the side: "back a bit, forward a bit, back a bit", but followed by "damnation, that got my knuckles', which is the bit they don't have advertising video on demand . . .Who ever skinned their knuckles on a remote control, after all?

And then, of course, having had to take the opposite side of the road to the one I usually do, came to a dead stop crossing a road, because there was no dropped kerb to get me up onto the pavement again. As I was contemplating taking to the road and going the long way round, fortunately someone offered to give me a shove up. Success.

With that in mind, I took the long way round on the way back. But this morning, I found that that is now barred to me too. The pavement and part of the street there is closed off, and being dug up, and the workers are, of course, very sorry for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, once again, they've made it a little more than just 'inconvenient', because as I know all too well, if I use the pavement on the opposite side of the street I have to take to the road for about 200 metres, because the dropped kerbs on that side are simply too steep for me to get a wheelchair up them on my own . . .And the road is rough; it takes twice the effort.

Oh, well, never mind. I do have a third alternative route to my friends'. It only makes it three times as far to go. I suppose I should be grateful, really. I've been thinking that I really need to build up my biceps, and since I can't go in for weightlifting or anything like that, a few weeks of wheeling myself round the long way should probably do for me what a daily workout in the gym for a couple of months would do for anybody else.

I do hope the new 'piazza' at least is going to be worth the hassle. I hope it'll be very pretty. I hope it's going to be very smooth, as well. In compensation for the 'inconvenience' I think I deserve at least that.