annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eye eye Another quick entry. Still at ED's after a day in which we surmounted many challenges and went on the London Eye! Wooey hooey and cowabunga to say the least of it. I may post some pics when I get home - can't see them well enough on this notebook to be able to tell if they're blurry. I had two majorly dodgy moments - first when trying to change trains at Finchley Road tube station. This is just get off one train, cross the platform and get on another, should be no problem - marked as accessible to wheelchair users on all the maps. Except when the second train arrived there was both a gap and a height differential between the platform and the train and I couldn't for the life of me get the chair on, even with the help of two passing blokes, one of whom nearly got squashed by the closing doors till I yelled at him to leave it, we'd catch the next one. No member of staff in sight to ask where to stand, started to panic as there's no lift, forgot we could go home, envisioned spending forever on platform 5, no toilets, no smoking allowed and on and on till I realised that if I took the stabilisers off the chair would tip back enough and all would be well, which it was. ED loves all this. She finds her current situation so tedious that any kind of jeopardy makes her day. She's in luck having me as a mother as I usually seem to provide at least a smattering of the stuff. Yesterday I managed to get the chair stuck in a ditch in the middle of what should have been a gap in a hedge (there was a sign saying 'Public Footpath') and ended up down amongst the brambles and nettles, in my floor length skirt, on my hands and knees, going backwards, pulling the chair by the front struts, to much hilarity from ED. Ha - just realised I actually did go through a hedge backwards, though I wasn't dragged through, so didn't quite match Ma's oft repeated comment on my appearance. We got to and on the Eye without further hassle but as it started to move, I had a total anxiety attack - I hate heights and I hate those kind of structures and I hate hate hate not being able to change my mind and get off and I'd bloody forgotten all of that until it was too fucking late. ED's vision is too poor for her to notice (I know, great day out, one nervous nellie and one half blind person on a giant big wheel) and I tried to keep it steady for her - well, I came and went, but I had a few moments of coherence, during one of which I pointed out the Houses of Parliament and the bloody girl grabbed my arm and started telling me everything she could remember about politics, which is basically fuck all, but still took an inordinately long time to spit out. Honestly, it was vile, I hated every minute of it. When we finally got off, and down the ramp onto solid ground I sat down on the pavement and wept a quick but nasty get-it-all-out-and-move-on kind of snotty howl and after that it was all good. Still, at least it was just the London Eye - we went to Thorpe Park earlier this year - if I'd forgotten myself and got on one of those rides I would have exploded into a million tiny pieces with sheer terror. On which happy note I shall leave you. Buenas noches xxx 11:39 p.m. - 08.10.13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||