The first week in France continues on this vein with me (and the dog) getting more exercise than we've had all winter. There are only two hilly stretches on the route but both are 1k slow inclines, which aren't too difficult for the ‘push'. The whole area around the Lot ET Garonne is rolling country and not too dissimilar to parts of Lancashire.  The odd dramatic volcanic plug, where a defensive settlement has grown, like nearby Monflanquin, punctuates the landscape. The round trip to Villereal from the caravan is about 8k or five miles and just the right distance once you've got the old muscles working again. My first round trip is a little too much though and I end up wearing a wrist support for strained thumb tendons. These are readily available in the nearest sports store and not to expensive. 

 

We tend to shop in Villenueve-sur-Lot though everything you could need on a day-to-day basis is here in Villereal. The large Le Clerc supermarket in Villenueve has an abundance of parking and always has free disabled spaces. Disabled parking is a treat here, as it's not abused by the selfish or the lazy. Strangely, the only time these spaces seem crowded is in summer when the Brit badge holders arrive in droves for their hols.  Perhaps too many Brits who don't really need them get badges? You'll see many elderly and infirm French using sticks to aide mobility, or walking slowly and carefully from their cars to their destinations that don't have blue badges. In Britain it almost appears as though chronic flatulence offers a severe disability benefit entitlement - and a blue badge. Winning votes by keeping selfish people happy - seemingly the British way - has perhaps overtaken prudence (never liked her anyway) in judging peoples abilities.

 

Talking of disability I got a fine opportunity to practice my French language skills at the Le Clerc the other day. We've been attempting to learn the language for three months, so any opportunity to practice in real life situations is welcomed. Whilst I was transferring on the Turney seat up into the Vito a French lady approached me for permission to watch proceedings. She told me how her disabled son kept falling while she was transferring him into their car and thought the seat cold solve a problem. I was even able to spell the seat's name aloud for her in alphabetical French. The local shops and bars offer good chances to practice too. Asking for a table and for basic menu requirements is an elemental part of the course, so I'm in revision mode every day. The local French newspapers help too. I've bought ‘Sud Ouest' several times and interpreted things that looked interesting using the dictionary. Sentences rarely translate literally but you can get a good idea of the meaning from the context or setting of the piece.

 

The local (most reputable of) roofer and stonemason came over this evening (25/2/08) to finalise plans for renovating the barn. It's dark and one or more later here and stayed mild so we chatted outside from 6.30 until nearly 8 p.m. The mason, Jean Claude, arrived first and we had a good, if broken conversation, as we blended together his poor English and my poor French. He will start work in couple of weeks and the roof will be replaced on the 15^th of June. Rural France takes a bit of getting used to as far as business goes. If you don't submit the deposit to confirm your choice of firm then the work don't get booked in and subsequently, for major projects, the whole job can get thrown into abeyance. We have been lucky. We didn't pay the deposits on time but our local friend sorted out the work schedule with the tradesmen. Only a few of the local builders, particularly the roofers, have good reputations, so competition for their skills is intense.

 

My strained thumb ligament is still gypping and I didn't wheel far this morning. I'm not sure whether the dog's happy or sad. He's a longhaired German Shepherd and the temperature has come down from mid twenties C to late teens, so it's at least a little more pleasant for him. I haven't been out on the Beamer too often but I take it out of the shed every day and keep the batteries topped up so it should stay healthy. It took us along an unfamiliar bridle way the other day. The buggy waded through nearly two feet of mud and water as the path dipped at its tale end, without any problem. It really has proven to be the best buy I've made since getting whacked - until I found the barn.

 

Its now 11 days since we arrived and Allison has been fervently reorganizing the caravan to ensure it's safe for me while she's off the scene. I got a shock this morning as I realised that we only have two more days together before she flies back to England. Our home there goes on sale in a week so it's important that she goes over and sorts the viewings out. Apart from that I really feel she needs a break from the chair (and me) for a few weeks so no better excuse is needed.

 

The phone got connected today though I won't have internet for another week. Shame really, but I'll keep blogging and post this when the time comes. The phone's great as it puts me in easier (and cheaper) contact with everyone.

 

26/02

It started to shower rain today. The cheek! After all the sunshine here of the past few weeks it's a bit of a shock. Alison returns to England tomorrow. Part of me is anxious about being left to my own devices though a stronger matter concerns regaining my independence. After two family bereavements, a fractured leg and an inability to recover from those events quickly I've become one of life's victims. ‘It's a hard kick up the bum, ye need,' my father used to say when he thought I was letting things get the better of me. Strange Scots logic perhaps, and wouldn't be supported by aficionados of any psychological therapies, but for me, it's never more true or needed than now. Strangely enough I recognized the ‘disability dependency syndrome' (I'll write a book on that one day) I had developed back in October last year and we planned for this ‘independence relearning' session (great monickers these eh?)back then. Booked the Chunnel, planned the flights etc etc. It'll still be painful when the flight leaves.

 

27/02

Allison's flew the coup at 2.10. Last flight from Bergerac and all that. I could have done my Bogart impersonation - hands in Mac pockets (no, nothing to do with the dog), cigarette hanging casually from mouth, wistful look on face as eyes follow the turbo prop up into the air and away...

 

But no, it's not like that. First thing this morning I took Mac for a short wander up the road and repeated last years many farm-muck caked, (hands, casters and tires) trips through the cloying clay left on the road by the farm tractors. At this time of year they plough and furrow and plant, so expect to be mummified in clay if it rains; their tires leave massive clods of the sticky brown ‘growth-gold' as they leave the fields after long, productive days.

 

After Allison sorted some last ditch issues in the caravan and said farewell to Mac, we drove the Vito down to Villereal. The sun came out to defy the heavy clouds and the church bells loudly tolled mid-day as we parked outside the towns administrative centre. As I chatted to the Café Moderne owner, she wandered round the ancient cobbled square snapping some pictures to enjoy on the computer at home.

Two ‘grande cremes' later and we were off toward Bergerac, fifteen or so miles up the road.

 

You soon cross from the Lot et Garonne into the Dordogne and the fields quickly become full of well tended vines leaving the maize and corn fields to another breed. This is wine land. In its midst, on the south side of Bergerac, sits the small airport. It has the look of an under-developed bus terminal but meets the needs of the many thousands of Brits who inhabit the area. There aren't many flights to England in winter but it is quite busy during the summer. To get to Manchester, Allison will have to change flights at Southampton during the winter season. Effectively it takes four hours in total but it's a damn site quicker and a great deal cheaper than 15 hours of driving. No road works, no jams, no trucks, no idiots. Yes, it's a lot better on both your pocket and your sanity.

 

Suddenly we're at the terminal. What do I do? We haven't been apart for more than a couple of nights for three years.

We kiss, she gets out; I drive away waving. Jesus!

 

I consider turning back - we don't need to be apart - but no; this is the right thing. Space, independence, freedom; in a strong relationship they make no real difference - if they're planned.

 

I'm back at the caravan in half and hour and the dogs awaiting his freedom. Onto the Beamer buggy and we're off for his exercise. Oh, well at least the routine will keep things balanced. I'll still miss my best friend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

28/2

 

After a fitful night I got up at 8 and got on with the day. "The beds too big without you..." (Police - Message in a Bottle) played on the ipod made me smile.

 

Shower, shave and onto the buggy, (no coffee, no tea) and the dog and I are off to Villereal for bread. A very tasty new boulangerie has opened just as you get into the village. As the dog and I draw up one of the friendly assistants pops out to find out what I'm after. She asks me about Mac and I eventually understand that she thinks he's an overgrown Husky; this only because she repeatedly uses the ‘chein, Canada', phrase whilst pointing enthusiastically at my Buerger Allemande (blond). I suppose it could have been worse - she could have thought he was a Westie with a growth hormone problem.

 

On the way back we pass a farm where I believe Conan Doyle thought up the ‘Hound of the Baskerville" story. To make a point, out it comes - massive, muscle bound, loud bark, large teeth, short pointy ears, black and tan and slavering. I shudder but Mac looks at it that comical way a puzzled dog does and tilts his head quizzically, though surprisingly his fighting hackles don't rise. It gets closer but Mac move in first and sticks his nose on its ‘willie', then its bum and after allowing a reciprocal ‘doggy' welcome wanders back toward me dismissively before cocking a leg on the verge. I think perhaps I just witnessed Macs version of the anger management ‘diffusion technique'.

 

He gets three scrambled eggs, cooked with two slices of sandwich ham for breakfast, as apart from now being my hero, he's run most of the five mile round trip at 8 mph with the buggy.

 

Later I leave him in the caravan and head back to the village for a paper and coffee at the Moderne. I listen to the peeling mid-day bells in the sun and wash my coffee down with, ‘un verre de bier, frois'. Now, where's my wife?

 

I get back about 1 and tidy the van then recharge the buggy and top-up the water container.  A read of the ‘Sud Ouest' paper and a quick catch up with some of my French course work follow. Later I chat to Mark, whose doing some building work for the nearby neighbor. Nice guy, lives locally.

 

Before going out, I take the dog out and wheel up the lane. We sit in the verge at the top of a nearby rise and watch the sun sink in the still evening air.

Two or three phone calls and its off to meet Muriel and Belinda for dinner: eat too much (soup, duck breast and veg) but easy on the booze - two year old ‘rose' - then back in the Turney seat and home in the van.

 

Long chat on the phone to Allison then bed - not too predictable, eh?

 

 

29/2

 

Quiet day really. Rain threatened then delivered but only briefly. The trees have some branches still hovering over the caravan so the rain leaves them in large drops then clunk down over my head. Bit of a nuisance when you're in bed in the early hours mulling things over (like you do). Three am last night I'm sorting the difference between demaine, semaine and dimanche: the French for tomorrow, a week, and the day ‘Sunday', in that order. They're locked in now so perhaps losing sleep has some benefits, even if the ‘raindrops keep falling over my head' to prolong the learning process.

 

Well, ain't Fevrier gone quickly anyway? And it's the sunniest on record apparently. Cooler here today at 15c but it was gorgeous this morning as the weak sun pierced the mist over the trees. Went out in a tee shirt but don't be alarmed - I had my jeans on too. Took it easy this morning to rest the painful thumb joint: brief wheel with the dog and left the buggy under wraps. We've got a metal shed on site in which I usually store the beast but its easier to get onto by just unwrapping it from its waterproof rather than trying to maneuver it's tight fitting hulk out of the shed.

 

Got into the car at lunchtime and drove through to Villenueve for supplies. Mac came too - perched on the passenger seat. Unfortunately his legs were filthy after snuffling around in the garden so the seat will take a bit of cleaning. By the way, isn't it great the way dogs lean into corners - Barry Sheene was never in it.

 

The Le Clerc bricolage (kind of B&Q - like places, with attitude) was shut for lunch so I didn't get the solar lights I was after and will have to go back on Tuesday. France seems to shut Mondays and August. Everybody shuts in August; even the doctors, so if you're ill rest it somewhere, or pass it on to somebody else in August. It's great watching the kids' faces as I get onto the Turney then haul the chair into the van before driving away.   

 

1/3

 

Well guys, first springy, summery March calendar day. It's my birthday month and I always seem to get high as this month draws to a close. I guess it's my own mini SAD reaction - gloom for winter, worn with rough hair shirt, followed by silk and smiles as the sun warms the flower-scent filled spring air. I should be ‘sad' today - the rain has been lurking over-head in a stormy sky all day. Drizzle (light rain) fell for four or more hours this morning making the day ‘ghie driech' as they say in Bonnie Scotland.

 

When it finally stopped I put on my fleece to take Mac for a short wander. That's where the fun began. He, being the excitable wolf type, got a bit high when the jacket went on and I mouthed (foolishly) the word ‘walk'. The caravan has ramped decking running the length of it and off he went down the ramp and back again several times, excited I guess at the prospect of emptying his hound bowels. Now, at the bottom of the ramp, set carefully to adorn the scene is a rose called ‘Eleanor' in its own large pot. We potted it before Allison left on Thursday as the newly erected shed has subsequently eclipsed the spot in which it was originally planted. Now, it was planted in memory of my Mum, whose name it carries, so I'm quietly fond of it. But guess what happened. Mac flies down the ramp, big blond bushy tail waving like a flag in a storm and yes, it catches the pruned rose stump as it sits proudly above the flower pot. It gets uprooted and hauled from its berth then dragged at Macs ass-end across the garden as he tries to free the jagged incumbency from his hair. Simultaneously, the pot falls over at the foot of the ramp scattering potting soil over my  ramp ‘landing zone'. So, he's lying in the wet grass, looking perplexed, rose bush dejectedly hanging off his tail. I'm at the top of the ramp staring in disbelief at the debris. I'm also trying to figure how I can get across the soil pile to the shed as I need to get a sweeping brush from it to clear the mess. Somehow I've got to get there without plastering my tyres, wheels and hands with muck.

 

A worn doormat saves the day. Stopping halfway down the slope, I cast it Raleigh-like across the soil and sweep down the ramp regally to wipe the muck from the concrete at base. Two minutes brushing and hosing and the mess is gone, though the rose looks the worse for wear. I repot it in the hope that it might survive.

 

I finish just before Muriel arrives for a coffee. She's been down early to the Saturday market.  It has apparently been washed out and many of the stall-holders are already leaving. After filling me in on top-up insurance for health care she takes off for home.

 

I've have my one trip out to the village for supplies (milk, peppers for the dog - yes, he loves them - and bread etc. then settle in for the day. More French grammar to get on with and lots of calls to family and friends then settle down for Terry's Euro-incision - full of cutting remarks about duff talent - then another early night.

 

 

2/3

 

Up early again this morning then off with the hound for a run.

Left him in the caravan later and met Belinda and Muriel, our two friends, for lunch. The intention was to take them out to ‘Chez Edith', a cute little place about five miles the other side of the village that serves cold Guinness and good grub. When we got there they'd shut for a two week break pre tourist season. Travelled to another place nearer home and had one of those ‘I better get some weight off' salads which I then proceeded to accompany with the better part of a French stick loaf! 55 Euros for three main courses with aperitif and wine seemed a little steep for average quality grub but no big deal.

 

Back to the caravan in, by now, beautiful sunshine. Muriel picks up my washing for me (saves me getting in and out of the van with the chair) to takes it up to her place for a laundry session.

 

Later, as I return to the caravan, I notice another of my incompetent blunders: Saturday was beautiful so I got the rubbish together for Tuesdays collection and tied the bag up at the front of the property near the road and at the front of my guest parking - just where I'd stopped for Muriel to collect my laundry from the caravan for me. Yes, you guessed - I'd run the bag over! Up and down the drive I go carrying (in stages) the bin down the rough gravel. I fill it with the mess then wheel back up the van for the bin lid. Belinda and Muriel return for a fruit tree (we've inherited four young apple and pear trees) pruning session and wine just as I'm finishing off. After a pleasant hour sat out on the decking in the sun they set off home promising to come back soon and repot the Mac-ass rose. By early evening, having topped the wine off with two bottles of beer, I'm knackered. After a long call to Allison I retreat to bed.

 

I waken in the ‘wee sma oors' dry mouthed and missing my wife. Up for a lemonade and then text my love. Surprise, surprise; five minutes later I get a reply from wide-awake wife in Cumbria. ‘Ain't it good to have a friend...' (with thanks James Taylor for the corrupted lyric).

 

3/3

 

Peeing down after a dull start. Took the big dog down to Villereal to get a ‘loaf'. The buggy sounds like some ones stuck a bog roll in the electric motor today. Needs a service, me thinks.

 

‘Mine hostess' comes to the Boulangerie door and brings me my usual, with a smile. It was then that the rain - fine stuff, the stuff that soaks you through - started. Right, back to the caravan at wrist-breaking (throttle gripping 8 mph to you biker chicks) speed.  As we pass the Conan Doyle hounds' place, it lucks toward us, barking menacingly. It does the ‘dominant dog thing' and asserts itself by putting its head and weight over Mac's shoulder. No ‘nose-bum' greeting this time then. It snarls and growls evilly but Mac reacts first and sinks his incisors into its unwashed black and tan rump, sending it back from whence it came, tail stump just above, (not between), its long, gangling legs.

 

‘Better hurry Watson, not a moment to lose...' and we're off again at nearly speed.

 

Later, Bob the Boy-Man chair-user, disguised as a T4, hoists himself aboard the Fat-mobile using the secret ‘incapable fat lift' and heads off to the Castillones satellite, ‘Gamm Vert' (an outdoor supermarche chain specialising in anything expensive or exotic) to purchase specialist hound food for Mac man, the wooliff.

 

After being summarily ripped off by an alien checkout beast - 10 Euros for three triple A batteries bought as an afterthought - though one free as a bonus for stupidity - I cross the gravel packed firmament at light speed to a sustenance marche for milk and anything else light enough to carry back to the Vito-van in a bag held between my teeth as my wheels spin under arm-power.

 

One light sped second later I'm outside Muriel's, and reality, (I'm always outside of that mind you), to collect my laundry. She offers to deliver laundry later for a free G and T, and to carry the large bag of tasty, hound ‘slavver-giver' from the van over the gravel and up the ramp to the beast's lair for me. With a thank you, I take my leave. Later she arrives; delivers dog food and laundry, consumes the gin, makes me smile, then fills me in on the local ‘craic' (Muriel's Irish) from the expat community.

 

After she heads for home I phone Allison in Cumbria then retreat to another galaxy.

 

 4/3

 

I've tried not to write too much about Allison since she left, protecting myself I suppose, as it is really difficult to yatter on about someone you're missing. However, things have settled a little for both of us now: we both slept well last night; I lay till 9am after only a brief spell during the night listening to the wind and rain thrash off the van roof. During our morning chat (we tend to try to speak am and p.m. to keep the bills down a bit) and she tells me she slept through the night as well.

 

So what has she been up to then?

 

Painting some of the house window sills again (she's decorated all of the house herself anyway since the building work finished 18 months ago), redecorating the utility room, managing an errant car dealer, (bought a car which didn't work and now the manufacturer (six months on) is building us a new car), polishing the slate floor (twice), sorting the house spec with the estate agent, driving down to Cheshire and back to see her mum, dealing with window blind fitters (given it's their fourth recall perhaps that should be ‘blind window fitters!), getting the plumber out to drain and reset the new central heating system, sorting out a job for herself, worrying about me...

 

Apart from all that, she's been doing a lot more than I have. I really think that life without her since the accident may have been very shallow - if not empty.

 

Talking of empty, I reckon the sky should be empty by now for the clouds have lashed the wet stuff down on us for the last twelve hours - it's getting like Scotland's west coast would you believe. And it's blessed freezing in the wind. Ok for ‘double-coat' the dog but not so good for me.

 

5/3

 

Another day, another freezer. It's umpteen below here this morning in the fierce nor-westerly wind. Blinding bright sunshine seems out of context in the Artic conditions. Took Mac for a quick wander with the Beamer wearing no less than five layers to try to shut out the chilly howler. It had started to get through to me by the time I got back to the caravan after a mere three kilometers. My hands were exposed to the brunt of the wind: the right in particular, which controls the throttle. I've left my winter gloves in England so I've no-one to blame but myself.

 

Putting Mac in the Vito at lunchtime I headed into town. Conveniently there's a mini market near to the disabled parking a mere ten metres from the town hall so, despite the cobbles getting small quantities of shopping back to the Vito ain't too traumatic. Today though, one of the ladies at the checkout dropped a bottle of wine. Bang! My heart sank as glass flew everywhere around the exit doorway. After paying for my stash I pointed to my tires blathering, ‘pneumatic' toward the friendly checkout girl. After a bit of pointing toward them and gesticulating a possible deflation (to more than my ego) was ushered out of the separate ‘IN' door.

 

The Moderne was busy as usual - no-one brave enough to sit outside in the howling gale today. My bank manager, who appeared to be guzzling a business lunch with colleagues, waved and called ‘Ca va', and I managed a broken response in French. Soup and a glass of rose did the trick and I followed it with a strong coffee. Mac, who was only twenty yards away in the van, and within sight of the bar, had his ass planted on the passenger seat, making it look (in France) as though he might be driving the van. This seemed to tickle a few of the diners as they gazed out while chomping through wholesome plates of local grub.

 

Returning to the caravan I packed the by now large washing I've accumulated but then decided against the trip to Muriel's washer: two sojourns in the biting cold wind is enough for one day; the bright winter sunshine is doing little to raise the mercury and my lower legs feel like ice. Brush the dog, make some grub later and catch up with my French course work - seems to make more sense. Besides, I'm waiting for the ‘green light' to appear on my ‘Livebox' Internet connector and can start to read three weeks of emails on my English site. More junk in that pile than in a Chinese harbor, no doubt. No light at 8 p.m. so its friends and phone calls tomorrow.

 

8/3

 

Couple of days off the blog while I caught up with French lessons. It's stayed quite cold today (Saturday) although its been warm in the sun. Still can't seem to connect to the internet through my Orange box - in fact, it could be an orange box so easy is it to use for the net! (No sarcasm there then).

Went up to Muriel's to get another washing done the ngot Wendy (another friend) to make the caravan bed for me as despite my best efforts the fitted sheet had steadfastly refused to ‘fit'. When I got back I left Mac in the caravan and drove down the village for a coffee at the Moderne. I parked at the bottom of town, which left me to overcome a short 50metre climb onto the more gentle slope up to the village centre. Gritting my teeth I gave it a good shove and crossed the main road when suddenly I felt the chair develop a power of its own. Then I realized a ‘local', seeing the slope I was fighting, had decided to offer a hand. Nice place, nice people, though at one time I would have been rude to him for interfering with the challenge I was enjoying. Funny how you change isn't it?

 

Sat for an hour chatting and watching the people scour the market stalls in the warm sun. Mac gave me a laugh when I got back for him. The neighbours have two cats. I have bird feeders and a nest box near the van. Great tits use the feeders. Cats like great tits (so do I). Dog sees cats waiting beneath feeders -RUSH - cats leap the fence and scale a nearby telegraph pole. I grab the camera and catch the two ‘up the pole'. I'll post it soon as I get the net and USB for the camera memory. Anyway, they quickly realize the dog's the other side of a fence then de-scale the pole and saunter off.

 

Took Mac for a long walk after that as the forecast for the next few days is rain. When I got back the rugby - Scotland v England was starting on BBC. Better still, footie' followed at 5 p.m., so life won't get better today.

And Scotland won! So did Portsmouth, and Barnsley! What a fine day for the under-dogs.

 

9/3

 

Another fine day for the underdog. Early doors I pile Mac in the Vito and head down to the boulangerie as it's only open till 12 on a Sunday. 7c so I wrap up for the brief trip. I get to the disabled parking outside the shop (why can't we do more of this in the UK?). It has just been marked out and is resplendent in its new blue coat. New shop new parking - wow!

 

I get out and ask Mac to ‘stay' (polite and optimistic request) leaving the seat lowered for my return to save time. As I go into the shop I realize that I have just committed an act, which in the UK would get me ‘sectioned'. I leave a dog in charge of an open vehicle and the transfer mechanism exposed to all. The service is polite and happy and I quietly praise whoever-it-is for putting the ‘humain' back into humans. I drive the 4k back to the caravan smiling broadly.

 

On my return to the caravan Mac gets a real fuss (I'm proud enough to bust) and a handful of ‘Markies', his favourite biscuit ‘treat'. I then grit my teeth: its day four of ‘this bloody broadband connection'. Within thirty minutes I've got it working though I've no idea how.  The instructions are in French, the laptop keyboard is a French one too and quite different from our ‘querty' style board in many parts. I don't care; I email the planet to say hello.

 

I get one off to Allison who's got her first house viewing today for our place in the Lakes. She's quite anxious and a little bit upset, as the estate agent, whose father in law uses a chair, has got a little worried. The woman viewer asked if the house was ‘full of handrails and things'. Well!  All wheelchair user know full well that, apart from the wall charts in every room of ‘what do in the event of faecal incontinence, UTI's, serious spasms and demanding gestures accompanied cries of ‘WANT THAT"' our homes are no different from the average hospital ward, don't we? Piece of piss ain't it?

 

Allison phones after the couple leave, to let me know that they had raved about the place. Given that there's not one sign of disability, apart from the through floor lift, so they should. We bought it for ‘life' and invested a fortune extending it, building a garage and putting in new ‘everything', electrics, plumbing, heating - the lot, but painful changes in family circumstances, (two bereavements in less than two years) mean that we'd rather move on. I love the Lake District as you can read in my previous ‘blogs' but sometimes, if you can, you need to leave the memories as just that - memories.

 

Allison is a star and has worked to get the place in shape. All of the decorating is her own - every room! I helped of course - made tea frequently too.

 

Another shock - I've just watched Cardiff stuff Middlesbrough. The BBC must be loving it: more viewers smiling as the ‘gutsy' stuff the ‘monied'.

 

I start posting the blog again on the wheel life site

 

Ayway, there we were, the two of us - and a dog - in the van heading toward Sheffield. I was leaving Cumbria behind - probably not for the last time in a physical sense - but leaving it in spirit, certainly. This was the start of one of my life's great adventures. First though I had to get past Sheffield. An appointment at the Princess Anne Spinal injuries unit at the Northern General Hospital lay in wait. I hadn't felt well for nearly two months. Several telephone conversations with one of the consultants had taken place as he directed my consultations with the local GP. These attempts to resolve my difficulties had seemed to be working and the problems I had been challenged by had seemed to be resolving themselves. Latterly, I had been taking anti-inflammatory drugs for a recurrent swelling in my left knee - the result of tearing the cruciate ligaments nearly a year earlier during a failed "transfer". These had seemed to help but as I'd only felt a little better during the past two days I wasn't getting my hopes up. With my usual gloomy, nursing based philosophy, I had myself dying of cancer, loosing a leg or being consumed by a nasty, progressive spinal syrinx.

 

We had to set off early in the day to ensure the five hour drive got us there in time for a 1.30 appointment. Cumberland was bathed in frosty sunshine as we headed off along the A595 toward Ulverston through some of England's finest scenery, though my thoughts were darkly pre-occupied by the funeral arrangements I'd have to set in place from my deathbed in the Northern General. At least I'd done a ‘Will' to minimize the problems my family would face if my fears were founded. To add to my ill founded, near neurotic gloom, we were soon smothered in fog as we left Lakeland behind and sped down through Lancashire on the M6. The fog thickened as we followed the route along the M61 then up and over the busy Peak District roads into Yorkshire and I had to take care not to get too close to the fender in front. If I wasn't too careful one slip might preclude the need for concern over a diagnostic disaster when confronted by the doctor.

 

Anyway, one kidney x-ray, one ultra sound scan and one lecture from the doctor later (on my 15 stone frame and the problems that such a girth can create) and we were on our way. In essence, my cruciate cartilages tear had inflamed causing swelling and pain (of which I was unaware apart from the increased spasms). In tandem with this a virus had made me feel weak and an inner ear problem had thrown (literally) my balance to add to the problem. For those reasons I had felt quite ill and dizzy (when I moved my head - I should have known it was the ear) for a few weeks.

 

Three thirty then and we're off. Seventy and a smile down the M1 toward the Chunnel. Better than that, the new consultant informed me that my concerns over a growing syrinx were unfounded. Why - because I never had one!  I had originally been told I had the cystic beginnings of a syrinx. Panic, fear and then seven years of quiet anxiety follow as I wait for the possibility of matters getting progressively worse. But was now I'm told that yes, indeed I had a problem - but it was not dissimilar to the syrinx formation every paraplegic in the country has as the body tries to heal a severe lesion. Relief? It took most of the rest of the trip to France to realize that I'd been given the, ‘all clear', by the doctors!

 

Our Chunnel crossing was booked for 10.50pm to give us time to get down to Dover from Sheffield. Stopping at Ashford we took in a ‘Kentucky' and fries (a rarity as we live a long way from the nearest take away food at home), which was surprise, surprise - good! We reached Dover at 9pm but had to wait for the late train. I displayed my usual brilliant driving skills by reversing into the disabled sign and splitting the Vito's plastic rear fender. I never did see the guy who moved it toward the van either! Another coffee and we were off. Its great, half an hour and you're the other side of La Manche (the sleeve). On this occasion though it was 12.45 French time and too late to make it worth booking into a hotel. In truth we'd thought the better of stopping anyway as we had ten hours driving ahead and wanted to get to our base as soon as possible. Setting up a ‘wintered' caravan takes time and care and preferably daylight.

 

Driving through the night in France is much less daunting than in England. The roads are quieter, well sign posted and relatively new. The only problem I've encountered is using the payages or tolls. Because our car is right and drive its not easy to get over to the unmanned toll booths. Anyway, we had chosen the coastal route leading down from Calais toward Caen, then past Le Mans and down the A20 to Bordeaux. We alternate our trips between this and the slightly shorter route through Paris where the ‘Peripherique' can be very busy at peak times.

 

The night drifted on and come two thirty we just had to stop. Tiredness was starting to get the better of me and my eyes were closing. The Somme services were quiet and I tried to get some shuteye. An hour later I gave up - Turney seats don't recline, so sleeping bolt upright can be problematic, even with a pillow and duvet. Off we went again. The services are well spaced all the way through France and relatively quiet, so I knew I could stop again if needed. The mist and fog swept across the ghostly landscape throughout the night testing my concentration to the maximum. By four o'clock I had to stop again. This time though, I crashed (no pun intended) completely but was wide-awake again exactly one hour later. Refreshed, I pulled on the hand-controlled accelerator and headed south.

 

So, in the past forty eight hours I'd had no more than six hours sleep but Bordeaux was only two hours away by now so I started to cheer a little. Allison kept me awake throughout the night asking me to remember things - French verbs and male and female nouns for example, though getting my few brain cells to work, as well as stay awake, was perhaps asking too much. By six thirty the sun began to rise on a calm misty February morning. Friday in France and the car temperature gauge struggled up toward 0c barely lifting the mist above the trees.

 

Soon we were heading inland toward Bergerac in the Lot ET Garonne. The bright, clear sky offered us our first glimpses of the Chateaux and vineyards that follow the Garonne river inland. By 1pm we were heading down toward Villereal, our destination.

 

The caravan was set up in a couple of hours: water, gas, Sat TV running and friends visited for a quick chat before retreating for an early night.

 

Saturday morning in Villereal is market morning. By 9am the hundred or so stall-holders who line the town centre bring the old Bastide town, with it's covered market square and cobbles, alive. We're only just wakening as the town busies itself but a shower, a coffee and a three kilometer ‘wheel' and I'm seated at my favorite spot in the café Moderne, watching the hustle and bustle and looking out for our friends. Mac, my dogs gone in with me but Allison has parked the van outside the market area and I've left him watch the world through the Vito windows. There's too much action around the market for a big dog and he can get a little restless so he's better out of the way. It's showing 18c on the chemists wall thermometer display so I'm relaxing in the gentle warmth of a winter morning and sipping a ‘grande crème' (a large white coffee). I bask in the sunshine as friends and stallholders greet each other with ‘bonjours' and kisses. What a life!

 

CHAPTER 11

 

 

What did I think I had learned two years on from my personal Armageddon? Well, at first I thought that life had played a cruel trick on me. After all, wasn't I that guy who only one year earlier had broken his neck and recovered with no untoward effects? Didn't I go out that evening wearing reflective clothing, flashing lights on the bike, taking care not to cut into the line of traffic and hold up other road users? Of course I did. The accident was just luck. Some may call it fate. Whatever, it was life changing.

 

The learning process began for me with a realisation that I am fragile. I am not the invulnerable entity I thought I was. After all, I'm certain most of us believe that events like this never happen to us. A fleeting moment and everything we knew and understood is wiped from the slate and falls into the category of ‘past experience'. We have to start anew; family relationships, friends, jobs are all influenced by such an event. We have to learn how to relate to our partner and family all over again.

 

Initially, in my case, my wife had to take on a role of advocate and carer. This ‘role' was only needed for the first year or so. Then she had to revert to that of being my partner again. This was a painful transformation for both of us and took many months. Our friends are always friends but the social circumstances around friendships can be very different. For example, you can no longer play many sports, many pubs are barely accessible, especially when busy and few have accessible toilets. Even their homes can be inaccessible, or have unusable loos whether on the ground floor, or the first floor. Your career can take a hammering too. What if you can no longer access your own office, or clients' premises, or work at that machine, or tune that engine, or fight that fire, or use the loo? Will your boss be sympathetic and understanding? Will the organisation be able to make the adaptations you need to get through a day of work?

 

I learned too that it probably takes at least six months of hospitalisation to rehabilitate a newly acquired disability such as paraplegia.   That will only just get you from the date of the injury to your home.   It may take a lot longer to re-gain your independence but that's the ultimate ambition of the professionals.  That's when you have to really start rebuilding all those relationships, friendships and your career. You neither want nor need sympathy; you need understanding and a degree of tolerance while you adjust to living with a disability.

 

The consultants and others in the care team clearly tell you that recovery from a spinal injury usually takes about two years, perhaps more, and that is probably about right.  What they don't - perhaps can't - do sufficiently well, is get you ready to face the real world again. You can probably only do that when you go back through the care portal into your own world again and face the realities that await you there.  And what realities they are.  The rooms that you inhabited so freely and easily before your admission to hospital are suddenly mines fields. Every pair of shoes, kicked off as each family member enters the home, becomes impassable obstacles for the chairs front castor wheels. The dining table, where once you ate Christmas dinner and laughed with the children, has a lip holding its wooden legs in place. That now prevents your knees from getting under it to sit comfortably. So you sit there, ‘side saddle', trying to laugh and keep up with the conversation but feeling very much a stranger in your own home. The moist, succulent food falls from the fork on to your lap as your try to port it across the gap between the plate and your mouth. Since you can't easily bend forward this gap is extremely difficult to bridge and results in many pairs of trousers finding their way into the wash basket.

 

 

The plastic, double-glazed door that you bought to keep the winter draughts out, now keeps you out as it has a two and a half-inch high draught blocking lip sticking up from the floor. Even your wooden rear door to the yard is a foot above the paving, rendering access nigh-on impossible. Access to some of your previously favourite places is also denied, or difficult, due to the access steps. The close proximity of tables in restaurants and pubs can prevent you doing other than sitting at those nearest the entrance. Some owners haven't thought further than main door access with regard to wheelchair users, so that even when you get inside you can't access a toilet. Yes, they've occasionally thought about wheelchairs but not about the needs of those who use them. It's easy to see why though. Most establishments get very few wheelchair users through the door as a percentage of their custom, so why should they make exceptional provisions for them? Because, by law, you're supposed to! It's not just about showing that you're thoughtful, or that your concerns extend beyond the profit margin.

 

What does it feel like to be paralysed?  Well, to be honest, very frustrating at times but not so bad that life stops being fun.   There are some things I miss; walking in the fells, cycling, reaching the wine rack on top of the freezer, messing in the garden, kicking a football, changing a ceiling light bulb - but none of those are taken-for-granted-thrills that can't be replaced by other loves and challenges.   But, I still cry quietly on the odd occasion because I can't accomplish what used to be the simplest of tasks.

 

Some of the dreams will have to change though.   There'll be no more walking hand in hand on the beach that's for sure. The more intimate side of relationship will have to alter as well. Caring, listening and touching apply to us all though and without these the relationship would be a shallow self fulfilling task. Talking of which, getting on to the bed is, in itself, a major challenge - far less jumping playfully between the sheets. If I mis-time the transfer out of the wheelchair; whether that is onto a chair or the bed, I can find myself on the floor, staring wistfully up at the ceiling and trying to figure out how the hell my limp body will get back up to the target level without assistance! But there are other things that will take over - I'll find them and they'll become precious.   Life is like that; one door closes and another opens - sometimes wider.  

Like the other day. 

 

Now, my wife had never been a great enthusiast for the outdoor before we met, but over the years she's developed an appreciation of the real beauty of our world. When we were first married, most of the pleasant walks we had (and those which she now recalls as highlights of her life) were preceded by a great deal of coaxing just to get her out of the door, never mind onto a hillside. Eventually, we climbed Cruachan; a ridge of seven peaks of over three thousand feet, near Oban in Scotland's West Highlands. The kids went up with us. My lad was nine and my daughter twelve years old. That was then, this is now.

 

Now paths, as an example, are something I thought it would be difficult to follow, particularly off road now that I'm in a chair. This was soon proved wrong. Even though the chair can be an obstacle to getting out into the wilder and hillier areas of the country, even a manual (not powered or adapted) chair like mine can still get you into some interesting, picturesque areas. Soon after I got out of hospital, Allison took me over to the local reservoirs. Howden reservoir, near Bamford, is only ten miles away from home. It nestles in the Peak District and is surrounded by beautiful countryside; but more important it has a tarmac road, closed to most vehicles, running along its western flank. The road rises and falls, but only gradually, and even in my relatively unfit state, proved a great way to get back to the beauty of nature. On our first trip out there I managed only about a short way up the first hill to where the reservoir dam rises. On a more recent visit, found myself having to apply common sense and turn back toward the car park after an hour of joy. My arms and shoulders ached and my neck felt as though it had been stuck in a vice. However, I was back over there with Allison trying to complete the full length of the reservoir road the next sunny day that came along! It gave us immense pleasure and one of those huge benefits that an amble through the countryside can bring - conversation! As we had done on a thousand walks during our years together we chatted and planned together.

 

 The real pain of disability has little to do with my neck and shoulders- it's the little things; rudimentary, basic and often simple things that are often taken for granted. Take getting ready to go out of the door in the morning to work or the shops. Now, most men can achieve a reasonable state of preparedness and be ready to face the world in half an hour. Initially it took me ninety minutes, or so. Even now, despite three years practise, it still takes an hour to get up, toileted, showered and dressed each day.  Yes, I do it all myself, (Allison used to maintain a discrete watching brief), but it does tend to take longer than a good game of footie! Perhaps I should stop playing into injury time?

 

The wheel-chair?  Well, it's a bit like a mountain bike; the better you get at controlling it, the more technical and expensive the chair you want to ride in becomes.   Being paralysed from the chest down means that I wobble around in it a lot; like a table jelly without a mould, so balance control can be more than interesting at times.  Thankfully though, they're much harder to crash than a bike - and safer too - especially if you decide not to use your head as the brake as I had once done! Perhaps though, once I've gained more experience of the chair and go a bit faster, then the real dangers of riding a chair will become more apparent. Pavements are a major problem as it is. When you drive a car you tend to become aware of the state of the road surface, especially if the car gets thrown around a lot or thumps into the odd pot hole. If you're walking along the pavement, you almost unconsciously avoid the small holes and obstacles as you wander along. In the chair every uneven piece of the surface throws you from side to side and every small hole jars your shoulders, or blocks your path as the front castor wheels are usually only four or five inches in diameter. In some cases, people have been thrown out of their chairs after striking what would normally be routine defects to the strolling public. Drivers, especially those who park their cars halfway onto the pavement, also present a major problem. For example, some are parked across the pavement where a particularly high kerb prevents you readily getting off onto the road to get past them. On occasions I have to backtrack to a ramped pavement edge and wheel back past the obstacle on the busy road. No doubt as I gain in confidence this will become less of a problem to solve but at the moment it not always simple to overcome such problems and wastes valuable time and energy.

 

Another major problem is dog turd. I have a dog and love it and even in the wheelchair lean over and bag the problem but I was wheeling up to the ‘local' the other day for a lunch time repast with a friend. It's a pleasant route if quite tough due to the slope. Concentrating as I was on the effort of pushing forward, I failed to notice the foul smelling, golden butt-waste near the grass verge, as it merged with the chair's left wheel.  Two seconds later and my hand, the chair rim, wheel and an expensive left glove were all plastered in the stuff and smelling vilely. It took ten minutes of repeated wiping my hand and rim with thin, winter grass from the verge to remove the worst of the stuff. Only the kind donation by an elderly lady, who stopped to help as she passed in her car, saved the day. Getting out she handed me her windscreen wipe cloth which removed all the remaining visible traces.  Despite repeatedly washing my hands in the pub however, the wheels still seemed to quietly reek of shit as I tried to down my coffee. Shoot the owners, keep the dogs, I say!

 

Driving the car is much more interesting now too and most certainly way of not noticing the effects of dog mess! At first, because I had weak back muscles and no abdominal muscles to support me; every roundabout and corner was taken at a crazy angle.  My torso just keeled over limply to one side or the other in response to the momentum of the turn. I would find myself trying to correct my balance and stay upright using my elbows against the door on one side and the arm rest on the other. Whilst doing this I'd be pulling on the steering wheel with my hands to get the car on a straight path again. I learned religion at this point for I was simultaneously praying that I hadn't deviated far enough off the correct line to hit anything, or more importantly, anyone else.  Really, only the steering wheel kept me upright.  It may sound strange to have been the victim of a driving error and yet to now sound like a homicidal weapon on four wheels.  Rest assured; I wasn't.  You drive far more slowly and more carefully. The reason you now fall to the side is not readily forgotten; partly, in my case, due to having to drive past the scene of my own accident every time I go into Sheffield city centre, or to visit the local hospital.

 

Talking of the accident scene, my wife and I had funny experience just yards from the spot.  One sunny Sunday she went with me for a wander round the local park; it opens onto the junction where I was hit.  As we got to the main road, she suggested we cross over and meet our son at the café, where he then worked for a few hours each week-end.  The cafe overlooks the ‘accident' junction.  As we got to the pavement edge, she said, ‘we can cross here'.  I offered the thought that it looked too steep an angle down onto the road for the chair to remain upright.  ‘No,' she said confidently, ‘we've crossed here before'.  With an uncertain voice, I again offered that I didn't think we had crossed at this point before. 

 

One of the problems I should point out at this time is, that following the head injury I sustained in the accident my memory had been badly affected.  The result of this was that I had very little confidence in my ability to remember even the simplest detail.  As anyone who is preoccupied with pain, or any other major life problem will tell you, that affliction can also reduce your recall due to you preoccupation with other matters. So, on this occasion, with no assistance from my memory, I ignored my instinct and spun down the steeply ramped pavement toward what is, on weekdays, a very busy Rustlings Road.   At the pavement edge, the steep drainage camber of the road caused it drop away, below the edge of the pavement ramp.  Unperturbed, I launch the chair off the pavement onto the tarmac road surface.  Next thing I know, my rear end is sliding from the chair and no amount of arm strength will hold me over the wheels.  Crumple! And I'm lying on the road just twenty yards from where I'd lain after being hit six months ago.  It's Sunday, thank God, and the high temperature has ensured that fewer people than normal are screeching around in their cars.  I'm safe for now - but how do I get back into the wheelchair? Four passers-by stop and kindly hitch my floppy torso back between the wheels to the strains of my thanks - and my wife's profuse apologies.  Another important lesson learned: if you're tired resting on the road could be bad for your health. 

 

Not quite as bad for your health as failing to top the cars washer system before a long journey.  On a spray filled motorway, what you can't see definitely can hurt you! It's one of those things: you think you it did a few days ago and, when asked, will swear that you've hardly used the wash-wipe either either.   In reality, it's six seeks since you lifted the bonnet and the weather's been foul, causing you to wash the screen twenty times a trip as you potter across town; and you've done that trip a few times too since the last fill.  Now, new cars, like my beloved and easily accessible Beetle, have large reservoirs for the screen wash, so you should never get into trouble; but I did.

 

I visit my family in Cumbria regularly from our home in South Yorkshire.  Its two hundred miles to their place and, on a full tank of petrol, the Beetle should get there and back.  I never try the complete trip on one tank though; you can never tell on the motorway return trip when you might end up in a traffic jam or get delayed by an accident.  With no easy way of getting out of the car should a problem occur on a motorway, it seems foolish to push my luck with fuel, so I stop at Scotch Corner on the way back across the beautiful A66 from Penrith.  To avoid heavy cross town and motorway traffic, I invariably leave home very early in the morning. This beats usually the Sheffield rush hour and the traffic chaos on the M1 as you approach Leeds and the M62 interchange. 

 

On a clear day this timing allows fabulous, distant late morning views across to Blencathra, the saddle-backed mountain near Keswick, as you cross the Pennine ridge.  For me this invokes strong memories of days spent walking in the fells, sometimes wrapped in several layers; others, stripped to the waist as the summer sun beat relentlessly down on the hills.

 

This particular trip got interesting just about this point.  Grey and drizzly weather meant that the greasy tarmac continuously threw up a grimy mist onto the windscreen.  Soon, the depleted washer spat its last few squirts of cleaner at the thickening, visibility-blurring grime.  I had to slow down.  To make things worse, the drizzle had stopped too and the thick muck just built up on the screen.  Swishing the wiper blades across the glass in a futile cleaning gesture only added to the black out.  I saw a little petrol station up ahead but it was queued out.  What do I do? If you stop somewhere busy like that and they don't know you, then maybe they'll think you're a bloody nuisance when you toot your horn to get their attention.  After all, getting out of the car can take several minutes and will generally add to the chaos as people try to get swiftly on with their lives.  Perhaps I know differently now, but in those early days it felt like asking for assistance was being a nuisance and blocking people's progress by transferring out of the car was not the best way to win friends. I'm in a quandary and drive on.

 

Now, the leg bag has many potential uses but I swear none are as vital as their value in substituting for screen-wash fillers.  Stopping at a farm track, I drain the bag into an empty plastic bottle I've recently finished drinking from, then wind down the drivers side window and carefully splash ‘water' out over the sloping wind-screen.  A good swish with the wipers and bingo: it's clear! OK, so it'll never make a Volkswagen advertisement on the telly but it's a sight wiser than driving blind.  I replace the cap on the bottle and stow it carefully, just in case a repeat dosing is required on the drive toward Whitehaven.

 

Petrol can be another challenge.  If you park by the pump then you can't get the chair out of the car to fill her up. The one time I haven't bothered to fill up with fuel at Scotch Corner, I used a garage just outside Cockermouth, twenty miles from Whitehaven, where my parents live. The friendly assistant responds to my horn and smilingly fills the tank before giving me a receipt. Then, by accident, I nudge the ‘boot open' switch and hear the release of the catch. Blast! The assistant has filled my tank and taken the loot. Thinking quickly, I notice a chap filling up at an adjacent rank and call across to him. He doesn't hear me but the cars' passenger, who's had his door open chatting to the driver as he fills the car, notices my effort to attract his attention.

 

I call across, ‘Any chance you could close my boot?'

 

He smiles. ‘Sorry, I'm in a wheelchair,' he says, and points to the wheels in the rear of the car. Grinning from ear to ear, his friend fills up, then nips over and shoves the boot closed for me.

 

What a life!

 

Cumbria's a great county.  It sets a million scenes for me: the beginning of the mountains and the beautiful lake on the A 590 route as you leave the M6 heading north, up through Windermere; on to tourist strangled Ambleside, where hungry locals can park up to catch some groceries - if they arrive before dawn; and along the twisting main route past picturesque villages and mountains then, eventually, Keswick, nestling peacefully among the northern most peaks.  These places and their spectacular scenery make it very special; look further than that - beyond nearby Cockermouth, out to the coast - and you'll find a thousand other reasons to be enchanted.  Maryport, Workington, Whitehaven: all one-time centres of industry, including mining; now, despite a myriad of obstacles, including geographic isolation, poor transport routes and desperate unemployment, trying hard to regenerate themselves. 

 

For more peaceful beauty, try Lake Buttermere and its partner Crummock Water, or the more remote but easily accessible Ennerdale valley, where, from atop the hills on either side of it, Pillar, or High Style, you can look out across the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man.  Wander further west, to Wast Water, England's deepest lake, where the grandeur of England's highest mountains, Sca Fell (and some of its finest hostelries), waits.  Perhaps, unless stem cells miraculously change things, I won't walk any of the spectacular hills again, or even get round some of the rugged, Lakeland footpaths; but I can look - and remember fondly. 

 

IN the early nineties I walked some of the highest peaks with my late father, very soon after his first coronary.  It seems absurd now, but he wanted to achieve the walks and I wanted to show him the real beauty of the fells while he had breath in him.  My wife and I made love in the gentle breeze on a hillside above Lake Ennerdale; we later took a picture looking down onto the spot, framed against the scenic, sun clad valley below. It allows us a warm, knowing smile each time we revisit the photo albums. Our children roamed the lower slopes on balmy summer days and my son and I cycled from Whitehaven up through Ennerdale and across to Wasdale, before returning over wild fell land to Ennerdale village, then home. 

 

Yes, I have a million fabulous memories and none of them spoiled in the slightest by the today's circumstances.  Now, as I slowly recover, I realise that I can only add to those memories if I am positive and happy.  These last three words probably define the reason I still exist.

 

CHAPTER 10

I'm home: two twelve by ten foot rooms joined by a three by three foot hallway and a galley kitchen. It's a three bedroom, four-level terraced home - if you count the cellar - and I'm counting, as it's now, like most of the rest of the building, out of my reach. Recovering from a head injury, it may take three or more years to recover fully from the memory loss caused by the head injury and adjust to the resultant personality change, but the paralysis will have to be lived with. The hospital has recognised that I have a head injury. The crushed bike helmet and fifteen minutes of post-injury unconsciousness confirm that. My face took a battering too; I now have three titanium plates holding my lower jaw in place, so the overall picture isn't pleasing from any aspect; physical or psychological.

There is no apparent or obvious major damage left to be dealt with and no treatment programme: just slow and painful recovery during which even the most optimistic of us would pray that others - our loved ones - don't desert the floundering ship.

Strangely, even though you recognise the memory loss for your autobiographical existence, on a personal level you don't recognise any other significant changes. You don't think you're shorter tempered, aggressive, or even a little angry. You are not intolerant, paranoid, controlling and very possessive. No, those difficulties are for others to cope with: that pleasure is reserved for those who live with you, know the pre-accident you and love you. They can both hang in there with you and hope for an improvement, or they can't. Loved ones and carers get no help; no advice and very little counsel unless they seek it out for themselves. One of the great problems of having your care managed by any specialist service is that they may fail to adequately recognise other aspects of your treatment needs. In my case this was probably what happened with the head injury.

First, I had to be kept alive: quickly restoring my facial shape and teeth to something resembling the guy people knew pre-accident came immediately after that. Treating the spinal injury came next; then, a rehabilitation programme designed to get me home in a fit state to exist independently was set in motion to tidy up the physical mess. The psychological mess was recognised but only in relation to adapting to a spinal injury. Whatever my criticisms of the professional concerned, I ask you - one psychologist with a tiny office, trying to cover all the angles? For a very large group of psychologically damaged people, both in and out-patient, with spinal injuries whose lives have been irreversibly altered? I think not.

That represents another major failing of the support system available to you post injury: counselling. Psychology is fine for those who need it, but many of us just need to talk things through with our partners and carers, whilst being overseen by experienced professionals. It needs someone to carefully guide things to a satisfactory conclusion if possible. Both you and your partner, or carer, or family, will have to try to come to terms with what has happened. Allison now confirms that she was angry with me; angry at my not listening to her request not to take the bike out at all on the night of the accident. What help did she get?

From a personal standpoint, I created little lies, partly to convince myself but mainly to persuade others that things really were getting better. No, I wouldn't say that you lie deliberately - but you are creating a surreal world in which only you live: trying to ‘walk the walk' and ‘talk the talk' of the ‘old you', yet existing in what is close to a fugue state, where dreams are easier to live with than the painful and brutal truth of the here and now.

We lived on one of three near identical streets leading down toward the city centre. They joined with Rustlings Road which feeds Eccleshall Road where the accident happened. It borders a park from where, if you follow the much used footpath, or cycle-way leading south, you'll be in the wild peak district in less than fifteen minutes. It's one of the reasons we chose Sheffield: England's fifth largest city is arguably one of its most beautifully positioned and offers a high level of easy access to the Peak District countryside. Our street is mostly terraced, bay fronted homes with a ginnel (shared passageway) access to the rear yard. Typical of anything built around 1900, they need renovating; a process we've begun by having new windows put in. Next, it'll be pointing the brickwork, then the internal electrical wiring, then internal plastering - the list's endless, yet the pleasure is immense. All the neighbouring houses, like ours, seem to have a third bedroom created out of the loft. It's not that pretty to look at then, but its home for the time being and it's in an area where property values are rising rapidly.

The wheelchair produces a changed perspective. The upstairs levels are out of reach and the stepped floor up there is unsuitable anyway, even if a chairlift were fitted. Typical of a small terrace property, the staircase is narrow and steep and the toilet, created by partitioning part of the bedroom (when indoor loos became fashionable), is barely accessible on foot, never mind in a chair. Faced with an inaccessible toilet, I've no access to proper facilities and the kitchen sink has to double as a bowl for my basic hygiene needs.

Bowels are still vacated digitally, although I now reserve that ‘pleasure' for myself. Enema assisted, this has to be done on the heavily protected single bed Allison's bought for me coming home from hospital. Metal framed and sturdy, its six inches too low for me to transfer on to: we have to have some wooden blocks made for the feet to heighten it. The bed is an asset as it means I have a strong metal frame to hang on to when I try to move around in bed. Changing position is critical if you are to avoid pressure sores - skin lesions caused when pressure reduces or excludes any skin areas blood supply for prolonged periods. It is only a single bed. This allows it to fit into the small dining room, but means that, as we try to get physically closer, Allison has to share very small space indeed! If I try to turn in the bed (as you are immobile you have to protect your skins sacral pressure areas by changing position every four hours or so) Allison has to get out to allow me to move and assist the process. It certainly brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘sleep well, darling', doesn't it?

As the spastic sphincter muscle won't allow any urine to pass, bladder relief is through a catheter inserted into my penis four times each day. After several months the sphincter relaxes and I begin to use a ‘convene' and leg bag. A convene, as the name suggests, is like a condom slid over the penis. It has a connecting ‘nose' end into which the leg bag's tube is lodged. As its name suggests the bag is then strapped onto the lower leg and urine, if you're lucky, drains freely down into it. It holds about a litre of fluid and so needs emptying two or three times a day.

The former dining room has become my bedroom, with all the paraphernalia and medical equipment that accompanies a damaged state. The room defies description: Allison does her best to make it comfortable for me, even though that makes life difficult for everyone else. If I need to go to bed early, or am ill, then everyone has to tiptoe around me to get to the kitchen. I suffer multiple urinary tract infections - one after the other - and don't seem able to shake them. Consequently I feel ill quite often, even though I take antibiotics every day as a means of prophylaxis. The disruption to family life is frequent and cruel and the problems I create compound my guilt at the mess I've caused. My head now tells me I should want to kill the man who made them suffer this horror. My heart though, feels that would be too quick an ending for someone who's created an enduring nightmare for so many people. I slip into another phase where none of my feelings are logical. They are all based on the occasional, brief bouts of anger created by enduring pain - both physical and emotional. Bloody Honda windscreen! Bloody ‘four-by-fours' in a city?! Bloody careless driver!

The fact that our home is no longer appropriate for my needs adds to the anger. We'll require a new home now; one that can accommodate my disability and in particular, the wheelchair. Finding an appropriate home in Sheffield, which is on the edge of the Peak District and very hilly in places, isn't easy. A bungalow is the order of the day but most of them are accessed via two or three steps and are as inaccessible as the average ‘semi' in such an undulating environment. It means we spend six months living in two rooms and fighting with the Honda drivers' insurance company to get them to help us. We fail to get them on board, but the NHS pension I hold saves us. Our solicitor is a breath of fresh air too though tells us that if we can afford to, it will help legal argument if we initially use our own resources. A lump sum from my NHS pension and the residue of the redundancy money I received, makes the prospect of moving home possible. Added to the profit from the value of our current house, the total sum gives us just enough money to afford the one suitable property we've seen. It's taken months of scanning estate agents websites and local media to find one that isn't built on a slope, or doesn't have several steps leading up to the entrance.

Allison changes her work hours to part-time. This allows her more time to cope with the never ending round of laundry, cleaning and caring that goes on to keep me tidy. We seek professional help for the days she's at work and, after an assessment, get professional carers in to assist each morning. That support lasts two weeks. I realise that it's not only inflexible in its timing, but its difficult predicting who's going to walk into your home. The strangers who come are all pleasant and helpful but know nothing of spinal injuries. Some have no idea about care, or care needs. I phone and cancel the ‘support'. It's partly pride, partly paranoia, but I can't have strangers staring at my naked arse first thing in the morning - especially not men who have rarely ever seen a naked butt before - far less know how to wash one. Life feels vulnerable enough without that. Besides, I don't want the family home and possessions exposed to all and sundry. We've always been very private about our lives and it certainly doesn't suit either of us having a procession of well meaning, amateur carers, coming and going. Besides, the carers have never dealt with anyone who has a spinal injury and in truth know little or nothing about what my needs are. A different face shows up nearly every day and at different times, so I can spend long periods lying in bed waiting for support. As a nurse, I find their lack of knowledge and training a sad indictment on the society and culture we inhabit.

We buy a small video camera and Allison and my son film the upstairs bedrooms to let me see how things now look since they've been decorated. It is impossible to describe how sad it is to be able to see something that was once only twelve, ‘simple' steps away - and now atop an impenetrable barrier of stairs - on film. Allison's family have helped her redecorated up there while I was in hospital, but it still looks much as I remember. Determined to see it for myself I decide I'm going to ‘bum it' up the stairwell.

Positioning the wheelchair in the tiny hall between the lounge and dining room (now my bedroom) I swing my butt from the chair onto the third step. After a struggle and a considerable amount of grunting and swearing, I get the transfer board under my ass and slide back into the wheelchair. Despite my concern that I might not be strong enough, strength is not the problem; the bloody stairs are very steep and the steps so narrow that my fat ass can't rest safely on any one step. I sit at the bottom, staring up at top step, thirteen lifts away, in abject despair.

As I said earlier, I have also developed the tendency to suffer repeated Urinary Tract Infections. While my core temperature is imbalanced, each infection is heralded by sweat pouring from every part of my anatomy. Two of these little episodes come on while I'm travelling back from visiting my parents in Cumbria. I have to drive home soaking from the neck down till I can access a change of clothes at home. These infections persisted, although I refused to recognise that I need long-term antibiotics to remain healthy. I had been off the drugs for months. I have sparkling clear urine sometimes when I empty my urine collecting leg bag, so things couldn't be all bad, could they?

Echinacea, water, cranberries and a hand cycling trainer, into which I strap my legs, were useful attempts to stop the infections kicking in but they fail. I have to visit the doctor for a fresh supply of antibiotics just after Christmas, 2001. Possibly, you're susceptibility to infections in your bladder is increased due to static, warm urine presenting the perfect medium in which bugs can thrive. And your butt being welded into the wheelchair, with minimal blood supply being forced through due to inactivity, can only assist the bacteria in their growth cycle. A warm, still, pool of water - mmm. OK, so, it may lack clinical evidence, but it all seemed logical enough to me!

Eventually, my bladder sphincter relaxes even more and I'm able to wear that contraption I mentioned earlier; a sheath and leg bag for collecting urine all the time - night and day. Now, where's the sex life going to come from? I also am able to cut down the catheterisation to twice every twenty-four hours. This decreased frequency of catheter use should have helped reduce the infection risk. After all, when you shove a plastic tube up through your non-sterile penis, through your urethra and into your shocked bladder, with hands that may not be aseptically clean, then you are probably asking a little much of your bladder to simply dismiss the organisms you've introduced. Anyway, despite the logic of my argument the numbers of infections I incur doesn't reduce. Something will have to give and eventually does. After several meetings with my solicitor she finally comes to our new home to see what progress has been made in adapting it for my use. As we sit round the dining table the solicitor notices that I am not quite as well as I should be. She spent years as the principal physiotherapist in spinal injuries before moving into law and recognises that all is not as it should be. She thinks I look weak and unwell. This impression is compounded when I spasm violently as I try to wheel away from the table and confirm to her that my muscles feel stiff and spasm when I try to move after sitting still for short periods. She guesses what the problem may be and refers me to the urologist she knows. Within two weeks I'm in hospital being operated on. My kidneys were being seriously damaged by constant back pressure from my bladder. Reducing the frequency of the times I had used the catheter to reduce the pressure had compounded this problem. My kidneys recover fully but I'm only home a week when a deep venous thrombosis develops behind my left knee. I'm back in hospital, discharged and then, like so many people, have to attend for thrombolytic therapy for six months.

By September I'm discharged from the clinic but during a routine trip to the dentist complain of pain in my lower jaw. He knows the specialist there having trained at the Sheffield dental unit. I get referred back to the facio-maxilla specialist and have to have the three titanium plates removed from my chin as they are causing infections in the bone.

It begins to feel a bit like its going to be a life of ‘one thing after another' but I'm still positive and try to smile (easy with no pain in your jaw) as much as I can. This is made more difficult by the complexity of the legal process and the needs that this throws up. Repeatedly I'm referred to a variety of ‘experts' in their field for assessments of every physical and psychological function I have, or don't have, left. I also have a dangerous post-injury spinal complication, a syringomyelia, which can gradually compromise the spinal chord and further reduce you're ability to function, has to be accurately measured and independently assessed for the legal process. Next to the damage to my renal function, this potentially ascending problem is the greatest threat to my future well being and may permanently wipe the smile from my grinning features.

CHAPTER 9

 

Another month passes as I try to find sense in the hell of paralysis. January slips by, cloaked in a paranoid shell. When I first broke my neck the year before, I remember all too well telling Allison, that were I ever paralysed and reliant on a wheelchair, like those souls I saw up at the Southern general in Glasgow, I could no longer stay with her. I now spend my days planning how I am going to leave my wife, my parents and all the others who care for me to get on with their lives. My great plan is to get well enough to set out on my own; to live alone in splendid independence; to be free. A new life in a new place: a place where I am a burden to no-one. My sister is used as my sole confidant as I mull these things over. I phone her nearly every day. She copes admirably with my deranged thought processes and incoherent logic.

This deranged logic moves my thinking toward a more permanent method of resolving guilt: suicide. Why should I make people who love me suffer more than I have already done? After all, have they not been kind enough to stand by me through so much already? Why don't I just give up the mad notion of trying to live independently and resolve things once and for all? The family can move on then, can't they? Everyone can forget feeling sorry of r me and get on with their lives. Just one brief episode of grief; one sad funeral - and their free of me - no more suffering for any of us.

Soon afterwards I'm transferred to the next-door rehabilitation ward. The Spinal Injuries Unit, at Sheffield's Northern General Hospital, is relatively new and therefore all the wards are of much the same layout but I'm still nervous of ‘moving up' into rehabilitation. I suppose it's fear of taking step forward into the unknown, as it were; allied to a dawning that I'm getting better, feel it or not! Not that you think you're getting better. You look around the ward that's about to become home for several weeks and everyone there seems much fitter than you. The weakest person visible with paraplegia seems to be streets ahead of you in terms of their ability to wheel themselves around. They can transfer to and from their bed and perform basic life skills, such as personal hygiene tasks like showering, with apparent ease. I nearly fall every time I transfer onto the toilet; they hop on and off toilets, beds and chairs with a remarkable amount of self confidence. Perhaps that's all it is - confidence - but you realise you have a long way to go to match their standards.

Finding more than half your body muscle paralysed is an interesting situation from which to build self belief; you look down at yourself in the morning and try to remember how you looked with muscle tone in your abdomen and legs. Now, the skin looks loose, almost flabby, around your thighs, and the once proud calf muscles lie dormant. Your abdomen has started to sag a little and, based on what you see around you, will eventually looked like its suffering the permanent distension caused by twenty cubic feet of foul flatulence. Occasionally, when you constipate, the wind won't pass easily and the distension will become even more exaggerated as the gas within builds up.

You remember the pains you felt in those once shapely leg muscles when you got to about the eighteenth mile in a marathon; how they seized the next day, making walking upstairs to the toilet a lesson in pain management. There's nothing there now; no feeling, no sensation of warmth or cold on the skin, and certainly no pain. The sensation of pain that once you reviled is now something you would steal the crown jewels for. A little sensation passing from your legs to your brain would let you know whether or not something was burning you; a problem that has been endured by many spinally injured people. Sit too close to a radiator, for example, and your skin burns like every other person's, except you know nothing about it until, eventually, you notice the weal or blisters when taking your gear off to get into bed. Your toe nails can grow inward unnoticed; something that would have caused enormous discomfort before a spinal injury. Unless you're very observant, the only knowledge you may now have of this will be the spasms; in my case sometimes jerking leg movements or abdominal muscle twinges which occur intermittently but persist when there is a problem. Eventually, muscles do come back to life then, but in an undesirable, spasmodic way where their behaviour is beyond your control and the muscle tension can make completing the simplest manoeuvre, like getting into the bath, intensely difficult and dangerous.

The rehabilitation team will expect some form of improvement when I move next door. However, at this moment, I'm not sure I'm really improving to the point where going home will become a realistic proposition. The reality is though that I will have to face going home at some, not too distant point in time, but now that moment seems a million miles away. Home is the distant dream; the memory of a life gone by; a time when I walked, ran and cycled. I didn't have to listen to my wife tell me how hard her parents had recently worked, decorating our home either. Once, I had the pleasure of planning, purchasing and shaping the decorating for our home with her. Like many husbands, I could stand back after a week of hard graft and admire the fresh paintwork and bubble free wallpaper adorning each room when the task was completed. No, it's not that I don't appreciate the huge efforts made by others as I work in the background to get my life back together; I am having difficulty accepting that I can no longer replicate the efforts they're making for myself, in this debilitated state. However, even though I may be getting physically stronger and one day may be able to contemplate undertaking some minor decorating project, I'm psychologically weak. It's not just confidence or self-belief either: guilt - psychological self-punishment - has taken over.

The accident caused everyone around me pain. I feel as though I'm to blame; it was my fault. They are not just getting bad backs from hauling the furniture around, rearranging the rooms in our home after redecorating them: they all suffered hell; my wife, my kids, my parents, the in-laws, my friends. They all watched and waited while adjusting to the fact that things would never be the same. Worse, this is the second time in two years that I've made their lives a misery due to an accident. What the hell am I?

I want to escape again; to leave them all behind and let them get on with their lives. Day and night for two weeks I'm plagued by the haunting desire for freedom. Escape from reality; run away Robert, run: to the unreal world, where paraplegics straight from hospital are strong, independent and free. Where I can cook, clean, decorate, love and lose and laugh without intervention from family; without this sickening burden of guilt hanging over my every thought. Anyway, why should they have to carry a crippled body - me - around with them for the rest of their days? Eventually reality kicks in. I know my thoughts of independence are highly unrealistic as they flit through my head but I can't get away from them. They are about turning back the clock to a time before the mess I've created; of wiping the slate clean; of escaping the guilt and pain I put into the lives of all those who care.

Fearing my sanity, I talk to my sister again on the phone about guilt and madness: again she understands. Eventually, I tell my wife: again. She understands too. Do I deserve them?

Unwisely, I tell my ‘named nurse' thinking, foolishly, that she can hold my madness in confidence. Really, I should know better. She has an obligation as part of the team looking after me to talk to others; to get their advice. A week or two later things begin to resolve themselves and I tell the consultant about my problems and, as he has done on several previous occasions, offers me confidential counselling, which, he says; ‘only the psychologist and I will know about.' He says many who pass through his care need professional support. This I can believe. I'm reluctant however, to re-open wounds which are healing, albeit painfully. Even he, he states, will not be party to the outcome. Again, foolishly, I forget where I am and the way teams have to work and agree to his suggestion: after all, things could deteriorate again and I don't want those around me hurt any more than they already have been.

I'm referred to a unit psychologist but she's busy and I don't see her for two weeks. Psychology, like every other aspect of care in the unit is in very short supply and totally inadequate to meet patients and outpatients needs. It is, as I've said, supposed to be a confidential consultation but, when I go to see her, she turns me away from her private office on the ground floor and asks me to wait for her back on the ward. An hour later, she arrives, known, as she is, to all the staff and many of the other patients who use her services. She ushers me into a little used sitting room which doubles as a through route to the outside veranda for staff and patients alike. The room is open to view due to its glass-panelled door and those who do pass-by can see who I'm talking to. Unnerved by the lack of privacy, and therefore confidentiality, (nobody is supposed to know I'm seeing her!), I recount my history and reassure her that, should I ever need her, then I will make contact again. She tries to open psychological doors but I leave them closed. There's really nothing of confidence to be said; at least, not in that setting. With the crisis gone, foolishly replaced by a determination to resolve things myself, I start to plan my escape from hospital. Unwisely I think I've no real need of her help anyway but the lack of confidentiality and privacy makes me quietly angry and resolved to sort myself out. Who said psychology doesn't work?
However, a few weeks later I recognise that my thought processes have entered an even more dangerous phase. These thoughts are dark; pitch black and pitiful. The preoccupation is intense and I wonder of others can sense the impending horror. Some week's earlier Ravi offered me the opportunity of the psychologists' services. I met with her in a setting that was hardly a confidential one, with people - staff and patients - passing by and thought the system careless. My reaction to this breech of confidentiality did not endear me to her at that point in time but I had had specifically asked for a confidential meeting and so was slightly more than disappointed to find myself sat opposite her in a relatively public situation. Putting these events into the past, I decide to go along and try again. Plucking up courage I visit the psychology office. One knock and I put my head round the door and with a smile ask if I can have some help. Now, how dumb can you be? Help? ‘No', is the response. There's a waiting list for service and I'll have to joint the queue. Could be weeks!
The anger that this cold reaction stirs is just what I need. It's probably the best thing any psychologist ever did. Jung, Addler, Froid: they'd all be proud of that professional. And, more importantly it took thirty seconds of her time and saved the NHS a fortune, as well as not adding to a waiting list. I return to my bed space and resolve to set myself some targets and get my head straight.

All the psychological pain eases slowly, aided by a mountain of understanding from my family and the kindness of the night duty Sister. She comes to see me every evening she's on duty to see how my thoughts are. She's gently, patient and kind and yet understands and guides my thinking.
I set my first target. I know when I want to be home! Returning my focus to home, I work through a tough programme of physiotherapy in preparation for the return of the prodigal to his homeland. Apart from the routine physiotherapy to retrain your muscles and ease the stiff joints, the gym provides the opportunity to build yourself back to fitness again. It's a great social centre too where you can chat to others, or just watch the world go by. Sadly, the yardstick for your own meagre improvements can be watching the personal struggles and pain as new patients come into the gym. For their first few visits they have to struggle like hell to get anything to happen. What they can achieve will depend on the injuries they sustained and the level of spinal damage that this involves. Emotionally this can be one of the toughest things you have to deal with.

Those admitted to the unit are, inevitably, not a lot different from you before fate took a hand. Now, for many, their level of paralysis renders life an exercise in dependency where little can be done without the help of others. For some of those with high level spinal injuries', getting an arm, or even a finger to move, is a great achievement and it would drive the hardest spirit to tears watching the struggle. But, the physiotherapy programme is based on your individual needs; it's shaped from years of experience managing people injured at every level of their spine. For me, it included a variety of exercises to strengthen arms, shoulders and back muscles (they will, after all, have to take some of the load your abdominal muscles used to carry) as well as getting used to coping with your balance as you use the wheelchair out in the real and very bumpy world. The physio has to help you plan and acclimatise to your wheelchair needs for the future. Every path isn't smooth and sometimes you may even have to negotiate rough, grassy ground. They help you learn to ‘wheelie' your chair. Because your front wheels are so small - in my case 4" in diameter - they will never negotiate long grass, so you learn to ‘wheelie'. Tilting the chair back and trying to roll along on two wheels is very frightening. Inevitably you run the risk of overbalancing, falling backward and needing assistance to get back in the chair when you unceremoniously coup yourself out onto the floor!

The first time I fell, practising this at home, I cracked and split the edge of an old table my wife had been bequeathed by her grandmother. The lump on my head wasn't too pretty either. Oh, and before I forget to mention it, my legs, no longer in my control, swung over as I fell backwards and kneed me in the face causing my nose to bleed to add insult to injury!

You're taught how to transfer properly too using the sliding board I've mentioned before. This twenty-four-by-ten piece of plywood is priceless. At first I couldn't even transfer from the comfort of the settee back up into the wheelchair but, a year on and you get the hang of it as your strength and confidence increases. Three years on and transferring is simplicity itself. The board has become redundant for all but the most difficult of transfers, even getting out of the car.

The swimming pool was the most enjoyable part of hospitalisation for me: freedom, near weightlessness and kind words from the, ‘Dean'. You have to be careful as you splash along for your legs have only limited buoyancy and can drag along the bottom of the pool as you impersonate a swimmer. This programme of physio is accompanied by Occupational Therapy sessions where you practise some of your life skills, such as cooking, transferring to and from beds, and dressing. It all helps.

Some of the staff, however, pass through the boundary that separates professional responsibility from love and kindness. While I breathe, they'll remain part of me. Long nights I spent crying, only to be comforted by one or other of the many, kind and understanding nurses. The patients in a Spinal Injuries Unit throw up a myriad of emotional and psychological problems. Following the trauma of learning what they can and can't do for the rest of their lives, some feel empowered in new ways; others, merely depressed. Some of the staff are prepared for this and find no difficulty in sharing their life experiences with you. They help you to understand how others have coped with similar problems and how they have had to cope themselves.

I was lucky, I suppose, I was no stranger to many of those staff, having worked there briefly. But I do not imagine for a moment, that anyone, who seemed distressed, would not have been supported as kindly as I. It is what the staff did best. Some, from my point of view, much better than others but I readily recognised that relationships are a two way process. Bonding is not automatic - no matter how professional the nurses are.

Regardless of the kindness, I plan my own discharge date - March the 23rd - the day before my birthday and five months since my admission. I can stay institutionalised no longer. Its not that I don't need longer in the rehabilitation setting to improve my life skills, it's just that I've had enough. It's my life and I want it returned to me. Institutionalised may seem a strong word for how I felt; but it's not. All matters concerning my existence were driven safely and easily from within the care structure of the unit. Everything had to be checked out with the consultant, as is necessary, to ensure your care programme was being met. But I wanted to learn on my own now. The real world was out there and so were my family. In here is the world of level, polished, wheelchair friendly floors; polite, friendly staff; accessible toilets; sixty people just as, if not more, disabled than you. It's unreal and I needed reality. The paranoia and the depressed thoughts of suicide were receding: I needed the challenge of facing the world again.

There is, for some of us, an acute balance between our physical and psychol