Never again !!!!

Friday 23rd July 2010

For a while my mam had been saying it was a shame I wasn’t able to get out when she came to visit me on a Friday as she could take me out for a walk in Wizzy.

What this really meant was she was fed up of staying indoors and wanted to get out.

During the weekend would be the Sunderland airshow. This was Europe’s biggest free air display so it would attract over one million people. The consequence of this was we would be prisoners in our own home as the local roads would be closed so getting in and out would be virtually impossible.

Tomorrow would be John’s birthday, and as we wouldn’t be able to go to the Chinese restaurant for our traditional birthday lunch due to the airshow (the restaurant is next to where the airshow would place), he asked if he could have one of the ‘banned weekend meals’ instead. Every bank holiday we have food that isn’t allowed the rest of the year due to their calorific value. His birthday meal would be ‘Billy the Butchers’ sausages, bacon, egg, chips, beans and Pease pudding.

I asked my mam last night if she would take me to Sea Road that morning to pay the newspapers and also to get a couple of items, which I couldn’t get from Morrisons that night, as I needed them for John’s birthday.

She said yes so John put my car at the front of the house so Wizzy could be ready and waiting for me in the garage. All I would have to do was press the garage door button for it to automatically open. Sounds simple enough….

After being fortified with coffee my mam said she was ready for our adventure out. As the burglar alarm would need to be set when we go out I gave my mam a demonstration on how to operate it. Thankfully it was key operated so there was no numbers to punch in as my mam had a problem remembering numbers.

To set the alarm all my mam had to do was insert the key into the ‘off’ position, turn it to ‘number one’ position, pull it out, then exit the house before the alarm beeped 21 times to say it was activated.

After helping me out of the back door, my mam went to set the alarm. An age later she opened the back door.
“I can’t get the alarm to set”, she said.
“All you do is turn the key”, I replied.
“I’ve tried but it’s not working”.
“Ok I’m coming”, I sighed, heaving myself back inside the house.

“Show me what you did”, I asked, as we stood next to the alarm.
She put the key in and turned it to the position marked ‘Test’.
“That’s why it’s not working”, I said, “you’re meant to turn it to number one”.
Having shown her yet again how the alarm worked, she tried again.

Without too much trouble (“you need to press the red button to open the garage door”, I told my mam – “what red button”, she asked – “the red button straight in front of you”, I pointed – “this”, she said, – “no mam. That’s a white plug socket….”) we ventured out into the back lane.

We shared the ‘driving’ as she found me quite heavy to push – thanks !!! I’m not that heavy…

All was going well until we came to a kerb. I told her to take it gently and slowly and there would be no problem in getting Wizzy down. ‘Gently’ and ‘slowly’ must have meant different things in my mam’s language as she went at lighting speed towards the kerb. Thank goodness Wizzy had arms to hang on to I nearly ended up in a heap on the road. I was beginning to think wearing the seatbelt, which came with Wizzy, might be a good idea. Things that go down also had to go up so I gripped onto Wizzy’s arms for dear life !!!!

Paying the newspapers went well, however the same could not be said for visiting the greengrocers. The entrance to the greengrocers was quite tight for wheelchairs, but with a little bit of manoeuvring, it was possible to get through ok. Not though it you have mam as a driver. I had said several times that I could manage Wizzy myself as I knew where and when to turn the wheels. Mam was having none of it. Consequently, going in and coming out, I nearly had my feet severed off at the ankles.

Thankfully only one more place to go then we could go home. Billy the Butchers wasn’t wheelchair friendly (shame on you Billy….) so having told my mam several times, over and over again, what I wanted (four links of ‘Old English’ sausage and a large tub of Pease pudding) she went in.

My mam could win a gold medal at the Olympic Talking Event so spent ages talking to Billy the Butcher and another customer. I was so pleased it wasn’t raining….

Next stop home.

After judging there was enough room to squeeze past cars that were parked on the pavement, we trundled along slowly passed the cars, with mam doing the driving.
“Mam, you’ve getting very close to the cars”, I commented.
She took no notice.
“Mam, you need to move Wizzy a little to the right”.
She took no notice.
Having narrowly missed being decapitated by a wing mirror, I took control of Wizzy and navigated it through the parked cars.

After crossing the road at a small cross roads junction (making sure to remind my mam that you need to look all ways when crossing a road – she thought by pushing a wheelchair made her invincible at crossing roads so looking wasn’t necessary) I decided it would be safer to stay on the road as there was only one parked car in the street.

The road was down a steepish hill so I begged her to keep tight hold of Wizzy. We made our way slowly down the street, moving further and further towards the left hand side gutter of the road. After scraping Wizzy’s wheels against the edge of the pavement, I suggested we moved out a little…

We were getting nearer and nearer to the parked car.
“Should we move out a little so we can get past the car”, I asked.
No response and the parked car was getting closer.
“I think we should move out now”, I said.
Still no response. The parked car was getting even closer.
“Mam. We need to move out now or we’ll hit the car”.
No response. We were now inches from the car.
“MOVE OUT !!!!!”, I yelled.
She did, just narrowly missing taking the side off the car….

At last we were outside our back door. All my mam had to do now was switch off the alarm. Quite simple really. Once the back door was opened the alarm would beep. Instead of dashing to manually switch it off with the key, my mam could switch it off by pressing a button on a remote, which she had been shown several times what button to press.

The back door opened. No beeps. Sometimes it did take the door sensor a second or two to register that the door had been opened so I wasn’t concerned. My mam reached for the remote and pressed the button. Nothing happened.

“I did turn the key to number one”, she stressed.

I checked the alarm. It was in the ‘off’ position. What she had done was turned the key to ‘number one’, then turned it back to the ‘off’ position to pull out the key…

Later that afternoon my mam said, “I thought we did quite well for our first time out. We’ll be much better the next time”.

I am going to have to break it to her gently but there won’t be a next time !!!!!!!!