Wheelchair accsess problems... now theres a surprise!

Today started out interestingly, with my complete inability to get myself out of bed, even with my bed guard! Had to call Chris, lucky for me it wasn't that I was too ill to get out of bed, just that my legs appeared to have removed their connection from my brain. Everything I was telling them to do, they were ignoring! Lucky that sorted itself out in a few hours.

Chris was going with our friend Judd to play squash, and next to the squash courts in the same building is something called cool kids, which is a soft play area for children, so I took Niamh in there. She loved it for the first half hour or something but then started getting grumpy so I sat her down to have a snack and wait for Chris and Judd.

We made it home just in time to get ready to go out for lunch with my parents. At the end of the year at Tesco they give the staff a book of vouchers, one of which was for 20% off at Cafe Rouge, somewhere me and Chris clearly couldn't afford to go otherwise.

We got ready to go and set off for the short walk to the restaurant. Only to find that one of the main roads was shut. I don't really know how to explain this. It's a one way road, that is an older street, that I live on and you have to walk down to get into town. Well, if you don't want to go a really wibbly wobbly way that is. They had had to shut it, it turns out, because of an assault at 3am, you couldn't use the footpath, on either side at the bottom of the road. You could use the wibbly ways to get to the end, but then you had to go either left or right to get to a crossing for the main road. The crossing to the left involved going down some stairs to a subway (yes, stairs) so the other was the better option. Well, you would think so. The road they had shut has an ornate metal fence bordering it on both sides of the road and they had shut off the pavement before the metal fence ended, meaning if in a wheelchair, you couldn't cross the road under the subway or cross the cordoned off road to get to the traffic light crossing on the other side. You were fine however if you could use stairs, or jump the ornate fence.

Now, Chris got cross, so did my dad, so they went ahead with Niamh in her buggy. I stayed and spoke to the police woman and nicely explained that "did they realise that there is no access at all for wheelchair users" to which I got the response "there's nothing I can do, this is a crime scene". I totally understand that, but they had shut a good portion of the road (turns out the crime actually happened further up) and surely they have to at least consider how people are going to get round these barriers.. Really, I think she just wanted to say, "tough, go home, you're not allowed to go out for lunch like everyone else, because your body doesn't work like everyone else's".  It was also clear that they had used the end of the fence to tie the tape to because it was easiest, which is fine, but not helpful. Now I have lived in this town for most of my life and know that there is another way, and that same subway has a ramp access that is on the other side of another busy road, but I hadn't said anything to this woman on purpose, as I would have been completely happy with her simply explaining how to get to the ramp. It would have shown me that they had put some thought into access for wheelchair users, but she didn't. I have a complete understanding that I can't go under the barriers or anything, and to be honest, I wouldn't want to. It would have been nice to have some evidence that they had put some thought into it. But no. Of course not. It just really makes my blood boil. ARGH!!!

Anyway, that's enough! If you guys have had any similar experiences (either directly or have heard of them) feel free to share, it will make me feel less alone in my anger!

A nicer subject, here's mine and Niamh's day 15 366 pics!

I'm going to leave it here for today, but am super proud of myself for being able to do two entries in two days!