Yahoo News A debilitating illness turned my commute into an obstacle course
En route to a friend’s wedding in Italy the week before last, I found myself at Bari airport. It was a bittersweet moment. Mingled with the pre-party excitement was a lurking discomfort — because Bari airport and I have history.
Last time I was there, in 2016, I was experiencing the onset of a rare neurological illness that saw my immune system attack my nervous system, interfering with its ability to carry signals. My arms became floppy, useless things while my hands felt encased in mittens. I recall standing in Arrivals, trying to drink from a water bottle by propping my elbows on my chest and arching my back. The illness hadn’t yet spread to my legs.
Still, travelling was hell: the fumbling at security, passengers’ impatience as my boyfriend lugged cases up steps, the humiliation of falling over on buses (I couldn’t grip the railings).
My symptoms were new, which made everything harder (I didn’t even alert the airline — novice error). Subsequently, I grew accustomed to negotiating planes and buses and Tubes. But it never got easy. The BBC’s Frank Gardner’s recent spat with Heathrow over his lost wheelchair highlighted the challenges for disabled passengers flying — but even the commute is an obstacle course.
Just 27 per cent of the Tube network has step-free access (£200 million is being spent to make it 40 per cent by 2020). Getting around can mean circuitous routes to avoid impossible exits, teeth gritted as commuters rush past (then rant on Twitter about “slow walkers”). Vast Tube gaps, carriages that sit a foot higher than platforms, cramped buses with limited space for wheelchairs — they’re everywhere.
I’m lucky. I eventually recovered. This time at Bari I carried my own case. My illness merely gave me a five-month insight into life as one of London’s 1.2 million disabled. But that was enough to know that they put up with far, far too much.
Shrimps on the barbie? No chance
Nothing says “April heatwave” like panic-buying a barbecue on a Friday, so my evening spent lugging a box of black metal home from Argos had a certain inevitability about it. Only when I ripped off the packaging did I realise several hours’ “assembly” was needed.
Why bother? Our annual return to prehistoric cooking perplexes me. Being half-South African, admitting you dislike barbecues is sacrilege (my family cooks its Christmas turkey on the Weber) — but surely I’m not alone? We did eventually get the damn thing up and lit, though not until the following night.
Just as we did, the rain began.
How to throw a party fit for the Queen
Was it the sight of Sting and Shaggy — shirt untucked, aviators on — performing their song Don’t Make Me Wait? Or the bit when Craig David sang about “making love by Wednesday, and on Thursday and Friday and Saturday” as the audience politely looked on? Or the part where Prince Charles turned to the Queen and called her “mummy” — only for her to roll her eyes at him?
No, the strangest moment of Saturday’s very strange Royal Albert Hall concert in honour of Her Majesty’s 92nd birthday was surely the sight of Ed Balls, Frank Skinner and Harry Hill strumming George Formby’s When I’m Cleaning Windows while the sovereign nodded along (or didn’t — it’s quite hard to tell).
If you haven’t seen it, YouTube it, if only for the cheering thought of Prince Harry trying to explain the spectacle to Meghan (“so that guy on the left used to be the shadow chancellor, then he went on Strictly, which is a bit like Dancing With The Stars….”). Welcome to the UK, Meghan.
Make mine an ice-cold chardonnay
“No one drinks white wine any more. What’s wrong with it? I love white wine!” So opines harried mother Stephanie in Diana Evans’s new novel Ordinary People.
Drinking with friends on a sunny rooftop bar at the weekend, it occurred to me that she’s right. Not counting prosecco (obvs), and with the exception of the odd posh dinner with wine matched to food, I can’t remember the last time I had it. My cheapo house order is almost always red; it’s just more reliable. Then out comes the sun and it’s either pink, orange or Aperol. Time for a chardonnay-with-ice revival?
