I’m not thrilled. Yeah, yeah, OK, that’s not unusual, but this time it’s sod all to do with lying arsewipes – Cameron, Freud, IDS, Osborne, any other bugger you can think of – in politics, and everything to do with the fact that, as a seriously disabled person, even the smallest pleasure comes with a staggeringly high price tag.
And it’s that, more than anything else, that is really making life intolerable, making it difficult to maintain even a semblance of stoicism for public consumption (I’ve been disabled all my life, and in constant pain with OA in my left hip since I was 32, despite which I have always been active as a touring cyclist, rambler and backpacker until my 40s – don’t even be tempted to give me any shit about stoicism – I think a moan is justified!).
Last Tuesday, I was taken out to lunch by a friend, Fiona. She took me to Edale, in the Peak District, a place that will always have a place in my heart, as it does for generations of people, as that’s where my walking and backpacking years began, way back around 1970-71. Though, for health reasons, my love affair with the village ended with an absurdly wet camping trip in 2006. Not because of the weather, but because, shortly afterwards, after a bad fall, in which I tore both the lateral and medial collateral ligaments, and the tendons connecting the patella to the femur and tibia, in my left knee, among a great deal else – see pics below – none of which have worked properly since, it became impossible to kneel, and if I find myself on the ground, I can’t get up again, neither of which is any help when camping. Or climbing stairs.
Click to view full size, Back to return. This isn’t bruising, by the way, it’s bleeding from torn ligaments and tendons. Apologies for the poor quality of the middle pic – as you can imagine, I wasn’t at my best. The only remedy for torn collateral ligaments is surgery, possibly the others, too. If I tell you I was sent to Arrowe Park Hospital, you can probably guess whether I got it or not. To this day, the lateral collateral ligament still bleeds from time to time.
Anyway, back to something far more fun, and for months, now, I’ve been wracking my brains, trying to figure out how to get to Edale for one last visit. B&B in the village is ruinously expensive, and the only way to get there is an absurdly long train journey, in time, not distance, via Manchester, not good as using public transport is very difficult for me these days, and I’m no longer able to drive. This, then, came at the perfect time, psychologically if not physically, as the previous day I had been extremely ill, something I wrote about here . And I still don’t know why that was but here we are, on the following Monday, and I feel almost as bad. WTF is going on? I mean, I crashed last week, so I’ve been resting maybe more than usual, but I still feel as if I walked 15 miles yesterday.
Tuesday dawned, and I felt fine (flying on adrenaline, I suspect). Everything was perfect, lunch with a beautiful woman, in a stunning location, with perfect weather – who could ask for more?
Lunch was at The Rambler Inn (this used to be the Jolly Rambler back in the 70s, and, originally, The Church Inn, by which name it’s still known by walkers of a certain age – still walker-friendly despite having been dragged remorselessly upmarket).
Back in 2006, the Rambler did superb fish and chips so, as it’s still run by the same people, it seemed reasonable to expect that they still did, so that’s what I opted for, despite its rather ambitious price-tag of £10.95. Good chips, but the large, golden-battered portion of fish turned out to be horrible, wet, and tasteless – Hoki would be my guess, a fish that seems to be turning up on too many pub menus, where it’s still priced as if the cheap crap was actually prime cod. Anyway, I couldn’t finish it (not least because it seems I had no capacity for a meal of that size either, something that’s since been repeated at home – worrying, that). I know I bitched about this last week – I don’t care – shit like Hoki has no place on a menu anywhere!
In fact, so repellent was the fish, it made me think seriously – yet again! – about reverting to vegetarianism, not least because Fiona’s veggie meal was way better than mine (and because any meat I can afford is barely worth eating). And this time, I’m feeling rather more serious about it. At the moment, though, I still have meat in the freezer, which I’m living out of, partly because the stuff needs to be eaten and partly as an economy measure, as I’m spending so much elsewhere.
Anyway, we had a potter around Edale in blazing sunshine, with me overdressed in a light fleece (Edale can be pretty chilly even this early in autumn, and who expected a mini heatwave at the end of September?).
It was, I have to confess, worryingly hard to breathe (I’ve had to stop my heart meds,** as they were causing too many problems , which didn’t help), but we wandered up to the head of the village, via the information centre, sloping off and leaving the car in the Rambler’s car-park, and had a quick drink in the Nag’s Head, before heading out via Mam Nick, Winnats Pass , Castleton, and Hope, and a trip through the Vale of Edale, back over Mam Nick and the road home.
As a quick, but uneventful trip neared its end – Fiona drives very like me, fast, decisively, and with little tolerance for dozy buggers (look, if you’re going to drive on the motorway, get your head round the fact that 60mph is entirely inappropriate in a car anywhere but the inside lane – you’re in the bloody way!) – my innards began to make ominous growling noises, which as we neared home became more ominous sloshing, bubbling noises – long story short, I just about made it to the bathroom, as my lunch made its bid for freedom. And I spent the next couple of days with precarious bowels and a constant feeling that I was going to barf.
And – almost inevitably – I crashed and burned, about which I’ll spare you the details. I will say, however, that Edale is quite a small village, and most of the day was spent sitting down, either in the pubs or in the car – it’s not as if I so massively overdid things I’m still ill a week later.
So, was it worth it, all things considered? Well, apart from the crap lunch, yes, it absolutely was, for many reasons.
I just wish I didn’t feel so goddamned shitty, though it’s interesting what I was able to achieve when sufficiently motivated! And yes, walking a couple of hundred yards is a massive achievement for me which, DWP snoops please note, is why I crashed and burned.
Would I do it again? Of course I would, and screw the physical consequences.
But I still can’t breathe properly, even at rest, and that I could really do without, though in fairness I do know that wasn’t caused by wandering around Edale, or the car ride – it’s just become a not unanticipated fact of life these days (my lungs are shot, my heart’s fucked up), which just chose last Tuesday to assert itself. But knowing that it was pretty much inevitable sure as hell doesn’t make it any easier to deal with…
However against all the odds, my sleep patterns have returned almost to normal. Go figure…
And in answer to the question I posed in the title, I would have to say that – personally speaking – no, it’s not (and I’d sell my soul not to be trapped in this one room), but by Christ it sure as hell takes the shine off it at times!
…
**I’ve restarted my heart meds (Candesartan), today, at least until I can find something different. Going downhill way too fast for my peace of mind.
I’m not thrilled. Yeah, yeah, OK, that’s not unusual, but this time it’s sod all to do with lying arsewipes – Cameron, Freud, IDS, Osborne, any other bugger you can think of – in politics, and everything to do with the fact that, as a seriously disabled person, even the smallest pleasure comes with a staggeringly high price tag.
And it’s that, more than anything else, that is really making life intolerable, making it difficult to maintain even a semblance of stoicism for public consumption (I’ve been disabled all my life, and in constant pain with OA in my left hip since I was 32, despite which I have always been active as a touring cyclist, rambler and backpacker until my 40s – don’t even be tempted to give me any shit about stoicism – I think a moan is justified!).
Last Tuesday, I was taken out to lunch by a friend, Fiona. She took me to Edale, in the Peak District, a place that will always have a place in my heart, as it does for generations of people, as that’s where my walking and backpacking years began, way back around 1970-71. Though, for health reasons, my love affair with the village ended with an absurdly wet camping trip in 2006. Not because of the weather, but because, shortly afterwards, after a bad fall, in which I tore both the lateral and medial collateral ligaments, and the tendons connecting the patella to the femur and tibia, in my left knee, among a great deal else – see pics below – none of which have worked properly since, it became impossible to kneel, and if I find myself on the ground, I can’t get up again, neither of which is any help when camping. Or climbing stairs.
Click to view full size, Back to return. This isn’t bruising, by the way, it’s bleeding from torn ligaments and tendons. Apologies for the poor quality of the middle pic – as you can imagine, I wasn’t at my best. The only remedy for torn collateral ligaments is surgery, possibly the others, too. If I tell you I was sent to Arrowe Park Hospital, you can probably guess whether I got it or not. To this day, the lateral collateral ligament still bleeds from time to time.
Anyway, back to something far more fun, and for months, now, I’ve been wracking my brains, trying to figure out how to get to Edale for one last visit. B&B in the village is ruinously expensive, and the only way to get there is an absurdly long train journey, in time, not distance, via Manchester, not good as using public transport is very difficult for me these days, and I’m no longer able to drive. This, then, came at the perfect time, psychologically if not physically, as the previous day I had been extremely ill, something I wrote about here . And I still don’t know why that was but here we are, on the following Monday, and I feel almost as bad. WTF is going on? I mean, I crashed last week, so I’ve been resting maybe more than usual, but I still feel as if I walked 15 miles yesterday.
Tuesday dawned, and I felt fine (flying on adrenaline, I suspect). Everything was perfect, lunch with a beautiful woman, in a stunning location, with perfect weather – who could ask for more?
Lunch was at The Rambler Inn (this used to be the Jolly Rambler back in the 70s, and, originally, The Church Inn, by which name it’s still known by walkers of a certain age – still walker-friendly despite having been dragged remorselessly upmarket).
Back in 2006, the Rambler did superb fish and chips so, as it’s still run by the same people, it seemed reasonable to expect that they still did, so that’s what I opted for, despite its rather ambitious price-tag of £10.95. Good chips, but the large, golden-battered portion of fish turned out to be horrible, wet, and tasteless – Hoki would be my guess, a fish that seems to be turning up on too many pub menus, where it’s still priced as if the cheap crap was actually prime cod. Anyway, I couldn’t finish it (not least because it seems I had no capacity for a meal of that size either, something that’s since been repeated at home – worrying, that). I know I bitched about this last week – I don’t care – shit like Hoki has no place on a menu anywhere!
In fact, so repellent was the fish, it made me think seriously – yet again! – about reverting to vegetarianism, not least because Fiona’s veggie meal was way better than mine (and because any meat I can afford is barely worth eating). And this time, I’m feeling rather more serious about it. At the moment, though, I still have meat in the freezer, which I’m living out of, partly because the stuff needs to be eaten and partly as an economy measure, as I’m spending so much elsewhere.
Anyway, we had a potter around Edale in blazing sunshine, with me overdressed in a light fleece (Edale can be pretty chilly even this early in autumn, and who expected a mini heatwave at the end of September?).
It was, I have to confess, worryingly hard to breathe (I’ve had to stop my heart meds,** as they were causing too many problems , which didn’t help), but we wandered up to the head of the village, via the information centre, sloping off and leaving the car in the Rambler’s car-park, and had a quick drink in the Nag’s Head, before heading out via Mam Nick, Winnats Pass , Castleton, and Hope, and a trip through the Vale of Edale, back over Mam Nick and the road home.
As a quick, but uneventful trip neared its end – Fiona drives very like me, fast, decisively, and with little tolerance for dozy buggers (look, if you’re going to drive on the motorway, get your head round the fact that 60mph is entirely inappropriate in a car anywhere but the inside lane – you’re in the bloody way!) – my innards began to make ominous growling noises, which as we neared home became more ominous sloshing, bubbling noises – long story short, I just about made it to the bathroom, as my lunch made its bid for freedom. And I spent the next couple of days with precarious bowels and a constant feeling that I was going to barf.
And – almost inevitably – I crashed and burned, about which I’ll spare you the details. I will say, however, that Edale is quite a small village, and most of the day was spent sitting down, either in the pubs or in the car – it’s not as if I so massively overdid things I’m still ill a week later.
So, was it worth it, all things considered? Well, apart from the crap lunch, yes, it absolutely was, for many reasons.
I just wish I didn’t feel so goddamned shitty, though it’s interesting what I was able to achieve when sufficiently motivated! And yes, walking a couple of hundred yards is a massive achievement for me which, DWP snoops please note, is why I crashed and burned.
Would I do it again? Of course I would, and screw the physical consequences.
But I still can’t breathe properly, even at rest, and that I could really do without, though in fairness I do know that wasn’t caused by wandering around Edale, or the car ride – it’s just become a not unanticipated fact of life these days (my lungs are shot, my heart’s fucked up), which just chose last Tuesday to assert itself. But knowing that it was pretty much inevitable sure as hell doesn’t make it any easier to deal with…
However against all the odds, my sleep patterns have returned almost to normal. Go figure…
And in answer to the question I posed in the title, I would have to say that – personally speaking – no, it’s not (and I’d sell my soul not to be trapped in this one room), but by Christ it sure as hell takes the shine off it at times!
…
**I’ve restarted my heart meds (Candesartan), today, at least until I can find something different. Going downhill way too fast for my peace of mind.