Tag: train

Sunnier Climes – Part 2 – The Pier

At the beginning of March, I wrote a post about my holiday to Southend-on-Sea during the summer of 2018 – https://elliethompson.uk/2022/03/06/sunnier-climes-part-1/ . This is the continuation of that experience.

Seven Hotel – Southend-on-Sea

It was a beautiful day in July when I set off from the rather plush Seven Hotel and headed for the pier. The train that went almost the length of it hadn’t started running yet as I’d set off very early in the morning. It was the hottest day we’d had in the UK for three years at over 33 degrees, and I’d thought I’d get out before the peak of the heat hit. As I sped off in my electric wheelchair, George, the welcome breeze swept through my hair. It was exhilarating, and I was soon at the halfway point. I looked back at the distance I’d travelled and admired the view. The sky was hazy with the heat, but the sea was blue. The gleaming white buildings, hotels and apartments were in the distance now.

The view from Southend Pier.

I trundled across the pier’s wooden planks, thoroughly enjoying myself with the seagulls flying high above me, squawking loudly. The café was right at the end, and I thought I’d stop there and grab some breakfast and a coffee. Twenty minutes later, when I’d almost reached my destination, the clackety-clack of the wood below my wheels began to sound odd. The planks were old and worn in some places but perfectly sound. After a few more metres, the noise became louder. I wasn’t too concerned and had my eye on the sign at the end. I stopped to take this photo. It read …

Congratulations. You’ve reached the end of Southend Pier.

I could see the café up ahead and was looking forward to my breakfast. I was nearly there. I went to set off again when I suddenly realised that something was wrong. My wheelchair was leaning to one side. I looked down, and there was a completely flat tyre. What a place to get a puncture! Now, what do I do?

I turned to look over my shoulder and saw a couple behind me, although quite some way back. I waved at them frantically. To my dismay, they seemed to assume I was simply being friendly and waved back at me! As they got nearer, they could see my predicament and stopped to offer their help. I had no idea how I would get back to the land end of the pier.

Southend Pier – the longest pier in the world at 2.16 kilometres

The couple said they’d go to the café to get assistance, and soon, they returned with a manual wheelchair. I transferred into it, but there was still the dilemma of what to do with my chair. I certainly wasn’t going to abandon it. The only thing to do was push my chair, George, onto the train with me by his side and head back to land. A great idea, but there was a problem. The goods carriage was the only space big enough to take my chair, and that was filled with crates of wine bottles and beer for the café. There was no option but to unload it all onto the platform. The guard was not impressed! Finally, they got me on the train and back to terra firma. I then had to wait for an hour-and-a-half before the breakdown vehicle came and rescued me, brought me back to my hotel and whipped George off to have a new tyre.

I can laugh about it now, but that’s one holiday I shall never forget!

STROKE – COMPASSIONATE LEAVE

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Life has had a nasty habit of throwing us curveballs now and then. That ball has certainly knocked me down many times, but I think the important thing is that it’s not how far I fall but whether I can get up again from there. That’s true for everybody at some time, but I feel like I’ve had to do an awful lot of climbing back up over the years.

I don’t feel sorry for myself though as we all have to cope with this experience we call life. I’ve had a significant knockdown just recently which is limiting the amount of time that I have to write my blog – not that you could ever really call me a prolific writer – I’d say more a sporadic writer.

Right now, things are tough and a real challenge. My mum was sick before I wrote my last post – she was in a local hospital with pneumonia. That was bad enough. She is elderly and becoming rather frail now, and illnesses and accidents are becoming a common occurrence now, in her 87th year.

A week later while still on the ward, Mum was found collapsed in the bathroom – she’d had a stroke. The very thing she had always dreaded and said: “It’ll never happen to me”. I thought, until this event, perhaps somewhat naively she was going to be right – that she would live to an even riper old age than she was already.

An ambulance rushed her to the main City Hospital. A friend took me there later that day, and it was a real shock. There was my mum, laying almost helplessly unable to do anything. The whole of one side of her body was lifeless. She couldn’t move her arm or her leg; she couldn’t sit up – not even with support – she lurched sideways into a sad heap and had no balance. Her face had dropped so that her eyelid drooped and what was left of her smile had been taken away.

Two weeks later, she still hasn’t made much progress in her movements. Her speech is slurred, very soft and infrequent as her cognitive function has also been affected so that her brain is working much more slowly to process information. She’s unable to swallow properly so is on a diet of small portions of rather undignified, pureed food which she still manages to pull a face at in an odd way and I just know she’s thinking, “Why am I being given baby food?” I can’t begin to imagine how awful it must be for her to be trapped inside her mind without being able to express herself clearly or barely communicate.

Needless to say, her appetite is almost non-existent, and I can’t say I blame her when food has to be spoonfed into her now crooked mouth. Pureed shepherd’s pie and carrots, having been liquidised within an inch of their life, wouldn’t appeal much to me either.

I am travelling up to the City Hospital every other day (a journey by train in my wheelchair, George of two-and-a-half hours each way). I spend as long as I can with my mum but then return home along with the hoards of workers turning out from their places of work to head homeward. Travelling with an electric wheelchair is not fun when all around me are rushing, pushing and shoving to get home after a long day or a long shift.

As you will have gathered, I might not be able to make an appearance very often at the moment, so please excuse me if I have been unable to read, like or comment on your blog. I have only had the time to sort through the most important emails and phone calls, and it’s likely to be that way for some time. Thank you for your understanding, my friends 😦

BESIDE THE SEASIDE :)

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Well, I do have to say that I am feeling really good and that makes a change so make the most of it because I sure am! 🙂

Today, I feel great, and yesterday I felt great too. Yesterday was fantastic – I had such a brilliant time. I went with a group of people I’m involved with, on the train, all the way to Clacton-on-Sea (which is a little seaside town on the south-east coast of the UK). It takes about one hour on the train. Now, bearing in mind, I’m a recovering agoraphobic, this was quite amazing for me! It was a day full of ‘firsts’ too…it was the first time I’d seen the sea for about five years! Better than that…it was the first time I’d been on a train in about fifteen or so years!! Incredible!

I felt safe with this group of friends which helped, especially safe with ‘Carol’ who’d organized the whole thing (thanks Carol although you don’t read my blog!). It was my first trip out of my home-town in my new powered wheelchair…Oh, thank the Lord, I didn’t have to be pushed in my old manual wheelchair! How I hate that, always. It make me feel helpless whereas my electric wheelchair makes me feel empowered. The train journey was ‘a piece of cake’ as we say here…meaning ‘easy-peasy’. (Now I’m showing off!).

Once we’d arrived at the seafront, I was as free as a bird. I paired up with another girl, also in an electric wheelchair and we bombed it up the promenade, looking at all the little kiosks selling ‘kiss me quick hats’, beachballs, buckets and spades, blow-up dinghies and the like. Some of them sold food too. We sailed past one stretch and I said to L, “what was that gorgeous smell?”. She replied “doughnuts” and they were cooked while you wait. So, another first, a freshly cooked, hot ring doughnut covered in sugar that it’s impossible not to get all round your mouth! Yummy!

More zooming about (carefully dodging pedestrians, of course!) until it was lunchtime. We decided to stop at another kiosk and had coffee, and, for the first time (again), I had a fresh hotdog in a bun, complete with fried onions and ketchup and God knows how many calories! Oh, and chips! And did I care about my ‘diet’; did I heck! I thoroughly enjoyed it. So did L – she had the same.

After a while we met up with the rest of the group, found ourselves a little café to get coffee. But did I stop at that? Nope! I spied an ice-cream stall close-by and before I knew it, I found myself sitting with a strawberry Cornetto in my hand; another first. I don’t usually ‘allow’ myself ice-cream so that was also a first of sorts.

I had a fantastic time and the journey back was good too and I think, for once, I had a smile glued permanently on to my face all day long! I’m already planning when I can do it all again! It completely took me away from all my problems, heartaches, pain etc, etc…which did me a power of good because today, I’m still feeling the ‘feel-good factor’ and still smiling. Oh, what it is to have my independence! I wouldn’t exchange it ‘for all the tea in China’. (I don’t know if you have these quaint little sayings overseas, that I have been littering my chit-chat with?). If not, I can ‘translate’ at a reasonable fee!

Traditional, corny old British song (excuse the pathetic animations), coming up!