But I need to have a major moan about the state of the pavements round here!
The street which we live on is, quite frankly a bloody nightmare, but the rest in Chorlton are just as bad.
The main problem occurs where the local council has allowed companies to plough dirty great channels out down the middle of pavements to lay cables galore. Then, the companies just fill the channels back in willy-nilly with no thought for the safety of people using the pavements let alone the aesthetic-ness of the street.
So usually I come back from a much needed push around town and instead of feeling relaxed & refreshed, I end up tense and on edge from having to concentrate so much on directing Hari on which bits coming up to avoid incase he hasn't spotted them. I can't imagine it's much of a picnic for him either as he has a huge degree of responsibility for helping me get out and about.
There is a section right at the end of Corkland Road on the corner where it meets Wilbraham Road, where one of these channels is so worn on one side that there is literally a step up in the middle of the tarmac and next to this sits a manhole type thingy who's 4 edges are also not level with the pavement and they too cause major problems. The wheelchair wheels hit them and the chair and the person pushing it comes to a sudden, shuddering halt which shakes me up, shakes the person pushing me up and can result in me coming out of the chair and landing in a heap on the pavement.
In fact we did come a cropper last year along Barlow Moor Road outside a barbers shop where some paving slabs moved as the chair was pushed onto them, one suddenly jutted up and hitting it was unavoidable. On that occasion I was thrown from the chair with considerable force and landed on my right knee (this is one of the falls which 'could have' caused the dislocation of my right knee which was discovered a couple of months later).
The look of worry and panic on my husbands face (he was pushing the chair at the time) was upsetting to me as was the pain and humiliation of being thrown on the pavement in an ungracious heap! Out of all badness usually comes a little ray of goodness and this was no exception. So many people stopped what they were doing and rushed to our aid to see if there was anything they could do, one woman even offered to get me a brandy, something I really should have accepted! And once I was back in the chair and we were about to set off again and car came to a screeching stop next to us and the driver was most concerned I was ok as he'd been passing in the other direction, had seen what had occurred and had turned round and come back to check. Bless.
My chair has a lap-strap fitted but after another near miss before this particular one I found the lapstrap was in danger of damaging my urostomy in the event of a such a yank as being thrown forward in the chair causes so I can't wear it. Damage to my urostomy is something I don't want to experience at all.
So Manchester City Council, have a thought for the safety of your pedestrians and all pavement users and get ya pavements sorted before someone is serious hurt, as its bound to happen, if it hasn't already!!!
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