baratron: (aibo)
My health has been slowly breaking down over the past few months, and I don't just mean my mental health.

Just before the coronavirus really kicked in, I went to the US to attend PAX East and visit Grant. The convention itself was great, met several important friends, and hung out with some of the Elder Scrolls Online devs. Again. Given that I work for UESP they already have a pretty good idea who we are.

Me with Alarra and Shifty in our Airbnb in Boston.

Cut for more pictures. )

One of the important friends (Tatanko) drove Grant and I 8 hours across country to State College, PA, where he lives, from whence we hired a car and drove another 2 hours to Grant's grandmother's funeral. Which was fine. His dad was really pleased to see me/us. His mum and brother were a bit more surprised, but I think ultimately glad we made the effort, and I don't really care about anyone else.

Then I got home and had to go straight into isolation, because although I didn't get a letter telling me I had to, I take one of the inhalers on Asthma UK's list of "medications which imply your asthma is bad enough that you should be shielding". So over the past however many weeks since I got home, I have been out of the house 4 times - and 2 of those were for doctor's appointments. I am very lucky to have a Richard because I would have literally starved by now without his loving cooking.

Also... well, this story is long, and needs some privacy.
baratron: (cute)
When I am in Rochester with Grant, we go to Community Christian Church which is, in my words, a "hippy church". The first thing you see when you enter the building is a sign saying "Refugees Welcome", and they actually mean it. The minister is a gay man married to his husband, some of the lay people who help with the services are visibly queer, and it's genuinely welcoming. Even though I'm not a Christian, I still feel more at home there than in the UU church we went to once, where people came up to us afterwards and enquired as to whether the service was the strangest thing we'd ever been to. The idea that we might be Unitarians already didn't seem to occur to anyone. (There is a second UU church in Rochester, and I might try it sometime, but I don't feel any particular need to.)

Some people from the church work for a charity which helps children who may have been abused (TW: site talks about child abuse). When they come for assessment, they can choose a plush friend to help them through the process. Apparently they get through 4 to 6 plushies per day, which is a lot of new referrals. One of these people, Bob, died recently and in his honour, the church decided to collect Bears for Bivona because it was alliterative.

When we arrived and saw a giant box of bears (and other soft toys), I decided to go through the box and hug them all. So I did so after the service. When people asked what I was doing, I explained that you can't just buy a teddy bear from a shop, stick it in a collection box, and expect it to be able to help a hurt child. You have to give it some love first. And Rev Steven considered this and decided to put the teddy bears out in church the following week.

At Community Christian Church, Rochester, NY, USA. 2019-04-14
(click through for bigger version)

So the bears sat through the church service and were filled with the love of the congregation. They were pointed out during the "share with children" part of the service and each child went to hug one of them. Then the bears were blessed so that they could bring joy to their new owners. If you get the impression that this is not exactly a standard, mainstream sort of church - you'd be right!

Also the sermon featured Banksy art. (Did you realise that Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian migrant?)

More bear details. )
baratron: (endurance)
My apologies for the lack of updates. I have been eaten by chronic fatigue . Fortunately, I am staying with Grant, so I have access to an Emotional Support Alligator.

At some point I should write about things such as PAX East, Being a V.I.P. at Bethesda Game Days, and interviewing Todd Howard (yes, the Todd Howard), but I kinda have to get that interview typed up first. Our interview with Rich Lambert is online in video format and I'm 2/3 of the way through the transcription. Can you believe it takes an hour to transcribe 5 minutes of audio? It's nothing to do with how quickly a person types, it's the effort required to get all of the dialogue recorded perfectly. We tried an auto-transcriber and it had severe issues with all of the fantasy universe words. If you'd like a laugh... )

In other news, I believe there is a BiFest in Kingston today, which would be very convenient if only I was in Kingston instead of on another continent. I expect a full write-up (within session confidentiality rules) and lots of photos (with the consent of the people in the picture). Please.
baratron: (willpower)
My life has been non-stop the past week.

I had to appeal my PIP, complete a PhD project plan for university and get it checked by my supervisor, and fit about two months' worth of socialising into a single weekend. On Friday and Saturday, Grant and I went up to Leeds to see PokeCharms people, play video games, and go to the Royal Armouries. It rained. A lot. We got upgraded from standard to first class on the train to Leeds because of a lack of wheelchair space (OVER AN HOUR's phone calls between me and LNER, who have been sucking particularly hard when it comes to actually following through with assisted travel bookings lately), and I really do need to make sure we always go in first class because it's the only way that Grant has enough room. He isn't just fat, he is WIDE - his actual skeleton is wide, and while he could reduce his tummy size, I don't think that trying to lose weight off his shoulders is at all practical.

On Sunday we saw Tim and Peter like usual, except "usual" hasn't been very frequent lately due to various people's illness and/or busyness. I feel very short of money after two visits to Pizza Express in two days, one of them WITHOUT COUPONS (the horror!).

Yesterday was a day and a half. Trains were non-existent for a couple of hours due to emergency services attending "an incident" between Clapham Junction and Surbiton, which basically stops the entire SWT network from happening. So we got considerably delayed. I realised I was out of the one medication I can't miss a dose of or my head will explode (venlafaxine) and had to call the pharmacy several times, each time getting their rather new and completely useless counter girl who wouldn't/couldn't put me through to a pharmacist because they were busy. Once trains existed again, waiting for a ramp at London Waterloo I managed to drop my phone and by some quirk of physics it bounced off the train floor and into the gap under the train. I did eventually get it back but that delayed us further.

We met [identity profile] stellarwind.livejournal.com in Russell Square and got to the museum to find it was closing early and we had 20 minutes to look at things. It's actually a tiny museum and you can get a good idea of "pickled things in jars" and "bones" in 20 minutes, but we'd expected to have at least 2 hours to look at everything properly. The early closing gave me more time to call the pharmacy. Two more times.

We had dinner at the very lovely little Vietnamese place Pho Hot (great for vegans and omnivores alike - I recommend their vegan pho or garlic tofu on rice, Richard recommends their garlic pork) and dessert at Cookies and Scream. This all went very well. After dinner we arrived at The Garage 15 minutes before doors opened for the annual Ginger Wildheart Birthday Bash only to be told there was a last-minute delay, so we had to wait in the cold for 45 minutes. We did, however, acquire a reasonable place to sit, which is good when you have a wheelchair user plus two people with sensory issues who might get dizzy and/or overwhelmed at any moment. The gig was great. However, I'm not exactly certain about buses in Highbury and Islington because when I'm with Richard we just walk to Caledonian Road (the nearest accessible Tube station), so we managed to miss our stop quite badly. This meant we then missed the direct train home and had to take a train plus bus combo with more waiting in the cold.

It was good to spend time with my Israeli friend who I've known for 15 years and talk to every day, but had never met in person before Friday - but OMG so much stress. I don't even understand how that could all happen in the same day.

Tonight, Richard and I are going to see Cheap Trick and Def Leppard while Grant sits at home playing Elder Scrolls Online (he didn't want to pay £55 for a ticket, which is entirely reasonable - at least Richard and I both get in for that price because he's my free carer). And then tomorrow I get to go and have some blood tests and SLEEP. Oh, and write Christmas cards.

I have been completely useless about asking whether anyone wants a Christmas card this year due to aforementioned busyness, so I am going to go with my usual list. If you have a new address or suddenly don't want a card, please tell me in the screened comment section below (comments which don't have private address information will be unscreened). Also if you aren't on my usual list but want to be added, let me know and I'll see what we can do.
baratron: (cn tower)
I fly home tomorrow. These trips to the US seem to go quicker every time. Of course, it doesn't help that this time I spent a week either in bed or lying around on the sofa complaining about how ill I was.

Grant didn't have a lot of time off work because he's saving his vacation days for visiting me at Christmas (12th December to 1st January - well, arriving on 13th and flying back the morning of 1st). So we've mostly been travelling at weekends. We went to a zoo a couple of hours east of here, which made us a little unhappy and uncomfortable because the animals really didn't have enough space and some of them were displaying stress behaviours. The grizzly bears were okay, the North American black bear cubs were okay, but the black bear adults and the wolves were definitely very unhappy. We've also been to the Corning Museum of Glass - which does have some science as well as art, and to the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse. Tonight we were supposed to be going to the Rochester Contemporary Art Center but Grant is asleep. Also I am supposed to be doing some paperwork and getting myself ready to go home tomorrow, and instead I am involved in two fairly weighty conversations on Discord :(

Grant has a new psychologist who specialises in treating adults with autism. This is a good thing. However, as part of the assessment she's given me a Repetitive Behaviors Scale – Revised (RBS-R) form to fill in and it's really fucking offensive. Content warning: Discusses stupid neurotypicals' idea of autistic behaviour. )
baratron: (poly)
I am visiting Grant in the US!

My flight on Tuesday was one of the least unpleasant transatlantic flights I've ever taken. No turbulence at all until the final descent, enough spare seats that I didn't have someone immediately next to me, they fed me twice with food which was labelled as allergen-free, my own wheelchair got delivered directly to the plane (!) only a little more broken than it was before and easily fixable. I should probably emphasise the last point because it's really unusual for an electric wheelchair to make it directly to the gate. More usually they bring me a manual chair and a minion to push, and then I pick up my wheelchair either at the top of the ramp or down where you pick up cases.

We went for a meal at the wonderful Veggie Planet in Mississauga, about 10 minutes away from Toronto Airport. This place almost literally saved my life when my flight was delayed for 26 hours in April. I mean, I have enough body fat that I wouldn't have actually dropped dead of malnutrition, but you do not want to know how grumpy I get when I have low blood sugar - let alone when I've slept for an insufficient amount of time in my clothes in an overpriced hotel room.

Clearing both Canadian and American customs was super easy and friendly. The Canadians were just like "What are you doing in Canada?", I said, "Going to have lunch and then going to the US", and they waved me straight through. American customs are often highly suspicious when someone on an overseas passport crosses the land border, because they think I might have been living in the US and I've just crossed the border to "reset" the 6 months that a tourist is allowed to stay without a visa, but we've done it enough times now to know the "correct" answers. Plus I can prove exactly where I've been thanks to location stamps on my photos and Google Maps timeline. Rather than me moving to the US, what we really need is some way to move Grant to the UK, but that's... complicated.

So it was all good, but travelling for this distance with chronic fatigue syndrome and having been unwell immediately before (I really thought I was going down with a cold, but it evaporated), and having had no sleep for 30 hours is going to knock me out for several days. (To be fair, I did fall asleep on the plane 5 times, each time for less than a minute.) Yesterday was a fun day of... sleep. Today I woke up at noon and am currently contemplating some form of breakfast.
baratron: (cn tower)
I am home after the journey from hell. Summary: There was an ice storm in northwest New York state and southern Ontario which caused a whole load of flights to/from Toronto Pearson airport to be horribly delayed or cancelled. Mine was delayed for 26 hours.

It was rather awful because we got no food and drink provided by the airline until around 5 am, when we were supposed to have taken off at 9.55pm the previous day and been fed and watered within an hour of that time. There was some food and drink for sale at the airport, as well as a water fountain, which we could use while stuck at the gate - but no cups were provided for free, so people not in the habit of going through security with an empty bottle to fill once they're through were dehydrated. Also our checked luggage, having been screened, were not given back to us once it was decided that the plane would be cancelled. So we all had to spend the day with nothing but whatever we had in our hand luggage - which was a particular problem for me since it meant I did not have my wheelchair charger.

Unsurprisingly, between stress, spending all that time in an airport or aeroplane with thousands of other people, and sitting upright for far more hours than my spine will allow, I am now rather ill. All I can say is that if this had to happen to me, I'm glad it was when I was 41, with a credit card, travel insurance, and a well-treated anxiety disorder - rather than when I was 21. Tomorrow's job is to claim on said travel insurance. I have the letter from the airline stating the delay, both of my boarding passes, and receipts for my food, hotel, and taxi. (I'm not sure if I have the receipt for the emergency phone charger which I had to buy at the airport, nor if that's a thing I can even claim for, but I'm going to try.)

I would like to write a timeline of events, but that involves more spoons than I currently have available. So just "enjoy" my Skype and/or text messages. Long. )
baratron: (dino)
I have been in the US for three weeks now, and will be returning home on Sunday. In related news, I have well and truly messed up my sleep patterns. It is 5.57 am and I haven't managed to sleep yet.

I flew into Toronto on Friday 23rd March, and was met by Grant. We then drove into town and had dinner with [personal profile] maize, [personal profile] okoshun and [personal profile] clawfoot at The Hogtown Vegan. Pictures, mostly of food )
baratron: (endurance)
You are probably wondering why I haven't written anything on Dreamwidth for a while, and the answer is that I have either been too busy or stressed to write anything, or too busy recovering from being busy/stressed. I had a particularly unpleasant run-in with some friends a couple of weeks ago which necessitated the writing of a very detailed email, which used up about a month's worth of Coherent Writing Spoons.

This week has been particularly stressful because I am getting ready to go and visit my Grant. Monday involved a massive list of chores:Read more... )

On Tuesday, I collapsed in a heap.

Yesterday, I had some social media work to do for UESP. 15 minutes before the new Elder Scrolls Online expansion was due to be announced live on Twitch, I heard a strange sound and discovered we had, quite literally, piss water pouring through our kitchen ceiling. This isn't the first time we've had a bathroom leak which became a kitchen ceiling leak, but it is the first time that it's been grey water rather than clean. A minor domestic might have ensued, due to my despair that our plumbing had been fucked for 10 days and Richard hadn't made it a priority because of work, combined with Richard's belief that I use too much toilet roll. (TMI, I'm sure, but I can't just shake myself dry! I'm not sure anyone with my type of anatomy can!)

We finally figured out that I could call Thames Water's 24-hour emergency line and sit through all the being on hold, and then pass the phone to Richard to speak to the actual Thames Water person using proper engineering language. Also we set up the camping toilet. I was not coping and had a raging headache just above my left eye. It didn't help that we were OUT OF CAKE and Richard had managed to leave the cake that he'd bought me in Wagamama when I phoned to say that the drains had become critical.

A friend asked just why our house drains are so evil. They're about 30-40 years old, ceramic, and they've started to crack in the soil. As a result, soiled water leaks into the ground, making our weeds in the back garden grow like crazy. Meanwhile, any solid effluent gets stuck in the pipes without any liquid to push it along.

We had the drain under our house, which is our responsibility, relined in October for the grand total of £100 because our insurance company paid the rest. However, the drain outside our house, which is Thames Water's responsibility, has never been repaired. They only ever come along and hose it out when there's a problem. From experience, about 75% of the workmen at Thames Water's contractor Lanes are lazy buggers who don't want to work.

Lanes called Richard today at 17:18 saying that an engineer would be dispatched and he would call when en route. Said engineer turned up at 18:20 or so without calling while I was in an old, holey pair of pyjamas. It was too late to access the appropriate manhole, being the one at the end of our garden just outside our property border, because the MOT garage there shuts up about 6pm. He said he would check with the neighbours to see if it was possible to clear the blockage from there, and then disappeared. About 18:45 or so my mother was leaving the house and she asked where the guy from Thames Water had parked. I said "Just up the road, why?" and she said "I'm sure I just saw the van leaving". Lo and behold, I checked with our neighbour and the workman had indeed done a runner.

This is a complete and utter Lanes "special". The engineers turn up, look at the problem, fail to believe anything I say, and then bugger off without a word to me. I literally cannot BELIEVE that he didn't call my phone or knock on the door to say he was leaving. I am PISSED OFF. We have no functioning toilet other than the camping toilet, which is a bucket with a seat, and not really suitable for Number Twos.

Meanwhile, I'm supposed to go and get on a plane tomorrow morning. I have done the online check-in for my flight tomorrow, I have told 2 x banks that I am going abroad, and I've updated my travel insurance because it runs out during my trip. I have also called Lanes and had a good moan, and we have an appointment booked tomorrow between 10am and 12 noon.

I wish I felt excited about going to see Grant. He's excited because he's lonely and touch-starved, and he's going to get me for over 3 weeks. I feel guilty because I'm running off and leaving Richard with a house with a backed-up drain, a squeaky bathroom sink tap, and some sort of alarming leak in the bathroom which is soaking the tiles and running down to the kitchen ceiling. It doesn't seem fair to leave one of my primary partners dealing with a WHOLE LOAD of plumbing problems while I'm off enjoying myself with the other one. I really should be here to support Richard while he works on it - but I can't afford to reschedule my flight.

It's just frustrating and upsetting and not what you need before a holiday.
baratron: (london)
I've done a bit more work on migrating my lj friends list to a new dreamwidth access list. It is, however, really depressing how many of the accounts on my new list say "never updated" next to them.

It seems that my dreamwidth reading list consists of about 10 people who regularly post. I really miss the chronic health community that I had on lj, but haven't had the spoons either to post on lj to ask where people have moved to, or to try to find a new version here. Must find some spoons. Currently accepting donations.

I still have a couple of hundred links from my mobile browser which I "need" to post on my journal. I expect most of the news-related links are now hideously outdated due to new events. A lot of the queer or disability-related links are still interesting, though.

In exciting personal news, I now have a Freedom Pass! I've qualified for one for years, I just didn't have sufficient energy/motivation to submit the paperwork. And buses in London are free if you're a wheelchair user anyway. However, due to various things (such as the fire at Camden Lock Market), I now need to take the Tube on a regular basis. £8.10 for a Travelcard with a Disabled Railcard is just horrendous (that's like THREE chocolate brownies!), and that was finally enough motivation for me to apply for the pass.

So now I can travel all around London for free, and also on buses elsewhere in England. However, my travel is currently restricted owing to the fact that platforms 7 & 8 at Vauxhall will have no lift until April. Also for the next couple of weeks, trains from Kingston are only every half hour (instead of every 15 minutes), and will be taking 48+ minutes to get to Waterloo instead of 30ish.

I must remember to buy tickets for this vegan food fair. Perhaps after Richard has recovered from the shock of paying for my last-minute train tickets to Leeds - which were already heavily reduced due to aforementioned Freedom Pass and Disabled Railcard...
baratron: (bi_pride)
Who is going? And who wants to share a flat with me?

Proviso: I need an accessible room/bathroom which may reduce the number of humans that can be accommodated within the flat.
baratron: (cn tower)
Home from travelling. Actually, I got in somewhere around 1 pm yesterday and proceeded to pass out for many hours. Woke up at 1 am and (much to my surprise) have been awake ever since. Husband has been snuggled. Boyfriend has been talked to on Skype. He looks very sad, poor thing, but it remains against the laws of physics for me to be in two places at once. Hoping we can have him visit in late June/early July for my birthday.

Super weirdly, I have been physically energetic enough to have emptied the laundry rack, folded the dry laundry, sorted all of the dirty laundry in my suitcase, put on a load of laundry, emptied the clean stuff out of the dishwasher and refilled it. I hope that I will not pay for this tomorrow, though I have A Theory. A theory which involves, of all things, vegan bacon and my ability to get it.

(Gods, I knew that Yves Veggie Bacon wasn't very fatty, but I didn't realise that 3 rashers had only 0.5 g of fat between the lot of them, along with 14 g of protein. Short of actually, y'know, BAKING my own tofu, I am unsure where to get tasty textured fake meat products which are low fat and high protein. Nasty-tasting, weird textured but low fat, I can do. Nice-tasting, well-textured and full of fat, I can do).

Continue to be Unimpressed with Aer Lingus. Will relate the full story later when spoons exist.
baratron: (cn tower)
Saturday, April 22, 2017, 10:00 p.m. — Monday, April 24, 2017, 5:00 p.m.

Due to system maintenance during the dates and times listed, there will be a partial shutdown of AirTrain JFK service. There will be no service to/from all airport terminals and no service at the Howard Beach and Lefferts Blvd stations. AirTrain JFK service will continue to operate a normal schedule to/from Jamaica Station and Federal Circle. Free shuttle buses replace service and will be available at the affected AirTrain stations and airport terminals. Please allow extra time when traveling to and from John F. Kennedy International Airport and see a Customer Care Representative for assistance if needed.


Argh! I just LOVE the idea of having to travel around the airport in a shuttle bus instead of a nice, accessible train! *facepalm*
baratron: (boots)
I have many photos of my trip to the US to post, when I get A Round Tuit. They are crappy mobile phone pictures, but I cannot be bothered to carry a real camera with me any more. I am a terrible photographer with the best equipment in the world, and I'm more interested in recording memories than attempting to take good shots.

Currently I am worrying about being stranded in New York tomorrow once Delta drop me off there.

It turns out that Aer Lingus are morons. I've had several "incidents" with them this trip and am never flying with them again, but in the meantime they are supposed to be getting me home to London tomorrow.Read more... )
baratron: (rainbow chemistry geek)
In the process of importing my livejournal. Hoping it won't take forever because 2001-most of 2013 is already here. Wondering about some of my communities (the two or three that I really care about) because I haven't been back to lj to "agree" to their TOS and mark my entire journal as Not Suitable For Children yet. Mostly due to lack of time.

In the meantime, if you want to be added to my Fiends List and use a different username here, please comment. I do so like Dreamwidth's separation of "Subscribe" and "Grants Access".

I am currently in Rochester, New York, USA visiting my partner Grant. Here are some pictures from Monday:
Me and Shifty cuddling

And two more! )

Plans

May. 5th, 2016 03:39 pm
baratron: (dino)
I did not get around to booking for BiCon. The closing date for accommodation was just too early considering that I have no idea what my health will be doing in July. If I am not much better than I am now, I will be going splat and having to go to bed in the middle of the afternoon, at unpredictable times, and it seems fairly pointless to pay money to go away in that scenario.

Which means you might be questioning how come I can go to Boston next week, but that will be easier since I will have the husband and the boyfriend, both of whom are entirely competent carers for me. If we're out and about and I feel too wobbly to carry on, I can trust either or both of them to get me back to the place where we're staying and/or get food into me. Neither of them want to go to BiCon (they are both way too introverted), and I don't have anyone else who is familiar enough with my current limitations to act as a carer. (I know people who would be happy to ensure I got fed, but I wouldn't want to ask any of them to give up what they want to do at BiCon unless I was paying them, which is a whole other kettle of fish and... yeah.)

I still need to talk to my university, because I was supposed to be going back when term started on 18th April, and I am clearly nowhere near well enough to go back for at least a few more weeks. It's likely that I'll actually go back next term instead, as long as they aren't going to give me grief about the fact you're only "supposed" to have a maximum of 2 years (6 terms) "off" on breaks of study during a PhD course. I'd love to be back, but it would be a waste of everyone's time and my money, since I just about have enough energy to get downstairs on average once a day. The increased thyroxine and vitamin D are helping up to a point, but I am not magically better and dancing around full of the joys of spring.

Today is however a glorious day and I went out to vote for the Mayor of London and London Assembly. No prizes for guessing which party won my first choice, and even my second choice is pretty easy to guess. (Hint: I didn't vote for anyone in favour of leaving the European Union). Politics lately are stressing me out: the London Assembly election today, the referendum on leaving the EU in a few weeks, and the horrible, hateful candidate up for election as President of the USA. Honestly, if it weren't for that nice Mr Trudeau, I'd be hiding under a rock.

Also today I washed my dinosaur. Yay! for clean dinos.
baratron: (endurance)
Yesterday and today, I've been wanting to talk to people but I have absolutely no spare energy with which to do so. I have reverted to taking 2000 iu of vitamin D per day as of today, because I'm shattered and not convinced that the 400 iu tablets are doing enough.

I'm supposed to be going back to College in 10 days or so, but I haven't sorted out any of the paperwork yet because it involves too much effort, and circular situations where I need a form from A to give to B and a form from B to give to C, but I can't get the form from A until I have the form from C. Gah! And right now, I am sufficiently exhausted that I am not even sure if I'm up to going back for this term. I really can't go back and then immediately have to take time off again, but I do need to get things like Disabled Students' Allowance in place again if I am going back.

Mental health has not been good in my little family this past week. We have all been depressed for no particular reason. Richard has been anxious, Grant has been tearful, I have been having nightmares. I know that I need to have my next trip to see Grant arranged as soon as possible, so it's settled and I have something to look forward to, but I just don't know when will be convenient. Since this year is a round-number birthday, I was hoping to do something special for it, but I am increasingly feeling that my original plan (go to Iceland again) isn't what I want to be doing this year.

While organising trips to various places, I have to decide if I am going to BiCon this year. I feel that it would be beneficial to me to be in bi space considering that I currently appear to the outside world as straight twice over, but it involves energy and organisation which I don't quite have right now. The deadline is apparently pretty soon though. Who else is going?

In other news, I have found some mysterious photos on my computer. I mean, they are patently photos of me and Richard hanging around in our hallway in January 2012, but it is mysterious as to why we took them. They are all exceedingly yellow and would require considerable correction in Photoshop to fix. I thought maybe Richard had bought a new camera and we were testing it out, but the numbering starts at IMG_6562.jpg. Weird!
baratron: (willpower)
I'm sitting in Starbucks on Wardour Street waiting for Richard to get out of work. Someone's broken the only lift into his building so I can't wait there, and Westminster Council hates wheelchair users so much that I can't easily get around Soho by myself due to a severe shortage of dropped kerbs. So I didn't have a great deal of choice. I couldn't even get to Costa because it would have meant hurling myself off 4 inch high pavements and then driving along the road. I value my teeth a bit too much to risk that sort of thing.

I really need to organise some sort of petition/protest/shoot a video showing Westminster Council just how fucked up their access around Soho and Covent Garden really is. That would, however, require spoons, which are in short supply at the best of times.

I'm sure I owe you guys an "I got home from my travels safely" message, but I have been far too ill since I got back to manage anything. Nothing new, "just" severe period pain combined with my usual back/hip pain, the combination of which has required eating enough painkillers that I've been too sleepy for coherence. Joy! "Conveniently" I had an appointment at the Pain Management Clinic already booked for Monday. But it was hard to fill in the pain questionnaire when I'd been lying flat on my back groaning because of my uterus for days.

So after a week of doing absolutely bugger all, today I've got up & gone into London. Earlier it was sunny but not warm, now it is positively freezing. It was 30 deg C in Canada and I got irradiated by strong sunlight every day - here it is a maximum of 18 deg C in the middle of the day. Positively autumnal, and I miss my summer. Going out for dinner with Richard and his vegan colleague who is visiting from Canada. Richard has been unimpressed by the way his company has been treating this guy, e.g. yesterday they went out for steak even knowing that nowhere that serves decent steak in London also does vegan food at all.

I'm tired. Life could be a lot worse, though.
baratron: (bunches)
I am in Toronto with @Wicked_Shifty! Sorry for the lack of updates... the wifi in our hotel room is beyond terrible, so we've come down to the lobby to post sickening adorable pictures.

Me & Shifty 2015-08-29

Me & Shifty 2015-08-29

Shifty says, "Without internet, we have had to find other ways to amuse ourselves. Surprisingly, the TV hasn't been turned on yet." :D
baratron: (cn tower)
1) Write a packing list.
2) Pack.
3) Buy travel insurance. Who did I buy travel insurance from last time? There's the company which refuses to insure you if you're bipolar, and then the other company which will happily insure you if you're broken, but not for anything pre-existing. Which is fine - I might be "mentally ill" but I am not going to flip out and hurt myself or anyone else! (Grr. So discriminatory.)

4) Sort out the jury service form. DONE!

5) Fill in and print out Air Canada's amazing wheelchair form several times. I am not being sarcastic - that form is actually amazing and I wish every airline had something like it.

6) Check in for my flight online.
7) Print out my boarding pass.
8) Check in to the HOTEL online.
- all done on Thursday night.
9) Figure out where we’re eating on Friday night, since I doubt we’re going to be wanting to go very far from the hotel. DONE! Apparently there is both a pizza place and a burrito place that does vegan food nearby. And Whole Foods is within walking distance.

10) Wash my wheelchair, because it's currently covered in mud from the Download Festival :O
11) Tell 2 x banks that I'm going to another country and they should therefore expect to see card transactions from there. - sorted.

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