I went to Taunton on Monday with Darren, he had an appointment with the job office and I had to run a couple of errands. It also gives me the opportunity to transfer in and out of a car which is good practice for me. The time it took for me to do the things I had to do was minimal, propelling myself to the two places I needed to go to however was not. I completed the two things that I needed to do and headed back towards the building which Darren had needed to go to. While going through the precinct I stopped off at an old employer and called the number, when he answered we spoke briefly and then he came outside to see me as I was unable to get up the stairs for obvious reasons. While talking to him, Darren came over as he had now finished his business. I finished my conversation and we headed off. I visited the road safety office which was only a short distance away and spoke to a member of the staff about potentially helping them. They took my number and told me that the guy I needed to speak to was out but they would pass my details and that he would be in touch. I hoped that this would be the case so that I could explain an idea of mine in the hope that they may see it as a good one and help me to help them. On the way back to the car park my phone rang, could this be the call already? If it was then I could simply return to their building and talk face to face, sadly it was not, however it was a call I had been waiting for. The call was from County Hall, the man who is in charge of the cycle path maintenance. We spoke for around fifteen minutes as he explained that he had been away for a week and had just got the message. I wasn’t going to pick up on the point that it was well over a week ago that the call had been made to them as I had other points to make. I made the various points to him, mainly about the safety aspect of the cycle path being shared by horses and that if horse crap did not have to be cleared when dropped then it would be but a short amount of time before dog owners would not pick up after their dogs either. I pointed out to him that as I am in a wheelchair I have to use my hands to push myself along and that I would not want to be getting dog or horse crap on my hands and that I should not have to. I said what I needed to say and told him that I wanted the call and the points that I had made logged. I would imagine that they will be ignored but in case my points do come true, you read it on here first!
We continued on our walk back to the car park and I bumped in to my eldest Son who was on a trial day for a mobile phone shop. He has to approach people who are walking about and offer them the chance to go in to the shop and take a new contract and phone to save them money. It was bloody freezing on Monday, everyone had winter coats on but he was in a suit shivering while talking to the passers by in the hope that they may find out more about the new contracts. He had started at eight in the morning and would finish at four in the afternoon, he had been the only person to show up for the trial day which was in his favour and after the day trial, they would give him a call in a couple of days to let him know if he got the job. Alarm bells were ringing in my head when he told me this, if you were to offer this daily so that every day you had a different person trying out for a job, you would have manned the street for five or even seven days of the week without having to part with any money for the staff. If you sold any new contracts because of these people it would be at no additional cost. If you never actually take any one on full time, that is to never call anyone back to let them know they have the job, then you are getting free labour. I sincerely hope that this is not the case, we shall see if they call him back.
Eventually we got back to the car and headed off to Ilminster to try out the gym at the fitness centre. I needed to know what I would be able to use and if it would be of benefit for me to join. There are two pieces of equipment that I can use as well as the dumbbells. The two pieces of equipment will work every muscle group I need to concentrate on I believe but I am unable to use the other equipment there. I am going to talk to them and see if I may be able to get a discounted rate if I join as I will be limited to the equipment I am able to use (clearly the cycles, running machines and air steppers are no good for me), and the times I can go due to my wheelchair getting in peoples way. It is not like an able bodied person, if it’s busy you squeeze past, it’s a bit different in the chair. I also need the equipment adjusted for me as I am unable to do it myself as I can not reach, I’ll talk to them and see what they say. I really hope it will be a favourable reply so I can really build my upper body muscle groups up to help my every day movements such as transferring. We collected `Pickle` from nursery and Darren dropped us back at the bungalow. We had coffees and then he had to go but before he did we arranged the time for him to come and collect me on Tuesday morning for our trip to Winchester.
On Tuesday I had an appointment at the Army Training centre Winchester. I need to get a set of FAD or Number two uniform issued, it is dress uniform that I will wear for occasions like Remembrance parades but I needed to be measured for it. They take the various measurements required and then look down the size chart and find the closest to your measurements. This gives an issue number which you order and then when it arrives, you get it tailored to your actual fitment. Easy. Unless you are sat on your arse all day, have given up running and exercise in general and now require and HGV licence to move yourself around, (that would be whale boy here!). I need a special order uniform which I think has to be made and is going to take a while and despite my best efforts to convince the tailor to simply get a tent from the stores and bastardise it, it is the wrong color and simply will not work, so I have to wait. Bugger. The trip up was really quite quick to be honest, the traffic was not busy and the weather was ok all be it bloody cold and windy. We saw soldiers under training in the parade square doing drill and Darren and I were both talking about how it brought back memories of our training days, we parked up the Chucklebus and got out, and by Christ it was cold. The wind was blowing a hooly and it was baltic. It was then that I felt for the guys on the square doing drill. It meant that they would either be cold or be smashed round the square to keep warm, either way they would not be enjoying it. Tailors visit finished we stopped at the NAAFI for a brew and then headed back to the bus and made our way home.
Gerry drove me in to TA on Tuesday evening, I had no recruits in and so I started doing what feel should have been done a very long time ago, I started to pick out the key points in the lessons that they had been receiving and began to rough draft revision lesson plans. The point of this is so that any senior rifleman or junior NCO should be able to go to the filing cabinet and pull out for instance folder for week four and revise the lessons taught by using the lesson plans in that folder. They do not need to be changed unless amendments to the pamphlets are made, this would ensure that they are all revised on the same things and the lessons should run smoothly. It was quite good in a way that there were no recruits in as it gave me time to make a decent start in the lesson plans which will hopefully be the structure of the way we revise recruits on what they have been taught and will hopefully ensure the recruit training runs freely. I had a busy night doing this which was great, I felt like I had achieved something which would hopefully make a real difference. We had a cola at the end of the night and eventually Gerry got me take to the bungalow at around eleven. A really good constructive evening. I wanted to stay up a while longer but was really quite tired, to that end, I did what I have managed to do for around a week now, something which I am quite proud of…..I put myself to bed, no assistance required undressed….in to bed…..admin done ready for the nights sleep and all without having to wake or bother Mrs Pas. No big deal? It has taken over fourteen months for me to do it, and yes I am proud and chuffed with myself, With my `st-roll` planned for the next day I went to sleep, which is right where I am going now.
Goodnight all