I had my first goal of the New Year already planned and that would be to chase and chase and chase some more, the DVLA to get my license back. Not having the freedom to go anywhere without planning ahead of time for someone to drive me has caused a great deal of frustration, disappointment and anger which has probably not helped the home situation. It goes over and over in my head as to why I am not allowed my license back as the very department who has said no have always been unable to give me any specific reasons as to why. Well George was on a mission to get either a license or answers. So I called the DVLA and asked for the progress explaining that this all started in the middle of June 2013 and that it was just plain ridiculous that this should still be going on. The lady on the phone was as helpful as she could have been and told me that she could see on the notes that I had called MANY times and that she would put my case on a priority list and that I should have my case seen within two days, she did say that she would request a call to let me know the outcome. I could however call if I heard nothing (which is what I had already expected). Two days went by and as I heard nothing I called. The woman who answered was unbelievably rude. I started by being polite but as I was explaining she simply talked over the top of me telling me what she was going to do. I eventually managed to speak and explained about how I had been told I was on a priority list which is when she cut me off by speaking over me again. I was more than a little pissed off by this and so I asked her if I could speak. She told me I would be put on a priority list and that it would be looked at within the next two days. I tried to tell her that I had already been told that this was supposed to have been done already but again she just talked over the top of me. It was at this point that the pin was pulled, the fly off lever flew off and the George grenade went off, and by Christ did she get the full blast. People who know me will tell you that when the grenade goes off, the gob runs like a belt fed mortar. I will say exactly what I feel and I rarely think or consider the consequences as I will simply deal with any later. I will not lie, I did swear at the woman but despite my overwhelming desire to tell her exactly what I thought of her and to throw some comments in quick succession at her life according to me, I did not and simply hung up. Two days later I again called the DVLA and this time I spoke to a guy who was helpful. He very quickly bought my case up on to the computer and informed me that the decision had been made that I COULD now drive and that I did not have to wait for the license to arrive before I could go back driving again. RESULT! My first bit of good news of the New Year.
I have made enquiries in to going away for a couple of weeks to get out of the house, some respite of you will which I hope will happen. I am not sure what I will do while I am away but I know that there will be a programme of things for me to do so I just hope that this will happen. I have also looked in to dates for the Three Peaks challenge and also about trying to register as a not for profit organisation and have been going through in my head as to how it would all work and the aims and goals associated with it. I’ve been doing a fair bit of thinking too about the present and the future and of my accident case and so much more. I don’t think my head as been this busy for a long while! And on Saturday bruv Darren and I went out for a couple of sherberts. It didn’t get messy but we did have a good chat and a laugh, especially when the youngsters came in. There were three or four young ladies who were not unattractive and who were joined by three or four young lads who were drinking quite well to be fair, except for one lad who clearly had his eyes set on one of the young ladies in particular, she was attractive with a figure which you would need to be blind not to notice and this lad was trying so hard to impress her, the first thing was how he drank his pint so fast which was to get people to look at him, and it worked as he could not walk in any kind of line let alone a straight one. Undeterred by the amount of his drink he was spilling he carried on. Then he say down next to this young lady and tried to put his arm round her which in itself was bloody hilarious as he simply could not do it, he kept overbalancing and falling. Now had he fallen towards her and as a result “accidently” ended with his head on her chest or in her lap then I would have chuckled and thought about the strategy he had used not being a total failure, but he did not and ended falling away from her. BRILLIANT! This of course made me laugh even more. Add to this the fact that he had his jeans almost completely under his ass with his boxers on full show; well I simply could not help myself and practically pissed myself every time the idiot fell past our table. He ended up sitting on the steps towards the front of the pub while his mates stayed with the girls they were trying to pull and the girl whom had clearly had a lucky escape from the drunken idiot who was unable to dress himself. An amazing night of entertainment courtesy of the drunken foreign youth of today!
Not much else has been happening if I am honest. I have stuff to sort out, things to arrange and questions to ask but so far the New Year has been slow. I am going to be taking the kids to school when possible to see how I get on and I am of course waiting for the delivery date of the Overlander, then I can really start to enjoy being out, going to the forest and the beach which will involve me needing someone to drive me until I can get a trailer built to carry the Overlander, then I will get a tow bar put on to the car and drive myself. Still so many things to do so I hope to keep myself relatively busy, and of course I need to get back in to my model making. I am going to start my enquiries in to my next project as well. I will disclose more as things develop, if they indeed do, so watch this space. I also have a new friend whom I have `chatted` to on the internet, who is also wheelchair bound. It has been quite good to find out how things are for someone else, the trials and problems that they have experienced and overcome, and also problems that have arisen that have not been successfully overcome yet. It is good to be able to chat to others in similar and in some cases worse situations than my own. Something else that is good is that you can ask questions and talk freely about things knowing that the other person really knows where you are coming from because with the best will in the world, even the people closest to you be it your partner, parents or carers for example do not know what it is like. They can try and understand, they can sympathise to a degree but anyone who is not in a wheelchair, paraplegic, tetraplegic, or quadriplegic no matter how hard they try or how much they think they understand about how it is being in the chair all the time, the reality is that they do not. You cannot replicate having no stomach muscles because your reflex arc will not allow you to. You cannot imagine having to lean against things to keep upright, you cannot imagine how difficult it is to even stay upright in a wheelchair when being driven in a vehicle and this is not even the tip of the iceberg.
I am hoping that this year I will accomplish several goals, some new and others not so but it remains to be seen how I get on. For now though I fully intend to enjoy being able to go out for the day not necessarily requiring someone to drive me there!