First class from Birmingham

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Earlier this year I went straight from a meeting in London to an overnight work gig in Birmingham. It was all a bit surreal (involving Alan Bryman and Angry Birds impressions). The following lunchtime after an intense focus group workshoppy thing, I rushed off to catch the train back home. In the short walk from the hotel to Birmingham New Street, I thought I was in Manchester.  That really threw me when I got into the station and couldn’t find the ticket machines, and the trains/platforms had all disappeared.   Continue reading →

The glasses and the toilet bend

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My eyesight has got much worse over the past couple of years. I’ve gone from wearing glasses to watch tv, to wearing glasses to stop banging into things.  I take em off every night and leave them on top of the toilet.  One Sunday morning I got up early, did my biz and flushed the toilet. My dressing gown sleeve caught my glasses just at that point and whizzled them down the toilet.

“AAARRRGGHHHHHH!!!!!”, I screamed in horror… “Whassup?” said a sleepy Richy Rich… “I flushed my glasses down the toilet..” I gibbered.     Continue reading →

The mystery of the couple and the baby

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Another totally random happening. I’ve reconstructed it using soft toys, because again I didn’t think to take a picture at the time.  Mind you, they might have got a bit angry if I did.

It was a lovely sunny afternoon and I was at home with all the windows open.  I noticed a car pull up on the pavement in front of our house. A couple got out with a baby and came into our front garden.  I went to open the door thinking they were calling round for some reason.  Instead of coming to knock on the door, they sat down on the grass. “Oh”, I said. “Er, sorry, did you want something?” “Oh, no”, he replied.  “Ok, I just wondered what you were doing?” I said, totally puzzled.  “We just came off the motorway and my wife needs to feed the baby”, he replied.    Continue reading →

Flight dyscalculexia

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In line with the responsibility angle of a lot of these blog posts, I’ve invented a new pseudo condition – dyscalculexia.  This, for the less medically inclined is a (made up) mixture of difficulties reading both words and numbers.  It isn’t a medically recognised disorder, but it can only be a matter of time.  It is possibly also a way of avoiding hate mail.   Continue reading →

British Airways and the pig toilets

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That Danish trip again (see also)..this is a long, long one.  These flight stories are going to sound made up, I’m sure but it’s all true (well apart from officials’ swearing).

Travelled from seaside town to Copenhagen airport with the lovely Cornish Debbie I’d met at the conference. We laughed our socks off remembering pig toilets in India in the 1980’s.  She left me at the BA check in as she wasn’t flying back for several hours.   Continue reading →

The tannoy

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I was shopping in Ikea with little sis, Sammy Seal, when an announcement came over the tannoy; ‘Would Sarasiobhan please make her way to Customer Services. Sarasiobhan to Customer Services’.

‘OMG! This is it! I’ve won a prize!’ I said to the Seal. ‘Whoo hoooo!!! Probably the millionth customer, or maybe the billionth globally!’ She didn’t seem overly excited as we went to find Customer Services. Would it be a cash prize or a supermarket sweep type jobby, I wondered. How funny. Five minutes ago I was an ordinary shopper, now I could have a lifetime’s supply of Billy bookcases.

‘I’m Sarasiobhan’, I said to the woman at Customer Services. ‘Oh’, she replied, ‘You left your purse in the toilet’.

The language of life

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This story will, eventually, evolve into a flight nightmare post but before then, other stuff happened. I flew to Copenhagen two years ago to go to a conference somewhere by the sea in Denmark. Not a good trip.

I caught the train from the airport into Copenhagen. It was like the London underground with seats long ways on each side. A gang of kids got on at the same time. One of the boys sat next to me, while the rest performed some elaborate, loud distraction routine at the end of the carriage, trying to engage with other passengers.  I don’t speak Danish but I do speak the language of life. My suspicions were aroused. I looked down and saw the little bastard had his hand in my coat pocket, millimetres from my purse.   Continue reading →

The eel bus

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Rosie’s little mate, Charlotte, bounded across the playground before school one morning shouting “Sara! I saw Laughing Boy on the eel bus yesterday!” Whoa. Wha? The eel bus? Laughing Boy?  “Slow down a bit, Charlotte.. what’s the eel bus?” “You know, the bus that takes all the eel children”.. Eh, you lost me?  “The eel bus? Where did you see him?” “On the ring road in the bus with the other eel children” (silly)..  Ah. The ‘ill’ i.e. disabled children.

That was when I first started to wonder about where all the eel children were taken.

Early days

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I used to like making soft toys from kits. I was pretty rubbish at it but I like to think it was an early indication of my interest in disability. Luckily I captured them all in a photo shoot in the back garden so here’s the gang;

(From the top going clockwise); Red felt buffalo, Patchwork cat, Pixie (lurking), Knitted mauve teddy, Soft brown dog, Brown panda, Pooh (lurking), Felt owl, Cute little cow guy. I think there may be one in between Knitted Mauve teddy and Brown panda – a sort of brown soft thing – but I can’t remember it. Maybe it’s just some mud.

Flight Nightmares: The signature

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Rosie and I were booked on very exciting trip to Genova, leaving on her 13th birthday. She got a cow case in advance. A few days before, I couldn’t find my passport.  Panic.

Got accountant mate (anon) to sign the forms to get a speedy replacement (just had enough time luckily if I travelled to passport office the next day and waited for it to be processed). She filled in the form (A) so carefully, then got confused about a box she signed. She put a line through the signature, then filled in a second form (B) leaving the box blank, just to be safe.

Off on the bus to London, queued at passport office for about 40 mins, then handed over the form (B) to the most deadpan person ever. I blathered on about the Genova trip with Rosie, leaving the next day, blah blah blah. 13th birthday, blah blah blah. She gave the form straight back to me and said that mate hadn’t signed the box. ‘Ah, no, here’s another version where she did sign it’, I said cheerfully, pulling form (A) out of my bag. ‘It’s got a line through it, she will need to sign it again’, said Deadpan.  Sob. ‘She works about 10 miles in the countryside from hometowny which is 1.5 hours on the bus, which is 20 mins on the tube from here, it’s not physically possible’, I blubbed. ‘Fuck off you loser’, she replied.*

credits: thanks to Tracy for literally spending a day searching with me

*She didn’t really swear, but said words to that effect.