SKA EXHIBITION

Went to the SKA Exhibition at the Barbican with one of my old mates from school days, who has recently come back into my life and has been a great help to me. I guess now kids are older and we have more time and he hasn’t moved too far away from where we grew up and basically I’ve just move to the next town (3 miles 😆). He kindly took me out for the day. I’ve just got this new fold up scooter (me on the new scooter picture). So tried it out with my mate Lee, who unfortunately for him had to wheel it onto the train and in and out the train stations. When folded up the scooter is about the size of the average size suitcase and can be wheeled around like a suitcase but my mate did find the handle to be a bit low for him. I said I think they do a handle extender so will have to look into that. I find the scooter very good and with the extra cushion I purchased with it was surprisingly comfortable.

To help make sure I was up for the day out, I tried not to do much during the week and the day before just rested up in bed pretty much all day. Didn’t want to wake up with my head going funny (best way I can describe it, when I sit up or stand up my head feels like it’s on a rollercoaster all the time as well as if everything around me is crushing in on me, very horrible feeling). Mainly because I just can’t seem to beat it no matter how hard I try. In fact the more I try the worse it gets.

Thankfully all was good so we went after the rush hour on the underground chatting about old times (brilliant 😊).

We got there not realising (stupidity I guess) how many exhibitions and things are on there having not been there for almost 40 years for me and I’m not sure Lee has been there before. Also have to say we thought anyway that inside the place was not very well sign posted (where the toilets and the cafes etc are). Nice place though, we looked it up and found it was being held at the Barbican Library. So off we go plenty of lifts to get to each level very good.

When we got there have to say I thought the exhibition was rather small but as we looked round there was plenty there and lots to read, although some was a bit high fro me to read, Lee did read some for me, he read more than I did. I hope he didn’t feel he cannot read more because I wasn’t but I never ask him but he did seem happy though. We both brought the book about SKA from there that happened to be signed too (looking forward to reading that).

We then had lunch outside from the barbican kitchen nice wrap toasties, too much green leaves in the salad for me and my mate (only couple pieces of cucumber each in our servicing). Then we decided to go to the gift shop, this is where it wasn’t so good for me as it didn’t seem any way of me getting there as there only way to it was via stairs. Probably not so good for my mate Lee too as I’m sure he would have liked longer than he took looking around. I did offer to go to cafe have a drink while he looked round but he said no he wouldn’t be long although when we first walked in and he saw it, he said “Oh I do like a gift shop to look round”.

After that we decided, as it was a nice day, to go along the streets of London rather than on the underground to a place my mate wanted to go to for his own reasons, which I was very happy to go and see myself and so happy that my mate felt that when we got there he could tell me the story behind why we went there.

Sometimes it’s nice to share things about life with friends and family as I’m finding out in this situation I’m in. I’m so lucky too to have the people around me that I do. I’m also hoping that as I go along with this maybe it will help me open up more and help me feel and cope with my life as it is, that I’m fortunate enough to be able to.

We then made our way through the streets to get Liverpool Street station and then get the train home. On the way we saw some nice graffiti, the weather was lovely and the scooter was very good, couple times had to go down the curb into the road as works was going on and no ramp put in place 🙁 but the scooter handled it well 👍🏻. Mate helped me with the scooter getting back up the curbs 👍🏻.

As it was so nice and getting hot we fancied a drink at least and came across a pub called the Queens Head (maybe next time, I’ll remember to take a pic). Very easy access for me and my scooter, plenty of room to park up near the table and have a drink and something to eat. Food was nice, we had fillet steak sandwich & chips, fish finger sandwich & chips, the chips were surprisingly nice too, especially for what you get nowadays from some pubs (thumbs up all around).

Got to the station and it was very easy to fold the scooter up, not so easy for my mate to pull around but easily resolved just need to sort that out. Train back then mates mum picked us up in a smallish car and it just fitted in the boot and went home.

Fantastic Day, a really big thank you to my mate Lee, it’s so good for me to get out, I feel so much better about everything afterwards. Although I then went straight to bed about 4 in the afternoon and fell straight asleep and although I wake up in pain regularly and having to turn over got back to seelp straight away. Woke up next morning around 10 feeling pretty good although if stand up a while or walk my back hurts and now my neck is hurting probably because of writing this so going to stop now take more painkillers, so till next time see ya.