Live your potential

Absence

Long lack of posts. Annika is away in Canada all week. Minus 18 there, major driving here. I seem to be spending my life ferrying children around, pulling over into lay-bys to power nap (it's never enough) so I can keep going. Up at 5.45 every day. Speaking Spanish and French with Griffin then times tables with Arden. Throw in visits to the vet, hospital, Sainsburys and you get the general idea. It's fabulous being with the children non-stop and I love that warm glow of satisfaction at the end of a day when I've managed to remember everything without rows or tears. Yet it's relentless. This feels like the longest week ever.

But there are many rewards. The fun of shopping with little people is one. And happiness can sometimes be so easy to buy. "Please can I have some squirty cream?". Where did this desire come from? TV? Friends? Quick calculation: Arden has a pretty healthy and varied diet (unlike her brother). £1.59 so ok for budget. She has to choose which variety (thank you very helpful shop assistant). "Yes, OK".

I had no idea the range of food that cream could go on. Waffles. Pears. Apples. Salami (yes, really). And of course for that extra special treat, the spray straight into the mouth approach. Children are a joy.

South West Trains and Passenger Focus

One of my new year's resolutions was to not accept brush-offs for complaints. South West Trains gave me the chance to test my resolve after going to see Hairspray with Arden just before January 1st. It was a terrible journey, as I emailed, iPhone in hand, from the train itself:

27/12/2008

Dear South West Trains

I'm emailing to complain about a broken table on the 09:47 train from Salisbury to Waterloo. I'm a permanent wheelchair user with no use of my legs whatsoever. I cannot transfer from my chair. I have a high spinal cord injury which means I have very poor balance. I also get extremely tired.

I had booked a seat on today's train from Salisbury to London. In the dedicated wheelchair space I will usually pull up the side table. I can rest my head on this to sleep. It stops my wheelchair from sliding forward. I can put my coffee and papers down. On the 09.47 there was no table, just a big hole where it should have been. Thus I spent the whole journey unable to sleep, in pain, unable to read and anxious that I would fall. It was a most unpleasant trip.

Please assure me that this matter will be soon resolved. Please also let me know what you intend to do to make amends.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Andrew Farrow
_______________

Their (very long delayed) reply was both disappointing and revealing. Disappointing for obvious reasons. Revealing because it shows that Mr M P had not read my email very closely:

Dear Mr Farrow

Thank you for your email of 27 December 2008.

I am sorry to learn that the problems with a table on the 0947 from Salisbury to London Waterloo led to so much distress on your journey. Please be assured that all of our trains are routinely maintained and problems such as these are rectified. However, if you would be kind enough to give me the date of travel, I will have the unit checked.

In these circumstances, the guard should be contacted to see if there is a chance that you may be moved to another carriage if there is a space available.

Although I appreciate the severe inconvenience that this caused and I apologise for this, I regret that no compensation is available.

Thank you for contacting South West Trains.

Kind Regards
M P
Customer Relations Officer
_________________________

Last year, I would have perhaps accepted this. However, I had said I would follow through to resolution, so on 13th January, I contacted Passenger Focus, "putting rail passengers first":

Dear Passenger Focus

I am emailing to complain about the inadequate response I have received regarding a complaint I made to South West Trains.I attach my original email and their response.

I am unable to transfer from my wheelchair. There is only one seat on the Salisbury to Waterloo train for wheelchair users that has a table and in this case, as I say in my email, the table was broken.

I find their response disappointing to say the least. I find their comment surprising that no compensation is available. I would be interested to hear your views.

Many thanks

Andrew Farrow
_______________

Today I receive a letter from Passenger Focus. Part of it reads:

I have now had the opportunity to discuss your case with the Customer Relations Manager at South West Trains and he has sincerely apologised for inconvenience that was caused to you. He has also confirmed that when incidents such as this occur, the train maintenance crews will ensure that the problem is fixed on the same day, although obviously I appreciate that this is of little comfort at the time. As a gesture of goodwill, South West Trains have agreed to offer you a free ticket to travel in Standard Class on South West Trains services only."

Yes, I think that counts as a complaint followed through to resolution. Hopefully, it might mean that South West Trains pay a little more attention to the tables in the accessible spaces. Perhaps it will encourage them to address such complaints with a little more sympathy. Making the complaint itself was a quick and painless process. The only thing that's taken time has been writing about it here.

Music and movies are the food of...

 

2008 was my year of music, with the iPod connector in my new Motability car leading to an iPod for Christmas 2007 in turn leading to an iPhone (and, faithless me, I used to love my BlackBerry). I can watch a movie on my phone, go to youtube to listen to a song track from the film, visit wikipedia to find out about the band, then buy the song on iTunes, all from the comfort of a single digital device. The joys of technological convergence - a perfect storm.

And it's got even better. Credit crunching means spend less and one area to cut back is music. But I want to discover new artists. What can I do other than borrow CDs from the library? Enter last.fm. I remember reading about them ages ago and how they were seen to be the new hot thing in internet start-ups, camping in tents on office roofs, waiting for the big investment. Well, they got their cash, all £140m of it, from CBS as I read here. It's a brilliant concept, a sort-of Sky+ for music. You download the software, it listens to all your tracks then suggests things you might like. If you're into random social networking, it tells you who else likes that music. It tells you about the artist and where they're touring. But I use their "radio station" feature most. You choose an artist, then it live streams songs by similar musicians (with a "buy from iTunes" button). And you can have it on your iPhone. It's a joy.

As is Flixster. It let's you know what films are out, what's coming (on DVDs too), reviews, links to the movie trailers. It also has the social networking side. But their iPhone application has a killer feature: it uses the GPS in the phone to tell you what's on near you and the film times. You can also type in a postcode and it'll do the same for that area. It's quite brilliant.

And they're both free.

Sleep

My sleep is very irregular at the moment. I have no idea any more what is a "normal" or even "necessary" amount of sleep is for me. After fourteen months in hospital when I slept a lot, especially when I was on full-time bed rest, as I had to be for a very long time... After that, I don't know what's normal for me any more. Do I need more sleep than pre-accident because I get more tired? Do I need less because I have less functioning body to get tired now? I have no idea. Some nights I get ten hours sleep, others three. I often need to nap through the day. The other day I went to bed at 7pm because I was so tired, and slept for twelve hours. I felt brilliant when I woke. The next night I went to bed at 11.30pm and slept for about four hours. Not surprisingly perhaps, the following day was horrible.

My body also now seems to think the way sleep works is one good night, one bad night. That's been happening way too often. I had to visit the doctor recently and I asked him about sleeping. "Well, make sure you get into a routine. Go to bed at the same time, get up at the same time". I pointed out that when Annika was away, I got up at 6am and didn't want to get up at 6am every day. He's prescribed some Zopiclone to break the habit. I haven't collected it yet from the chemist, and I'm not sure I want to. It's highly addictive and I'm hoping I can sort this by myself. That said, I'm not sure how long I can keep going with such broken rhythms, with poor nights, with the complete exhaustion. Don't think I need the Guardian to tell me that sleep is good for me.

(Anti) social networking

Read an interesting article asking whether your online life leaves you feeling better or worse about the real world. Does your online life offer social support? For me, the internet is more a resource, a place of information. I have a Facebook account, but my friends are existing friends. I'm on Skype, but again, I chat to existing friends. I don't post in forums. I don't message strangers.

I'm lucky in that I can get around. I have a car and the use of my arms so I can get to see my friends face to face. If I was stuck at home, then I reckon I'd be using the net a lot more. Annika thinks I'm surgically attached to my computer, but I'm usually blog writing or researching. Perhaps as I get older and become less independent then I will use social networking sites more. But to answer the question, right now, my (limited) online life leaves me feeling better about the world.

Ripples

I've always been interested in impact, how one can effect people without realising. I wrote about it here. But recently I've been reminded of it by emails and strange discoveries. Firstly, this from someone who was in the year above me at Cambridge University: "I remember you in the mid-80's when we were both at King's, where we crossed paths only once or twice, and yet where you made an indelible impression on me with the positivity you radiated, a quality which is apparently still intact." What generous words! Embarassingly, I can't recall his face at all.

I did act strangely when I started at King's. I'd just spent a year in Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere, teaching English in a Garifuna village. Going from there to the ivory tower of Oxbridge was fairly extreme. For some reason, I wore a poncho and flip flops. In the winter. Strange choice. (Oh, how people whistled Clint Eastwood theme tunes when I walked into lectures. So original).

I joined a men's group some ten years later. In our first session, we drew our life stories (a great idea), and I drew King's, flip-flops and a poncho for 1984. One of the men was amazed: "I was at Sidney Sussex College at the same time. I remember seeing you walking through the snow in your flip-flops". I was amazed too. The ripples we make...

Amazement continues. Last night I found a link to one of my posts from a stairlift blog: "This heart-touching blogpost by Andrew Farrow teaches us that the good can always be made better. Apparently, the chair of his handicap lift is unable to support him holding on to his balance". It is indeed a funny old world when I've become quotable for my ponderings on stairlifts.

Despair

I have a friend who's suicidally depressed. The worst thing is I know that, ultimately, I can't stop him from killing himself if that's what he chooses to do. I just hate hate hate being so powerless.

I will be the answer
At the end of the line
I will be there for you
While you take the time
In the burning of uncertainty
I will be your solid ground
I will hold the balance
If you can't look down

If it takes my whole life
I won't break, I won't bend
It will all be worth it
Worth it in the end
Cause I can only tell you what I know
That I need you in my life
When the stars have all gone out
You'll still be burning so bright

Cast me gently
Into morning
For the night has been unkind
Take me to a
Place so holy
That I can wash this from my mind
The memory of choosing not to fight

If it takes my whole life
I won't break, I won't bend
It will all be worth it
Worth it in the end
'Cause I can only tell you what I know
That I need you in my life
When the stars have all burned out
You'll still be burning so bright

Cast me gently
Into morning
For the night has been unkind

Please hold on.