No. 4 Monday 6 June 2011
Last week, as the weather was kind for folks like me, I went out on two days - Thursday and Friday. These outings were both to the City, but for different reasons which I will explain below. To make my getaway I resorted to the local bus service which, despite the curious routing, is at least reliable and has very helpful staff. The first to come along on Thursday was one without wheelchair access so I enjoyed a fifteen minute wait in the sun rather than go the short distance to the next stop and the confines of a shelter. The second bus was accessible and twenty minutes or so later I was in the City centre.
The target for that day was the docks and Gloucester Quays about which I had heard little and had no idea how far from the centre they were. Following the assorted signposts got me there surprisingly quickly and the entire route was wheelchair friendly (as, I have found, is most of Gloucester). The descent to the docks from road level was by a ramp which zig-zagged down to the lower level. Once there I did a little exploring and soon found Gloucester Quays. I was surprised to find a modern pedestrian mall in such a location and wondered why I hadn't caught up with the publicity - I certainly was not aware of its existence despite having lived here for over eighteen months. I wandered through the arcade and bought a fair sized garden ornament from one of the shops. This was followed by an ice cream at a cafe and a trip back up the zig-zag ramp and the streets to the bus stop. The bus trip home brought an end to an enjoyable and instructive day.
The Friday outing was altogether a different expedition. I had decided that, having a roughly brown and pale cream colour scheme in the bedroom, I would continue that into the adjoining bathroom. I had already bought some brown face flannels from the market (some time ago) but hadn't put them to use, so my aim was to get cream towels to complete the job. The bus was a bit odd in that it looked like a mobile advertising hoarding which I thought would be very dark inside because adverts covered all the side windows. It was only when I was inside that I realised that the coverings on the windows were, in fact, very fine mesh which didn't obstruct the view too much. On reaching the shops I went to one which would, I thought, be most likely to have the towels. The lift to the appropriate floor was very shallow (front to back) and thus my presence in it made it very difficult for anyone else to get in. On reaching the relevant department I found a distinct drawback to this shop - the displayed goods were on islands which were all formed from square platforms about ten inches high and were positioned too close together for my wheelchair to fit between them conveniently. Luckily I could see from the main aisle, by peering through the other displays, that they didn't have any cream towels. I left without wasting any time looking around this store which obviously didn't want wheelchair users as customers. The other store I tried was much more covenient except that, to get to the upper floor, I had to be taken up in a goods lift which had manual doors (which I couldn't manage) and control buttons out of my reach. Fortunately there was a staff member nearby who did the operation. I found the towels I wanted, and to reach the face towels, used the lifting facility of my wheelchair for the first time. Normally, if I can't reach anything, I ask a nearby person to reach it for me, but as there was nobody near it was a good opportunity to try out the chair's lift - which worked entirely as expected. Shopping completed it was back to the bus stop and the bus home - coincidentally the same mobile billboard as I had used earlier.
All told they were two very different but, each in its own way, useful additions to my understanding of Gloucester.
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