The Honeymoon Story (Part Three)

At last, the final part of the honeymoon story in which we find out why I have of a fear of Lakeland Plastics.

If you haven't read parts one and two then you might like to click here and here to catch up on this tale of lakes, love and the emergency services. I'm not sure why it has taken me so long to write part three, perhaps it is because I'm still living with the consequences, or may be I just forgot. Grit your teeth (l really mean that), and let's go.

Have you ever heard of Lakeland Plastics? Nowadays it's just called Lakeland and sells kitchenware and useful type stuff for the home. 15 years ago it was primarily a catalogue based company with very few retail outlets, the biggest being the factory outlet at Windermere in the Lake District, the company's head quarters. Polly, as soon as she learned of our honeymoon destination, determined to visit this homeware Mecca. If I remember correctly she particularly wanted a muffin baking tray, but more eagerly she wanted to gaze upon the many kinds of plastic based storage solutions the company had to offer. We were, after all, just setting up home. So, after visiting the home of Wordsworth or Beatrix Potter, after cruising the lakes on steamboats, after dining on locally caught freshwater fish, visiting tarns and becks, fells and dales, taking in some of the country's most beautiful vistas and panoramas, Polly would ask, “When are we going to go to Lakeland Plastics?”

Towards the end of the fortnight, the early October weather turned more unsettled and a day taking in the shops of Bowness and Windermere seemed quite an attractive proposition. There were several bookshops I'd spotted and right at the top of the hill, next to the railway station was the afore mentioned Lakeland Plastics. Polly, with uncharacteristic patience, indulged me as I browsed shelves of local history books and biographies of Wordsworth and Arthur Ransome, and flicked through endless watercolours of the local landscapes, gently herding me up the hill towards her ultimate destination.

Finally we were inside the strip-lit outlet of all things kitchenware, polyurethane and pastel coloured. I feigned as much interest as I could in breakfast cereal storage options and plastic freezer boxes. Polly was remarkably restrained, only buying a few bits and pieces but taking note of things she would order later, so we eventually left the store relatively unburdened with carrier bags. A fine Cumbrian drizzle had started so we decided to head back to the warmth and dryness of our hotel. Polly hung the bags on the back of the heavy duty, out door powered wheelchair, the Cheetah, and we set off down the busy hill, lined with mostly inaccessible craft and gift shops.

The pavement (side walk) was much too narrow for us to walk side by side so Polly hung back a few feet. Something in one of the shop windows caught her eye and she paused briefly while I trundled on ahead. The drizzle turned to a light but coat soaking rain and my mind was fixed on getting to somewhere dry. As I approached the junction with a small side road the pavement steepened and slightly banked towards the road, the well worn, ancient, flagstones were greasy with the wet and before I knew it the wheelchair began to slide with a sickening, unstoppable inevitability towards the nine inch high curb and the busy traffic filled road. I pulled back on the joystick controller but the weight of the chair and the slickness of the ground beneath the wheels only produced a high pitched squealing sound and caused the chair to slew towards the side road. I heard Polly shout and felt her pulling on the back of the chair but gravity won out and the small leading wheels slipped over the curb, tilting the chair forward and sending me beyond the point of balance. There was a slow motion, plenty of time to see what was going to happen but nothing you can do about it moment, and I fell face forward from the chair. Polly just managed to stop the chair from following the over the edge and on top of me as I did a bone crunching three point landing, two knees and a chin, on to the rain soaked road. There was a shriek of brakes as startled drivers skidded to a halt around me and a kind of crunching, cracking sound as six of my teeth shattered. An awful lot of blood was being washed away from me and down a drain a few feet away.

Within a second Polly was kneeling beside me and crowd of curious and horrified on lookers had gathered. “Are you all right? Stephen? Say something.” “Uhggh. . .,” I replied. “Umph 'roken m' teef.” Little white pieces of enamel fell from my mouth. A local shopkeeper came rushing over carrying a small green box. “I'm trained in first aid,” he declared excitedly. “Sod that,” said someone else. “Call an ambulance.”

I don't know if you have ever lain face down in a Cumbrian towns main road, causing a massive tailback of traffic, but if you have, like me, you will probably not remember the experience fondly. It was cold and wet, shock was setting in, and the ambulance was taking forever to get there because some fool was lying in the road holding up the traffic. Polly had to stop well meaning people from 'helping to get him back on his feet' or practising their Cub Scout first aid training. My teeth began to chatter and that hurt like hell.

Later, much later, at a casualty unit in Kendal my chin was stitched up and I was given some painkillers. I asked to see a dentist but they looked at me as if I was asking for an audience with the alien leader of a small planet circling one of the stars in Orion's belt, so I was resigned to waiting until we got back to London. The inside of my mouth felt distinctly unfamiliar.

We still had a couple of days left of our honeymoon but by the following day my tongue had begun to swell and turn a fetching shade of black. Somehow the romance had gone out of it. By the time we were back at home my tongue was rubbed raw on the jagged edges of my teeth and I was slightly feverish. Miraculously I didn't lose any of my teeth. Six were cracked and broken but I didn't lose them. Even today if I run my tongue around my mouth I can feel the damage. And a shiver runs down my spine every time I see a plastic freezer box.

And so ends the saga of our honeymoon, our first holiday together. Fortunately this was not a foretaste of things to come. Over the last 15 years we have had plenty of lovely holidays, some of them without incident. (Not many, but a few.)

A Clarification (Under No Duress Whatsoever)

Polly, upon reading the last post, The Honeymoon Story (Part Two), wishes me to clarify something; and since she feeds me, cares for my children, attends to my medical needs, and sleeps with me, it would be churlish, not to say dangerous, to deny her.

She wishes me to make known that the reason we ran out of petrol was not because she negligently did not fill the tank when needed but because the petrol gage was faulty and indicated that the tank was ¼ full. There, I'm sure we all feel better for knowing that.

Oh, and while Polly agrees that the incident was terrifying, she says it pales into insignificance when compared to what happened later.

The Honeymoon Story (Part Two)

In which the police are needed.

Polly drove the hired Ford Escort van north on the M1 and then the M6 to Cumbria and the Lake District. The English lakes are a place of unsurpassed beauty and timeless charm. That crumpled corner of the country has inspired poets such as Wordsworth and authors like Beatrix Potter and, my favourite, Arthur Ransome. I had several happy family holidays there as a child and I was longing to show Polly the region. We were booked into a hotel in Bowness on Windermere just a few minutes from the edge of the districts largest lake.

Our hotel had a wheelchair accessible room in an annex at the back of the older main house. The dining room had views over the lake while our room overlooked the mature grounds. Unsurprisingly, given the previous nights experience, the first thing I did on arrival was check that my wheelchair fitted through the en suite bathroom door. It did. The room was unspectacular but comfortable.

We spent the first few days visiting some of the dozens of meres, waters, and tarns (the Lake District only actually has one 'lake`, Bassenthwaite Lake). Polly insisted we visit

The World of Beatrix Potter, an homage to all 23 of her tales, where we could see Mrs Tiggy-winkle in her kitchen and Peter Rabbit in Mr McGregor's garden. (My sympathies were firmly with Mr McGregor. That rabbit should have been road-kill. Blue jacket or not.) On another day we visited the Steamboat Museum where I was delighted to see the original Amazon from Swallows and Amazons. (You will have to had read the books to understand the excitement I felt. Polly hadn't so to her it was just an old wooden dinghy.)

About a week into our holiday we de

cided to visit Kendal, home of the famous Mint Cake, a confection so sweet you get tooth decay just by looking at it. We took the busy A591 out of Bowness, a multi-lane road that rises over the low fells. As we came round a steep bend the van suddenly juddered to a halt, cars behind us slammed on their brakes and swerved around us, tyres screeched and horns blared. Polly desperately tried to start the engine again but to no avail. A coach hurtled round the bend, missing us by inches, the driver's ashen face flashing by mouthing obscenities, along with forty terrified passengers. “We can't stay here,” I shouted above the roar of traffic. “Oh, really?” replied my beloved. “ I thought now would be a good time for our picnic.” Before I had time to remind her that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, a lorry sounded it's air horn as it narrowly missed us and we both realised that we were in serious danger. Polly had flicked the hazard warning lights on but they were as effective as a match in a blizzard. We were facing up hill so couldn't roll forward onto the grass verge, and

because of the traffic screaming up behind us we dare not drift backwards. “Any ideas?” I asked.

You must remember this was long before mobile phones were commonplace so the only practical thing to do was find a land line somewhere. We hadn't passed a phone box on our way out of Bowness and there wasn't one in sight a head of us. About a quarter of a mile away on our right, across the busy road, was a farmhouse. It was our only hope. Polly very carefully slid out of the van and, leaping straight out of the frying pan, dashed across the road, ignoring the flattened hedgehogs as she ran. I spent a terrifying 10 minutes, bracing myself for impact at any moment, waiting for her to return and praying whoever lived in the farmhouse wasn't out hunting sheep or worrying sheepdogs or whatever it is farmers in that area do for a living. Eventually she returned and, standing on the verge and shouting through my window, said she had phoned the police and that hadn't she been good not to accept the farmer's kind offer of a cup of tea. In the distance a siren could just be heard above the sound of brakes and horns.

The police car came to a halt right behind us, lights flashing, and two women police officers climbed out. I was hugely relieved to have a buffer between me and the flow of speeding traffic,. While Polly explained to one of officers the situation and how she had risked life and limb to call them, the other one looked daggers at me. You could see her thinking what an oaf I was, sitting there while my wife ran around sorting things out. She tapped on the door and stuck her head through the window. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, making the 'sir' sound as if it were another way saying 'you slug'. “Could you please get out of the vehicle and join your wife on the verge.” “I can't,” I said about to explain. “Get out of the vehicle, sir. You can't stay there, it's dangerous.” Again, I tried to explain. “I'd love to get out, but. . .” “Out now!” “I will as soon as you move your police car back so we can open our van door and get my wheelchair out so I can transfer into it.” There was a pause while the officer rapidly reassessed the situation. “I'm so sorry, sir. You stay there and we'll sort it out. Liz! Move the car back down the hill. The gentleman can't get out of his vehicle. I don't think it's safe for him to get into his wheelchair.” You could see Liz do a double take and realise I wasn't a complete chauvinist slob. The two officers backed away as if the van might burn them and leapt into action. They placed safety cones around us and contacted a garage to fetch a tow truck.

A while later we were towed up the hill and off the main road. The mechanic diagnosed the problem within seconds. We had run out of petrol. We gave up on Kendal and went for a cup of tea instead.

There were five more days of our honeymoon to go. We were looking forward to a pleasant few days. The only thing Polly had her heart set on was a visit to Lakeland Plastics. I couldn't see any reason not to go. It was a decision I would come to regret.

The Honeymoon Story (Part One)

In which a Swiss Army knife is needed.

The first night of your honeymoon is supposed to be memorable, and believe me Polly's and mine certainly was. If you've been following the tale of our wedding day then you will know that we had both been sent to be covered in confetti at an event called London Lights. Afterwards we were driven to our flat where we met up with my best man Kevin and his partner Harvey who had been unloading the huge pile of wedding presents and cafetieres.

The story continues. . .

In those long agodays I used a manual wheelchair for everyday use but had a high powered out door electric wheelchair for whizzing to the shops and such like. We had hired a small van for the duration of the honeymoon and Kevin and Harvey helped us load the heavy chair in to it. I made the, by today's standard easy, transfer to the passenger seat and we were off. Polly did not yet know where we were spending our wedding night so I directed us through South London towards Wimbledon.

Polly grew up a few miles from Wimbledon common and had spent many happy times there. On the edge of the common is an area called Cannizaro Park, named for the house that has stood there in one form or another since the 18^th Century. When Polly was a girl the house was a rather twee nursing home and she could see

residents taking tea on the veranda from the house's now public gardens. She often wondered what it was like inside the grand building. In the late 1980s the house was converted into a fine country hotel and this was where

we were heading.

Our little Ford Escort van pulled into the car park and found a space between a BMW and a Mercedes and we made our way into the hotel. Dressed in our best going away outfits we didn't look too out of place as we were led to our room but both felt that any second someone would demand to know what we thought we were doing there. Our room was lovely, with an en suite bathroom, and their was a bottle of Champagne waiting for us. We couldn't spend long in there because we had a table booked in the restaurant. So, grabbing our bottle of Champagne, we headed back downstairs.

The restaurant was silver service and when our main course arrived and as two waiters dramatically lifted the silver domes from the plates I watched Polly struggle not to say “Ta-dah”. The meal was great and we realized how hungry we were having not managed more than a mouthful at the reception what with the speeches and the catching up with friends and relatives. It was late by the time we got back to our room and we were both tired.

I went into the bathroom and was relieved to find the wheelchair just squeezed through the doorway without scratching too much paint in the process. A few minutes later, face scrubbed and teeth brushed, I turned the chair around and prepared to return to the room and hopefully some nuptials. Unfortunately although the chair squeezed in it wouldn't squeeze out. The door opened inwards and was prevented from hitting the wall by a small rubber doorstop. On the way in the doorstop gave just enough to allow the chair in but going out was another matter. I tried, I really tried, but on the first night of my honeymoon I was firmly stuck in the bathroom while my beloved changed in to something appropriate for the occasion.

I called for Polly who came and pushed at the door trying to get the doorstop to give enough to let me out. It was useless and after several minutes of trying she had to concede defeat. “I suppose we could sleep in the bath,” I said. “There's a great big comfy bed in there. You can sleep in the bath, I know where I'm sleeping.”

After a few more fruitless moments of increasingly frustrating pushing and shoving Polly had a brainwave. She got up and found her handbag and I heard her rummaging through it. She returned waving a two inch red Swiss Army knife. Somewhere among the serrated blades, pointy things and stone removers was a small screwdriver. The rubber doorstop was was unscrewed and at last I was set free. Polly clicked the knife shut and I followed to the bedroom.

In the morning we were off to the English Lake District for two weeks and by now it was past midnight and we were both exhausted. Polly, armed and beautiful looked at me, smiled and asked, “So, what should we do now?” I looked at her, I looked at the bed. “Sleep?” I said hopefully. “Oh, thank goodness for that,” she said and promptly fell asleep.