Baby Steps

In the old normal times Ferretfingers: attended day centres on a Monday and Wednesday; Tuesday afternoons I took him to an Adult Learning Alliance class (flower arranging), Emil from LD:NorthEast took him swimming and to the City Farm on Thursday and Friday mornings.  The ankle and present unpleasantness put an end to all that.

As you will remember from yesterday’s blog LD:NE’s outreach services are slowly and carefully starting up again. Ferretfingers is out with Emil for the second day running, but swimming and the City Farm are out of the question.

In North Tyneside we are fortunate to still have the routes of the old coal Waggonways available as paths and bridleways.  The Waggonways moved waggons of coal from the pits to the river port simply using the power of gravity.  They are sloping but very gently so.  Too flat and the waggons wouldn't have moved, too steep and they'd have been uncontrollable.

So for the foreseeable future Ferretfingers and Emil are going for long walks;  plus the occasional bus or metro ride.  Ferretfingers is very good at wearing a facemask, carries handsanitizer and his travel a pass is contactless - he knows the score.

Yesterday they walked up part of Coxlodge Waggonway then took to the streets to get to ‘our’ florist.  It’s a one woman florist, cards, gifts and confectionery shop.  She knows Ferretfingers well.  The sweets are in big jars which she weighs out into paper bags, the green old-fashioned way.

Today the plan is to walk, via the Waggonway, to the recently opened Lidl at South Gosforth which Ferretfingers has seen in passing and is eager to visit.

"Is there anything he shouldn't buy?" asked Emil, knowing Ferretfingers habits (thank goodness he's got over his Oxo obsession)

"Tea!" replied Fester as we have a few thousand bags in boxes on the top shelf.

 His sessions with Emil are up to four hours long.  According to Emil’s smartphone yesterday they walked three and a half miles.  Today he hopes to get him to walk even further, walking being the best physio for his ankle. 

Over the next week or so I shall be scanning the Waggonway maps to see where and how much further they might go.