Flickr meet

Today there was a Flickr meet in Norwich, and I was able to go thanks to much planning and the lovely lovely Jiva not only inviting me but also offering to push me around in my chair.

For anyone who doesn't know, Flickr is a photo-sharing site with community aspects. A meet works in much the same way as any other internet meet-up. You arrange a (hopefully) easy to find, public place and a suitable time. Some people will swap mobile numbers but mostly you turn up at the appointed place and time and look around suspiciously at anyone holding a camera, while trying desperately to remember what people's profile pictures looked like. Eventually you identify a few others from your group, and after a drink and a bit of a chat while waiting for latecomers to arrive, you all wander onwards, in our case to take photos of Things.

I got all my stuff ready last night, so that all I had to do this morning was get up, get dressed, and get outside to wait for the taxi that would take me to the train station.

Problem One: The train station ticket office doesn't have automatic doors. It only has very heavy manual doors. So I had to tap and wait for a member of the public to let me in.

A lady opened the door for me, very good of her. However her next action lost her the place in the Nice People Today List. I pulled out my purse and moved towards the ticket machine - which is perfectly accessible - and she TRIED TO TAKE MY PURSE. She wasn't trying to steal it or anything, she just thought I was too stupid to operate the machine, and that this gave her the right to grab at my stuff "to be helpful".

The meet was fun. There were maybe about 10 or 15 of us, and we had a good time. Jiva was an absolute star, pushing me around almost all day except a little while when Rover75 had a go (Rover, you really should have asked *me* before starting pushing rather than Jiva, but it's a technicality so I'll let it go). We started at the Forum, and then we moved along to some sort of street arts festival thingy, clowns and facepainting for kiddies and alternative dance and so on.

After a bit the group kind of broke up, people wandering off with their cameras to take their own photos, so Jiva and I headed for the nice smooth level surfaces of the Chapelfield shopping mall to get lunch and have a proper girly chatter. I think it was much needed for both of us. Then it was a quick but essential stop at Hotel Chocolat and then getting the Information Desk to order us a taxi back to the train station.

It's amazing how knackered I can get just sitting in a chair all day though. I'm glad I can sleep on trains!

NICE PEOPLE TODAY:
- all the people who held doors open (4 I think)
- the woman who offered to help me get my wheelchair onto the train
- the festival steward who ushered Jiva and me to the front of the crowd so we could watch the clown despite our height disadvantage
- the happy, chatty staff in Hotel Chocolat
- an extra mention for Jiva's chair-pushing efforts, there's a lot of slopes, kerbs and cobbles in Norwich!


NASTY PEOPLE TODAY:
- the troll commenter, although I think that may be more "annoying".