Saturday was a friend’s 65th birthday, being held in our local, small, pub.

We decided to walk down. It got some steps in for me, it meant neither of us had to think about driving and, importantly, we wanted to get there early enough to get a seat.

That last decision turned out to be wise.

Our friend had invited a lot of people.

A lot of people.

It’s a small pub and I’m not convinced he’d done the maths.

Before long it was absolutely packed. People everywhere, everyone talking, moving around, standing wherever there happened to be a few spare inches of floor.

None of this bothered me particularly. It was a birthday party. It was supposed to be busy and it was actually nice seeing so many people there.

Then I needed a wee .

And I realised I couldn’t get to the toilet .

Not “ugh, there are loads of people in the way”. I physically couldn’t see a sensible route through them.

Before the stroke, this wouldn’t even have registered as a problem. I’d have nimbly squeezed through the gaps, turned sideways occasionally, said “sorry” to approximately fifteen people who didn’t actually need apologising to and eventually got there.

I can’t do that now.

My mobility is good enough for me to get around and do the things I want to do, but I need a bit more room than I used to. Balance and Where I put my feet matter.

A tightly packed pub therefore presents something of a logistical challenge.

I was contemplating the sea of bodies when another regular spotted me.

He immediately realised what the problem was and basically took me with him through the crowd grabbing my arm and pulling me in the right direction

Problem kind-of  solved.

No fuss. No dramatic intervention. I didnt need to explain what I needed. He knew me, saw that I was struggling and instinctively helped.

And it got me thinking about how many things have changed that I’d never have thought twice about before.

It’s not always the obvious stuff

When we talk about disability and mobility, it’s easy to think about the big, obvious things.

Can I manage stairs and doors?

Those things obviously matter.

But quite a lot of living with reduced mobility is much more mundane than that.

Sometimes it’s standing in a pub thinking, “How exactly am I going to get from here to there?”

Nothing about the pub was wrong.

I want to be really clear about that, because it’s our local, we go there regularly and I wouldn’t want this to sound like a criticism of them. It wasn’t an accessibility problem caused by the venue.

It was simply very, very busy.

Nobody in the crowd was doing anything wrong either. They were standing around having drinks and celebrating a birthday, which is generally what you’re supposed to do at a birthday party in a pub.

The difference was me.

Before my stroke, the crowd would have been a minor inconvenience.

Now it’s a barrier.

Not an insurmountable one, as it turned out. Sometimes you just need someone else to notice and act as a snow plow

Being noticed helps

I actually think that’s the bit that stayed with me most.

The person who helped me didn’t make a thing of it, they barely know me beyond my name

He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t give me an elaborate offer of assistance. He saw me, worked out what was happening and helped me get where I was trying to go.

Simple. kind.

I spend a lot of my life being stubbornly independent. There’s plenty I can do for myself and, where I can, I will or I’ll find a way.

But sometimes accepting somebody’s help is simply the sensible option.

Later, after about two hours, we’d both had enough of being quite so intimately acquainted with half of our village, so we went to the pub opposite where there was considerably more room.

No dramatic departure. No complaint. We just fancied some space.

And perhaps that’s why the whole thing stuck with me.

Disability doesn’t always announce itself through some huge obstacle.

Sometimes it’s much quieter than that.

Sometimes it’s something you’ve done thousands of times without thinking, like getting up and going to the toilet , suddenly requiring you to stop and work out how you’re going to do it.

Then somebody spots you, drags you through the crowd and you carry on with your evening.

Which, really, is all I ever want to do.