Laura Seabrook's Ramblings

And another nice surprise for me is that riding my electric scooter in public streets is now illegal.

There was a high court case recently that confirmed this. Kevin found out about it from a Sydney Morning Herald article. As mentioned in that article, "The director of the bicycle company Eazy Ride, Trevor Patrick, was dismayed by the Supreme Court's decision and has closed his business" so that means I can't even get parts for it.

All I can do is ride in the backyard. I don't know what to do about this. There's a rumour of legislation about this, but I have no idea what. So for the moment, it sits in the shed.

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I've e-mailed my friend Kali and offered it to her. It'd be useful on her property at Lorn.

Kevin couldn't get the parts from up here, only from the distributors in Sydney. That being the case, I didn't have to pick up anything today. However, tomorrow Kevin needs to go to uni. I offered a lend of my Eazyride and also to go down and get the bits.

Sounds like a long trip and it is, but I've done it before and spent most of the time in contemplation and reading. I like that. It'll only cost me $2.50 on a pensioner excursion and Kevin's paying me $15 for the trip (much less than the $40-50 dollars the couriers wanted. Even so, I'll need to be up and away early to get home late but on time.

For now, I just sit back and watch Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise which I found at the Wallsend Library. It's that sort of night.

Got over to Jenn's today, but it was a struggle to do so.

The plan was ride the Eazyride to behind the BP at Glendale, and catch a bus from there. Only the cap that held the cover on the throttle fell off! I stopped the bike immediately and after ten minutes, found the two bits that'd fallen off. Without them, the cover over the throttle was held on only by my hand.

I packed the bits away for later examination (might be able to get them back on tomorrow) and continued on to the BP. Locked the bike up and then discovered I'd missed the bus by 5 minutes. Decided to check out the Salvation Army op-shop until the next bus came. Missed buying a fold out sofa (better than the one I have) for $80, but found a wooden Shogi board for $3 and a book on "Royal Scandals" for $2, so that was good (especially as I have a Shogi set at home but with only a paper board).

Caught the 101 direct to Jenn's, but got there a hour later than she expected. She was better than last time I visited. Her mother was there which was just as well as we both had to help her into the toilet. Jenny used to use a wheelchair to get to the seat but now she needs to use the shower chair (with a hole underneath) to go. Her physical condition is deteriorating more all the time.

Not a cheerful subject, but better to be honest than pretend otherwise. And we can still joke about things, so even though she's in a difficult situation it's not hopeless. I left after 2pm when she needed to take a nap (her mother left first) and did some browsing at Jesmond. Then caught a bus back to the BP and rode home.

I think I need to pop over sometime this week and see how Jenn is. I worry about her. She's been told that if she can't get into/out of /off the wheelchair and her bed and/or sofa, that they'll put her in hospital. I know she doesn't want that.

OK, just a "brief" outline.

Last night when I got home Kevin suggested burgers from the chip shop down the road. That would have been fine but I only had $6 in cash and needed $2.50 for bus fare today. I give him my $5 for $2 of chips but he never returned the change.

Which meant  that when I tried to catch the 7:47am bus this morning to go to a 9am appointment with my counsellor, I didn't have enough money. In fact, I had to go back home and drive the scooter there instead (and then noticed that he hadn't plugged it in to the re-charger yesterday).

Morning peak hour traffic to Wallsend was not pretty  and I coped abuse from some drivers who though I shouldn't be on the road. I got there in time (just) and it was a pretty fucking intense session. I have just been so confused and unfocused in the last few months.

After that, I drove to the university where I parked and locked the EasyRide behind a sign. I checked the Printery for a price on Painter, which I can get for $185. Then I had lunch, and caught the bus in to my afternoon's appointment at the employment agency. I hadn't heard back from the council and while I was there I phoned them to find out.

Seems interviews were last Monday and I never made the short list. Hmmm. Well in a way I'm relieved, but I need to sort of what sort of work I do want to do while doing my Masters (cleaning seems the go, and there's even a group that might train me at it).

As I left I commented that I wanted to find a pawn brokers to buy a 2nd hand mobile phone. One thing led to another and they thought I had a working phone (I don't - 1st got the screen broken, and the 2nd can't make outgoing calls) but of course I didn't. So then they offered to buy me one!

Paperwork got arranged while I went to the library and paid $17 worth of fines (somehow, I forgot to check what was due last week). I got back and my case worker drove me to K-Mart at Waratah where they bought me a Nokia 2310 (locked to Vodafone, which is fine as I already have a prepaid with them). Then he drove me back to the university where I went to retrieve my EasyRide.

Someone had slashed the back tire. It's currently parked inside the Printery (and can stay there until Monday) but I'm not sure what to do.

Caught the bus to Glendale, did a little shopping, and went home. I'm going to have a bath in a minute and "vegge out". What mixed fucking day!

Tried out the scooter again.

 This time I road from Barnsley to the library at Wallsend, then to Jenn's, to Stocklands at Jesmond, and then back home via West Wallsend (as coloured in the image above). Interesting trip.

Riding any bike on the Newcastle Link Road is a potentially dangerous thing to do, as a lot of heavy traffic goes down it. However, most of the way there's a 1.5 to 2 metre should/bike lane each way, so one doesn't have to share the road with such. The exceptions are the roundabouts which have no shoulder/bike way. I normally wouldn't go that way on my push-bike because of the constant winds that blow down it. No such problem with the EasyRide. However...

...coming back it got dark and cold, and I had to turn the lights on. That may have helped exhaust the "B" battery (I'd swapped from the "A" when I got back on the Link Rd) by the time I got back to Minmi Rd. I struggled at low power the rest of the way home, but it was mostly flat or downhill from there on.

I'm effectively finding the range of my scooter. The main energy drains were the hills I had to climb. The dogleg on the outwards trip via Seaham St and George Booth Drive was to try to avoid a very steep hill leading into West Wallsend, followed by another hill before getting to the first roundabout. In any event, I went up one very long hill to that same roundabout.

On a push-bike, I'm normally out of breath going up that one, and also the first slope coming back from Wallsend. On the EasyRide that wasn't the case, and I rarely had to additionally pedal. However, the batteries did get used up.

I took my scooter out for an excursion yesterday, via the route shown below:

I wanted to do three things on the trip:

1. explore the range of the bike;
2. scout out Teralba as a potential terminus for trips to Sydney and into Town; and
3. have some fun!

Theoretically the scooter has a range of 80km, but there are lots of variables in play, including exhausted batteries, the weight carried and the terrain travelled. I have two batteries on it, and used the first up until returning via Teralba, and then swapped over. According to Google Maps the route from Barnsley to Warner's Bay is about 13.7 km (I had to adjust this though, because the default would take you via private roads where giant coal trucks run). Adding an extra 2.5 km for the detour to the Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, that gives a round trip of about 30 km. Not bad for a test. I might be able to visit Jenny's and come back without recharging.

One of the things I was hoping was to use the scooter to get to a railway station in order to catch trains to Sydney, and to get home when I come back. The bus service here is such that on a weekend that last one out is at 4pm. That means that if I want to go to a club down in Sydney, I have to leave real early, and can't get back from the station coming home without waiting for a mid day bus. That's one big reason why I stopped going to clubs and other events in Sydney. The exceptions were when I was staying with friends, and travelled back the day after (or even the day after that). When I had the car, it wasn't an issue, but no car = great difficulty.

Can't say that I was impressed with the facilities at Teralba, but the do have a caravan park there - perhaps I could rent a spot for the night. I mentioned this idea to Kevin and he said I could probably even get power there, and recharge the bike while I was away! The other location is Cockle Creek Station, which has a platform you can walk on (rather than stairs to a central platform - makes a difference lugging a 70 kg bike) on either side, so I could take my bike with me. That has issues too, but it's a possibility. I can just see myself riding around Sydney on my yellow scooter.

And did I have fun? Yes. Had a waffle at Warner's Bay, did some shopping at the Coles there, and got home safely.

I had no reply as such to the email I sent on the 7th. However, a package post-marked the 8th arrived yesterday. It contained a very annoying security lock and a proper manual (not, as one of them claimed, something they'd downloaded and printed). And that was it.

Kevin wants me to go to eBay about getting some money back. I don't want to do this until the end of the day, otherwise I'll never get the cleaning done.

I drove the scooter up to West Wallsend and back today. Put some air in the tyres at the servo and had chips with Kevin at BlueBells.

Vroom Vroom (can you get the reference?)!