Leicester trip part 1 - How and why I got there
Thursday, 12 December 2024 21:08![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zimenaI've been meaning to write this post for a few days, but I've been too emotional to do it. Plus, there is a lot to talk about, and I wasn't sure I were in the mood to type it all up. In fact, I'm still not sure about that, but it feels important to have this here, so I'm simply going to get started, and let's see where this goes.
So, back in late November, I realised that Mark Selby was going to play in the Shootout. That's a special kind of snooker tournament which is on a timer: Each match takes a maximum of 10 minutes. For the first 5 minutes, players have 15 seconds to take a shot. Then, for the final 5 minutes, the shot timer goes down to 10 seconds per shot. The only other major difference from regular snooker is that any foul results in the opponent getting the cueball in hand, and being able to put it wherever he likes - not just in the D and behind the baulk line, but wherever, anywhere on the table. Because of Mark's generally patient approach to the game, I've often joked that there's no way he'd be doing the shootout, and I don't think he has been in it for several years, either.
This time, however, the tournament was going to be played in his home city of Leicester.
That, coupled with the fact that he's still not guaranteed to be in the tournament I'm going to with the best friend in Manchester at the beginning of April, made me think that the Shootout would be a great chance to see Mark play. On home ground, in his home city, no less. The idea kind of fell into my head one evening, and I couldn't shake it afterwards.
I tried to get the best friend to come with me first, but he couldn't because of work. He did, however, ask me what was stopping me from going alone. I gave him all the usual reasons: me being nervous about travelling with the wheelchair alone, and never having travelled by plane with a power wheelchair before being the main ones. And also, the fact that I've never truly travelled alone at all, much less abroad. He basically went: "Well, you go on two trains to come and visit me, so of course you can also go on trains in the UK, why wouldn't that be just as fine?" And for every argument I had that made me insecure, he countered it and reminded me that I'm already doing many of the same things at home, and that we already talked about the UK being extremely wheelchair-friendly and accessible during our trip to London in the Summer - back then I was constantly stunned at how much BETTER things were there, compared to here, when it comes to accessibility stuff.
He probably won't listen to it if I tell him, but I honestly think it was him giving me the courage to try. Because when I first came up with the idea for this trip, it felt like a fun thought, but also a lofty dream that wasn't quite within reach.
But... within a few days, I had booked Shootout tickets for three days, flights to the UK and back, and a hotel in Leicester. Even while I did that, it felt like I was doing something unreal; I didn't quite realise that this was about to happen, now.
And happen, it did.
I left home on Tuesday, December 3rd. Getting from Kristiansand to Leicester took two flights (first to Oslo, and then to London), an hour on the London Underground, and another good hour on a train from London to Leicester. Including the waiting times or movement between each stage of the trip, the whole journey was about 12 hours. To be honest, when I got my power wheelchair back after landing in London, and everything was in good shape with it, I was never nervous at any point of the journey - I was simply enjoying it, feeling like I was in some kind of fairy tale that wasn't really happening to me.
The only slight problem point on that part of the journey was that I ended up having quite a small amount of time to find my train when I got off the tube at King's Cross station. However, I had booked assistance for the train trip, because I needed to use a ramp to get on the train. As it turned out, the assistance guy met up with me at King's Cross, and I could simply follow him to my platform - which was quite a tour, needing several lifts and making various turns. Yes, everything was marked and it's definitely possible to find the way on my own as well, but with limited time available, it was very convenient to just follow someone who knew exactly where he was going. Suffice to say, we made it to the platform 4 minutes ahead of time, and getting on the train via the ramp was no problem at all. It looked suspiciously narrow, to the point that I didn't think my chair would be able to get into the compartment or fit in the wheelchair spot, but it totally did. HAH!
This thing about narrow spaces was also the same with the train back, as well as on Leicester buses, by the way. The buses had a fold-out ramp which the driver put out for me when I wanted to get on or off, and the bus itself looked narrow as heck to navigate with my wheelchair. But: it worked, 100%. Of course sometimes I wish I had travelled with the manual wheelchair instead, because these spaces would be a lot more convenient with a smaller chair, but mostly I was very grateful to have the power one, because it also meant that I could get around much more easily without exhausting my arms too much with moving over large distances.
Anyway, my hotel in Leicester was perhaps not the most ideal one. Because the trip happened so fast and was booked so close to the time I was supposed to leave, most of the nicer looking hotels were already sold out. I even looked at a room in one place, and while I was looking up the location of that hotel on the map, that room had gone and I could no longer book it. But still, I had quite a big room, a comfortable bed, a desk and a sofa... and a nice, but small, bathroom with no chair in the shower. When I asked for one, they didn't have one - and I mean, it doesn't need to be an actual shower chair - as long as there's no fabric on it, it would have sorted the issue for me. Hence, I had to resort to makeshift solutions with using extra towels in place of showering. I even managed to wash my hair, though, so everything works if you're just willing to think a bit outside of the box.
My new motto is definitely this: "Nothing is impossible. The word itself says I'm Possible."
... which seems to be a quote by Audrey Hepburn, but I didn't know that when I first thought of it. It really feels like the description of this trip, though - and hopefully of many other things to come after this.
Anyway, after arriving in the hotel, I had some yummy Indian food from the hotel restaurant, and then went to my room to rest/sleep. It felt so surreal, even thinking that I were in Leicester. I mean, who goes to the UK to travel there of all places? Well, I did, and I was so, so happy to be there.
The snooker actually started the day after I got there, on Wednesday. I had, however, not bought a ticket for that day, as none of my favourite players were in action then anyway. Plus, I also wanted some time to look around the city, to feel like I had actually been there rather than just seen only the area between my hotel and the snooker arena. Hence, I took Wednesday off, and ended up going for a small walk (yes, being in the power wheelchair counts as "walking" to me, don't even try to tell me that it's called "a roll" or some other silliness!) around the city centre, before taking a bus to the National Space Centre a bit outside the city centre.
That was a museum of space-related items, including a lot of information about space exploration, and especially the USSR vs US space race during the Cold War. I especially loved all the USSR-themed stuff they had, though of course they also focused on any Brits who have been in space, even down to displaying their real equipment that they had used. In short, the place was amazing and I spent a few hours there and really enjoyed it. There was also a special room where you could see a replica of the night sky above Leicester at a certain point in time, and they'd show you how to spot different constellations, show where stars and planets are in relation to each other, and there was even a show of sorts which zoomed in an out of different details on the night sky, in order to explain about galaxies, nebulas, and even the place of the Earth and other planets in the universe. It was very interesting and beautiful to see, though much of the info just went right over my head, too.
I've talked for quite some time already, so I'm going to stop here. In the next post, I'm going to tell you about my three days in Snooker Heaven, because yes, that's the only way to describe it.
So, back in late November, I realised that Mark Selby was going to play in the Shootout. That's a special kind of snooker tournament which is on a timer: Each match takes a maximum of 10 minutes. For the first 5 minutes, players have 15 seconds to take a shot. Then, for the final 5 minutes, the shot timer goes down to 10 seconds per shot. The only other major difference from regular snooker is that any foul results in the opponent getting the cueball in hand, and being able to put it wherever he likes - not just in the D and behind the baulk line, but wherever, anywhere on the table. Because of Mark's generally patient approach to the game, I've often joked that there's no way he'd be doing the shootout, and I don't think he has been in it for several years, either.
This time, however, the tournament was going to be played in his home city of Leicester.
That, coupled with the fact that he's still not guaranteed to be in the tournament I'm going to with the best friend in Manchester at the beginning of April, made me think that the Shootout would be a great chance to see Mark play. On home ground, in his home city, no less. The idea kind of fell into my head one evening, and I couldn't shake it afterwards.
I tried to get the best friend to come with me first, but he couldn't because of work. He did, however, ask me what was stopping me from going alone. I gave him all the usual reasons: me being nervous about travelling with the wheelchair alone, and never having travelled by plane with a power wheelchair before being the main ones. And also, the fact that I've never truly travelled alone at all, much less abroad. He basically went: "Well, you go on two trains to come and visit me, so of course you can also go on trains in the UK, why wouldn't that be just as fine?" And for every argument I had that made me insecure, he countered it and reminded me that I'm already doing many of the same things at home, and that we already talked about the UK being extremely wheelchair-friendly and accessible during our trip to London in the Summer - back then I was constantly stunned at how much BETTER things were there, compared to here, when it comes to accessibility stuff.
He probably won't listen to it if I tell him, but I honestly think it was him giving me the courage to try. Because when I first came up with the idea for this trip, it felt like a fun thought, but also a lofty dream that wasn't quite within reach.
But... within a few days, I had booked Shootout tickets for three days, flights to the UK and back, and a hotel in Leicester. Even while I did that, it felt like I was doing something unreal; I didn't quite realise that this was about to happen, now.
And happen, it did.
I left home on Tuesday, December 3rd. Getting from Kristiansand to Leicester took two flights (first to Oslo, and then to London), an hour on the London Underground, and another good hour on a train from London to Leicester. Including the waiting times or movement between each stage of the trip, the whole journey was about 12 hours. To be honest, when I got my power wheelchair back after landing in London, and everything was in good shape with it, I was never nervous at any point of the journey - I was simply enjoying it, feeling like I was in some kind of fairy tale that wasn't really happening to me.
The only slight problem point on that part of the journey was that I ended up having quite a small amount of time to find my train when I got off the tube at King's Cross station. However, I had booked assistance for the train trip, because I needed to use a ramp to get on the train. As it turned out, the assistance guy met up with me at King's Cross, and I could simply follow him to my platform - which was quite a tour, needing several lifts and making various turns. Yes, everything was marked and it's definitely possible to find the way on my own as well, but with limited time available, it was very convenient to just follow someone who knew exactly where he was going. Suffice to say, we made it to the platform 4 minutes ahead of time, and getting on the train via the ramp was no problem at all. It looked suspiciously narrow, to the point that I didn't think my chair would be able to get into the compartment or fit in the wheelchair spot, but it totally did. HAH!
This thing about narrow spaces was also the same with the train back, as well as on Leicester buses, by the way. The buses had a fold-out ramp which the driver put out for me when I wanted to get on or off, and the bus itself looked narrow as heck to navigate with my wheelchair. But: it worked, 100%. Of course sometimes I wish I had travelled with the manual wheelchair instead, because these spaces would be a lot more convenient with a smaller chair, but mostly I was very grateful to have the power one, because it also meant that I could get around much more easily without exhausting my arms too much with moving over large distances.
Anyway, my hotel in Leicester was perhaps not the most ideal one. Because the trip happened so fast and was booked so close to the time I was supposed to leave, most of the nicer looking hotels were already sold out. I even looked at a room in one place, and while I was looking up the location of that hotel on the map, that room had gone and I could no longer book it. But still, I had quite a big room, a comfortable bed, a desk and a sofa... and a nice, but small, bathroom with no chair in the shower. When I asked for one, they didn't have one - and I mean, it doesn't need to be an actual shower chair - as long as there's no fabric on it, it would have sorted the issue for me. Hence, I had to resort to makeshift solutions with using extra towels in place of showering. I even managed to wash my hair, though, so everything works if you're just willing to think a bit outside of the box.
My new motto is definitely this: "Nothing is impossible. The word itself says I'm Possible."
... which seems to be a quote by Audrey Hepburn, but I didn't know that when I first thought of it. It really feels like the description of this trip, though - and hopefully of many other things to come after this.
Anyway, after arriving in the hotel, I had some yummy Indian food from the hotel restaurant, and then went to my room to rest/sleep. It felt so surreal, even thinking that I were in Leicester. I mean, who goes to the UK to travel there of all places? Well, I did, and I was so, so happy to be there.
The snooker actually started the day after I got there, on Wednesday. I had, however, not bought a ticket for that day, as none of my favourite players were in action then anyway. Plus, I also wanted some time to look around the city, to feel like I had actually been there rather than just seen only the area between my hotel and the snooker arena. Hence, I took Wednesday off, and ended up going for a small walk (yes, being in the power wheelchair counts as "walking" to me, don't even try to tell me that it's called "a roll" or some other silliness!) around the city centre, before taking a bus to the National Space Centre a bit outside the city centre.
That was a museum of space-related items, including a lot of information about space exploration, and especially the USSR vs US space race during the Cold War. I especially loved all the USSR-themed stuff they had, though of course they also focused on any Brits who have been in space, even down to displaying their real equipment that they had used. In short, the place was amazing and I spent a few hours there and really enjoyed it. There was also a special room where you could see a replica of the night sky above Leicester at a certain point in time, and they'd show you how to spot different constellations, show where stars and planets are in relation to each other, and there was even a show of sorts which zoomed in an out of different details on the night sky, in order to explain about galaxies, nebulas, and even the place of the Earth and other planets in the universe. It was very interesting and beautiful to see, though much of the info just went right over my head, too.
I've talked for quite some time already, so I'm going to stop here. In the next post, I'm going to tell you about my three days in Snooker Heaven, because yes, that's the only way to describe it.
