I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but there’s a very specific walk people do at pedestrian crossings when they’re aware they’ve left things just a smidge too late, and it’s started to feel dodgy.
At this point, they break into a Ralk- the hybrid version of a walk and a run. This involves the upper body becoming stiff and upright, while the lower body moves into a kind of camel lope.
The face does it’s best to not look self-conscious, which is a terrible idea. We never look more self-conscious than when we’re trying to *not* look self-conscious. It’s one of the Great Human Paradoxes.
Your Road Crossing Style- and specifically your Ralk- can never be repeated in any other context other than at traffic lights. It’s a recessive gait that only makes itself known at very specific times.
I tell you this because yesterday, I discovered a new stride.
My lovely mother-in-law is in hospital, and I went in for the afternoon to keep her company. It’s deathly dull in there so we’ve taken to stealing the rather inappropriate wheelchair for outdoor use and burning around town. The flaw in yesterday’s plan being that it was raining.
Aware that I might arrested for making a patient hypothermic, Jill and I really upped the ante. A new stage of Running Style Jumanji was unlocked. My Ralking was next level.
What a Rocket Pusher like me must also be aware of is not piffing your Precious Person off on the little gutter ridges that you ascend into and then must traverse out of before you hit the main runway between the lights.
If you Ralk too quickly into these bits, you risk catapulting your aforementioned human into the road, which is neither preferable nor wanted.
At one point- and you’ll love this part- I’d bought Granny a crossword with Extra Large print that was hanging in a paper shopping bag astride the handle, when the bottom just fell out.
Around the same time, I also noticed the rubber grip that my hand was holding onto- a quite important piece of kit because the handles in control of the whole chair- was in danger of slipping off. Mid-Ralk, I had to do a stealth manoeuvre which sent Granny into a brief acceleration like she was bending through poles in an agility competition.
But she stuck the move and we both had a good time.
And later, while we sat in her room and did the crossword, I got her to pose for my Ralking Rocket Granny illustration, to which she merrily obliged.
Which is something, it turns out, that makes me happy:
A frolicking, Raucous Rocket Granny and her dedicated Ralker.
And we all know now you’ll be watching people extra carefully wot are crossing at the lights.
Mark my words: They’ll all be out there Ralking.
xx Jane
PS. Kudos to those of you in wheelchairs. There is not enough attention paid to access in pretty much all place, and I take my hat off to you. You are Ninjas of the Highest Order. Rock stars.