I suspect it [was/is] movable - by a fit, able bodied person prior to the entrance of a customer who needs it.

Rather less than three cheers for facilities provided for wheelchair users that stop short of letting them use the facilities independently.  Arriving at a [facility/something and needing help to actualaly get at it is far from ideal, but better than not being able to access it at all.    Leaving all the more to be desired is a place like this one might appear to be where the request for assistance has to be made inside, on the "far" side of the person needing to use the facility.

There are very serious discussions to be had, and education and changes to be made, which this picture opens a window onto.  Lisa and I have had so many experiences over the past few months - of the superb down to the pretty well useless.   People's needs vary and travelling as a couple we have the luxury of still being able to work around most issues, but we have a very much enhanced appreciation of the problems these days.  We also have the experience of being a provider where there were customer accessibility issues at times, our legal and moral need to provide an excellent service for all, and for a few years consideration of what we could to with a listed building all within our small company's [means/viability].

 

Did it not occur to the installer of that ramp that it was not going to work, and query the specification at the time?

No: apparently not. 

Edit to add:  Unless that ramp is not actually fixed in place, but can be moved to the right, to align with the doorway, in case of need.  The markings on the brickwork suggest that might be the case. 

 

Facebook has labelled me as a "Digital Creator". And I created content about that at https://grahamellis.uk/blog2063.html the other day.

I failed my English "O" levels - language and literature - at school on the first taking, and scraped through language at a resit at the following oportunity.  So it was then perverse that my career majored on learning highly techical subjects, and then explaining them to others.  I try to write or talk from a position of knoweldge, not only of a topic but also of why things are as they are, and I try to break up what I write into manageable chunks and with a view of the metrics of my target audience.  Those chunks often being best illustrated by pictures, which as the saying goes "paint 1000 words".

And so ... I have built a library of pictures, and continue to do so. The occasional one has artistic merit; the major uses, though, are to provide illustrationa and to remind me later.  On Saturday last (29th August 2026), I took the train from Melksham to Weymouth. Walked just shy of 15 kms. Interacted with passengers at the stations, platform staff at Weymouth, train manager and police on the train.  Stopped for drink / snacks at 4 places along the walk in Weymouth.  Observed, made notes in my personal memory, saw some new places (yes, even after all these trips to Weymouth) and watched how the social side of societyi, our behaviours and our towns have changed. Far more pictures taken than I can ever make use of, and many of them of things that perhaps others don't photograph, or of the same thing from multiple angles to fully capture the 3D.

The mapping facility in my iPhotos app allows me to home in on pictures by location which is ideal for geographically based writing - and somehow (even when something is not location specific) I'll remeber when I took a picture.



Some of the pictures are just "fun" - things that take my fancy

Some birds doing syncronised swimming

Some may be used to help market and promote things I am interested in

A nice walk in a lesser know part of Weymouth

Some are used to record history, or places that have a history

This bridge replaces the rail bridge that took the line to Portland

and some are reminder of food eaten

The Nautico lounge - a relaxed meal while waiting for the direct train back in the evening

or of amusing happenings

Feeding the gull on the train roof

or of mistakes not to be repeated where I have any influence

Nice to have a ramp up. Pity there's no space to turn into the cafe at the top

My study of the English Language, and perhaps a degree of ADHD, lead me to see a perverse side in signage and I often photograph that too

"Free George Davis" said graffiti in my youth on a wrongly convicted person. What has Drinking Water been convicted of?


I thought the days of chaining people up as slaves by the ankle had long passed. Shocked!

BUT - I am picture and writing rich, and at times I feel outlet and audience poor. I have a wide variety of friends, friendly contacts, and some followers - but I am loathe to flood the outlets I have either in overall volume, or on "hobby horse" topics that will get to bore a significnat proportion of the clsuter of people who read me.

No conclusions here / today - just a rambling.