The wheels on the chair go round and ... um, square?

I often think a timer-operated Red Bull intravenous drip may be the answer to many of my problems. So you can imagine my annoyance then, at having gotten up ludicrously early this morning only to be stood up by a wheelchair repairer.

I've now been waiting two months for that fully functioning set of 4 wheels that I covet so desperately. My chair was issued to me by my local wheelchair service, so when spokes on one of my wheels started 'pinging' in July, I got in touch with their contracted repairers to order me a new one.

My castors were also wearing pretty low, and from experience I know that when they do I find myself unintentionally going round and round in circles. This is particularly embarrassing when I'm on my way to the pub, before I've even consumed any alcohol that might further affect my ability to travel in a straight line.

In August, concerned that the repairers hadn't come up with the goods, and having lost three spokes in one week whilst on holiday; I decided to talk to the big boss and contacted the wheelchair service directly. My hope was that a boot up the behind from the authorities might speed up the process. It didn't.

By this point, the wheel had completely collapsed and I was pretty much housebound in London. So I decided to leave the confines of the M25 and visit my folks in Clacton on Sea. I come from a whole family of wheelchair users, and I knew that lying somewhere around my parents' house would be a spare chair that I could use.

Being a recent(ish) graduate with no money ever, stranded halfway between paydays, and having a sweet smile, I persuaded my mother to take the broken wheel to a local bike shop to have it repaired. At least that made my wheelchair safe to use again.

After being stood up this morning, I contacted the repairers to whinge at them. They were most unhelpful. So once again I went to the top, and this time it worked! A couple of hours later, a repairman turned up to fit my new bits.

Having to wait two months for urgent repairs isn't a first for me, so I asked if they could retain the wheel that I'd already had repaired as a spare, ready for the next time they let me down and didn't have the right parts in stock. (And yes, I know it was my Mum who sorted out the repairs, but I'm trying to sound like a proper grown-up.)

Their response? "Ooo, no, we can't do that. We didn't authorise the new spokes, so we've got to throw the wheel in the bin. Health and safety. We've got to think about your health. It's not safe."

Right ...

Wheelchairs and bicycles have similar wheels, don't they? So I'm now wondering how any cyclist who's ever had to have a wheel repaired can sleep at night, knowing that the job hasn't been double, triple and quadruple checked by people who start hallucinating about traffic wardens coming down the street as a means to avoid work.

I also don't understand how having a fully functioning but unauthorised wheel is safer than having a collapsed one. But then I know I'm quite naïve and there are things in this world that I just don't understand.

Since I was 18 I've had a 'Quickie' wheelchair. Oh, the jokes I heard as a teenager thanks to having that brand name emblazoned across my back. In the end I just started proclaiming that I'd actually had it put there myself, but that there wasn't room for the rest of the question: "Do you want a ...?" Anyway, the 'Quickie' is a very popular chair, and surely not too hard to acquire parts for: Apparently if you believe that, you're very much mistaken. Last year, when I had another problem with my chair, the wheelchair service where I lived at the time decided it was too laborious to repair and bought me a brand spanking new one instead. And it was another 'Quickie' too.

At the time, they insisted that my chair should have inflatable tyres "to provide a more comfortable ride", despite my protestations that I couldn't change or repair my own tyres if I got a puncture. Sure enough, two weeks later - on New Year's Eve of all nights - I had to make my drunken way right across London at 2.00am with one completely deflated tyre. Now I know a thing or two about comfortable rides - after all, I've had a few in the course of my life (never with my wheelchair involved, despite the rumours) - and that certainly wasn't one.

Oh, and they wouldn't let me have castors with flashing lights on either. Spoilsports.

Since then, I've moved two miles down the road, and my wheelchair service is run by another borough. What a difference! They can't procure the 'normal' castors to fit my chair, so I've had to have the flashy ones fitted! If the fungus growing at the back of my kitchen cupboards in my dingy bedsit has hallucinogenic properties, I'll have everything I need to enjoy my own mini-rave!

With the castors now sorted, and my rear wheel having been replaced today, you'd think I'd be satisfied, wouldn't you? Well, the rear wheel came fitted with one of those troublesome inflatable tyres, so I asked the repairman if he could put the solid tyre from my old wheel onto the new one: "No, can't do that. Oh look, traffic wardens, I've got to go". Except the version I got was far less abridged and he could have done the job in the time he was talking. So I'm still wonky, and now susceptible to punctures to boot.

For the time being, it looks like my new 'raved-up' chair is going to remain sufficiently wobbly to disorientate me. Maybe I won't need that hallucinogenic fungus after all.