which Loo do you use?

Hello Everyone,
Still no sign of the 'All about me' Blog I am afraid, I know I should sit and make a real effort to write it but it will come when its ready.
Tonight I thought I would try the disabled swim at my local swimming pool, my youngest daughter was coming in with me as my carer, my eldest and my other half were going to watch, its only on once a week for a hour, but you know, the one night I decide to give it ago is the one night it isn't on because there was a swimathon, dam it!
Never mind, I will try it again next week, I did go for a swim mid week with my mate but it was a bit too busy for me as most schools had broken up for the Easter hols, so parents had brought their little darlings along to the pool to kill some time, Mums sat with their faces in their phones while their offspring splashed, screamed and dived bombed off the side as if they had eaten 27 chocolate bars for breakfast.
Don't get me wrong, I most certainly do not begrudge anyone having fun and they do have lane swimming for people who just want to plough up and down but I am not a strong enough swimmer to do the lanes, I like to stay near the edge, I also cant see other people swimming towards me so I don't have a very good awareness of others around me, when I can hear lots of noise it distracts me from my immediate surrounding, added to that, the screaming and the splashing echo's around the pool and I have no idea if the people splashing are near me or on the other side of the pool. All in all, I just panic! So that's why I like to stay near the edge, I know there is something other than very deep water near me if I feel Panic, one of the first rules of a panic attack is to find something solid to push your back against and thats is kinda hard to do when you are surrounded by liquid, I can be out of the water quickly if I need to.
I always feel people watching me when I walk in with my cane, I always take my towel and use it to balance my cane on when I leave it against the wall so that it doesn't slide down and get in some ones way or I wont be able to see it and panic that some one has pinched it....I know what you're thinking...WHY would some one want to pinch your cane? But you never know!
Anyway, like I say, I always attract curious glances, people act differently, some will get out of the pool and ask if I need help while others will watch but give me lots of room.
Thursday on top of all the kids and screaming, there was the water aerobics for the over 50's, bloody fantastic, I cant wait to be over 50, it looks like good fun.
The pool is sort of divided up into three, so public swim is a large chunk to the right of the pool, lane swimming is in the middle and then on the left of the pool the whole of the shallow end is taken for water aerobics. leaving a big chunk of deep water beyond the over 50's more or less swimmer free, so, in my mind, I thought this would be the safer option, I got in the deep end, clung to the edge and checked out the other swimmers, as far as I could tell there was two ladies swimming slowly and chatting, and a bloke ploughing up and down beside the lane swimming. Perfect I waited for the ladies to start swimming away, waited a few seconds and followed.
Swimming slowly I was fairly confident that I knew where everyone was, so I concentrated on remembering to breath, I swam right up to the floating markers that told me where the water aerobics was and held on to the edge while I fiddled about trying to see if I could touch my feet on the bottom of the pool. Success! My tippy toes touched so I was well pleased, I was proper smiling to myself, thinking that I knew exactly what I was doing, I knew where everyone was swimming, and I could get my toes on the ground in the sort of shallowish water. Feeling rather smug I swung my body round in preparation to swim up to the deep end, but there was this face, literally two inches away from mine, the face had blue goggles on and a bit fat toothy grin, I smiled politely back and wait for the face to move off for its swim.
The dam face and its body weren't going anywhere, for a second I felt a little uneasy as the person just floated in the water watching me.
Do I ask the face if it wouldn't mind moving a little so I could swim past? or do I wait? I had a feeling that the face wasn't quite a regular face, I felt very uneasy now, the face had appeared from no where, I had given opportunity for it to speak, but it chose not to, I wasn't even sure if it was a male or female.
In the end I turned back toward the over 50's exercising and pretended to watch them for a while.
When I plucked up enough courage to look back, the face and goggles had gone. I began to swim toward the deep end, the life guard asked me if I was ok, I nodded and kept moving, I was spooked, but probably unnecessarily, it was most likely just someone who had been in the lane swimming and had needed a break, either way I didn't like what I felt, I did a few more lengths and got out and went to find my mate in the public swim area of the pool.
And that was the last I thought about it until today when I went back to the pool.
Funny how your life touches tones of people each day, some stand out for different reasons, I recon I speak to 20 or 30 people when I am walking the Ralph, even at 7am I meet people who don't give me the same uneasy vibe at the face in the pool.
Friday at work we took our students on a school trip. It was a beautiful day and we wondered around some glorious gardens, had lunch then looked around the little farm they have. Again the place was absolutely packed with every other school already broken up for Easter, there wasn't to many people around the gardens but the picnic area and the farm were jammed.
After lunch, we needed to take our guys to the loo, I pushed a wheelchair and its little occupant to the disabled loo's...correction, Loo.....there was only one disabled loo near the picnic area, but there was a good sized toilet block for both male and females, so there we are standing outside the disabled Loo, waiting for the Loo to become vacant. The flow of people going in and out of the regular loo's was moving quickly.
When the disabled Loo door opened a woman and her daughter, about six years old, came out, when she saw us waiting, she was so apologetic and shamed face, she went into this babbled explanation of how her daughter needed to go pee pee desperately and she (mum) was worried that she (daughter) might wet herself.
The woman so wanted me to say, ohhhh that's ok, but I just couldn't, so I just looked at her then moved the wheelchair into the loo, I cant tell you how many times people with 'mainstream' children opened the door to come in while I was changing my little charge, I never lock the door when I am alone in a toilet with a student for a whole load of different reasons, but mostly because if I need help, medical help, for my charge I know I can throw open the door and shout, with out taking my eyes off the child.
So, I have to say, its not really something that I think about much, lets face it, who really cares about who uses which loo? Is that because I am able to use both the disabled and the ladies though? Is it because I am fiercely protective over the children I work with? But it really annoyed me that some of the parents thought they could jump the queue and nip to the disabled. I am confusing myself I am not sure if this toilet thing is a big thing or not, disabled toilets are there for the disabled and at the end of the day if you don't have a disability then you shouldn't be using them, and that's that. 
Tonight we have had a discussion, my family have decided that under no uncertain terms should a non disabled person use a disabled toilet, it was even suggested that people with a disability should be given a key to use the loo, which is kept locked and then a 'in use' sign lights up when its occupied. i don't know, its a bit of a grey area I suppose, the girls think its just lazy and that some people are simply selfish.
Well, that's it for tonight my friends, I am tired, even Ralph has put himself to bed!
Goodnight and speak soon x