So the escape ramp came into its own, the wheelchair got loaded into the friend’s motor and we sped off to the metropolis.

That would be Helensburgh! Hey, when your horizons shrink to what you can see out the window, that qualifies as a big time expedition.

It was too. Visits to all manner of essential service providers like the laundry and most especially the bank (you’d be amazed how much you can spend sitting indoors when you need lots of operatives to help keep most of the show – and the dog – on the road.) More of the joys of banking elsewhere.

What we didn’t get to do was Christmas shopping. At least not personally. I did send the pal into a store where I could select the wrapping paper visually from the pavement – but there was no way the chair would have made it through the doorway.

Two doors away was a shop fairly bursting with ideas for pressies. So bursting that it would have been totally non negotiable had I got in. Not that getting in was much of an option given that it had two small steps at in the doorway and an entrance space crammed with products. Since I was at eye level with it, I couldn’t help clocking the sign indicating that the shop was wheelchair accessible.

At which moment the owner happened to appear at the door and advised me that the sticker referred to the previous owner of the premises and she couldn’t get it off. Hmmm. Covering it up would always be an option.

Not to worry – a good lunch was on the menu next. And it was, with staff happy and eager to help get us comfortably seated. But it was a fair old bumpy schlep to the front door which was navigated thanks to a thoughtful and fairly burly fellow customer who happened to be leaving as we gamely strove to arrive.

Now all of this is, I hope, a temporary inconvenience occasioned by only having the use of one leg just at the moment. But it is a way of life for all those who are no longer ambulatory for whatever reason. And my small expedition reminded me of the daily and several indignities and inconveniences which the disabled community experiences despite all kinds of legislation intended to ensure maximum access to everything the able bodied world takes for granted.

Once, as a daily newspaper journalist, I took a wheelchair user all over Glasgow to underline just how many areas and opportunities were off limits thanks to stairs, narrow openings, cluttered restaurants with small spaces between tables, and general thoughtlessness. All these years later I imagined things would be different.

And of course some are given the regulations covering wheelchair access for new buildings and within planning applications. And usable loos. But it’s still an unfriendly old world out there if you’re less than mobile.