Quite what the waiters in portofino made of me, I don’t know, but they acquitted themselves magnificently.

I better explain. In alsager, there’s a place called papa’s, which does really good take away pizza. At university, I often get bill to order me a pizza, and I’ve developed a taste for pizza from proper pizzerias. Believe me, the frozen variety from Tesco simply doesn’t compare. Well, today, I had a hankering for a pizza, so I trundled down into town in my wheelchair, in search of junk food.

But I couldn’t find any. The only pizza outlets weren’t open, or looked rather sleazy. I took a look at the caf in the open-air market, and thought ‘better not’. On the way down, I asked the Italian gentleman in Portofino – the town’s one good Italian restaurant – whether he knew of any good Italian places.

‘Well, we open at 12, and we do pizza’. He said. Twelve noon was in forty minutes, and I thought portofino was too nice for me to eat alone in. I make a mess, so I continued my pizza hunt elsewhere. In the market, I met up with grandma, who combed my hair, but I thought better of eating there. The other pizzerias in town did not open ’till five, so at twelve, I rolled back to portofino, expecting to get a pizza to eat out – perhaps at a picnic table in the park.

However, before I could say anything, I was invited up the step and to a table. I had already selected the pizza I wanted from the menu in the window, so I asked for it, and a drink. The people there know me and my family, as we sometimes eat there, so it was not as if I was a random cripple off the street. I was treated to the respect anyone would expect, the waiters holding my cup for me as I drank. The pizza came, and I ate it with my hands as respectably as possible, and having got the waiter’s permission to do so.

When I had eaten, I asked for the bill. It came, and I told the waiter where to get my money, insisting he take a tip. It occurs to me that I would not have had the gall to do such a thing just a short wile ago, but I feel I can do anything now, even eat at posh, if quiet, restaurants. I feel that this past year has given me the confidence to do such things.

I probably won’t eat pizza there every week, but I enjoyed myself. I sometimes have romantic visions of writers as romantic beings sipping Chianti or absinth in caf corners. Well, I may not have been sipping Chianti – it would have gone to my head – but I now see that vision can pertain to me too. I am not on the periphery of society, but wholly within it.

If it lets me make such steps, perhaps I should get hungry for pizza more often.