I think I have written here before about how irksome I find it when people who are capable of walking up stairs use lifts, or when prams take up the wheelchair space on busses. Today, though, I think I will add a third irritation to that list. I have recently found that it really gets on my nerves when, waiting at a pedestrian crossing, someone comes and presses the button to activate the traffic lights when I have already pressed it. I don’t know why, but it seems so condescending: they seem to assume that I don’t understand how traffic lights work, and so need to do it for me.

Out and about today, for instance, I was waiting patiently at a pedestrian crossing, the button pressed, when a woman came and reached over me to press it again. Could she not see the “wait” sign was lit up? The way that she reached over me, her arm in front of my face, without saying anything, felt almost invasive. In that moment I felt like shouting my head off at her that I had pressed the button, that I knew how pedestrian crossings work, that I wasn’t five and that I had zarking masters!

Of course I didn’t though. I just kept quiet and crossed the road. To say anything would have been pointless. Yet every time this happens – and it happens irritatingly often – it feels like people are making assumptions about my ability to live my life and get around the city. They assume that I don’t know how pedestrian crossings work, or that I can’t press a button. I know I’m probably overreacting, but would you not feel just as patronised?