London’s parks can be very beautiful, and I love trundling through them in my powerchair. The problem is, I’m constantly having to watch out for dog shit on the paths; I always have to swerve to avoid running over poo. I know there are rules against it, and that dog owners are supposed to clean up after their pets, but some seem to think the rules don’t apply to them. Yesterday, for instance, I was going through a lovely little park the other side of Lewisham, called Brookmill Park. It’s a linear kind of park with a small river running along one side of it, quite wooded with well-maintained paths. When I first entered the park, I saw there were signs saying dogs were prohibited there.

That, of course, struck me as a good thing because I wouldn’t need to dodge dog shit. I was trundling contentedly along, though, when I noticed two old ladies with three dogs walking along the path, blatantly ignoring the rules. That got my ire up, so I decided to confront them: rather than typing anything into my I pad, I just shouted to attract their attention and pointed to a nearby sign.

That was when things started to go downhill. With alarming arrogance, the old bitches said they didn’t care and told me to shut up. It was as though they felt that they owned the park. Naturally that enraged me in the way I’ve described here before, and I shouted back insisting that the women and their dogs leave the park immediately. They shouted back, refusing to do so.

Things then got very, very heated; in fact it almost became violent. I feel I was in the right, but the way the women responded to me with such petulant arrogance was totally unacceptable. At one point, one of them tried to pull my Ipad off my lap. Needless to say, I got very, very wound up, and I still feel angry about it this morning. In the end the women walked away, going over a nearby footbridge with steps so I couldn’t follow them. But I refuse to let this drop – I refuse to be treated like that by two arrogant old bitches who think their rights trump anyone else’s. Unfortunately I have nothing to identify the two women, so probably won’t be able to take this further; but encountering such sneering selfishness has really upset me.