I’m up at 7.45am, drink 2 mugs of tea and a nutriblast, grab my essentials (car keys, DBS controller, camera, phone, speech and tickets) and I’m out of the house just a shade after 8.30am. I’m soon on the train from Gunton to Norwich, on my way to Westminster in London, where I have been asked to speak on behalf of Parkinson’s patients in support of medicinal cannabis at the United Patients Alliance event, Patients In Parliament.
I arrive in plenty of time (I’m the first person there), so can sit in the relative cool of the Houses of Parliament (it’s still a heatwave here in the UK – I hate to complain about good weather, but it’s almost unbearably hot outside). Other people arrive soon enough, and the event kicks off just a few minutes after 1pm. I am one of about a dozen people who have been asked to speak, and the audience consists of medicinal cannabis patients, MPs and parliamentary secretaries who will be providing input concerning the prescription of cannabis for medicinal purposes, so it’s important that the patient voice is heard. I give my speech, which runs a little over the three minute limit, but nobody seems to mind, and it seems to be very well received (I lost count of the number of people who came and shook my hand afterwards). We get turfed out of the meeting room shortly after 3pm, and everyone wanders down to Parliament Square where much socialising and photographing takes place. I get asked to tell my story to camera by a film maker who is also a medicinal cannabis patient, and then I wander off to the Blues Bar in Soho to catch a little live music before catching my train back to Norfolk. I roll through the door of our cottage around 11.45pm, completely knackered!