S1 Ep50: Wash, Cut And A Slap
When Grace Jones slapped Russell Harty she created one of TVs' iconic moments. Whatever you think of her response to her host turning his back on her, she did it with a very good hair cut. I know this because Trevor Sorbi cut her hair. It’s not that I know Trevor, but I know a man who does. He’s the man who cuts my hair.  For fifty years I’d been buying bad hair cuts from hairdressers the len...
5m Dec 23, 2021
5m
S1 Ep49: Built For Comfort
In my favourite shop the retail assistants wear luminous yellow jackets which makes them easy to spot as they weave their way in and out of piles of brown furniture. Over the years I have bought wardrobes, bellows, semi precious bunches of stone grapes, lead glasses and assorted cutlery. I am able to exercise little self control except in the matter of retail assistant number one who recently a...
5m Dec 21, 2021
5m
S1 Ep48: In Case Of Emergencies
Middle age can be a productive time in a woman’s life. Who knows what the meaning of productive is. Is being productive the same as being busy? No. Is being creative the same as being productive? I hope so. I feel in a creative phase. Doing new things mean learning new skills, so I’ve been scouring the internet to see what learning opportunities there might be for me to develop some of those s...
5m Dec 16, 2021
5m
S1 Ep47: What's Happening Now
“Coleette” was showing at the flicks, so a couple of friends and I found ourselves navigating our way around an enormous windswept rooftop car park in a tiny car. The cinemas beckoned. At the ticket office an adolescent made me an offer like no offer I have ever been made before. “Would you like to make use of the audio description facility that is free?” I don’t know why it has never occurre...
4m Dec 14, 2021
4m
S1 Ep46: Pray For Me
The Sceptic Tank, (slang for Yank, as in a person who hails from North America) told me that on a recent taxi journey her driver asked her about her blindness.  Her philosophy is to always engage as she’s educating the world about living with sight loss, one taxi driver at a time.  She set out the situation of the genetic time bomb, programmed to go off and trigger blindness just when you’ve b...
5m Dec 09, 2021
5m
S1 Ep45: Flash All You Like
I met the Builder coming up the road with his dog. He was chuckling to himself and told me that he had just seen a very funny incident. He said he wasn’t sure if it was politically correct to laugh at something to do with blindness but he couldn’t help himself. I asked him if it was a blind person or a sighted person who came off worst out of this story. “The sighted one,” he said. “Go for it,...
4m Dec 07, 2021
4m
S1 Ep44: The World In Bits
Only very recently did I take my first tentative steps into the world of social media. It’s a mine field. It’s like the girl with the curl. When it’s good it’s very very good and when it’s bad it’s horrid. I know plenty of people with no sight who navigate the digital world with aplomb. I am not one of them.  I considered going on a course in order to develop my skills to a level of #Twitter a...
4m Dec 02, 2021
4m
S1 Ep43: The Blinky Bob
His suspicions aroused by the large quantity of bleach nestled behind my loo, my friend Dan asked me if I was planning to make a bomb.  I was not, but it got me thinking about the reason why and how I approach my rare trips to the supermarket. The thing about shopping, if you can’t see, is that nothing is done on spec (excuse the word play) because you are going to have to carry it home. A Buy...
5m Nov 30, 2021
5m
S1 Ep42: The Blind Assassin
My neighbour was kind enough to drive me to #Heathrow terminal five. It rose out of the Hounslow ground like the architectural jewel of an emerging state, and proved equally hard to navigate our way into. Once there, it gleamed even brighter than the orange façade of #Luton airport departure terminal. The unprepared traveller could be blinded in the reflection of all that glass and chrome. You ...
5m Nov 25, 2021
5m
S1 Ep41: Talons, Claws, Scales and Nails
The God Daughter, has the most phenomenal finger nails I have ever seen. They are long and polished and sometimes bejewelled. I wonder how it is possible to be a working Mother with these finger nails. The God Daughter is a tour de force and has probably taught her children the importance of being able to deliver a good manicure as part of their preparation for pre-school. I confess that I am ...
5m Nov 23, 2021
5m
S1 Ep40: What Not To Buy For Christmas
Everyone has a drawer of dud gifts for recycling. Don’t they? In my drawer are quite a few crystal angels with the power to heal – allegedly.  These were given by people who like to knit their own mung beans.  There is a selection of magnifying glasses I don’t know what to do with.  Some nice people thought of me, while rummaging through the 50% off section, and assumed that another magnifier ...
5m Nov 18, 2021
5m
S1 Ep39: It's Behind You
I have an inherent fear of snakes. Even the most innocuous of grass snakes assumes the status of an anaconda in my imagination. As a child, I sought out the privacy of a large bush, only to discover that I had picked the very spot favoured by adders. I don’t know who was more surprised, the adders or me. It’s a testament to youthful speed and agility that I lived to tell the tale. As a studen...
5m Nov 16, 2021
5m
S1 Ep38: Spontaneous Combustion
A conversation about unemployment rates amongst disabled people of working age reminded me, not only how lucky I have been, but of the sheer lunacy of prejudice. If it weren’t quite so serious it would be funny. My teenage ambition was to be a criminal defence barrister. I was not an idiot. I’d seen #Crown Court and what’s more I came from a family of lawyers and already had the wig. My aspira...
5m Nov 11, 2021
5m
S1 Ep37: Cinque Terra
Weirdly, I quite like walking uphill. There is no denying that age, expanding girth and lack of fitness make this more of a challenge than for the younger, thinner and fitter, but as my friend, The Big Cheese, would say, “none of us are getting any younger or any thinner”. Downhill walking has had its day. After the rib cracking incident I’m for the climb up and working up a good sweat. There ...
5m Nov 09, 2021
5m
S1 Ep36: Out To Dinner
My hosts were in their usual good form. The food was excellent. The wine was flowing and the slow gin homemade. The conversation was about the local fishmonger and the aspirations of young adult children, holidays taken and the long awaited driverless car. How the world has changed since we were young. As a slave to pubic transport timetables and as someone who never goes anywhere without a p...
5m Nov 04, 2021
5m
S1 Ep35: What's That App?
I like to think I am a woman in my prime. The evidence does not necessarily support this position. There are those that think I have the technology skills of an Edwardian, retaining something of a fondness for pen and paper. I hanker after #Basildon Bond and the letter. That makes me very old and not at all in my prime. Technology is supposed to be a liberation; enabling my computer to speak t...
5m Nov 02, 2021
5m
S1 Ep34: What's Up With You?
I was in a pizza restaurant dithering over what to chose. “My God,” said my newest colleague. “Your eye sight is terrible. You should go to Pakistan and get that fixed. My wife had terrible sight. Not that bad, but she really did have trouble. She went to Pakistan and got it sorted. She can see fine now.” I said that it wasn’t an operable thing and that I had made my peace with it a long time...
5m Oct 28, 2021
5m
S1 Ep33: Locked Out
There are lots of apples falling off the tree in next doors garden. There is an abundance of windfalls, in my garden, that the local wildlife like to avail themselves of. In my efforts to deter the marauding intruders with fur, tails and long yellow teeth, I have just been out to pick up the rotten fruit and put them out for tomorrows compost collection. I have a little trick to keep the side ...
4m Oct 26, 2021
4m
S1 Ep32: A Fugitive From Justice
Being a fugitive from justice is a stressful experience. I know, because I experienced this. I experienced it briefly, just for a nano-second, in the REM dream state that most of us experience just before we wake up. My crime? I was caught on camera driving down a North American highway. I was over the speed limit by one mile an hour and caught without a licence. For this, I now faced extraditi...
5m Oct 21, 2021
5m
S1 Ep31: All Teched Up
I love technology: I love the oven, the kettle, the toaster. I loved the TV I grew up with. That’s the one that had an enormous “V” shaped areal that extended out of the top and sat on four screw in legs. It had a button for turning it on and off and a dial that could be set to three locations: BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. The only time we ever spoke to it, (and here I use the term loosely) was when the...
5m Oct 19, 2021
5m
S1 Ep30: Pride Before A Fall
I set off from Clapham to catch the train to Lancaster where my friend, the Author, would meet me. She would then drive to her house in Clapham. That’s Clapham Yorkshire, from where we would stride out for some good bracing walks, a thing we both love to do. Turns out that I’d been sold the wrong tickets again, and the train that I’d asked for, and confirmed, my seats reservations on, was not ...
4m Oct 14, 2021
4m
S1 Ep29: Biff, Chip, Kipper and Me
My picky friends have pointed out that this blog is full of idiosyncratic spelling mistakes. I plead visual impairment! Early attempts at reading were centred around the adventures of Peter and Jane who rolled around in the front seat of the family car, chased moving buses and took to an inflatable raft in only their pants. The more I read the better it got. By the time I was becoming an indep...
5m Oct 12, 2021
5m
S1 Ep28: Too Blind To Tango
An old family friend left a message on my answer machine that went something along the lines of; ” I’ve been to look at your old school…it really is a super retirement complex now … they have everything there…you wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to see….they’ll look after you….I’ve given your number to the sales office and Vicki is going to call you…I’ve told her you can’t see much…t...
5m Oct 07, 2021
5m
S1 Ep27: The Only Way Is Essex
Sometimes I feel like a dysfunctional travel correspondent. My tales always seem to involve the extraordinary. I’ve been abandoned on aeroplanes, been refused assistance at train stations and once threatened with arrest for trying to buy a ticket at journeys end because I couldn’t operate the ticket machine at the start of my journey. My reply: “Fine, while you’re calling the police I’ll call t...
4m Oct 05, 2021
4m
S1 Ep26: Caution: Zebra Crossing
There is something cringingly uncomfortable about making your mistakes in public: I have a long and distinguished experience of being the subject of public amusement. It’s not a comfortable place to be. Not looking or behaving like other people’s assumptions, of how I should look or behave, has landed me in some testing situations. Getting off a bus one day, the door opened next to a concrete ...
4m Sep 30, 2021
4m
S1 Ep25: Loos Fail The Sniff Test
I had lunch with a friend in an Italian place in Oxford Circus. We ate a good lunch and laughed a lot. As my friend got up to leave he asked me if I needed a hand with anything before he left. I didn’t but would guard his goods while he nipped to the gents. Needless to say, his absence made me reflect on parental advice. “Always go before you leave”. Signage can be a challenge for anyone faced...
5m Sep 28, 2021
5m
S1 Ep24: Do As I Say
The infamous man drawer, that drawer in the kitchen which men claim for themselves as the place to store spent batteries and old light bulbs, is not the sole preserve of men. Michael McIntyre is not the only one who can order a Chinese takeaway on a Nokia 3210 and pay for it in currency that is no longer in circulation. If ever there is an exhibition I want to see, that’s free to Blue Peter bad...
5m Sep 23, 2021
5m
S1 Ep23: Speak Your Weight
As if it’s not enough to be shouted at by people, who in the face of some obvious revelation feel the need to defend themselves by yelling, I now find myself being challenged by machines that speak. A few years ago I invested in a speaking alarm clock. It’s a small plastic box that takes an age to set. Once done, it remains silent just long enough for sleep to begin to wrap its folds around me...
5m Sep 21, 2021
5m
S1 Ep22: Game, Set and Match
Wimbledon seems to have come round remarkably soon since the last time that our screens were saturated with incomprehensible grunting and invisible action. I know there are plenty of blind people who enjoy following sport. I’m not one of them. I prefer to follow writers and poets and the changes in GDP or what interest rates are likely to do. I follow what happens in parliament. I follow polit...
5m Sep 16, 2021
5m
S1 Ep21: A Map Called Wanda
After a considerable amount of effort to plan a self guided walking tour, of revered places of worship, in Borgas, Wanda (that’s google maps to the uninitiated) and I set out. Tripping out of the hotel Cheap and Noisy, over an invisible step into four lanes of moving traffic, Wanda told me to turn left and then turn into the traffic. What I did not know, and Wanda did not tell me, was that I w...
6m Sep 14, 2021
6m
S1 Ep20: The Bagging Area
A long long time ago when God was a boy and before I had teeth, I can remember sitting on the counter in the green grocers while he weighed out sugar to be bagged up in a heavy duty blue bag sealed shut with tape. Now that I have teeth and want to preserve them, I have stopped buying sugar. The flatmate and I have been the proud owners of the same bag of sugar for five years. In the intervenin...
5m Sep 09, 2021
5m
S1 Ep19: Everything Is Confusing
A nice woman came to my house to begin the process of long cane training. I was tense. She introduced herself with a name that sounded just like the Bulgarian word for “it’s not important.”. The flatmate and I would have thrown each other a look. We both thought the same thing. “Kak?” which means something altogether different in English than Bulgarian and it’s not “What?”. My nice mobility tr...
5m Sep 07, 2021
5m
S1 Ep18: The Blood Bank
The Blood Bank, where I bank, is keen on inviting people in to meet their Relationship Manager. These are nearly always people who are in training and supervised by those who are licenced to advice on products that they can not advise on. These supervisors work like close protection officers. The Blood Bank brings out the worst in me. The twenty or so Relationship Managers, I have had over the...
5m Sep 02, 2021
5m
S1 Ep17: I'm Not Cross
Why is voting still such a difficult thing to do for blind and partially sighted people?
5m Aug 31, 2021
5m
S1 Ep16: My Chainsaw Fantasy
Anna discusses her love of sharp garden implements and how to wield them as a blind woman.
2m Aug 26, 2021
2m
S1 Ep15: Robbed Blind
Anna is robbed while out shopping.
5m Aug 24, 2021
5m
S1 Ep14: Customers We Don't Care
Anna tackles the subject of unhelpful airport assistance.
5m Aug 19, 2021
5m
S1 Ep13: Bird Life
Anna goes bird watching and wonders if it was such a good idea.
6m Aug 17, 2021
6m
S1 Ep12: Let It Snow
Memories of skiing and navigating the white stuff.
5m Aug 12, 2021
5m
S1 Ep11: Pitch Perfect
Anna meets someone from the Hi-Vis team who helps her to navigate Bank Station's renovations.
5m Aug 10, 2021
5m
S1 Ep10: Knock Yourself Out
Anna and her long cane go for a walk with Anna's sister in the countryside.
5m Aug 05, 2021
5m
S1 Ep9: On Your Bike
Anna looks at the pitfalls of bikes - both riding them and as a pedestrian with limited sight.
4m Aug 03, 2021
4m
S1 Ep8: Banking Favours
Anna describes her journeys on public transport.
4m Jul 29, 2021
4m
S1 Ep7: Grand Masters
Anna goes to a painting exhibition.
5m Jul 27, 2021
5m
S1 Ep6: A Good Read
Anna muses on the ascendancy of audiobooks.
4m Jul 22, 2021
4m
S1 Ep5: The Uber
Anna grapples with one of the perennial issues for being blind or partially sighted - ordering a taxi. What can possibly go wrong?
5m Jul 20, 2021
5m
S1 Ep4: Seeing It Your Way
Anna reflects on why eating in a restaurant really shouldn't be complicated.
4m Jul 20, 2021
4m
S1 Ep3: The Busy Body
We all know that person who is determined to help you at all cost - even when you don't need help!
4m Jul 20, 2021
4m
S1 Ep2: You Are What You Wear
Anna reflects on how it can be difficult to be go clothes shopping when you can't see very well.
5m Jul 20, 2021
5m
S1 Ep1: Party On!
Anna describes how things can get interesting when attending a party.
4m Jul 20, 2021
4m