Category: Art

V&A Museum: Europe 1600-1815 Exhibition

The Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum is one of the most well-known and exciting museums in the city, because of the huge variety of fascinating historical objects it holds in its many galleries. So it was one of the places I was really looking forward to visiting when I moved to London.

I first visited the museum, and had a little tour of a few exhibits, back in April with the social group Thinking Bob. But last Sunday I returned to look at a room in one of their big exhibitions in detail.

I had chosen to explore the Europe 1600-1815 exhibition, partly because it’s easy to find next to the main entrance, and also because it had some accessibility features I wanted to try out. And this was a particularly good opportunity to visit, because I had agreed to be monitored for a research project.

A wonderful lady called Rafie Cecilia is conducting a very interesting PhD study into accessibility at museums for blind and partially sighted people, and I was only too happy to help her out, as visiting museums is one of the things I really enjoy doing. So I met her at the V&A and, after an initial chat to confirm my consent for the study, she attached some non-intrusive and comfortable equipment to me, before sending me off to explore while she watched discreetly nearby.

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October 2017 Favourites

Hey there, welcome back for another big update on what I’ve been getting up to. As usual it’s been a very busy month, as I’ve enjoyed an audio described exhibition and theatre show, a couple of fun tours, events involving lots of chocolate, my first ever afternoon tea, a guest appearance in a special Youtube project on a football field, a craft show in a beautiful setting, a classic scary movie at the cinema, and more. So I hope you find this compilation interesting as usual!

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September 2017 Favourites

Hello again, nice to have you back for my next roundup. It’s been my most significant and eventful month of the year so far, with my first ever public speech, a holiday overseas, a walking tour and a meal with a fellow blogger, audio described tours of an art exhibition and a few special buildings, a day trip to another town, and a music and drama workshop. So I hope you enjoy!

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July 2017 Favourites

Hello again, hope you’re doing well! This has been another busy and very enjoyable month, most significantly including my first experiences of audio described museum tours, along with more social events, festivals and some other nice walks. So I hope you enjoy this latest roundup!

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Journal – August 2004

Welcome to my next instalment of journal posts. Unusually for summer, I’ve had rather a lot to write about this month, as I got my full list of university results while I was continuing my search for work, Dad fell ill and had to go to hospital, we had some work done on the house, the Athens Olympics took place, I celebrated my birthday, and I continued to enjoy more new music and DVD purchases. So this is probably my longest journal post so far, and I hope you enjoy it!

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Video Journal – Guernsey – July 2001

This is a quick post to share a bit of footage I recorded during a trip to the beautiful island of Guernsey, a place I’ve visited quite a few times because I have an old school friend who lives there. The videos are on my travel playlist as well. They’re not audio described, but if you are able to see them then I hope you enjoy them.

The first video shows some of the beautiful scenery in Guernsey and the nearby island of Sark, while the other shows us taking a walk around an interesting sculpture park. Both videos replace the original soundtrack with music, as I didn’t want to feature my friend or his family without their consent, and there isn’t much of interest to hear anyway to be honest, it’s the visuals that count.

These are the last videos I shot using my old S-VHS camcorder, which I’d also used for holidays in America and London. Fortunately I was able to use an adaptor to watch the tapes in a regular VCR. Which in turn meant that when I got a dual VHS & DVD recorder some years later, I was able to copy those videos on to DVD, and from there I was able to create digital copies.

So I’m very glad I’ve been able to keep all of these videos, as they’re wonderful souvenirs. And I hope you like them too!