Category: Interviews

June 2019 Favourites

We’ve reached the halfway point in the year, and summer is finally blessing us with decent weather. And I’ve had a very busy month!

Firstly, there have been some disability related developments, most of them positive. In particular, I’ve spoken at a conference, been a guest on a podcast, and I was filmed for another documentary. So my visual impairment led to a few great opportunities in quick succession, I’m happy to say.

On the downside, I’ve finally received the call-up letter to switch from Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to Personal Independence Payments (PIP). This basically means I have to fill out a huge form about how my disability affects me, and then have a face-to-face assessment with a health professional, so the government can decide if I’m entitled to benefit payments. It sounds relatively simple when worded like that, but most disabled people will tell you it’s anything but. So that’s going to be on my mind a lot over the next couple of months at least, and I’m not looking forward to the process. But I’ll let you know how it goes at a later date. I’m not going to bore you with a rant about it in this post!

Thankfully, apart from that, I’ve been able to enjoy the month in many other ways. I went on a lovely weekend break with my girlfriend, I’ve been out in London for more exhibitions and walks, my girlfriend and I enjoyed a new film at the cinema, and I’ve enjoyed new TV shows and music releases at home. So there’s plenty to get through. As always, I’m not sponsored by anyone mentioned here, I’m just sharing these things because I enjoyed them. And I hope you enjoy this month’s post and video!

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May 2019 Favourites

Hello again, and welcome to my latest monthly recap. I’ve been a bit quiet here this past month, and that’s because I had to take a step back while working on a couple of important things – neither of which I can give you a lot of detail about in this post, although I will briefly tease you about them.

A lot of my time was spent preparing for this year’s Aniridia Network Conference. Not only was I going to be capturing photos and video, but I also had to prepare and rehearse a talk of my own, about how I’ve grown in confidence with aniridia. So that was naturally on my mind a lot. The successful event took place on 1 June, and all of the talks were filmed, which I’ll be editing and uploading to the charity’s Youtube channel in the weeks to come. So I’ll share my talk with you at a later date. In the meantime, do also keep an eye out for Aniridia Day on 21 June, which will raise awareness of the condition worldwide, and show your support if you can.

I was also on camera during May itself though, for another exciting reason, because a mini documentary was made about me by a wonderful group of film students. I really enjoyed the experience, and I’m very pleased with how the film’s come out. I’ll tell you all about it in a separate post later, after the video has been published (although there is a sneaky preview in the video relating to this post). It was made for a major disability charity, so I’m waiting to see if they’ll post it first. But I have permission to publish it on my own channel as well, so it’ll end up there in due course. In any case, I’m really looking forward to sharing it with you!

Those events aside, there are still some other bits and pieces I can tell you about in this month’s post and video. As always, I’m not sponsored by anybody mentioned here, nothing has been gifted, and all opinions are my own. So let’s crack on with it, and I hope you enjoy as per usual!

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Blogger Interview – Carol (The Invisible Vision Project)

It’s time to showcase another blogger as part of my little series of interviews, and today I’m delighted to introduce you to Xin (Carol) Sun, who many of you may already know as the author of The Invisible Vision Project.

On Monday she very kindly posted an interview with me on her website, so in return I’m very pleased to share an interview with her here, and I hope you enjoy reading it. Please do go and check out her blog as well, where she’s got a lot of wonderful posts, and follow her on social media using the links at the end. She’ll really appreciate it!

So big thanks to Carol for collaborating with me, and let’s get on with the interview!

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Blogger Interview – Chelsey (VI Blind Resources)

Last month I was very kindly featured on the blog VI Blind Resources, after Chelsey interviewed me about being raised by visually impaired parents. It’s not something I’ve really written about here on my blog, so do go and give it a read to find out a bit more about me.

In exchange for that, I’m delighted to feature an interview with Chelsey here on my blog. She regularly posts on her blog and YouTube channel and across social media, and she even makes the effort to provide written descriptions for images and audio descriptions in her videos. So do go and check her out, and I hope you enjoy this little interview with her. Thank you to Chelsey for featuring me and answering my questions!

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Blogger Interview – Amanda Gene

This is a new type of post for me – an interview exchange with another blogger! Amanda Gene came to me with the idea, having interviewed some other bloggers already, and I was of course very flattered and happy to take part! Amanda has already published her interview with me, so do go and check that out too.

I’d love to do more posts like this too. I think it’s a really nice way to learn about other people, for the same reason that tag posts are so enjoyable. Plus it’s very important to support and promote each other in the blogging community, especially as disabled bloggers get overlooked somewhat (which is why I’ve created lists of bloggers who post about sight loss, disability, London & entertainment). So if anybody wants to do an exchange of Q&As like this, feel free to contact me.

Anyway, here is the interview I did with Amanda. I hope you enjoy it. Do give her a follow if you can, all of her social links are at the end of the post. Thank you so much to Amanda for featuring me on her blog and for answering my questions here as well! She gives great advice on blogging and interacting with disabled people, and it’s really interesting to get an insight into her disability and the things she enjoys.

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May 2018 Favourites

May was a lovely month. The weather’s been gorgeous lately, for the most part, and with no major events going on it’s been quite a relaxing few weeks. But there are still various bits and pieces I’ve enjoyed, and want to mention in this latest post and video update. So I hope you find this interesting.

To start with though, I just quickly want to plug a couple of upcoming events in June that will interest some of you. They’re for people all over the world to join in with, not just the UK. The more the merrier really, as it will help to spread vital awareness in both cases.

June 20th will be Nystagmus Awareness Day, which is its new permanent date, having moved from November. This year’s theme is Nystagmus In The Open, where people are being encouraged to do outdoor activities to raise funds and generate awareness. Sue, who runs the Nystagmus Network, is opening her garden for people to visit, for instance. People are also being invited to submit their stories online to show how amazing people with nystagmus are.

June 21st will then be Aniridia Day. This is the second time it’s been held, as it was a big success last year. This year’s awareness campaign is called Aniridia Sight, where we want people with aniridia to share a photo or video of a scene, and describe how they see it through their eyes. So the more people that get involved, the more we can show how varied the vision of people with aniridia is. And then there will hopefully be live webinars too, for people to discuss aniridia related topics e.g. doctors, researchers, people with aniridia, etc.

So now that’s out of the way, let me tell you what I’ve been up to in May.

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February 2018 Favourites

Well, what a way to start a new month, with snow all over the place! Winter has seemed very reluctant to let Spring take over, but hopefully things will warm up in the coming weeks now.

And the cold weather didn’t stopped February from being an eventful month. Following on from my January 2018 Favourites, it’s now time to look through what I’ve been enjoying in February. And even though it’s the shortest month, I seem to have packed quite a bit in! So I hope you enjoy this post and video for February.

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