Category: Disability

Somebody To Love

I love a lot about life – my family, friends, music, comedy, technology, culture, food, London, etc, much of which I’ve discussed in my post about What Makes Me, as well as across my blog in general.

But I’ve never talked about my relationship status here. It’s felt too personal to go into, and it isn’t one of the subjects I’ve designed this blog to be about. However, as it’s Valentine’s Day, I wanted to address it this year.

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Conductive Coding At Tate Modern

During January I visited a few museums, which is always a good option when it’s cold and wet outside. And the most interesting event took place at the Tate Modern, involving a mixture of hand weaving and modern technology. It was an event run specifically for the visually impaired, including an audio described tour and a workshop, and it was a lovely day. So I wanted to tell you a bit about it.

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A Christmas Carol at The Old Vic

Traditionally Christmas lasts for 12 days, and to some extent that remained true for my mother and I, as last weekend we did take our decorations and tree down and packed it all away, as it was a convenient time to do it.

However, the festivities didn’t actually conclude until a few days later, because we took the opportunity to see A Christmas Carol at The Old Vic on Tuesday, which at the time of posting is running for one more week until January 19.

We had actually booked to go in January last year, but sadly had to miss it due to illness. So this time around, as soon as I became aware of the date for the audio described performance, I booked it again well in advance, crossing my fingers tightly that we wouldn’t get ill this time. And thankfully, touch wood, we seem to have escaped any colds so far this winter, which is a relief!

So we did finally get to see it, and had a touch tour and audio description as well. The play had been getting rave reviews everywhere, so we were really hoping that it would be worth the wait. And it absolutely was!

So I wanted to tell you a bit about it, without spoiling anything in case you want to see it (and you should!). If you can’t get to the last few dates this year, do look out in case in returns to The Old Vic again next Christmas.

As usual, all opinions are my own here. This post isn’t sponsored or endorsed by anybody connected with the theatre or the show, and my mother and I paid to see it out of our own money. I just wanted to share my experience, so I hope you enjoy reading about it!

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2018 Review

My second year in London has flown by, and what an incredible year it’s been, full of even bigger surprises and adventures than the first. Raising £920 from my charity abseil for nystagmus research and giving a speech to primary school children about growing up with sight loss were 2 of my biggest and most surprising achievements this year without a doubt, but there’s been so much more going on as well.

I really do feel like I’ve settled in properly now. I’ll always want to experiment with new things and meet new people, that’s one of the many great things that living in such a wonderful city enables you to do. But the foundations I laid by doing that in 2017 definitely enabled me to have more confidence in 2018, so I had a much better idea of the things I enjoyed doing most, I was less shy around people, and I made more friends on an individual level beyond just going to social groups.

My blogging has also gone well this year. It’s only ever been a hobby on the side – I’m not after fame or money or PR opportunities or anything like that – so I’ve never been worried about the numbers. But it is nice to check the figures at the end of the year, and I’m delighted that my subscriber counts have gone up so well:

  • Blog = 132 followers (more than doubled from 60 last year).
  • Youtube = 400 subscribers (doubled from 200).
  • Twitter = 570 followers (nearly doubled from 300).
  • Instagram = 300 followers (more than trebled from 90).
  • Facebook = 63 followers (my page was still very new back in 2017, so I didn’t note the figure back then).

They may not be huge numbers compared to some, but they’re great for me, and my efforts have already been far more rewarding than I ever could have anticipated. I’ve continued to get many amazing opportunities and lots of wonderful feedback, been invited to do various guests posts, and have made wonderful friends in person as well as online, all as a direct result of my posts and videos. So I’m getting far more success and satisfaction from this than I’d ever expected or could have hoped for, and if things continue to go so well then I’ll be very happy!

So thank you ever so much to everyone who has followed and supported my adventures, whether you’ve joined over the past year or have been with me since I started this blog nearly 3 years ago. It’s greatly appreciated that you find my posts interesting, entertaining and inspiring, and I hope you’ll continue to follow me in 2019.

But before we get into the new year, here’s a look back at what I’ve been up to in 2018. I’ve published Favourites posts and videos for every month, which you can get to by clicking the monthly headings below. And you can also see more in-depth posts, photos and videos about particular things linked throughout the text in bold (but there will be even more links in the Favourites posts themselves of course).

So I hope you enjoy this recap of the year, and thank you again for being a part of it and sharing it with me. And a very Happy New Year too! I hope that 2019 is a great one for you! 🙂

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Christmas 2018 Favourites – Out & About

Welcome to the third and final part of my Christmas Favourites series for this year. The first 2 parts were all about my favourite food and fashion and entertainment. Here I’m going to talk about the festive activities that I’ve been enjoying in London this year, including theatre shows, light displays and walks, among other things (but not Christmas meals, as they’re in the Food post).

Note: I updated this post regularly to cover all of my festive activities, so despite the publication date, the final revision was actually on January 11th 2019.

So I hope you enjoy reading about my yuletide adventures this year. There’s also a video to go with this post too. And don’t forget to check out my other Christmas posts & lists if this isn’t enough for you.

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Christmas 2018 Favourites – Entertainment

Welcome to the second of my Christmas Favourites posts for this year. In the previous post I wrote my about festive food and fashion, and in the next post you’ll find everything else I’ve done while out and about this Christmas. So here I’m going to talk about the entertainment I’ve been enjoying on TV, radio and online.

Note: I continued to update this post into the new year to keep everything together. So despite the publication date, the final revision was actually on January 15th 2019.

So I hope you’ve enjoyed your Christmas, and I hope you enjoy this rundown of my favourite Yuletide entertainment this year. There’s also a video to go with this post too. And don’t forget to check out my other Christmas posts & lists if this isn’t enough for you.

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Christmas 2018 Favourites – Food & Fashion

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 🙂

I hope everybody’s having a wonderful time, whoever you’re with and whatever you’re doing. Or if you need support and comfort because things aren’t going so well, then I hope you’re able to find some solace and company to make things easier. And if you’re working today and over the holidays, especially if you’re in the emergency services and other essential jobs, you have my utmost admiration and respect.

Also a very big thank you to everyone who has supported my blog and my adventures over what has been an incredible second year in London for me. It’s been full of even more amazing surprises and adventures than the first year, so I’m very much looking forward to seeing what 2019 brings. And I hope you’ll stick with me for it.

But we need to wrap up 2018 first. And I’m going to do that over a few posts, as there’s a lot to tell you about. In this post I’m going to tell you about the Christmas food I’ve been over-indulging on, and a few items of festive clothing that I’ve got this year. Then in the next post, I’m going to tell you about all of the entertainment I’m enjoying right now, and then I’ll tell what I’ve been doing to while out & about (apart from the Christmas meals mentioned below).

I’ve also produced a video to accompany this series of posts.

So I hope you enjoy reading about my favourites over the festive period. And feel free to check out my other Christmas posts & lists if you want even more to occupy your time with. 🙂

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