Audio Description – Page 10

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.

November 2017 Favourites

Hello again, welcome to my latest Favourites roundup. Once again it’s a varied package, with some disability blog posts and events, a museum tour, no less than three musicals, another outing with Fashioneyesta, my first trip to a Lush store, the delights of the Lord Mayor’s Show, and more. So I hope you enjoy looking through it al!

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!

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!

Open House Tours

Last weekend was the Open House London weekend, where hundreds of buildings across the capital opened their doors for free for the public to look around and take part in talks and tours. These include many places that you might never have heard of or never considered visiting before. Some of the places also do tours during the rest of the year, but you may have to pay for them, whereas on this weekend they’re free. And some places may rarely grant public access at all, so this may be the only opportunity you get to look around. So it’s a great initiative that’s been running for 25 years now, and the volunteers who help to make it happen deserve thanks and praise for their work.

As part of this event, the team at VocalEyes arranged special audio described tours of 4 different buildings for visually impaired people. I went on 3 of them (I didn’t do the 4th as I had something else planned). It was my first time going to an Open House weekend, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. So I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for it next year. So here’s my summary of the tours I went on.

August 2017 Favourites

Hi there, welcome to my next update! My birthday month has been marked by a number of special outings, including my first meeting with one of my favourite Youtubers, my first audio description experiences at a theatre and a cinema, my first visits to a few places outside London, a park outing with a visually impaired social group, a music pub quiz, some talking statues, and a couple of other walks too. So yet again there’s a lot to cover here, with lots of photos and video footage accompanying it, and I hope you enjoy!

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!

Room 101 – My Visually Impaired Frustrations

For this post, I thought I’d do something a bit like the TV show Room 101 (where celebrities nominate their pet hates to be locked away forever). It’s named after the torture chamber in George Orwell’s novel 1984, which is said to contain “the worst thing in the world”. We also had a Room 101 at my college which was rather memorable, because it was the examinations office! So that felt both appropriate and ominous!

So I wanted to do a post along those lines, using it as an excuse to list some things that frustrate or irritate me because I have a visual impairment. I’ve also made a Youtube video to accompany it. It’s not at all intended to be offensive or to upset anyone, and I’m not a negative or moaning person. I’m actually very positive, as I’ve hopefully conveyed throughout this blog. But it’s nice to get some things off your chest now and again, and to try and spread a bit of awareness in the process.

So here are 10 things that frustrate me as a visually impaired person, which either affect me directly or have an impact on my friends and family. I could think of more, but this is plenty. If you’ve done any of these things, please don’t feel bad about them. We all make mistakes without meaning to, that’s life and that’s fine. All I ask is that you take it on board for future reference.

May 2017 Favourites

Hello again, and welcome to my latest monthly roundup. I’ve continued to settle in well and enjoy a variety of experiences in London over the last few weeks, including more social events, museum visits, festivals, walks and tours, plus I’ve taken a trip to see my old friends in Devon. So there’s loads to get through, and I hope you enjoy reading about it all!

Virgin Media Installation

I’ve been in London for just over a month now, and so far things are going well. As anticipated and hoped, it’s been a much needed and refreshing change of routine, and the last few weeks have been pretty busy as you can imagine. I’ll write about the many things I’ve been up to soon.

The one thing we have had trouble with, however, is getting the internet set up, which is why I’ve been so quiet here. We had been assured by BT that they could transfer our broadband account to our new property without any problems, which we were glad to hear. But unfortunately, as I explained in detail in my Christmas journal, their system got completely confused by the additional homeworking line my employer had installed. So the transfer kept failing, and after spending ages on the phone we cancelled our account.

We then signed up to Virgin Media instead, taking advantage of a generous offer via my employer’s benefits scheme, whereby I got free installation and a £10 per month discount for the first year. Since then I’m happy to say that the switch to Virgin has been successful so far. They’re not perfect – who is? – but on the whole we’re very happy with what we’ve got. So I thought I’d do a review of their service to give my first impressions.

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