Update (March 1st) – I won the challenge, much to my surprise! Thank you so much to Rare Disease UK! It was great fun being involved, because I loved the theme of the campaign, and I really enjoyed seeing other people’s photos. So very well done to all involved. We can all be proud of our efforts to raise awareness during the month! 🙂
Today is a wonderful international opportunity to raise awareness of rare diseases, conditions, disabilities, etc, to educate people and highlight the need for greater funding and research. Here in the UK, it’s led by Rare Disease UK. But there are events taking place worldwide, so there will be related organisations in many countries.
1 in 17 people have a rare disease, meaning it’s a lot more common than you might think. So even if you don’t have one yourself, chances are you know somebody who does. And if you do have a rare condition, you’re certainly not alone.
There are over 6,000 rare diseases, affecting over 300 million people worldwide (including 30 million in Europe). That’s a huge number! So this is a day for all of us unusual rarities to get together, along with anyone and everyone who supports us and the cause in any way.
This year, the theme is “Show your rare, show you care”, and everyone can get involved, regardless of whether or they you have a rare disease. So that includes patients, families, carers, medical professionals, policy makers and members of the public.
If you live in the UK like me, you’ll be well aware that we’re getting another blast of winter from the weather gods right now, including some snow. Which is lovely to look at if you don’t have to go travelling in it – yay to being a homeworker! – but on the whole I think we’re all looking forward to spring and some warmer weather more than ever.
But as we’re still in the winter season at the moment, it felt like a very appropriate time to go and see a play called Winter by Jon Fosse, which was on at the Young Vic theatre from the 14th-24th February. Granted, it’s got nothing to do with the weather, but the title and timing is appropriate. And it is quite an unusual play compared to the ones I’ve attended so far. So I wanted to tell you a bit about my experience.
Before I do, there are a couple of important points to note for transparency:
I was among a few visually impaired bloggers very kindly offered complimentary tickets by the theatre to see the show, as they were extending their accessibility services for this production and wanted our feedback. However, all ramblings and opinions here are my own, the theatre have had no input into this post.
This is a spoiler-free review. Although the play’s run at the Young Vic has finished, it will appear in other venues, just it has done in the past. So there’s a chance other people interested in the show will find this post, and I don’t want to ruin anything!
Now that’s sorted, let me tell you how things went last Friday. I hope you enjoy reading about it.
To escape from the freezing weather at the weekend, I spent a couple of afternoons looking around the Museum Of London, which I haven’t yet been to since moving here. I think I may have been there once as a kid, but I don’t recall it in any detail. It’s a really interesting place though, covering the entire history of London through a huge variety of exhibits. So I was really looking forward to exploring it, as I’ve always loved the city since I was a child visiting relatives here, and I’m now very happy to be actually living here.
My first visit on Saturday afternoon had a dual purpose, as I was helping a lovely lady called Rafie Cecilia from University College London with her PhD study into assistive technology for visually impaired people at museums. This basically involved me wearing a camera on my chest to record what I was looking at, while Rafie followed me around and took notes on what I was doing, and then she recorded an interview with me afterwards about my experience. She’s very friendly and professional, and it’s wonderful that she’s looking into this kind of thing, so I enjoyed the experience. This is our second of 3 meetings in fact, having first got together at the Victoria & Albert Museum in December, and I’m looking forward to meeting her again at the Wallace Collection soon. And I know she’ll be reading this, so hello! 🙂
I had only intended to visit for one day this weekend, but as I didn’t get to see the entire first floor on Saturday, I decided to go back and finish it off on Sunday. That only took another hour though, which was quicker than I thought it would be. So I ended up going downstairs and looking through all of that floor as well. Sure, I didn’t read or view everything along the way, as I couldn’t see it all clearly enough, for reasons I’ll get to later in this post. But I did get to see a lot of lovely things, and took hundreds of photos along the way, so I got a lot out of it overall.
So in this post I want to tell you about my visit, and show you just a handful of the many photos I took. I hope you enjoy!
After a very eventful and successful 2017, I’ve been looking forward to seeing what 2018 would bring. And for this first month of the year I’ve been mostly doing things indoors, given the cold weather outside.
So I’ve been going out to various museums, and have also been to the theatre, while at home I’ve been watching a couple of the DVD sets I bought last year. I’m also making an effort to start listening to more audiobooks this year, as I only did one in 2017, which was bad of me – although, to be fair, book-reading wasn’t top of my to-do list having just moved to a huge city!
So I’ve been keeping myself entertained in various ways, and I hope you enjoy this recap, for which I’ve also produced a video as well.
It’s hard to believe, with all the advances in healthcare, science and technology, that cancer still exists today. Sure, we have made great strides in treating it and finding out more about it, which has helped to save and extend many lives, and for which we must be extremely grateful. But there are still far too many fatalities – just one is too many – and there is still so much more work to be done.
Of course, there is no single magic bullet that will cure it, especially as there are many different types of cancer that have to be treated in different ways. But the more research we can do, the more effective weapons we can develop and have in our arsenal to keep it at bay. No matter how stubborn and resilient it tries to be, we can tame it and beat it, and ultimately we will. It may take a great deal of time, money and effort, but it’s well worth it, because it will save and improve millions of lives.
Cancer has an impact on pretty much everybody at some point in their lives – even if you never get it yourself, chances are you’ll know someone who does. I’ve lost a good friend to the condition, and that’s what I want to tell you about here.
I made a post and a video about this a couple of years ago, for Stand Up To Cancer. But now I’ve improved as a blogger and Youtuber somewhat, I’ve decided to scrap those and extensively re-edit the text for a blog post that I can share in support of any cancer campaign, not just one specific one. And I’ve chosen today to do it, having become aware that the 4th of February is World Cancer Day. So I hope you find the post interesting. I know it’s not a nice or comfortable or entertaining subject to read about, but it is a very important one.
Note: The Tate app referred to below is no longer available, but I hope you still enjoy reading about my first visit to the attraction.
On Saturday I decided to visit the Tate Modern, as I had stumbled upon the fact that they now have a mobile app giving audio tours around the place, as well as other features that tell you more about the art on display, the activities on offer and where to eat and go shopping.
The last time I visited the Tate Modern was as a kid with my family, which I don’t remember clearly now of course (but I did record a bit of video footage at the time). So it’s been on my list of places to explore since I moved to the city, and this was a good opportunity.
I haven’t just been looking at Harry Potter things this month. I’ve also been to other museums as well. And in this post, I want to talk about the Information Age gallery at the Science Museum. I explored the exhibition over a couple of visits, as there’s so much to see in there. It was all very interesting, and I was also curious to try a special accessibility app that had been developed especially for it. So this post is a little review of my experience.
As well as the Harry Potter Studio Tour I explored earlier this month, I was also lucky enough to go to the British Library last Monday, for their exhibition on Harry Potter: A History Of Magic. This has proven to be extremely popular, because all of the tickets are now sold out online for the rest of the run (though it may be possible to get a ticket on the day you go to the library if you’re lucky). So I feel very fortunate to have had a chance to see it. Big thanks to Emily Davison from Fashioneyesta for inviting me to explore it with her, as we had a lovely afternoon.
Harry Potter has been cropping up with some regularity in my London itinerary over recent months. Back in October I saw The Cursed Child at the theatre, complete with a touch tour on stage and audio description during the show, which was amazing, And shortly after that I did the Tour For Muggles, which was a very enjoyable walking tour around filming locations in London. And later this month i’ll be going to the British Library’s History Of Magic exhibition.
But last weekend I did something which trumps all of that in the Harry Potter stakes, by visiting the Warner Bros Studio Tour: The Making Of Harry Potter. So in this extensive post I’m going to tell you all about my experience, including some of my thoughts from an accessibility perspective, and the merchandise I picked up.
Happy New Year everybody! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, and that 2018 is a joyful and prosperous year for you. 🙂
This Christmas marked my first anniversary of moving to London. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long already. And 2017 has been an amazing year! Although I was already used to getting around the city from my previous visits, it was still a leap into the unknown in many respects to actually live here. I had no idea how well it would work out, how safe or comfortable I would feel, how accessible events and attractions would be, and how easy it would be to make friends.
But it’s been more than worth the effort, and I’m extremely happy with how well it’s gone, given all the friends I’ve made, places I’ve explored, new things I’ve tried, and the opportunities I’ve taken up. A year ago I never imagined that I would be doing many of the things that have transpired in the months since.
I’m also pleased that my blog, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter pages have had a steady increase in followers over the year. Sure, I don’t have big numbers compared to the bigger bloggers out there, but relative to where I was a year ago it’s been a substantial leap. And my goals for this haven’t been about the numbers anyway. Making connections, sharing my experiences and spreading a bit of awareness was always my aim, and I’ve been achieving that. It’s resulted in numerous opportunities and new experiences, including guest posts, a public speech (with another planned for next year), participating in a research study (which is continuing next year), being interviewed by a journalist, and more. My efforts have been paying off more than I could ever have imagined, and I’m loving it.
But above all, thank you so much to everyone I’ve met and interacted with during the year, whether it be in person or online. By reading, liking and sharing my content, leaving comments, asking questions, sending me private messages and emails, giving me opportunities for guest posts and public talks, and even meeting up in person, you’ve helped to make this year a very special one for me. Especially Aniridia Network UK, Nystagmus Network, London Vision, Thinking Bob, VocalEyes, RNIB, Scope, Fashioneyesta, Life Of A Blind Girl, My Blurred World, Luke Sam Sowden & All The Stations, but also everyone else that I’ve had any kind of contact with during the year.
Everyone has been very positive and supportive, and your involvement has enabled me to start this new chapter in my life with confidence and comfort, and fun and friendship. And for that I’ll always be very grateful. 2017 will forever be one of the most significant and happy of my life, nothing will take that away.
And I’ve had a lovely Christmas to finish it off in style, so I wanted to bring you up to date with how it went and the various things I enjoyed. This is quite an epic post as a result, and I’ve also filmed a video that mentions some of the stuff here along with my general reflections on 2017 as a whole. So I hope you enjoy!
Well Eye Never 
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