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!

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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!

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March & April 2017 Favourites

Hey there, welcome back! I’m sorry I didn’t do a Favourites post for March, but I was unwell that month with dental problems, so I didn’t end up going to any events in the end. It’s all resolved now though, and despite that setback it was still a productive month at home. Then in April I was able to go out a lot more again, by myself and with other people.

So there’s quite a lot to bring you up to date with, particularly the many outings I’ve had for tours, walks, museum visits and social events in April. I took lots of photos along the way, some of which I’ve included below, while there are more on my Instagram too. And I’ve posted several video clips on my Youtube channel, which I’ve also included below. Plus there are updates on things I’ve been doing and watching at home. So I hope you enjoy it all!

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January 2017 Favourites

Well, here we are then. After all the planning we’ve done and the curveballs that have been thrown our way, my mother and I are finally living in London! 🙂 We’ve already had our first Christmas as new residents, and now 2017 has got off to a very busy and interesting start.

So I want to bring you up to date with what I’ve been doing over the past few weeks. And instead of posting journal entries like I was doing in Devon, with everything randomly mixed together, going forward I want to try and write more structured Favourites posts each month, where I share the things that I’ve been enjoying the most in the city and elsewhere. The aim is to include details of social events, museum exhibitions, theatre shows, walks, travel, TV, films, music and anything else that takes my fancy.

This first month has been all about settling in of course. There have been plenty of things to sort out at home and regarding my job, but I’ve also got out and about a lot too. In particular, I’ve attended several events by a social group called Thinking Bob, who I’ve been curious about for a while, plus I’ve also been to a museum and had a few nice walks. So there’s a lot to get through here, and I hope you enjoy it!

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Journal – Christmas 2016 (Moving To London)

Finally, after nearly 120 journal posts – and thank you so much for reading if you’ve gone through some or all of them – my mother and I have now moved away from Devon into my Nan’s house in London, which we inherited when she passed away.

So in this post you’ll find out how we’ve settled in over the festive period, sorting through various bits and pieces, having problems with BT, going shopping and taking some nice walks. I also got to see my best mate and his wife who were visiting the city, signed up for some social events in January, watched a lot of TV, and was shocked to hear about the deaths of 3 very popular entertainers.

Going forward, I’ll be sharing my (hopefully many) adventures in London in a monthly roundup format, as I’ll explain at the end. But for now, I hope you enjoy this bumper post about my long-awaited arrival in the capital!

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Audio Description On Youtube

In this post and video I want to describe what audio description is, how it is useful for the blind and visually impaired, and why it’s high time we should be able to add it to Youtube videos. This is in support of the #AudioDescribeYT campaign, launched by James Rath.

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Underground, Overground, Rambling Free

This past week I spent a couple of days in London with a friend. Just a brief visit, but we had a lovely time. It was my first time in the city for a few years – I used to go up there two or three times a year when I was a kid, because we had relatives there, but over the past 5-10 years the visits have been much more sporadic. Hopefully I’ll actually be living there soon (crosses fingers), so it was also a preliminary visit to re-familiarise myself with the area and see what it was like getting around the place.

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Audio Description & DVD Navigation

I’ve just received, and have happily started watching, Doctor Who Series 9 on Blu-ray. And from a visually impaired person’s perspective, I’m very pleased to see they’re continuing with audio navigation and audio description on the discs. Sherlock gets the same treatment as well.

I personally find it very useful for pointing out smaller details that I’ve missed, and for reading text on the screen that I would otherwise have to pause and squint at to read, among other things. But it’s frustrating that such audio assistance isn’t much more widespread. So I thought I’d quickly explain what it is and why it’s useful.

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Journal – March 2015

Welcome to my next set of journal entries. This has been quite an eventful month, including a colleague retiring, electoral work, our builder visiting, a friend’s relationship ending, my best mate’s wedding preparations continuing, and my TV explorations with a new streaming box. So I hope you enjoy!

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Journal – January-February 2015 (Guernsey Holiday)

Here we go once again into another year. This looks set to be significantly busier than the last one, in particular because my best mate from Guernsey is getting married, and I’m going to be one of the two best men at his wedding, alongside his cousin.

So these lengthy, detailed entries to start the year are all about my recent trip to see my friend on the island, where I got to meet some of his family members and relatives, had nice walks, ate lots of nice things, watched various TV shows and films, played video games, and even had my first experience of getting properly drunk. And I’ll be travelling over there again a couple more times in the months ahead. So I hope you enjoy reading about it all!

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