Sport – Page 4 – Well Eye Never

The Sunshine Blogger Award

I enjoy doing Q&A tag posts, whether they’re disability related or on other topics, as they’re a nice way to connect with other bloggers so we can get to know each other better, and it’s also lovely to be invited to participate in them.

And this time around, appropriately for summer, I’ve been very kindly nominated for the Sunshine Blogger Award. This award is given by bloggers to other bloggers, to recognise and celebrate the creativity, positivity and inspiration in their work. And the rules are simple:

List the rules and display The Sunshine Blogger Award badge in your post.
Thank the blogger who nominated you and link back to their blog.
Answer the 10 questions that the person who nominated you asked you.
Nominate up to 12 other bloggers to receive the award and ask them 10 new questions.

So to be nominated just once by anybody is a great honour. But over the last few weeks I’ve been nominated THREE times, which is extremely flattering! So thank you very much indeed to Holly (Life of a Blind Girl), Luke Sam Sowden & Carol (The Invisible Vision Project), it’s very generous of you all to nominate me! They’ve all asked completely different questions too, which is wonderful. So I hope you enjoy reading my answers to them all.

Naidex 2018

On the 25^th and 26^th of April I went to the Naidex show for the first time, which was held in the Birmingham NEC. It’s Europe’s biggest event dedicated to disability and independent living, and is full of companies showcasing the latest technology, products and services they have to offer, along with seminars and panel discussions, a mobility test track, a sporting arena for people to try out different activities, a moving and handling lab offering training for healthcare professionals, and more. And it’s completely free to attend, which makes it very worthwhile going to check it all out.

I’d never heard of the event before, so I was very intrigued to see what it was all about. I became aware of it because I was one of various bloggers contacted by Cláudia from the Prysm Group marketing team. As well as telling me about the event, she asked if I wanted to be an ambassador for it – which basically involved me giving them a plug on my social media channels, and they would promote my blog in return. I was happy to do that, given my interest in the event, so that’s what we did. Hence you will have seen me mentioning them every so often over the past month, and they did indeed share the link to my blog on Facebook and Twitter a couple of times as well. I didn’t receive any payments or gifts for it, we were literally just exchanging posts to promote each other.

And the event itself was great, I really enjoyed exploring it over both days. So I want to give you a comprehensive review of the event, and tell you about the various companies, products and services that I became aware of. As a result, this is quite a long post, but it is divided into headings with a contents list if it’s helpful. So I hope you enjoy reading about it!

Note: Footage from the event can be seen in my April Favourites video. I also discussed my Naidex visit with Fern Lulham on AMI Audio‘s Kelly & Company show on 24 May 2018.

Motown The Musical

Although I was born in the early 80’s, I grew up with a lot of 60’s music, because my parents enjoyed it and so had plenty of it in the house. So I’ve always enjoyed listening to tracks from that era, including the hits of Motown. So many amazing and timeless artists and songs have come out of the Motown movement, that people still enjoy today, and that still influences many musicians today.

So it’s only right and fitting that we now have Motown The Musical to celebrate it, and I got to see it this week at the Shaftesbury Theatre, with my friends at East London Vision, for an accessible performance organised by those wonderful folks at VocalEyes. So I hope you enjoy this review of my experience!

March 2018 Favourites

Well, that’s an early Easter out of the way for this year, and I hope everyone had a great time. We had the typical bank holiday weather here in the UK – i.e. wet – but on the plus side we also had lots of treats to indulge on as well, so it’s been like another Christmas in that sense. Indeed, with the wintery weather still hanging around, you’d be forgiven for not realising it was spring yet. Still, just like February, once again the weather hasn’t stopped me from having another very successful month.

But before I get on to the details, I just want to very quickly mention a free event I’m attending in April that you might also be interested in. I’m not being paid to mention it, but I am one of their voluntary social media ambassadors. And regardless of that, I’m genuinely intrigued by the whole thing anyway, having never heard of it before, so it deserves a mention in any case. And I don’t want to bury it at the bottom of the post where nobody will see it.

So to quote them directly:

Naidex is Europe’s most exciting event dedicated to the disability, independent living and healthcare professional sectors. Taking place at the NEC Birmingham on the 25th and 26th April, this esteemed event provides cutting-edge exhibitors, world-class CPD accredited seminars, live demos, 1-2-1 advice and unparalleled networking opportunities, over two unforgettable days. And it’s absolutely free to attend! Register for your FREE ticket on naidex.co.uk!

There are bold claims there, I know, but in all fairness I’ve looked through the show guide listing the exhibitors, speakers and events, and it really is very exciting. Plus it is their 44th year, so they know what they’re doing. I’ll be there both days and will have no problem filling the time, and I will of course tell you all about it. But I recommend going too if you can – it’s free, so you just have to be able to get to Birmingham on at least one of those days, and you need to register for tickets on their website in advance. If you’re a fellow blogger who’s also going, and you want to say hello there or collaborate in some way in relation to it, you’re welcome to get in touch. And if you know others who might want to go, pass it on!

Ok, that’s all I have to say about it, I just felt it deserved a plug. Now let’s crack on with my latest favourites post and video, so you can see what I’ve been up to. I hope you enjoy it!

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!

June 2017 Favourites

Hi there, welcome back to the next instalment of my monthly updates. It’s hard to believe that it was the 6-month anniversary of my move to London in June, that’s certainly flown by!

Of course, I appreciate that this month is one that some people would rather forget, given the despicable attack on London Bridge and the devastating Grenfell Tower fire, and my thoughts go out to everyone affected by those terrible events.

But for me, I’ve happily continued with my explorations of London, taking advantage of the glorious weather to walk around a lot of different places, capturing lots of photos and videos along the way, as well as celebrating Aniridia Day, seeing TV shows being recorded and socialising with friends! Hence this is a very busy post, and I hope you enjoy it all!

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!

Sight Village 2016

Last week I had to go up to London for a couple of days, so I took the opportunity to spend a long afternoon exploring Sight Village, an exhibition showcasing products, services and organisations for visually impaired people. Their main show each year is in Birmingham, but they also have roadshows in Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow and, in this case, London. So I thought I’d do a write-up bout my visit. Which, fair warning, is quite long! But I’ve added headings throughout to split it up, in case you want to jump to any part in particular. So I hope you find it interesting. 🙂

Thank You Rio – Paralympics Review

If you’ve seen my School Days video, you’ll know I used to be a member of a local sports club for disabled people when I was a kid. So, as well as doing sports at school, I would also take part in lots of swimming galas around England, from Darlington in the north, to Plymouth in the south, and lots of other places in between.

There were people with lots of different disabilities at those events, so to try and make things as equal as possible, they would either try and group people with similar conditions together in each event, or the competitors in each race would start at different times (from slowest first, to fastest last), based on their personal best times. The theory being that the finish of each race would be quite close, although often that never really held true.

In any case, I won a lot of medals and a few trophies over those years. And it got to a point where I was offered the chance to train for the national disabled swimming team. But I decided not to take it any further. I wasn’t sufficiently interested or motivated to take it to a more professional level, instead having my sights on things like my exams, university and my career beyond that.

I didn’t even know about the Paralympics back then. If I had been aware of it, and if it had been as widely covered as it is now, and if the right support, coaching and funding had been available, maybe I’d have thought differently, who knows? But at the time, I was more interested in other things. And I don’t regret my decision at all, I’ve been very successful on the route I did take through life. But when you watch the kind of performances that we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks, it’s impossible not to wonder how things could have been, potentially, with the right drive and determination.

So with all that said, I hope you enjoy this review of the Rio Paralympics, and I’ve created a Youtube playlist of highlights from Channel 4 as well.

Journal – August 2016

Hello again. We’re still edging towards our hopeful move to London, as we’ve had more viewings of our house in Devon this month and I’ve been doing some research into socialising in the capital, plus I’ve celebrated my birthday of course. So I hope you enjoy these journal posts as always!

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