February & March 2026 Favourites

Hello again, I hope your year’s been going well so far, and you’re enjoying the Easter weekend. For me, the first few months of 2026 have been a transition period, as I’ve been making the switch from my support worker role to a new zero-hours contract as an accessibility tester, so I can focus more on caring for my mother and looking after my own wellbeing. You can find out more about all of that in my latest Carer & Career Update post.

Because of that, along with the often cold and wet weather, I haven’t done many interesting things in London since my January Favourites. I’ve been out for a few walks, got a haircut and done some shopping when the weather allows, but that’s it – until very recently, when I saw my first theatre show of the year with a friend of mine, which was a much-needed bit of light relief.

So in this post I’ll be talking about my theatre visit, which involved a touch tour and audio description, as well as the variety of entertainment I’ve been enjoying at home. None of it’s sponsored or gifted as usual, and I hope you find it interesting!

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January 2026 Favourites

Hello again, I hope your year’s got off to a good start. For me, as noted in my recent update about my career and being a carer, my circumstances are set to change due to my mother’s ongoing support needs and funding cuts for my current job role. But Mum is much better than she was last year, I’ve already secured a new freelance position, and I have other financial support, so there’s good reason to be positive and hopeful about the year ahead.

I’m also celebrating 10 years of blogging and YouTubing, and that decade has really flown by! Thank you so much if you’ve played any part in that, whether it’s quietly reading my posts or interacting with me in some way, I really appreciate it!

But to focus on January, I have started going out and about more again, now that my mother’s situation has eased a bit. So I’ve met a couple of friends, eaten some delicious food and taken a few nice walks. Meanwhile at home, alongside my usual favourite TV programmes, I’ve been having a stand-up comedy binge by watching several specials and finishing an autobiography. So there’s quite a bit to mention as usual, none of which is sponsored to appear here, and I hope you enjoy!

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Ten Years Of Blogging

Incredibly, this month marks the 10th anniversary of my blog, as I registered with WordPress and started rambling away here at the start of February in 2016, talking about my conditions aniridia and nystagmus. The old journal posts listed before then were added and backdated retrospectively during the Covid lockdowns as something to do, although in that regard I’m impressed that I’ve been able to fill a blog with content spanning over 25 years, and that people have been so interested in reading about my past as well as the present.

I’ve also just started my 10th year of living in London, so while my anniversary of the big move isn’t technically until next Christmas, and I will probably say more about that particular milestone when the time comes, it’s practically a double celebration.

And on top of all that, thanks to some fortuitous timing, I’ve managed to ensure that this particular post is my 500th to be published here. Sure, there have been more than that in total, as a few posts have been merged or deleted over time, and I’m not counting the index pages. But in terms of currently published posts on my homepage, there are now 500 exactly.

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Freddie Mercury’s World – Part 10 – The Performer

We got there in the end. To conclude my series of photos that I took at the Freddie Mercury: A World Of His Own exhibition at Sotheby’s in 2023, we’re paying close attention to what the Queen frontman was best known for – his songwriting and performing.

There are some very significant items here, most of which are from the On Stage auction, but there are a few pieces from other auctions thrown in too. It all depends on how Sotheby’s had things on display in the galleries.

As has been the case in all the previous posts, clicking on the images will blow them up and the item links will take you to the description pages. So I hope you enjoy!

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Freddie Mercury’s World – Part 9 – Stage Fashion

Here’s the penultimate collection in my series of amazing items that I saw on my visit to Freddie Mercury: A World Of His Own, the exhibition that took over Sotheby’s in 2023.

We’re now turning our attention to the On Stage auction, where items relating to Freddie’s songwriting and performing – some of which are very recognisable and important to big Queen fans like myself – sold for a total of £9,476,740! Most of the clothing shown here is from that auction but, as with previous posts, there are a few pieces from other auctions mixed in as well.

As ever, you can click on the images to enlarge them and the item names to read more, and I hope you enjoy seeing the wide selection I’ve included here.

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Freddie Mercury’s World – Part 8 – Little Things

Here’s the next part of my in-depth series about my visit to the exhibition Freddie Mercury: A World Of His Own at Sotheby’s in 2023. And we’re continuing on from my previous post about the Crazy Little Things gallery.

This time I’m going to show you a wide selection of mostly smaller items that were sold in the first and second Crazy auctions, and occasionally some of the other auctions, from jewellery to various random objects.

As always, to enlarge the images you can click on them, and to read more about each item you can click on its name. Enjoy!

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Freddie Mercury’s World – Part 7 – The Collector

Freddie Mercury was an avid collector of objects, who had a real eye for beauty, loved all things feline and had a great sense of humour. And that’s clearly in evidence here, as we continue looking back at my photos from the 2023 A World Of His Own exhibition that took place at Sotheby’s.

This time we’re looking at items to do with cats, clothing, books and music that he collected. Most of them are from the auctions Crazy Little Things 1 and Crazy Little Things 2, which raised £10.3 million altogether! But there are a few bits and pieces from other auctions mixed in too, just as there were some items from the Crazy auctions in my previous posts.

So there’s plenty to look through, and as before you can click on the images to enlarge them and the item names to learn more. Hope you enjoy as always!

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Freddie Mercury’s World – Part 6 – Awards

We’ve crossed the halfway point in my look back at the 2023 Sotheby’s exhibition Freddie Mercury: A World Of His Own. I hope you’re finding it interesting so far.

For this post we’re going to look at a whole bunch of awards, because Freddie and Queen were honoured with a deluge of well-earned accolades during and after his lifetime, so there were lots on display in the exhibition. I’m not going to list them all, obviously, but I’m going to present a big selection that I took photos of, to give you a thorough sense of what was there. Most were sold in the Crazy Little Things 2 auction while a few were in the On Stage sale.

The vast majority of the sales awards adorned the walls of a room featuring Freddie’s royal cloak and crown (which you’ll see in a later post in this series). There were a huge number of silver, gold and platinum awards there, for the sales of singles and albums, and occasional awards for videos. But there were also some awards scattered around elsewhere too. A lot of the awards for disc sales look very similar by their nature, but there are a few more striking ones in amongst them.

So let’s crack on with it. As before you can click on the images to enlarge them and the award names to find out more, and I hope you enjoy!

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Freddie Mercury’s World – Part 5 – Art

Freddie Mercury didn’t just love the art of music, he was also a keen fan of paintings and prints. For example, in the first part of this series looking through the photos I took at the 2023 A World Of His Own exhibition at Sotheby’s, we saw some of the Japanese imagery that he had in his collection.

So now it’s time to dig deeper and see more of the art that he owned and had on display at Garden Lodge, his residence from which I recently shared many images of his furniture here and here. Most of these pieces were therefore sold in the At Home auction, but there are some from the Evening Sale and Crazy Little Things auctions too.

Towards the end of this post you’ll also see the famous door to the house, which itself is a work of art due to the fan tributes that completely cover it. And on a related note I’ll also show you my own visit to the property – not that you can see anything from the outside, but it still feels nice to say I’ve been there.

So with a reminder that you can click the names of the artworks to read more about them and the images to enlarge them, I hope you enjoy looking through it all!

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Freddie Mercury’s World – Part 4 – More Furniture

Hello again. Yesterday I presented many items of furniture and accessories from Freddie Mercury’s home at Garden Lodge, which I saw at Sotheby’s in the exhibition A World Of His Own in August 2023.

But there were so many things to see on that theme alone that I had to split them up. So here’s another batch of beautiful and interesting items, where you can click on the names to read more about them and on the photos to zoom in. Enjoy!

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