London – Well Eye Never

October & November 2025 Favourites

Hello again, I hope you’re doing alright and are looking forward to Christmas.

During the last couple of months, my mother has been recovering well from her fractured wrist, both physically and mentally, thanks to all the support she’s received from the NHS and social services. There still are, and always will be, times when she gets anxious or finds things difficult of course. But having melatonin to help her sleep at night, and a wheelchair to help her get out and about more, has given her a real boost, along with various other forms of help she’s had. And at the very end of November I was even able to go out for a long walk and explore the shops by myself like I used to do, because she felt able to cope on her own.

You can find out more about all of that in my journal posts as usual, including some recovery of my own after I had a wisdom tooth extracted. You can also hear an interview I recorded in October for RNIB Connect Radio about my caring role, which was featured in their Good Company show and then released independently as a podcast.

All that aside, I’ve naturally been enjoying plenty of entertainment as well including Doctor Who, comedies, podcasts and audiobooks. So that’s what I’m going to focus on here, and I hope you enjoy this latest roundup!

Carer’s Journal – November 2025 – Part 2

Time to bring you up to date once again with my life as a carer. And things have gone much better than expected in the latter half of this month, as neither Mum nor I have had any problems resulting from our minor bits of surgery (I had a wisdom tooth out, while she had a small skin biopsy). And Mum’s continued to have more confidence and less anxiety, in large part thanks to her wrist recovery and improved sleep cycle, to the point where I’ve been able to go out for a while by myself like I used to do. So this is quite a positive update, I’m happy to say, and I hope you find it interesting.

June 2025 Favourites

Hello again, I hope you’re all doing well. Those of you who saw last month’s roundup will know that I’m going through a difficult patch at the moment because of my mother’s health. We have started to get a bit of help, in terms of medical assistance and reaching out to support services, all of which takes time, and I will explain more in due course. Suffice to say for now that going totally blind has naturally had a big impact on her mental health and sleep, and by extension has affected my wellbeing as her carer. We are ok, but certain aspects are quite difficult to deal with

As a result, I’m not making videos to go with these posts for the time being, as it’s just not practical right now and I want to make things easier for myself. It also means I’m not doing as much out and about as usual, as my caring role is dominating my time much more than it used to – and I am therefore starting to explore the support that’s available for carers.

However, I did manage to go to the theatre a couple of times with friends early in the month, which I was really grateful for, as I needed to confide in them about what’s been going on, and the shows were great escapism, especially because of the touch tours and audio description.

So I’ve got those shows to tell you about, as well as some bits and pieces I’ve been watching at home, and none of it’s sponsored or gifted as usual. So let’s get on with it, and I hope you enjoy!

April 2025 Favourites

Hey there, hope you had a wonderful Easter and a lovely April in general. This has been my busiest month for a while, as there’s lots to mention in terms of outings, including social events, a musical and a concert, along with TV shows and films I’ve been watching at home.

The concert I went to was a PR invite for me to review, but otherwise nothing is sponsored to appear here, and in any case all opinions are my own as usual. So let’s jump straight into April’s post and video roundup, and I hope you enjoy!

AD | National Open Youth Orchestra – Ring Out! Review

Note: I received a complimentary ticket for this concert, but all opinions are my own.

Music is an incredibly powerful, immersive and varied medium that impacts us all in one way or another, irrespective of who we are. It’s certainly been a constant feature in my life, as I’ve always enjoyed listening to it, and when I was a kid I used to play it a bit as well, just for fun. Being unable to read sheet music didn’t matter, as I could memorise things with practice, and I enjoyed improvising too. I still think it would be cool to learn an instrument like the guitar or piano one day, if I had the time, patience and guidance.

So I know first-hand that being able to play and/or compose music is a great form of escapism that allows you to express yourself and be creative. But for many disabled people, it’s not only enjoyable and rewarding, it can be truly vital. It can enable them to communicate clearly, reveal their personality, share their ideas, demonstrate their talents, feel safe, increase their confidence and form connections with other people, in ways that would otherwise be difficult or impossible. Music is the magic key that can unlock so much.

Of course, that can be easier said than done, if there are instruments that are inaccessible, or if you can’t find other people to share things with and learn from. So it’s always nice to learn of ways that disabled people have been given the opportunity to fully engage with music, especially at a young age so they can carry it with them throughout their lives. And I had the privilege of seeing one such group perform last weekend.

I Want Some More! – Oliver! Review

As I’ve said in the past, I love the 1968 musical film adaptation of the Dickens novel Oliver Twist, with all its wonderful songs, characters, sets and costumes, all brought to life by a brilliant cast. It was based on Lionel Bart’s theatre show of course, of which there have been several productions since it launched in 1960, and while I have the soundtrack albums for some of them, I’ve never had a chance to see the musical live, until now.

That’s because I recently went to the Gielgud Theatre to see an audio described performance of the current production of Oliver! by Cameron Mackintosh, which launched last year. And on reviewing the situation (for this post that isn’t sponsored), I think it can consider itself well in, because it’s a fine life for those who will buy a ticket to see it.

The Gielgud Theatre, a four-story building with ornate decor that stands proudly on a street corner, with signage for the Oliver musical. The centre of the building, which curves around the corner, has an extra room with a domed roof on the very top.

Poster for Oliver, showing a painted image of a young boy's face, with the London skyline in the background, including St Paul's Cathedral. Blue text above him says Everybody's Asking For More. Just below the boy's face is more blue text saying Cameron Mackintosh and Matthew Bourne's glorious Dickens of a show. And immediately below that is the title Oliver, with an exclamation mark, in big red letters.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

During my first few years in London I joined a few social groups – mainly those for people with visual impairment like the London Vision communities, as well as the non-disabled group Thinking Bob. And they all helped me to settle in, make friends, try new experiences and build my confidence.

However, I got rather pulled away from that kind of thing as I formed my own social circle, had a relationship and dealt with the impacts of lockdown, as well as having to focus more on changes to my career and home life over recent years. So I haven’t been an active member of a social group for quite a while, and those I mentioned above have long since closed.

I’ve continued meeting up with my friends of course, which is always wonderful, so I still have good social interaction. And I’m also happy going out and about by myself sometimes. But there are certain things I can’t or wouldn’t do on my own, plus I want to have more variety and meet new people.

So I’ve been looking to get into more social activities again. And while there are still one or two friendly groups out there for people with sight loss, there aren’t as many as there used to be, and their understandably limited range of activities don’t really grab me a lot of the time to be honest. On top of that, I really want to meet more non-disabled people anyway, as my sight is still good enough that I can do activities with them, even if I need to ask for a little bit of help now and again.

There was one particular group I had in mind in that regard – Spice Social – who I’ve been aware of for quite a while, so recently I decided to give them a try, now that I’m in the age range they market themselves to. It’s still early days of course, and things could easily change as time goes on for all sorts of reasons, but it’s going really well so far.

For clarity, this post isn’t an advert for them, as they haven’t asked me to do it and haven’t even been aware that I’m writing it. I just wanted to fill you in on what I’ve been doing lately, as I’ve attended several events with this group over the past couple of months that I’ve enjoyed, and I have more booked in the near future. So it made sense to dedicate a post to them, and then I’ll probably talk about any future events in my monthly Favourites posts as usual.

March 2025 Favourites

Hey there, hope you’re doing alright, and welcome to my latest roundup. March has been a bit of a mixed month for me, what with losing our Virgin Media service for almost a week (thankfully now fixed), and hearing about the government’s plans to cut disability benefits (which I’ve talked at length about in a separate post).

But there have been good things too, as I saw a couple of my favourite entertainers live for the first time, and enjoyed a variety of bits and pieces at home. So I’m going to focus on all of that in this post and video, which is relatively short I know, but I hope you find it interesting as usual!

February 2025 Favourites

Hello again. After a nice quiet January, this has been a slightly busier month for me, as I paid a visit to Kew Gardens to see their Orchid Festival, and I went to the cinema with a couple of friends. The latter in turn led to me watching a few more animated films at home, which has been a bit of a theme recently given my previous reviews of Wallace & Gromit and other Aardman productions, although this time they’re Disney films. So there are a few bits and pieces to mention in this month’s post and video, none of which is sponsored or gifted as usual, and I hope you enjoy!

January 2025 Favourites

Well, hello there, and welcome to my first roundup of the year – which has got off to a very cold, wet and windy start here in the UK. We’ve been better off staying cosy and warm indoors, so I haven’t done anything really notable out and about this month. I did buy myself a lovely new winter coat in M&S though, plus I got a much-needed haircut and had a few little walks, but that was it really. I have plans for the months ahead though, so I’m not concerned about that.

Besides, a quiet start to the year is quite welcome, especially after a busy and somewhat stressful Christmas thanks to our old cooker breaking down. But thankfully the new Beko cooker we had installed this month is working wonderfully. It took a little bit of getting used to at first, as the numbers on the dials go in the opposite direction than we’re used to, and the method of ignition using a button while pushing in the dials is slightly different to our old cooker. But we soon got the hang of it, and it cooks everything really well, better than our old appliance did. We’ve done meat joints, steaks, pizzas, fish, etc in the oven, which have all come out perfectly when following the packaging instructions, I’ve become a dab hand at doing delicious cheese on toast under the grill, and the hob heats things like vegetables and gravy very efficiently. So we’re happy with it, and let’s hope that remains the case for a while!

So with all that said, there are just a few bits of entertainment to mention in this month’s post and video. I did consider holding back my next update until February, but after an epic Christmas roundup, followed by a couple of lengthy reviews that I’m going to highlight here, it’s nice to do something a bit shorter. So I’m sorry it’s relatively brief, but nevertheless I hope you enjoy!

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