It seems hard to believe that it’s well over a year already since I was made redundant from my previous job in Torquay, and that the first anniversary of my new job in London is just a month away. But I still keep in contact with my former colleagues and friends down in the Westcountry, and last week I popped down there to see some of them again for a Christmas catch-up. So I thought I’d do a little write-up about it, as I have some festive photos and video clips to share as well.
Continue reading “Christmas In Devon”Category: Christmas
Christmas 2023 Favourites – Part 1
Seasons greetings, I hope your preparations for Christmas are going well, November always feels a little bit festive, but for me it was even more so than normal this year, because I’ve already explored a variety of London’s displays, seen a bunch of snowmen on a sculpture trail, and had a free Christmas dinner courtesy of a PR invite. On top of that I’ve also seen a couple of theatre shows, while at home I’ve been enjoying some more TV and music as always.
Consequently it makes sense to treat this as a festive Favourites post and video, and spread the joy over 2 months. It’s not too early as far as I’m concerned. So with the usual disclaimer that all opinions are my own, including for the free food, let’s crack on with it, and I hope you enjoy!
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Walking With The Snowman
Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without The Snowman on TV. The animation, based on the book by Raymond Briggs, is such an adorable and moving story, brought to life with wonderful imagery and music, that it quickly became a perennial favourite for millions of people, and last year it celebrated its 40th anniversary.
And now you can see the iconic character in person, courtesy of a sculpture trail called Walking With The Snowman. It began in Salford in 2018, and then in every year since then (except 2020 when nobody could go anywhere) it’s been at multiple locations over the festive period. So this year the trails are taking place at Hillsborough Castle & Gardens, Knole House and the Fleet Street Quarter. And I recently explored the latter in London.
It’s been put together by Wild In Art, who were also behind Morph’s Epic Art Adventure that I enjoying looking at in the summer, and indeed 7 of the artists from that trail have contributed to this one as well, alongside a few others. So here we get a dozen snowmen, themed around the Twelve Days Of Christmas, each one painted in a beautifully distinctive and interesting way.
The sculptures will be in place until 5 January 2024, so there’s still plenty of time to see them. I went on a midweek afternoon, so it was nice and quiet, but I imagine there will be a lot of children keen to see them at weekends and during the Christmas holidays, which might make it harder to take photos of them.
There is a PDF map on the website, but it’s more about pretty design rather than accuracy, so it only gives a very rough visual sense of where each statue is. I found it a lot more reliable to use the list of statues in the bottom left corner, typing each road or place name into Google Maps to find them. And even then, there are some major roadworks going on in one particular area that added to the confusion and sent me off track slightly. But I did find them all in the end, it took me about 2 hours to do the whole trail. People with full sight would be able to do it much quicker I’m sure, but it’s very rewarding in any case, as they do look great.
So here’s a little gallery of the Snowman sculptures in central London. This isn’t sponsored or affiliated by anyone involved with the project, I just enjoyed hunting them down, and I hope you enjoy looking through them!
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Christmas 2022 Favourites
Happy New Year, I hope you had a lovely Christmas! I know that various things including finances, strikes and the weather all conspired to make things difficult, and the economic woes will continue during this coming year, but I hope you were able to enjoy the festivities in whatever way your circumstances allowed.
Fortunately, despite my recent redundancy, my mother and I are in a comfortable and stable position, so we were able to enjoy Christmas in the same way we do every year. I went out to see a musical and a variety of festive displays, and at home there were plenty of things for us to eat and watch.
It hasn’t been entirely without issues though. The railway strikes and the snow in December prevented me from going down to Devon to see my ex-colleagues for a Christmas meal. And now, in early January, my mother and I have finally caught Covid, after 3 years of successfully swerving it. I’ll write more about it in a later post, once I’m sure we’re clear of it, suffice to say being fully vaccinated has clearly helped, as we’re recovering pretty quickly. Plus I’ve still been able to put together the traditional video that accompanies this post.
So let’s get into it. This is an epic bumper post, as festive roundups tend to be, and none of it’s sponsored or gifted. I hope you enjoy!
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Oxford – Art, Academia, Jools & Jimmy
Last weekend I had a nice little getaway in the beautiful historic city of Oxford, which I’ve never visited before. I spent the daylight hours visiting a museum and going on a walking tour, while in the evenings I attended a concert and a stand-up comedy gig, so I made good use of my time there. None of it is sponsored or gifted, and I hope you enjoy this review of what I got up to!
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Christmas 2021 Favourites
Well, we made it through another odd year. We finished 2021 in a stronger position than 2020 in some important ways, and step by step we are getting back towards a sense of normality. But we still to be careful and patient, as opposed to carefree and complacent, and hopefully the situation will continue to improve during 2022.
In any case, despite the various restrictions we endured throughout the year, along with my own battle with sciatica and back trouble over the summer, I still got out and about quite a bit and found plenty to enjoy, as you’ll have seen from all of my Favourites posts. The latter half of 2021 was particularly busy, as I was interviewed on RNIB Radio’s Happy Hour by fellow blogger Holly Tuke from Life Of A Blind Girl, had the opportunity to interview visually impaired actor Gillian Dean about the premiere of a new play, finally got to attend a live performance of the Rocky Horror Show, and had an audio described tour of London Zoo, among other things. And being able to meet some of my friends after so long apart has naturally been the biggest delight of the year.
This Christmas has also marked my 5th anniversary of living in London! Granted, much of the past couple of years has been a bit of a write-off, but that just makes it all the more amazing how much I’ve achieved and crammed in so far, with public speaking, TV and radio interviews, podcast appearances, student documentaries, theatre visits, museum tours, the charity abseil, so many new friendships and connections, the attention my blog’s had in general, and many other things that I would never have imagined happening or being successful at before moving here. So in that sense, the lockdowns have been strangely beneficial for giving me a chance to relax and reflect on all of that, as well as giving me all the more impetus and confidence to expand my horizons even further going forward. So if you’ve played any part in my London journey so far, whether it’s just reading these blog posts, or chatting with me, or getting together with me in person, thank you so much! It always means a great deal that people take such an interest in my adventures and my ramblings.
So before I find out what 2022 has to offer, it’s time to wrap up 2021 with a traditional bumper post and video looking back at what I’ve been doing and enjoying during December and the Christmas period. As usual, nothing here is sponsored and all opinions are my own. I hope you enjoy!
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Roaming In Rochester
Earlier this month I had a lovely time exploring Rochester, a historic town much loved by Charles Dickens, with friend and fellow blogger Emily from Fashioneyesta. It was great to see each other again, having not had the chance to meet up for quite a while, and it was wonderful to meet her new guide dog Rosie too. So we had fun looking around together.
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November 2021 Favourites
Hello again, hope you’re all keeping safe and well despite everything going on at the moment. I’m happy to say that I’ve had my Covid booster jab, which really helps to further educate and strengthen the immune system, and thus greatly reduces the chances of severe problems if you do get ill with the new variant. Plus Mum had both her flu jab and Covid booster last month, and I’m hoping to get my flu jab at some point. So we’re as well protected as we can be for the winter now.
The latest developments haven’t stopped me going out and about and being generally busy either, as I’ve been making the most of my time. So during November I was interviewed on another national radio show, had lovely days exploring London Zoo and the Illuminated River project, enjoyed stage and film versions of a Dickens classic, watched the latest series of Doctor Who, saw various comedies, got absorbed in the new Beatles documentary, heard ABBA’s new album, and celebrated Freddie Mercury’s life on the 30th anniversary of his untimely passing. And none of it is sponsored or gifted as usual. So I hope you enjoy my latest post and video roundup!
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Christmas 2020 Favourites
Happy New Year! Well, as happy as it can be in the circumstances. Let’s face it, 2020 is the year that nobody wants to look back at. Referring to perfect vision as 20/20 will forever carry a certain irony with it now. And if you were to try and sum up the year with a word or phrase, there isn’t much that’s family-friendly that truly does it justice – other than dumpster fire perhaps, which I’ve seen a lot of people use very accurately.
But I did manage to find plenty to keep me occupied, as you can see from my many Favourites posts during the year. The major highlights for me were definitely being interviewed on the BBC’s In Touch programme, taking part in the CXcon Accessibility Panel Discussion, and being able to see at least a couple of my friends after such a long period apart. I also started publishing my old journal posts to fill the gap left by my lack of activity, which have had a surprising amount of interest, and my very in-depth reviews of Queen’s albums for their 50th anniversary. Both of those projects will continue to keep me busy on my blog throughout 2021.
Granted, 2021 hasn’t started off any better, but that’s because we’re still experiencing the fallout from the damage caused by its unruly predecessor. 2021 has its work cut out trying to repair that, and it will undoubtedly require the assistance of 2022 and beyond to achieve it. However, 2021 is giving us a lot of reason to be hopeful, so there is definitely light at the end of this long, dark tunnel we’ve all been stuck in.
But I need to wrap up 2020 nevertheless. It was a strange and difficult Christmas without a doubt, not the sort any of us wanted, and it’s going to be a hard winter for many, especially now we’re in lockdown again. There’s a big ray of hope with the rollout of the vaccines though, so the future’s looking good, and many thanks to all the health workers who are doing their utmost to dish them out as quickly as possible.
My thoughts also go to everyone in America after the recent terror attack amid the fallout from Trump’s defeat. Biden’s inauguration on January 20th can’t come soon enough. Best wishes from across the pond, stay safe!
Those challenges aside, however, I hope you were able to find some enjoyment and comfort during the festive period, insofar as the rules allowed in your part of the world.
Mum and I are doing fine, I’m pleased to say. We’ve enjoyed lots of nice treats, and have had plenty of fun things to watch and listen to, all of which has been a welcome distraction from the news. I continued to have a few long walks around my local area during December as well, as that was the only way I could get out and about, so it was important to make the most of it. Mum’s had a bit of fresh air too of course, but doesn’t go on the long hikes like I do, and we’ve made sure she stays well away from other people apart from her sister (and even then they keep their distance at the front door, she hasn’t been in the house).
So we did pretty well this Christmas despite the limitations, and here’s my festive post and video to round things up. I’m not going to mention absolutely everything we filled our stomachs with, or every little bit of entertainment we watched or listened to. I’m just going mention my favourite things, as is the purpose of these posts. Nothing here is sponsored as usual, and any gifts are just from friends, not the people behind the products. So I hope you enjoy!
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Accessible Advent
Merry Christmas! 🎄🎅 It’s a strange one for us all this year, and will be very difficult for many, but I hope you’re able to find some happiness, comfort and support, and can immerse yourself in things that you enjoy.
Throughout this month I took part in Accessible Advent on social media, created by Ginny Butcher, where each day I highlighted something that would make life more accessible for me and other visually impaired people. So I thought I’d share the full list here as well. I hope you find it interesting and useful!
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