Hey there, hope your year’s got off to a good start so far. Apologies that it’s taken a while for me to do another Favourites update, but I’ve had other things keeping me busy over the past couple of months, as I’ll mention during this roundup. However, I have also been out and about as well, and I’ve enjoyed watching various things as usual.
So, as you’ll see from the contents list, there’s plenty to mention in this latest post and video. And none of it’s sponsored or gifted, except for the panto interview post I briefly refer to. I hope you enjoy looking through it all!
Well, hello again. It’s been a while since I last posted about what I’ve been getting up to, and that’s because I took a step back at the start of the year to focus on other things for a couple of months.
But now I’m getting back into a normal routine again, I wanted to tell you about the big development – my new job!
As regular readers will recall, back in 2022 I was made redundant from Torbay Council, after nearly 18 years working in their Printing department, as the authority elected to outsource their print operations. So I left at the start of September, and took a well-earned career break for a few months.
During that time, however, I still did some research to lay the foundations for job-hunting in the new year. And as well as signing up to job alerts and bookmarking useful information online, I also tapped into some of the connections I had made since moving to London at the end of 2016. I knew that building a good social network would be essential, and I’m glad I managed to do so, because several friends and acquaintances did give me useful tips and leads that I could explore further, for which I’m very grateful.
But then, quite unexpectedly, one person in particular was able to offer something even more substantial than that…
One of the things I’ve been able to demonstrate in this blog is that having a visual impairment doesn’t prevent me from having a good time and being successful in life. It took me a while to learn and appreciate that when I was a shy youngster, but over time I learned that I can have hobbies and skills just like anyone else, and make the most of them. In fact my talents have directly led to an exciting new opportunity very recently, which I’ll get to in another post soon.
Consequently, it’s proven to be fun and rewarding to ignore convention and challenge misconceptions, by doing things that are different or unexpected. In all our minds it’s easy to assume that certain things can only occur at certain times, or in certain places, or be done by certain people, when they can actually happen anytime or anywhere, and anyone is capable of doing it.
So with that in mind – why not go to a pantomime in the spring? Why should we wait until the festive season to lose ourselves in the joy that such a production brings? Especially when there’s an exciting, interactive, inclusive new show that’s touring the UK in March, teaching children to embrace their own super powers!
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!
Hey there, hope you’re all doing alright, and welcome to my latest roundup. I’ve continued to be happily occupied since my redundancy, so there’s plenty to mention for the last month.
First of all, my big outing was a lovely weekend in Oxford, where I visited the Ashmolean Museum, went on a walking tour of the university and the city, enjoyed a concert by Jools Holland with his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, and had a good laugh seeing Jimmy Carr. So for all the details and lots of photos, check out my extensive blog post about the trip.
I’ve also been getting out and about to see a lot of the festive displays in London. I’ll share the highlights in my Christmas Favourites post in the New Year of course, but I’ve been posting lots of photos on my Instagram page on a daily basis, so be sure to follow me there, and also my Youtube channel where I’ll post some video clips nearer to Christmas.
Apart from all that however, I also spent a day volunteering and meeting friends at a disability exhibition, had a front row seat for another Queen-related concert, bought a special Queen box set, and enjoyed various other things on DVD and TV as well. So let’s crack on with it. None of this stuff is sponsored or gifted as usual, and I hope you enjoy this month’s post and video!
Hello again, I hope you’re all doing well despite everything going on in the world at the moment. Here in the UK, Liz Truss having to resign after a disastrous 45 days as our shortest-serving Prime Minister was certainly quite astonishing to witness, and now it remains to be seen if new PM Rishi Sunak can start to get things back on track and last at least as long as she did!
Still, despite all that chaos, I’m doing well, I’m happy to say. My redundancy certainly hasn’t left me twiddling my thumbs, as I’ve been very busy indeed this month. The fact that I’ve been invited to contribute to various disability and accessibility projects, some of which I’ve been paid for, has shown that I’m still very much in demand for my skills and opinions, and I’ve continued to socialise with friends as well of course. So I still have a sense of purpose and don’t feel at all lonely, bored or cast aside in any way despite my job loss, and I still have financial stability for the time being.
So I’m enjoying the career break, and there’s plenty to cover this month, including the aforementioned disability projects, virtual reality games, stand-up comedy shows, a museum visit, a seaside trip, an overseas holiday, TV shows and music releases. So I hope you enjoy this bumper roundup post and video!
My local support organisation Enabled Living, in the London borough of Newham, are currently running an awareness campaign on Twitter, encouraging people and organisations to add descriptions to their images online. I was invited to give some feedback on the design of the campaign and film some videos to support it, for which I was compensated for my time and effort.
So I want to share the videos here, as I explain why social media is so important to me, and why image descriptions are vital. It’s always worth reminding people about, as just a short and simple description for an image will often make a big difference, and can determine whether or not we follow and interact with you.
Well, what a month this has been! When I published my August Favourites at the start of September, I had just left my first job due to my redundancy, and Liz Truss had just become Prime Minister. But then 2 days after I’d made that post, the ultimate career change took place at the top of our Royal Family, and normal life in the UK was disrupted for the best part of a fortnight as a result. I’ve written a separate post saying farewell to Her Majesty The Queen and reviewing the coverage, as it’s not really suitable for a Favourites post and there was quite a lot to talk about.
Apart from that though, and despite my redundancy, I’ve still been pretty busy this month. I’ve attended a Derren Brown show and a couple of tribute concerts, listened to an audiobook I got for my birthday, and enjoyed new episodes of my favourite comedies on TV once the schedules had returned to normal. So there are still plenty of nicer things to mention in this post and the short video I’ve made to go with it, none of which is sponsored or gifted, and I hope you enjoy my latest roundup!
It’s the end of an era, no doubt about that. As if leaving my first job and Liz Truss becoming Prime Minister haven’t been big enough changes to kick off the month, the ultimate career change has just taken place over the past couple of weeks. It’s been beautiful, celebratory and moving, and has brought an enormous number of people together in grief, reflection and gratitude. So I felt it only right to pay my respects in this blog as well.
Back in 2012, however, I also had a combined hard drive and DVD recorder connected to my TV, which meant I was able to record programmes, do some very basic editing and copy them on to discs. So I ended up recording a selection of shows relating to the Olympics & Paralympics, and I stored them on several DVDs, which I still have in my collection. And I’ve therefore been rewatching them as part of my nostalgia trip. They naturally aren’t as high quality as professional DVDs or Blu-rays, but they’re still good enough.
I’ve already discussed a few recordings relating to the Olympics in previous posts, as noted in the list of contents below. But here in this final post, to conclude my trip down memory lane, I’m going to run through the other stuff I captured, including our big victory parade, the Sports Personality Of The Year, documentaries, and appearances by some of the athletes on chat shows and game shows. I’ve also created a playlist with clips from some of these programmes, and some other relevant videos. So I hope you enjoy looking through it all!
Well Eye Never 
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