What Is Normal? (Documentary)

I still find it very humbling and flattering that so many people have taken an interest in my adventures over the past few years, whether it be reading my blog, watching my videos, or seeing me speak at events. I’m very grateful to everyone for the support and encouragement, and I wouldn’t be doing this if nobody cared, so thank you.

I never imagined that I’d have a documentary made about me though. Yet that’s exactly what happened for the first time a few months ago. It was an exciting experience and I’m delighted with how it turned out.

I’ve held it back until now for various reasons. Firstly, whilst I have permission to post it regardless, I wanted to give a bit of space for its creators and sponsors, including a major charity, to publish it first if they so wished. But I also had a few things distracting me over the summer too, as regular followers will know, which has further delayed it.

But now’s a good time to release it, as it ties in nicely with the recent publication of my Aniridia Network Conference talk – Growing In Confidence With Aniridia – which  was filmed shortly after the documentary was completed. Soon after that I was also in a second documentary – See Differently by Yiwen Feng – which featured myself and others. You can find out more about my speech and that other film in my June Favourites. I was certainly getting my 15 minutes of fame around that time!

In this post, therefore, I want to share my first ever documentary with you, and give a behind-the-scenes insight into how it all came together. I hope you enjoy it, and please do share the film around on social media.

So without any further ado, I present my documentary debut – What Is Normal?

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Christmas 2018 Favourites

Welcome to my epic Christmas Favourites post for this year! I hope you’ve all had a lovely festive season, or found some support, solace, comfort and company if you needed it. And if you were working over the holidays, especially if you’re in the emergency services and other essential jobs, you have my utmost admiration and respect.

Also a very big thank you to everyone who has supported my blog and my adventures over what has been an incredible second year in London for me. It’s been full of even more amazing surprises and adventures than the first year. Raising £920 from my charity abseil for nystagmus research and giving a speech to primary school children about growing up with sight loss were my 2 biggest and most surprising achievements this year without a doubt. But there’s been so much more going on as well, as you can see from all of my Favourites posts for the past 12 months.

I really do feel like I’ve settled into London properly now. I’ll always want to experiment with new things and meet new people, that’s one of the many great things that living in such a wonderful city enables you to do. But the foundations I laid by doing that in 2017 definitely enabled me to have more confidence in 2018, so I had a much better idea of the things I enjoyed doing most, I was less shy around people, and I made more friends on an individual level beyond just going to social groups.

And my blogging has also gone well this year. It’s only ever been a hobby on the side really, so I’m delighted that people are taking an interest. And my efforts have already been far more rewarding than I could ever have anticipated, with all the wonderful opportunities and feedback I’ve received, and the friends I’ve made along the way. I’m getting far more success and satisfaction from this than I’d ever expected. So again, many thanks to everyone for your support. It’s greatly appreciated that you find my posts interesting, entertaining and inspiring.

So with all that in mind, I’m very much looking forward to seeing what 2019 brings, and I hope you’ll stick with me for it!

But first we need to wrap up 2018, and there’s a lot to tell you about, including theatre shows, light displays, walks, food, clothing, TV & radio shows, online entertainment, music and more.  So I hope you enjoy this bumper post and video about my yuletide adventures!

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Blogger Interview – Carol (The Invisible Vision Project)

It’s time to showcase another blogger as part of my little series of interviews, and today I’m delighted to introduce you to Xin (Carol) Sun, who many of you may already know as the author of The Invisible Vision Project.

On Monday she very kindly posted an interview with me on her website, so in return I’m very pleased to share an interview with her here, and I hope you enjoy reading it. Please do go and check out her blog as well, where she’s got a lot of wonderful posts, and follow her on social media using the links at the end. She’ll really appreciate it!

So big thanks to Carol for collaborating with me, and let’s get on with the interview!

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Blogger Interview – Chelsey (VI Blind Resources)

Last month I was very kindly featured on the blog VI Blind Resources, after Chelsey interviewed me about being raised by visually impaired parents. It’s not something I’ve really written about here on my blog, so do go and give it a read to find out a bit more about me.

In exchange for that, I’m delighted to feature an interview with Chelsey here on my blog. She regularly posts on her blog and YouTube channel and across social media, and she even makes the effort to provide written descriptions for images and audio descriptions in her videos. So do go and check her out, and I hope you enjoy this little interview with her. Thank you to Chelsey for featuring me and answering my questions!

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September 2018 Favourites

Time for another monthly update, and it’s fair to say that September was very busy and productive, as well as throwing up one or two surprises, which in turn are paving the way for a very interesting October. There is of course a video to go with this post, and I hope you enjoy this little catch-up as usual!

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August 2018 Favourites

It’s now time to do my August Favourites post and video, to bring myself up to date before I get into an eventful September. August was again busy on the social media front, and there was important stuff going on at home too. But I also had time to go out and do a nice variety of things as well. So it was another productive and enjoyable month, and I hope you enjoy reading about it.

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Blogger Interview – Amanda Gene

This is a new type of post for me – an interview exchange with another blogger! Amanda Gene came to me with the idea, having interviewed some other bloggers already, and I was of course very flattered and happy to take part! Amanda has already published her interview with me, so do go and check that out too.

I’d love to do more posts like this too. I think it’s a really nice way to learn about other people, for the same reason that tag posts are so enjoyable. Plus it’s very important to support and promote each other in the blogging community, especially as disabled bloggers get overlooked somewhat (which is why I’ve created lists of bloggers who post about sight loss, disability, London & entertainment). So if anybody wants to do an exchange of Q&As like this, feel free to contact me.

Anyway, here is the interview I did with Amanda. I hope you enjoy it. Do give her a follow if you can, all of her social links are at the end of the post. Thank you so much to Amanda for featuring me on her blog and for answering my questions here as well! She gives great advice on blogging and interacting with disabled people, and it’s really interesting to get an insight into her disability and the things she enjoys.

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July 2018 Favourites

Time for another monthly favourites post and video, looking back at July. Things were very busy and successful on the blog and social media this month, I enjoyed some fun social events, museum visits and other entertainment, and I even got a bit sporty for once, all while enjoying the sweltering heatwave. So it was a pretty good month, and I hope you enjoy my review of it.

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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:

  1. List the rules and display The Sunshine Blogger Award badge in your post.
  2. Thank the blogger who nominated you and link back to their blog.
  3. Answer the 10 questions that the person who nominated you asked you.
  4. 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.

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May 2018 Favourites

May was a lovely month. The weather’s been gorgeous lately, for the most part, and with no major events going on it’s been quite a relaxing few weeks. But there are still various bits and pieces I’ve enjoyed, and want to mention in this latest post and video update. So I hope you find this interesting.

To start with though, I just quickly want to plug a couple of upcoming events in June that will interest some of you. They’re for people all over the world to join in with, not just the UK. The more the merrier really, as it will help to spread vital awareness in both cases.

June 20th will be Nystagmus Awareness Day, which is its new permanent date, having moved from November. This year’s theme is Nystagmus In The Open, where people are being encouraged to do outdoor activities to raise funds and generate awareness. Sue, who runs the Nystagmus Network, is opening her garden for people to visit, for instance. People are also being invited to submit their stories online to show how amazing people with nystagmus are.

June 21st will then be Aniridia Day. This is the second time it’s been held, as it was a big success last year. This year’s awareness campaign is called Aniridia Sight, where we want people with aniridia to share a photo or video of a scene, and describe how they see it through their eyes. So the more people that get involved, the more we can show how varied the vision of people with aniridia is. And then there will hopefully be live webinars too, for people to discuss aniridia related topics e.g. doctors, researchers, people with aniridia, etc.

So now that’s out of the way, let me tell you what I’ve been up to in May.

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