The Blind Truth

The Old Bag rang me up to say that she and her slobbering side kick were in festive mood and would I like a drink? I said I would and that she should come round to my house for a mince pie and a real fire. She left the slobbering side kick at home, which upset me. I left the cork in the bottle and gave her a cup of tea. She drank it anyway. “My dear girl, I have read your last blog post. I have to...

Forget the heralding of Christmas with the purchase of industrial quantities of Brussel Sprouts. Better to trumpet the festivities with the Jerusalem artichoke. It achieves the same result but for less. Fighting my way through Christmas madness, I find myself shuffling against the tide of shoppers who are straining under the weight of last minute purchases. I’m on a mission to snaffle the last art...

“Get a job with a pension” was the plea of Alan Pickering’s’ parents. He did. He became a pensions guru. Someone has to do it and there is no reason why a man without sight but with plenty of vision couldn’t do the job. He did so well at it he got a gong.  This is what he said about how he got there. https://www.pensionsage.com/pa/Guest-comment-Vision-without-sight.php Not everyone gets the benefi...

The drama of elections is not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s largely tedium and data entry. I’m sure about this. I’ve been out canvassing over two elections. I’m even in a WhatsApp group of canvassers. I can’t claim a high level of commitment. It’s all proving a bit tricky. “We’re looking for people to lead.” “I can do that,” I said. “It’s tricky with you because you can’t see the computers. We n...

Anyone who’s been lucky enough to receive the Freedom of the City of London is, to a Freeman or Free Sister, asked if that means they are going to drive their sheep over London Bridge. This ancient medieval right was long abandoned but has made a cunning reappearance in recent years. Alan Titchmarsh has done it. It’s annoying because he pops up doing just about everything that I might have fancied...

In a late night dash for home, it occurred to me that there was no milk in the fridge and so a short detour was called for. A pint of milk for the necessity of morning tea would surely be possible, and it was. At the till, while I waited for someone to take my money, I thought I’d use the time productively and started fumbling in my bag for the trusty monocular. I was just putting it round my neck...

I love a party. I love an elegant pair of shoes, but not enough to wear them for longer than I have to. Having a back up pair of trainers under a table is a good idea. It’s not the end of the world if it’s a good party and someone starts to clear the room before you are ready to leave and they shout out, “Anyone want to claim these trainers?” I’m unbashful. “They’re mine.” I love a really good par...

The mesh laundry bag is making a come back. It’s a much under valued item that will preserve my clothes from the ferocity of the spin cycle on my elderly washing machine. I hope never to hear again, ” Did you know there’s a hole in that?” I will never hear myself say again, “Obviously not or I wouldn’t be wearing it. My first line of defence is a series of raised dots stuck on the front of the was...

The most I have ever grown is a single radish sometime in the seventies.  My Dad used to give me runner bean and the odd courgette plant. Sometimes they thrived and sometimes they died. More accurately, I killed them. I’m feeling pretty smug as I’ve grown much of my lawn from seed this year, although the Right Hand neighbour gently pointed out that the lawn is full of all kinds of things that don’...

A.A. Milne might have sat down half way down the stairs, but he never did it because he couldn’t wait another second to see what had popped up on his mobile phone. I have noticed that the folk who have adopted this practice are neither in #London Underground or in the town. They are not at the bottom. They are not in the top. They are standing half way up the exit staircase. They are right in the...

Coming out on to the street, the heat hit me.  A day of brainstorming had taken its toll. No matter how good the air conditioning and how sweet the cake, there is nothing like a good blast of hot air after a long day of trying not to disgrace yourself, to make you feel the strain. Far fetched as it sounds, in thirty degrees of heat, I needed to be in Upper Street before 6.30, to beat the deadline...

Highways England have written to me as part of a consultation about a proposed Motorway junction improvement scheme. That is to say, the letter began “Dear Resident”, so I don’t imagine they will be crying into their tea when they don’t hear back from me. Not having a car seems a belief too far for some people. How can anyone live without one? “I don’t believe you don’t have one,” said the woman s...

The Best Friend and I have just made a pilgrimage to Edinburgh. Our idea of a good time is to spend three days sweating it out in a Scottish dungeon along with a hundred or so other people, all perspiring away in slightly damp pack-a-macs. We have the aroma or damp dogs in search of a good laugh. If Best Friend were a damp dog, she would definitely opt to be a yellow Labrador. It’s so crowded at t...

There’s been a great thread on #Twitter about pointless #Braille. Can there be such a thing? Yes, but should the question be; in the digital age is there any point to Braille? Put it another way, is there any point to literacy? Studies show that if you are blind and a Braille reader, you are more likely to achieve academically and find and keep employment as compared to people who rely solely on v...

Having spent the better part of my premenopausal life avoiding pregnancy, I have spent the entirety of post menopausal life “egging” the son on to embrace reproduction. My enquiry into his plans for parenthood have not always been met with a ready enthusiasm to discuss the subject with me, his Mother. We developed a ritual exchange on the subject. “Don’t be selfish. Think of me.” “Mother, you are...

As the witching hour broke, I began to roam about the house in the dark, trying not to make a noise less the dog barked, the household awoke and the neighbours cursed me. Then it dawned on me that I was no longer in possession of a phone. The phone was lying face down in the road and beyond the prospect of a replacement screen. Thus began a week of red faced trips to the #Apple store. The red face...

My friend, the Dynamo, and I are firmly of the belief that the car boot sale provides the optimum purchasing opportunity for plants. Lovingly grown by amateurs, selling off their excess Cosmos cheap, it’s a joy to behold. All of this can be washed down with a disgusting cup of tea, sitting on a plastic chair in a car park. My personal car boot joy is dependant on being whisked to the car boot in s...

Flying has been a feature of my life. I cannot begin to calculate how many flights I have been on. Not all of them have begun in Luton.  There is one flight that could be described as a short haul flight that has turned into the longest haul flight in the history of flight. You might say it is a flight with teeth. If the Wright brothers could establish the principle of man and machine acting in pe...

I went to have a cuppa with my friend The Big Cheese. He’s always late so being punctual gave me ample time to navigate the “patrons only” use of the loo rule, before I became a patron. The deal is that there is a code on your till receipt that is the code for the loo. I didn’t yet have a till receipt and was reluctant to stake my place at a table with my coat, just in case someone my size fancied...

I’ve been to Gateshead, where despite the chill winds, skirts are still high. Northern women are tough, resilient to the elements but not without a soft side. The receptionist at check-in asked me to verify my details on the bit of card they always hand you. I said that I’d be grateful if she could read it to me. She asked me if I needed my glasses. I said I didn’t as they wouldn’t help, but if sh...

My garden shed has been gently dissolving into the ground for some time now. In every cost there is an opportunity. Having sat down with the Right Hand Neighbour to consider our shed options, I settled on a modest affair just right to stuff old ironing boards in. Yvonne (not her real name) adjusted her head set because she was having a bit of trouble hearing what I was saying but we got there in t...

Nowadays it’s not uncommon to have a job that is part of the grand scheme of your career as well as a job on the side, that might be a way to make money or it’s just about something you like doing. I met a man whose main business was shady nightclubs and whose side hussle was philosophy discussions in the pub. I’m not sure how much pub goers were willing to pay for philosophy. I thought that was t...

Now I’m alert to the risks that public parks present me with: stray dogs with large teeth that will “hound” you for your lunch or even a takeaway tea, small children on scooters who can neither swerve nor break, teenagers on bicycles taking a short cut at top speed, joggers, beggars, hawkers and pick pockets. To the ever expanding list of hazards I can crash into, trip over or be robbed blind by,...

I discovered I might be wearing the wrong reading glasses.  I might have been wearing the wrong prescription for more than a decade.  I’ve been using glasses that are designed for reading a book. I have long since stopped reading books. I read my computer screen. Wearing the wrong prescription is all the rage: My chum The Doctor has been wearing her contact lenses the wrong way round. She’s been w...

The Plumber was moaning about the cost of running a car. I told him that this was something outside my experience. He told me that his Father, who is registered blind, has three cars.  What is it that makes people who can’t see much, or even anything at all, want to own a car? The Plumbers Father has a people carrier that his wife drives him around in, in the endless rounds of house clearing, trip...