Craic On

I have had a glimpse of Hell. I have swum the waters of the Styx and crawled up the bank on the far side. I did it all in the hunt for the single stem garden plant support. When I say I swam, it might be nearer the truth to say that I sweated my way up the hill in a waterproof in more humidity than I anticipated. Having spent half an hour in this endeavour, I arrived at the gates of hell to be met by a stout woman in a green apron and fetching matching blue face mask and rubber gloves. “May I go straight in?” I asked, pointing at the gaping jaws that opened and closed as they spewed out shoppers and ingested the unsuspecting. “Get away from me she commanded.” Her large blue hand extending towards my face Lord Kitchener style. “Move,” she barked. I took a step back. “You’ll have to queue.” “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise there was a queue,” I said, vaguely wafting the all purpose cane about in front of me. “Well there is.” She turned away. “Where do I need to go? ” I asked. She didn’t answer

What Covid 19 has given me is sleep. I’m touching wood. I don’t want to speak too soon. I’ve got my fingers crossed, which is not an easy thing to do when typing. I can’t remember when I slept like this. I’m hoping that the long deep sleeps of the past few weeks are a permanent legacy of this killer cough. The daily routines that have taken over my world don’t mean that I am stuck in a rut or feeling constrained. My mind is free to wander from the comfortable confines of home. My imagination is enjoying the freedom that being at home has given me. It was all going so well until GP and I had an altercation on the phone, before a compromise was reached. It necessitated an early morning trudge up the hill for a blood test. It meant going to hospital, a place I had intended to avoid, a place where you had better stick to the rules on social distancing. The white stick is a simple aid to enabling others to stick to the rules. They can see me looming towards them and have time to get out of the way, which

After weeks of being at home, I’ve got used to dressing down. I’m not so feral as to sit at my computer in my best blouse with only my underwear and a pair of Disney themed slippers, but I’m beginning to hanker after the idea of dressing up.   The draw of an opportunity for a big night out in the company of three chickens and five friends, under a gazebo, was the thrill of the week.  What should you wear to dinner when you are no longer used to dressing up and the chicken is not on the table but under it? There is an argument for rubber boots. The chickens do not have the social graces of the friends, who generally speaking, are able to exercise self control and don’t necessitate the need for waterproof footwear. The argument in favour of protective footwear may be well made but after weeks of living in trainers and padding about in bare feet, I have been feeling the urge to exercise my personal fetish and put on proper grown up shoes. Some people can carry off blue nubuck footwear and a pair of tire

The BF has taken up jigsaw puzzles. She’s currently doing a one thousand piecer of the 99 most beautiful places she won’t be going to any time soon. My neighbours have got cupboards full of jigsaw puzzles. They have even got up to the moment puzzles that their grown up children have given them for their Birthdays, so they wont get bored during lockdown. There has been a lot of WhatsApp action about jigsaw puzzles on The Road WhatsApp group. I can’t say I’m up for jigsaws even though I once enjoyed doing them. Pleading failing sight doesn’t disqualify me since you can get jigsaws in braille and in large pieces and all VAT exempt. I’ve checked. Most of them represent landscapes that I won’t be visiting any time soon and it doesn’t look as if any one else has either, at least, not since Queen Elizabeth’s been on the throne. The Road WhatsApp group is facilitating a roaring trade in buttons and old duvet covers as sewing machines swing into action to boost reserves of scrubs and masks. It’s keeping us al

This is the Blind Truth with Anna Tylor. Anna is the chair of RNIB and in her personal blog she takes a wry look at living a colourful life with limited sight. This week's episode is titled:  'Blot On The Landscape'.

This is the Blind Truth with Anna Tylor. Anna is the chair of RNIB and in her personal blog she takes a wry look at living a colourful life with limited sight. This week's episode is titled: 'Etiquette For A New Age'.

This is the Blind Truth with Anna Tylor. Anna is the chair of RNIB and in her personal blog she takes a wry look at living a colourful life with limited sight. This week's episode is titled: 'Lockdown, Lies and Revelations'. 

No one’s going to be leaning over the pub bar any time soon and ordering a pint of Corona. Time, it seems, has been called on all our social lives for the foreseeable future. The help lines have stopped answering. Even Wayne in Mumbai, who regularly calls, offering to fix my infected computer for a small fee and access to my bank account, has stopped ringing.  I hope he’s not coughing. Social contact has a whole new form. Mine happened on the phone to #Sainsbury. After half an hour on hold, I spoke to a nice woman who asked me if I was vulnerable. I asked her if there was a blinky category. She said there wasn’t and so I had to settle for vulnerable. Once my profile was altered to reflect my new status, I’d be able to get on line shopping. On Monday I filled up my virtual shopping basket and went to the checkout. I’ve been deleted from the vulnerable shopper list and now I can’t get on line shopping at all. There are no delivery slots. The Right Hand Neighbour text to say she was off to the supermark

I have been to the moon and back, plumbed in bathrooms and more besides, and all in my sleep. I normally undertake these activities in an orderly fashion in the seconds before I wake up. These days, my adventures have become more numerous because I am no longer a spring chicken and prone to waking up a lot, which involves dreaming a lot. Just before the light came up and I woke up this morning, I had cause to telephone John. John is an upholsterer I haven’t seen for more than twenty years. He hadn’t changed a bit. After having patiently listened to my plea for a 65cm blue velvet cousin cover and new upholstery on an old button back nursing chair, he asked me if there was anything else I needed. I said that what I was really after was a set of casters and a gun. He seemed a bit surprised. “I thought you were practically blind.” “I used to shoot an air rifle,” I said. This was an exaggeration. As a child my brother and I had unfettered access to a lead pellet air rifle that we were pretty free with. In th

The oven packed up. Why does this always happen when you have chopped up enough vegetables to sustain an anaerobic digester for a week? That’s what happened. At the point of realisation, I switched the top oven on, but that didn’t work either. Vegetables cooked in the microwave. I said to the assembled hungry hordes known as Angela, “I’ll just dish up over the bin.” The Flatmate had no trouble getting the oven to work. She turned the knob. The oven got hot. I turned the knob. Nothing. I went on-line, found a cooker repair man, bit the bullet and booked a call out for “an intermittent fault.” I never liked that cooker. It’s like an unreliable boyfriend who swears he’s hot but isn’t. I’m eight years into the relationship now so I’m what you might call “invested”. Enter Vic. That’s not his real name. I’m sparing all our blushes. “It’s working fine,” he said. “getting hotter by the minute.” “Then why won’t it work for me?” I whined. “Show me what you’re doing?” I turned the cooker knob, explaini

A good part of my life is spent on matters to do with #Fund Raising. It’s a tough old game so I’m sympathetic to anyone faced with the challenge and especially if it’s something I’d like to support. I confess I’m not a fan of the fund raising event. I know that people like to feel they have got something for their donation but it often seems to me, that like the village fete, it’s a fate worse than death. My inclination is to offer up the price of the ticket and not to bother going. I’m easily persuaded, a follower, and that’s how I found myself sitting in a community centre on an impossibly uncomfortable chair at a fund raising wine tasting. What I had not braced myself for was the organisers’ drive to encourage mingling. I ended up sitting at a table of people I’d never met before, exchanging pleasantries about people I didn’t know and never expected to know. No one had said anything about the various other activities beyond swallowing wine. If they had told me there was a quiz I should have ensure

Children’s literature is the best. When The Son was growing up, I loved reading to him. I do a pretty passable #Eeyore. Some have even commended me on my #Piglet. That’s another story involving prunes and Bombay mix, the ultimate delicacy. One of the joys of reading to very small children is the large print that books for small children tend to come with. They allow plenty of scope for “ooing” and “ahhing”, pointing out tigers and fitting in the odd squeeze of the listener on your lap. What’s not to like? The Son has fond memories of reading together. He remembers sitting in our kitchen being read the first chapter of #Black Beauty. He cried. I cried. Even #Mr Ferret, (not an unaccounted for character but the builder fixing the Kitchen window) cried.  The Son has been reading to The Grand since he could stay awake long enough and he’s been thinking about how I can read to him as well. There’s no avoiding it.  Things aren’t what they used to be.  My large print copy of #The Just So Stories doesn’t loo

“I guess that not being able to see makes dating a whole lot easier,” a one-time only dinner date suggested. “I mean. It wouldn’t matter to you what people look like. You could be with a really ugly ****** and you wouldn’t care.”  I know beauty when I see it even if it’s not all about looks. I might just work my way into a conversation with an attractive man if one gets close enough to judge. True, it might be a very short-lived conversation because it all fades to nothing in the absence of a brain.   This disconnect between what I think, and what others think I think, has offered up some comically tragic dates. What do my friends think of me? Why do they assure me that so and so is just perfect when they are obviously not?   “My ex-wife is a beach,” said a heavily accented man from Botswana who sold discount utilities for a living and wasn’t afraid to ask for leads… “it was terrible. I had to get away so I went to the bitch every weekend.”  I was open mouthed.  “I was at the bitch when I decided

What could be nicer than to live it up with a couple of friends, eat canapés (not part of my five a day), drink an immodest glass of wine, then work it all off with a stroll home along the river?   “I’ll be back in time for Newsnight,” I texted. Instructing Wanda (that’s setting a google map route) should never be attempted at a stride. A cursory glance for oncoming obstacles is still a skill I think I have. I don’t. A collision with a lamp post focused my concentration. It was all going so well until I hit the south side of Vauxhall Bridge. I knew exactly where I was because Wanda told me so, and then she didn’t. “That’s the MI5 building for you,” the Flatmate said. “It plays havoc with your google.”  Turning right into the Wandsworth Road, I began to wonder. “In ten meters turn right” So I did. Tesco never used to be there. I was properly lost but took the opportunity to buy a pint of milk. “In fifty meters turn right.” I did as Wanda commanded. I could have asked for help, but so certain was

Storm Brendon, council Christmas tree disposal policy and a long walk home don’t appear to have much in common. Put them all together and you can live through your own Spaghetti western. It’s not that the good citizens of Clapham are having a hairy panic seeing Clint Eastwood emerge through the tumbleweed blowing down the High Street. The good, the bad and the ugly of South London have all run home and locked the doors as the wind gets up, the rain comes down and hundreds of Christmas trees get going. It’s just me and the trees blowing about in the dark. You’d think that by the middle of January all those abandoned Christmas trees would have made it to wood chip. They’ve been hanging about waiting for kerb side collection for weeks now. Fed up with waiting they’ve broken free under cover of a dark and stormy night. They’re roaming about South London like tumbleweed. The challenge for me is that they are invisible in the dark. That’s why I’m taking a position on abandoned trees. Position one is involu

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 take issue with you. I think a candle is a wonderful thing. If it smells of something floral even better.” I explained that I was not ready to retract my views on the eye piercing pain of the candle, even those gifted or re-gifted with love. “I’d be delighted if someone gave me a really nice candle.” “Would you?” I wondered in all innocence. “I really would,” She said. I let the silence linger for a moment. “I’ve got a drawer full of them,” I said. “I know,” she sighed. The slobbering side kick would have just got on with the begging at this point. “Would you like a candle?” I asked with a

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 artichokes before anyone else gets there. The crowds don’t exactly look as if they are bristling with seasonal joy and there is a lot of high pitched screaming and the odd tantrum going on.  A few people have thought to add their Yorkshire terriers into the mix, supported in the chaos by guess what? The extendable dog lead of course. I am just beginning to wonder at the wisdom of artichokes when a brass band strikes up. They are playing “Joy to the World.” This is the final straw and people start pulling down their hats and covering their ears. Just when I was beginning to think that terriers and their invisibl

“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 benefit of support as they make that transition from school to the world of work. #Shappi Kharsandi, tells the story about how, with looming poor grades at A ‘Level, her school thought she wasn’t university material, but she had such a bubbly and outgoing personality. They recommended she become a holiday rep. She wondered, if she had been at a half way decent fee paying school, how that conversation might have run: “We think that while you might not be university material you’ve got such a bubbly and outgoing personality, we recommend you become Foreign Secretary.” There’s something in this. Expectation is everything

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 need to take advice from the university about your access needs.” “Why don’t you just ask me. These things are usually pretty simple.” She didn’t say this but she might have meant to: “This nice young person who doesn’t know what he’s doing, will forget to call you in the morning. If you give him your number, he’ll lose it.” So it came to pass that I was repeatedly phoned by the candidate’s team to ask if I would volunteer, and how I repeatedly said I’d like to. I wrote to the party leaders office to ask if there was anything I could do to help in respect a bit of a disability bump in the road. The l

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 doing, (except the gardening – that’s me not him). Sheep driving is a charitable event these days and that’s how Alan got the gig. No better photo opportunity than Alan in a three piece herding thirty sheep over the bridge. The Clerk to the Court of the City of London warned me that Freeman and Free Sisters who whose sheep wander down Borough High Street without prior arrangement, may find themselves subject to the long arm of the law. I’m not a Free Radical, and since I know for certain that they don’t serve loose leaf Earl Grey tea in any Metropolitan Police custody suite, I’m reluctant to take the risk and