PENELIPE PITSTOP PAINTS

Walking with the artist today, she told me how she has started to look at life in a different way since she met me and how she has been made to realise how valuable her sight is?

Take her life for example, she works a lot with the RSPCA, finding homes for animals/pets. She loves art obviously, hence “The artist!” She loves doing her garden and adores colours, whether it being  bright flowers in the garden, what she wears or her art work.

She told me about a paint called suede paint. It sounds lovely, you paint it on the walls and it dries like a rough texture. Hers is cream, with bits of  dark pink in the paint? I really don’t know how they do that but she put it on the walls in swirls and the dark pink looks like artex in the paint. I don’t know how they can  make a  paint two colours, do you?

She said when it dries, it has kind of a textured feel and you can feel the swirls on the wall. What with that and my BF and his wife telling me about their wallpaper of suede and satin, wow? How decoration has  improved?

Oh what with the main wall in the lounge  with the lovely wallpaper and the rest of the walls in that paint, doesn’t that sound beautiful?

Anyway, the artist lady, she talks about what she sees all the time, going out with her is really interesting to see what she sees.

She drives, she has a soft top sports car and she said when the weather was warmer and less windy, she would take me out for a spin…OMG? Can you imagine me in one of those pink, Lady Penelipe Pitstop cars?

I don’t think I am the type for one of those cars? I think I would look ridiculous? Hahaha.

But I will take her up on that.

That  I am sure will be a funny blog day?

The artist tells me of all the galleries she has been to and the famous paintings she has. Silks from Japan and other unusual artwork.

If she went to bed tonight, and tomorrow, woke up blind like I did, how would she cope?

I guess like I did. Her whole world would break and she would come clashing down.

I hope it never happens as she is a good person, but it could?

You don’t have to be born with an eye complaint to go blind.

She said since she has met me, she now takes notice of things like obstacles on the paths. Trees sticking out onto the path and bits of glass we came across today, she pushed with her foot, to one side. She said normally, she would walk around that or see a  parked car on the path and step off. She now thinks how I would cope with such an obstacle?

I would not know there was a hanging tree until it was too late and my eye was poked out or I had bad scratch on my face.

I said to her it was surprising how the mind works?

How much sighted people take in without knowing being aware of exactly how much they do take in without thinking.

I think it is great that I meet people and can tell them what it is really like, because that is the only way our future of blind people will be living in a better life?

We VIP’s, do get people who will walk across the road, as they will not know how to communicate. We scare them. There is a lady here in our street, every time she sees us on the way to the shop or in the garden, she always tells us who she is? We don’t always recognise people’s voices. She is great though, just used her common sense.

My friend on Facebook, used to publish photographs and have nothing written under or next to them. He now bless him, says what the pictures are of and this means I can join in in the discussion on the subject. He has had the common sense to do such a simple thing?

Oh I felt terrible last night having said all that about common sense? I asked my Hub who has been blind since birth, if he ever played/drew with one of those spire graphs, I think that is what they were called? You put your pen in the middle of the paper and inside the machine, your paper/card, goes around, so your pen creates a kind of spiral pattern.

“Did you ever use one?

I asked him?

There was that kind of gap of silence, where he gave the room a feeling of dread.

Then sadly told me no, why would he use something like that?

It’s the same when I talk about colours?

He has a glazed expression in his voice.

I want to cry for him when that happens. I can’t believe I say such things.

The fact is, I really couldn’t see well enough to draw, but I did it still, but at least I could see colours I was putting on the paper?

I kick myself when I remind Hub of the life he could never have?

Though I am in the same boat as him now, I do shed tears for his lack of sight, even the memory of it.

At least I saw my babies face, until he was one. Hub never saw his girl’s faces. He doesn’t know what an expression looks like. A skowel,  a smile, smirk or a look of  pride. To see the faces on his girls when they were little being cute? If someone tells me now my Teen  has that look on his face of joy, I know what joy looks like and I subconsciously mirror the expression, without realising making me feel happier, as I know how happy my teen will look?

Mind you, I at the minute, will have to have a blooming good memory to remember teen being happy?

So the morning with the lady, was one of teaching and being taught. Of educating what I can tell her,  and she, of learning of what she can tell me.

Those who can see, you are so lucky. Those who can’t, can be so lovely. x