I’m at last here, gosh I have had a busy day but firstly let
me tell you about Hubs new toys. Firstly, he has been sent to trial something
that looks really useful. Now, I always take a year and three quarters to catch
up, in fact I think I took three years to get onto an iPhone. So, in very
brief, I shall tell you about his first gadgets. They are from a company called
Wayfinder. You receive loads of different tags. Some are magnetic, some you sew
onto clothing and others are like clips you can put onto scarves or ties, even
to pair socks up. Then there are circles like flat rings you could use to may
be put on a coat hanger.
Way tags use
Nearfield communications.
You subscribe to
their service and then you can create a waytag on your iPhone, it may work on
other phones too! you can give it categories like filing, clothes or groceries
and you can add a long description and then add characteristics like best
before dates or do not iron or tumble dry. Hold the top edge of your phone near
the tag and it transfers the information from your tag to your phone, so if you
have enabled speech, then your phone will read the information out to you.
Obviously, you will need someone who can see first to describe
the item to you. For example, a white shirt with navy-blue stripes, and give a
rough description of washing instructions if, you need that. Or if it’s a can of
food, someone will read it or you could use Tap Tap See, another App, if you
have an iPhone, or Seeing ai that you hold to your product and it takes a picture
or reads a bar Coad, then tells you then you could transfer your information
onto your tags. But if it’s a bag or box of food that has a sell by date, then
someone can read out the item and date for you, then you have that information
for as many times as you need it. The good thing about these tags is you can
reuse most of them, the only ones you can’t are the sticky ones, but I guess if
you put letters for example in an envelope, or receipts, then reuse the envelopes
keeping the sticky sticker on the same envelope just transfer the contents when
receipts for example run out, then give different information to your sticker
for whatever you want to file next. So, they can be used over and over again.
Hub said they would be good for his office, as there are
information boards with progress reports on, so, he can go to the board and
hold his phone up to the tag and hear what the information/reports say, again
it will require someone sighted to feed
the tag with the information that is on the board but that will only take as
long as it would for them to read it.
I am delighted to receive them it will help me enormously
with Hubs work clothes, like the other day I used Tap Tap see, my best friend,
and I was told his work trousers were pinstripe. But didn’t say what colour
they were. Then I checked out his shirt I ironed and that said multi coloured
stripes. So, I knew not to put stripes with stripes, but if we had a sighted
person telling me what colour shirt it was and even what colour the trousers were,
it would make life easier for the future.
He also received his bone conducting earphones. I touched on
those the other day. Again, it involves an App on your iPhone and it’s used in
navigation. So, when he is walking down our city streets, through his earphones
he will hear what he is passing. We know the way to certain shops, but what we
pass by is a mystery that can be so frustrating as like you all, we as blind
people want to be able to know what we are going past, and if it’s a fruit shop
then we may remember we are out of bananas for example. If we pass a shoe shop,
then we may want to pop in to get new shoes. But we could pass so many places
and remain totally oblivious.
We can’t see the colours, displays and peoples features
trees flowers and so on, I personally miss all of that, we live in a very lonely
world at times, and Apps and gadgets like this will never replace sight, but
will make a huge difference to our lives. It’s quite exciting. My Dear friend
and our Blogget, JB, uses the bone conducting earphones to go places and they
get her right to the door of where she wants to be. There’s nothing worse than
knowing you are in the right vicinity, but can’t find the door, especially when
you have two things going on, one those windows that go low so you think they
are a glass door, but in fact they are not, or there are loads of people
standing around that place where you need to be so you can’t feel for a door,
but my friend said this took her exactly to the entrance.
You can also go to a field to walk your dog for example. Drop
what is called a pin which you don’t really drop a pin, it’s just terminology
you use. But you do something with the iPhone and you can walk anywhere in the
field and when you are ready to find the gate as in a big field, it’s
impossible to do this, as there are no ramps, no steps and sometimes not even
any clues to where that gate may be, so this tech, will get you right to the
gate. How brilliant is that?
The good thing about the earphones are because they don’t go
over your ears or in them, you can still hear what is going on in the real
world. This is so important for those of
us who are blind. We need to hear where we are. Hearing is the best we are
going to get to seeing.
These earphones allow you to hear the real world and listen
to tech to guide you too!
So, apart from Hub spending about eight hours on the phone
with work, as he was working from home, that is Hubs day and for me, well I had
to go to the council to get a blue badge. Remember for those of you who live in
the UK, all you need is proof you have PIP payment. Then you go to your council
and fill in section 3 only. There’s no need to fill in anything else, take
proof of your address and a passport as well as a letter or something relating
to P I P
I’m only telling you this as six weeks it’s taken me to start
to get a blue badge. It should have taken a phone call to the place who deals
with your payment a letter sent out from them and then off to the council so,
about six days. But no, because I didn’t know this, it’s taken six weeks. So,
when I learned of what I had to do as I kept getting told I needed a yellow
card, by the person at the hospital (Eye Hospital) social services and council.
Go on line on Google and type in blue badge, and Bingo, you will be sorted. It should
be told to us, we shouldn’t have to educate the people who are getting paid to advise
us, but sadly communication in our country is dying. So, here I am letting you
know as I don’t want you to go through the hassle that I have been through, all
the phone calls and letters emails and so on. It’s two easy steps. P I P letter
and council.
Now I have my blue badge, I can get in a car with someone
driving obviously, and park close to where I know the route, we don’t pay for
most car parks and it even gets us through the Tyne tunnel free. It’s something
we are blessed to have in England to help to make our really challenging life that
little bit easier.
I went to our big shop today. Gosh it’s confusing in there
and I bumped into, not literally, a very sweet friend. He and his wife were our
first friends when we moved here. Hub and I love those two.
Next Saturday our besties are coming to see us. I am looking
forward to that.
As for this weekend, not sure yet as the weather looks
awful. Typical as it’s the last holiday for most people of the summer. Monday a
lot of workers are off. We call it Bank Holiday.
I hope your weekend will be full of whatever you wish for
it. Whether it be relaxing or something happening that is really exciting for
you. In the meanwhile, I shall go for now but be back later with some chat and
touch on a subject one of you have asked me to write about.
Later gators
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