Good day to you all, just some of our readers today are from
Brazil, Moldova, South Africa and Germany. Wherever you are whoever you are I
hope this finds you well.
It was an OK result for our PM last night. She has to head
back to Europe for more discussions. When will this end. She must be exhausted
I know I am.
Believe it or not it’s zero outside, but I have had to turn
off my heating in the house. The sun is so warm. May be outside it feels
different I haven’t been out long enough today to know, but it’s shining
through the window where I sit and it’s beautiful.
I believe in parts of
America they are to have record numbers on temperatures. It’s going to be the
worst winter yet according to what I
have been reading. Well we are told it will go to11 below next week. We are
being warned to stock up with food…. What with the weather and warnings over
Brexit that we are going to have no tomatoes and lettuce, haha, oh, and not
forgetting KFC will run out of food that was a headline I read yesterday, well,
may be our nation will get fitter and lose weight…
Other headlines talk about the dam that collapsed in Brazil
well five people have been arrested. Too late guys. Far too late.
Apparently if you are an early riser, you are less likely to
have mental health problems. Well my analysis on this subject is. Firstly, I
wonder if they asked people who sleeps later than the norm how their mental
health is? If so, there is a reason why they stay in bed. Normally because they
are depressed or they have nothing to get up for. secondly, if you get up early
there is in some if not most cases a reason to get up. You either have people
coming to see you, or you are going out to work where ever it may be, you are
out, and if you go out, you are not going to be as depressed as someone who
stays in, right? So, I guess this study could be done in one’s mind rather than
taking time up with scientists and loads of paperwork.
Israeli scientists say a cure for cancer will be available
in one year. I wish. I’m not getting too excited about this as how can one treatment
cure all types of cancer? But I really hope I’m wrong and the scientists are
right in their announcement.
And now to answer a few questions that have been sent to me
over the past week. How do you know how to get around in your city?Many years ago,
I learned how to use the white cane. I do have to smile when I read about how
people just go out there and buy a white cane… You really need to learn the
correct way to use one. Firstly, you have to get the right height. Normally in
the UK the top of the long cane has to reach your chest bone. You have to put
your hand and fingers in a certain way. This is to be as comfortable as
possible and so you can feel with, or through your fingers. When I first
started to learn the white cane, gosh, my fingers killed, as they did when I
learned how to play piano. As you are using them in a way you have never done
before.
Once you are sorted with size and how to hold your cane then
you learn to sweep it side to side this is to cover your whole body. No good in
just putting the white cane in front of you if there is a sign for example
sticking out to the side of you. Or a person standing glancing obliviously to your
oncoming impact. Smile.
And then it’s time to link the arm of your trainer and learn
the routes to where you need to go. This is when it gets tiring. You have to
remember so much. Every step you go up or down, ramps and bollards as well as that
awful street furniture that may get in your way. When you start to do this it’s
amazing how much you have missed in the past. What you learn about your area.
You also learn to smell for a particular tree or shrub if it’s summer for
example well even spring. In time you won’t need these little helpful tricks as
you will just learn how the ground feels at that point. It took me years to
learn to feel or in some cases see through the souls of my feet. If you walk
heel to toe as well, you will find it’s more difficult to trip.
Once you have the map in your head, the patient mobility
instructor will have gone over and over your routes with you. I had a great guy
called David. He was for sure a lifechanging person for me. If not for him,
nothing else would have happened. He believed in me before I did. He did the
job because he cared and this makes a huge difference.
After much time learning the route in my head and how to
hold a white cane, he walked out from my house and I was to meet him at my Son
who was five at the time school. That
was really scary. But I did it and I will never ever forget that walk. The
birds sang to me all the way. It was as if they were celebrating. When I got
the the big road and crossed it and David was waiting at my Sons school, oh, the
feeling of pure freedom. I had to get over the dreadful shame I felt of all of
my neighbours looking at me. The feeling of being laughed at and the feeling of
fresh air without being so stressed in how I was going to get to his school and
how I was going to find the right path or fall down a step, it was just the
best. Really, I can’t put into words and it’s not just me who has gone through
this, almost every white cane user experience it. But there is pain first.
Then for my guide dog, a totally different way to get out.
You still have to know where you are going, you can’t take short cuts like
sighted people do, but your dog will keep you safe and if you show your dog
respect they will love and look after you forever. But with a guide dog comes a
huge responsibility. They are not machines they are not without feelings. So,
if you can’t put into what a dog will give you then the white cane will be your
best friend. A cane can’t always find a
door for you though or the right house coming home. It’s much harder with a
cane in some ways, but in others it’s a better feeling as you have less chance
in falling down steps. But a dog will just get you there. Faster too.
When you laugh, do you really feel happy? This was asked by
a person who has just been diagnosed with an eye condition that means she will
go blind. My answer, when I laugh it’s because someone has made me laugh, just
like you laughed before you got this awful news. It took me a very long time
before my laughter was genuine, and sometimes I laugh then stop and think hang
on, what am I laughing at what have I got to laugh about? Well the answer is
simple, I have a lot. I have a loving loyal family, a beautiful house and some
great friends. I’m not worried about where I will get my next meal from or
wonder whether or not I can pay my bills. And I do have a select amount of
people in my life who really do make me laugh until my stomach is in pain. You
know when you have a stitch? We do laugh, it may take time just like when you
are grieving, as I always refer blindness to grieving, you have at the end of
the day lost something. But we do move on we have to learn to change so much in
life, but day by day we get there. Though I think if I ever and it’s more like
a dream now as time passes the chances are also passing, the time I get to see
again, if that ever does come, then I will have a permanent smile upon my face.
Even though I will walk through our city and see some ugly faces of evil and destruction.
But even in a person’s world who is blind, we still do see evil just in a
different way, thankfully those I choose to surround myself with are good
people and those who are other, have long gone. That is the control you will
have too when you get to the stage I am at. I’m not excepting anyone in my life
now. I’m not going to be grateful to someone just because they speak to me, I
will be polite and walk on but if they catch my heart in any way, I shall stay
and learn about them. If they are good people, they will I hope be with me
walking by my side in a metaphorical way forever.
Thank you for your emails and messages. Take care until next
time when we chat.
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