DIARY BY FIONA CUMMINGS

Good evening Bloggets. How are you all? Gosh it’s been so cold today here and it’s been raining though sunny. Really odd. I was out earlier and I was so cold when I got in, kind of like a damp to the bones cold.

 

 I have really bad eye pain today and yesterday. I feel like someone is kicking my eyeballs. They just feel bruised. The pain has gone into my head. Two full days I have had this. It can go and do one now.

 

A very happy birthday to Lisa and Ian. If it’s your, special day, best wishes to you too.

 

Something I was reading. If spiders worked together, they could theoretically eat all humans in just one year.

Nice… If they take me off the menu, they perhaps could do it in seven months?

 

OK, here’s a story, have you ever heard of the Milgram experiment? Well I hadn’t until today. It is a test to prove that everyday people can commit monstrous acts.  Gosh, well in the research, the Milgram polled before the experiment began   predicted an average of less than 2 per cent of test subjects could be induced to deliver a fatal shock to an unwilling participant. 26 out of the 40 people, that’s 65% went all the way to 250 volts.

All of them were willing to give the shocks to an unwilling subject in another room. All of the people raised some kind of objection during the test. But Milgram was shocked, pardon the pun, to learn that almost 2 thirds of people would kill a person with electricity, if a man in a white coat in a lab told them to.

 

The study showed that people would commit atrocities if they were given permission from someone in authority. compliance dropped to 20 per cent when the people were told to instruct by phone, rather than someone being physically in the room. It was or is, written that in the experiment, those who came from lower class or who had been involved with crime in the past were more likely to argue with their instructor in a white coat. But middle class would do everything the person in authority would ask of them as long as they were in the room.

 

Well I haven’t committed any crime and no way I would do that to anyone unless they were really really bad people and even then, I would feel so uncomfortable, but if they had hurt someone or an animal, yep, give me the wires.

 

My friend from school was reminding me the other day about when some of the kids used to get electric shock treatment at our dreadful boarding school. Yep, it went on in the eighties. There was a circle of kids. One got the shock but they all had to hold hands so it went around in the circle. If you left go, they would then give that person the shock the hardest. Evil people. I just don’t know how people from our school haven’t been jailed. I escaped the circle, but know of people who that happened to and much worse things went on than that. My Husbands school he witnessed a member of staff who would pour boiling water over a child’s arm and that person did it to a few lads that Hub knew. Well I have had electric shock treatment, when I was six in Russia, in the eye where I had to do it to myself, I can tell you, I only did it once, as I screamed so loud then they had to try to do it to me but they weren’t keen on that because they got the shock too.

 

When I think back to those days, my past, I feel so sad for that little girl, but it doesn’t seem like it’s me. I guess I have tried to detach myself from that person. I feel like I renew or shed my skin every few years. Off load. Haha. Thankfully there isn’t much shedding to do these days or for the past number of years.

 

Going back to the former Soviet Union, in the late sixties, so, before I went, in fact I wasn’t quite born in 1967 when the youth boom meant that a huge amount of people in Russia were under the age of 27. It was about fifty years, since the Russian revolution, young people in Russia attended college more than ever before. The Russian children read voraciously, listened to music by the Beatles and visited newly opened parks as well as took BBQ’s and picnics near the rivers and beaches. That relaxed happiness didn’t last long, by the 1980’s, a new wave of educated dissidents rallied together protesting against Soviet rule.

 

Having said that, in the 80’s, I loved Moscow. The people too.  And parks still were there just everything became more political. Gorki park was a vast place with open mikes where you would hear very serious Ruskey’s talking almost as if programmed to brainwash people, or influence the crowds. Then you would hear awful Russian war songs with men singing in really deep voices. As a child, I felt slightly intimidated but the hot summers and great people I knew, provided a comfort blanket and though I had times dealing with Russian mafia and the KGB, I still felt safer in Russia, than I did in England. But after Perestroika, when Russia sadly sold out to the West, I returned to the Motherland and really felt very unsafe. I wouldn’t want to go back there now.

 

Something else I was reading, about when in the UK we needed driving tests. I always would have thought that from day one of buying a car we would have to take a test like we do now days. But no, in 1903 the motor car act only requested people to register their names and vehicle details. No test was needed.

 

The first formal driving tests in the UK were taken by disabled drivers only. And the licences were only issued for a year. Everyone eventually had to take the driving test but not until 1935. The driving theory test was introduced in 1996. Gosh before reading about that, I would have guessed may be 2005?

 

Before getting to the car, the examiner will ask the person about to take their test, to read from about 20 metres, a driving plate. Hmm. Well, that is so funny as when I could see, I would have been able to do that. But when driving, I would have been in trouble. Haha. I do know of people who have RP though who still drive. Scary, no matter how good you can see. One lady I knew used to drive her children to school. She used to tell me she was fine, as long as she kept her eyes on the white line. As she couldn’t see anything other than that when moving. She did that for years. She thought it was OK as long as she didn’t drive at night.

 

In the eyesight test to drive, you get three chances to read the plate properly. Three? Why? Surely if you can’t read the first plate correctly, then alarm bells should start to ring?

Also, I know of so many people who passed their tests many years ago but have never been for an eye test since, how do they know they can see safely enough to continue driving? But I also know that if my Son for whatever reason had to quit driving, it would seriously mess with his mental health as he loves his car and loves driving.

 

Again, I have never been able to drive, so, I don’t miss it. There are times when I have car envy when I wish I could get in the car with Hub and just drive somewhere, but the feelings come and go. But if I could drive, and suddenly that is taken from me, then I would miss it as it would be life changing in a bigger way than what it is for me now where I have to walk or get a bus everywhere, or a taxi that costs loads, especially where we live.

  

It’s like who is more fortunate, someone like my Husband who has never seen, or me who had sight but lost it?

Personally, I think he is better off some days then I wonder though if I was luckier as I now have pictures in my head of what things look like, colours shapes people etc. the colour red to Hub is a word as if he is learning a foreign language, it means nothing to him. Personally, I can’t imagine not knowing things like that, but, same time, I would never want to go through that day when I had gone blind. Oh, my goodness. It was pure hell. Minutes went into hours to days weeks, years before I came to terms that I would never see again. Hub didn’t go through the grieving process and that process I can tell you was the worst thing I have ever gone through in my entire life and I have been to hell and back in life. But, if I was to live my life over again, and remembered everything I now know, then those times that time, wouldn’t be as bad. It doesn’t have to be as scary or life crushing as what I went through.

 

And now for new innovations for tech for 2019 if you are requiring assistive technology.

There is a company called The BraiBook, the mouse sized device, includes a single Braille cell and can be loaded with books in several formats.

Characters can be displayed in contracted or uncontracted Braille a cell at a time, and the speed can be controlled using a joystick. A headphone or speaker can be plugged in so the person reading can hear words as well. There are 22 cell machines available but the price of the above is about £400

A great toy to teach tiny children Braille is called the BrailleBuzz.   It’s for children between the age of 2 to 5. It’s shaped like a bumblebee it includes buttons to announce each Braille letter that is on the buttons. The children can also type Braille and there are sounds as well as speech.

It’s well under a hundred pounds or $99  

 

For older kids there is codeJumper. That is what it is, teaches coding.

 

Guide Connect  allows you to read and write emails read books and surf the internet.

It’s a Dolphin product and will cost about $800

 

Those of you who can see, you are all so lucky, look at how much we have to pay out to do just normal every day things that you do….

So, if people who can’t see don’t drive, they save a fortune? Haha, nope, for me to drive in a taxi for 2 miles, costs us £10.00

 

Well it’s late and my Husband is playing wild games with the dogs. Poor LF doesn’t know what to do but his big sister Waggatail is like a puppy. She is eight now going on 1. She is like a clockwork toy. Hub plays so rough with her. I hate it, but when I try to call Waggs, she won’t come then she takes her toys back to her Dad, so, she can get on with it. Haha. She has the most annoying toy that makes the worst high-pitched sound and if you squeeze it slowly, the sound lasts for ages. It drills through my skull. Hub thinks it’s hilarious.

It so isn’t. I keep putting that particular toy away but Hub finds it.

 

Well I can’t hear my voice on my lap top so I shall close for now.