Talking to a blind man

As I've mentioned may times before my friend and I have started going to disabled swim at our local (indoor, because I'm a wimp) pool. Within twelve months I have gone from a very poor, verging on non-swimmer to a fairly regular but very proud thirty full lengths in about an hour. The life guards are always really happy to help and put a separate lane in for me and my friend. The trouble is we seem to have stumbled in on a disabled 'click' group. So the first week we went there was already a lane set up on the opposite side of the pool away from all the other disabled swimmers, this seemed perfect as I cant see on comers and am unable to manage unpredictability in other humans when I'm in the water. So, the life guards were happy for me and my mate to take this lane so we cracked on and managed about eight lengths. Disabled swim is from 6pm until 7pm and that particular week we did more chatting than swimming. Anyway, we did attract a lot of interest from the other swimmers but no-one really approached us or said hello. I'm actually happy with that, I go to swim when I know its safe, if I want to chat I'll go join the queue at the post office, besides my friend and I had already wasted enough time chin wagging. 

The following week was a bit different, the lane was set up again and as we went to use it, a couple of lady swimmers barked at us that 'David was coming' so I couldn't use that lane. Again, the life guards had no problems popping in another lane and all seemed good. David was guided in by another life guard who took his cane at the poolside and helped him in. Once in the water he was like a local celebrity, all these women clucking around him like hens. This man seemed very polite and chatted to everyone, then he was off. I swear if you saw this man in the water you would never know he was blind, he swam up and down the lane like a fish and covered our ten lengths which had taken us nearly an hour in about three minutes. The next few weeks we found that the ladies, as soon as they saw us, would start talking loudly amongst themselves about whether or not David was coming. To me, this definitely felt like a warning directed to me and my mate to keep out of the 'blind mans lane'. Of course I have absolutely no problem with not being in that particular lane especially as there is no problem getting one put in for us, but I do have a problem with people thinking I am invisible and deaf! These women are crazily so over protective of this man that it is verging on the side of discrimination. I, although I am also blind, do not deserve to swim in the lane which has the pool edge. In fact if its a safety issue, we would be safer if we swapped lanes because he swims so quickly he often hits his hand on the wall, whereas I can only manage breast stroke...slowly, very, very slowly. 

So, like I said, this went on for a few weeks until the week before last when one of the women swam beside me and said...I've been watching you and you are definitely getting quicker, well done. keep going!!! And there it was  TADARRRR...ACCEPTANCE.. into the disabled swim!!

This week we were greeted with Hello's and smiles. I was allowed to swim in David's lane with out any comment, and when my mate saw him arriving, we simply moved over and the life guard popped a lane in. 

I haven't really spoken to this blind man named David swimming in the lane beside me, we've exchanged pleasantries and introduced ourselves but not really chatted. So, at the end of our respectable thirty lengths, I thought I would have a chat. Well, bugger me if this bloke is not only amazing but he certainly does not need clucking or protecting from anyone. It was lovely to talk to someone who truly understands what I mean. He is clearly a very clever man and does lots of work in art galleries and museums. He was also very genuinely interested in what I had to say, my poor friend was standing in the shallow end of the pool with us as David and I chatted 'blind talk' and I think she felt a bit like the third wheel as we talked about things which she as a sighted person perhaps doesn't always notice or understand. I could feel my passion and need for clarification and acknowledgement of all the seemingly little things that I struggle with everyday rising to the surface, it also has made me aware of the importance of talking to people with similar conditions, and it has made me realise just how lonely this whole sight impairment world can be, and how easy it is to stop talking about it and just try to fit into the sighted world because its easier just to keep quiet and get on with it, but that's not real and that is no longer how my life rolls so why am I trying to make out I am coping and that I can do things that I cant? Maybe for the fear of feeling weak or insignificant I don't know, what I do know is I am looking forward to next weeks swim. 

Speak soon xx

2nd Proms Night

Well, completely hypocritical I know, but the rain came yesterday afternoon, and I couldn't help feeling happy about it. Mind you, it was a bit of a shock at first...it was so hot yesterday afternoon, too hot inside even with the fan on and outside it was baking, but about 4pm I noticed that the trees were moving a little so I took myself out into the shade and relaxed on my rocking garden chair. I recon I was laid there with a slight breeze for all about thirty seconds before I had fallen sound asleep. Just over an hour later the clouds must have thickened and apparently there was a distant rumble of thunder...all this was unbeknown to me, happily snoring away until the ear splitting crack of thunder over my head and the first massive drops of rain splashed on my face causing me to leap out of the chair like my backside had been burnt. Ralph was already shaking and cowering at the back of his crate and my two delightful daughters found it hilarious and amazing that at my age I can move that fast! Bloody cheek! 

The sky continued to rumble, flash and rain for the rest of the night until about 8am when the sun came out so Ralph and I went for a walk, the air smelt lovely and fresh, all you people who Camp will know that smell, there's nothing quite like the smells you experience when you are camping. 

Anyway, that's not what I was going to say to you, I was going to tell you about my second Proms night. On Tuesday Mum and I went to see Sibelius, Schubert and Zimmermann, we were sitting in the front two seats of the box so we had a amazing view of the stage. This was a completely different atmosphere to the first concert we saw, everyone was very excited and happy there was a real buzz in the air.

This building is so bloody beautiful, it doesn't matter how many times I come here I am always struck by its glamour.

More Prommers! During the interval they all do this speech together, called the arena to audience shout announcing that they will be outside at the end of the concert collecting donations for Charities, I am sure they said the public had already donated over £14.000. 

And this is where my favourite group of people sit in the orchestra. See those two pianos? Just one guy was playing them...one guy! He kept leaping from one to the other mid song and just managing to park his bum on the seat before he had to start playing. 

My real hero is the guy who sits at the back playing percussion, So there he sits with his arms folded and his head lowered looking a lot like he is bored to death and has fallen asleep The rest of the orchestra are producing this incredible music, when all of a sudden the guy is up and at his instrument, the man is so fast you almost don't see the transition from looking like he is in a comatose state to being fully alert and ready to add his very valuable contribution to the piece. To me, this is a man who really knows his shit. I don't think its a natural thing for a man to look like he isn't listening when actually he is, and believe me, this guy had to be listening because there was this even bigger guy standing at the front waving his special stick about and my god, the man didn't look the type who would be happy if you cocked up on his watch. 

Classical music isn't really my thing, I am more of a ZZ Top/Guns and Roses/Bon Jovi with a large splash of Sex Pistols and a sprinkling of Pink Floyd type of gal BUT there is something so amazing about following a musical story, even when you don't understand what the hell is going on, you are still struck by so much emotion that not many types of music can produce. For example...Elizabeth Watts...Soprano...holy crap, I have never heard a voice quite like it. I found myself wondering what it would be like living next door to her, that woman has one incredibly loud and enchanting voice. 

Of course at all times I try to behave like a sophisticated lady, so when we got to our box at the beginning of the evening while there was no-one else in the box I fumbled around in my handbag a found a little bottle of perfume, Mum watched me in horror as I removed my shoes and my sweaty socks, rubbed my feet on the thick carpet (that's more a sensory thing..honest) and then put my bare feet up on the side of the box while I sprayed perfume on them to mask the nasty smell that was coming from them My little black dress had ridden up but I was so happy to be cool, cool as in not hot that is. Then I get this sharp elbow in my ribs and through gritted teeth Mum says...GET YOUR BLOODY FEET DOWN AND STOP SHOWING YOU NICKERS...YOU DO REALISE WE ARE LIVE ON BBC2?

To be honest there has been much worse shown on BBC2 but I was at the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall and I expect Queen Vicky would have been right hacked off to see my feet all over her carpet so I adjusted myself and made out I was a lady for the rest of the evening..although I kept my shoes off until the end of the second half.

I am so very glad I have experienced BBC Proms, its an entirely carefree different world, people come from all walks of life and they are all welcomed it really has restored my faith in human nature, of course the tube is a different matter there is absolutely nothing human about travelling on the tube at all and when this Chinese fella thought he could push me and my cane out of the way so he could get on before me he was very wrong and I hope his ankles still hurt! 

Any way I think you can check out my Proms review and all the others on their RNIB Connect webpage if not google me (Lynda Daddario) and apparently it shows all the reviews on there too.

Sleep Well x

weather whingers

Back again!!.. and already this first week of the six weeks summer holiday has whisked by. I was just reading a article written by Janet Street-Porter about how this country is falling to bits over some heat, how many people just don't seem to have any common sense when it comes to coping with weather which isn't the usual pouring with rain, grey and wind that we are used to but also how people, like the Met Office, use phases like 'stay safe' while telling us about soring temperatures. Non dog owners spend a lot of time criticise dog owners for walking their dogs in the heat, I even saw on Facebook that someone approached a blind man with his guide dog to give him a stern telling off for bringing his doggie out...what's the guy supposed to do? Sit at home and wait for the weather to pass! I'm sure his boss would have loved that. So while I wondered around town today (without a plastic bottle of water) I pondered on how many people have had a go at parents for bringing their tiny screaming babies out in the heat of the day...I also wondered how other countries cope? Australia for example, do they need constant instructions on how to look after themselves during their summer? of course they don't. And what about a bit of snow in this country, it sends everyone on high alert. I recon as a country, the British are a nation of weather whingers. 
Upstairs laying on her bed with the blinds down and the fan on is the youngest daughter who is suffering from heat stroke...I don't have a lot of sympathy I'm afraid because yesterday she laid around on the sofa doing bugger all and then went into town in temperatures above 35 degrees, but it didn't occur to her to put fluid back into to her body to replace what she was sweating out, so now we are a dying duck and have a stinking head ache as well as a upset tummy lesson learnt though I hope.
Thinking back to my childhood summers, we rarely used sunscreen and if we did it was the cheapest Mum could find, when there's three little bodies to cover a bottle of sunscreen lasts two days. We used to build a den in the corn field behind our house and played in it all summer until the farmer cut the corn. We came home filthy every day, and we always took a massive bottle of drink with us and we all drank out of that same bottle. Sunny days were fun days, we used to go running back to the little shed in our garden where the chest freezer was kept and help ourselves to a Choc-ice or ice-pops, at night we slept with just our nickers on and the window wide open, this was normal. These days people frown if you dare suggest that you child is allowed to take their clothes off because you never know who is looking, you cant sleep with the windows open because a bug might come in and bite you while you are sleeping and then you might have a reaction and die!
We used to sit at the edge of the river and dangle our feet in to cool ourselves off, we knew better than to jump in because our parents had showed us where is safe and where isn't, and the part of the river which passed our house wasn't safe for swimming.. so we didn't do it, simple.
We didn't need mobile phones because we were home when we were told we should be. I wouldn't want to be a child these days, I couldn't be arsed with keeping up with the dress code or vocabulary. Social media meant shouting to your mate over the fence or writing notes to the boy you fancied and leaving it in his part of the corn field where he and his mates had made their own den. 
Don't get me wrong, my childhood wasn't all singing and dancing, I remember rolling around in the corn and falling straight into a ditch of stinging nettles, I remember running for my life the day I got hold of my Dad's paint compressor and re-sprayed the car that was sitting in his garage. Then there was the day my younger sister and I held my middle sister down and shaved half her hair off....and then of course there was the unforgettable day the cat came home covered in concrete and Mum had gone to work leaving me in charge, there was no scene quite like the one of me and my two sisters trying to catch this bloody cat and then get him in the bath, and what's more he was a cranky bloody cat who didn't want a bath thankyou very much and I recon I still got the scars to prove it.
I'm with Janet, She refers to Nany-state panic and this is because we don't seem to have a mind of our own anymore, everything is too dangerous and every activity comes with a 'warning'  she says that one Met Office nerd was handing out totally unnecessary advise- wear sunglasses...wear a wide brimmed hat and use sun cream...ohhhh and don't go out in the sun between 11am and 3pm.
I mean..what? Every news channel is crammed with how the heat is having a domed effect on the farmers and their crops....come on people its two bloody months and in my area of the country its only been REALLY hot this last few days. Just you wait, tomorrow when the thunder storms and heavy rain starts we will be moaning again and receiving warnings and advice on how to cope with wet weather and the best ways not to be struck by lightening.
For me though, in my tiny little world, I will be happy to see the green grass again...mostly because my little pooch blends in with the ground and I cant see him! 

Proms Virgin

I just sat here in this heat for a bloody hour trying to finish off a blog that I started to write last week and had forgotten to finish and publish, I get up to go for a wee, come back, press publish and the whole bloody lot deletes itself, I'm not in the best of moods shall we say! 

I found myself staring at the blank page wondering if I should throw the computer on the floor and stamp on it, or walk away calmly and take a few deep breathes...it was a close call and I am still breathing deeply!

I cant really remember what was in the blog except that I was telling you about my first ever trip to the Proms with the Nana's. 

I really am a Proms virgin and had no idea what to expect, well obviously classical music but I wasn't ready for what I got! 

So, last Monday I had tickets to go and see the Leningrad Symphony in the evening and as it was my day off I thought it might be nice to take the Nanas into London earlier in the day and have a mooch around Harrods. This would have been lovely if it hadn't have been for the fact that one of the Nana's couldn't get her head around getting off at a different tube station as it was too hot to walk from the usual station that we get off at and the other tube station was nearer to Harrods. There was no way I was going to risk having a Nana pass out in the heat so I suggested we just go to the Natural History instead thus relieving the stress of the whole getting off at a different tube station and I hoped it would be cooler in there...I was wrong, So very wrong.
For some reason the minute I stepped out of the tube station, I had no idea where I was. I couldn't get my bearings at all! Everywhere looked different and I just couldn't remember the familiar route we take. It was just like my brain has deleted the memory of the route and I could have been anywhere! Mum took my arm and the other Nana went off to look at the map, even though she was confident that we were on the right route, I just couldn't remember it and I wasn't happy letting someone else take the lead. Even as we got to the entrance of the Natural History I found my mouth saying..'ohhh yes, I know where we are now'....but my brain was saying...' How the bloody hell did we get here and more importantly how the hell am I going to find my way to get pasta later'  The the museum wasn't too busy but it was stifling hot, and while we were walking around the enormous plastic mammals it all became too much and the dreaded panic feeling rose up from the pit of my stomach into my chest and I just couldn't breath. Mum took one look at me and marched me straight out of the area to the café, where we found the most yummy lemon cake. It took me about 15 minutes to fully calm myself down, but the three of us sat there not saying a word, just people watching. We wondered around the museum for about another hour and then my sense of direction was magically restored as I didn't have any trouble finding the way to the pasta restaurant.
The Nanas ordered wine with their food, they shared half a glass with me, but it tasted a lot like vinegar so I left it to them! The half glass of wine came back to haunt me a couple of hours later when we were sat in the box at the Royal Albert Hall waiting for the concert to start, and well, I fell asleep! Only for a few minutes but it was enough for me to wonder if I would stay awake through the whole of the evening. I need not have worried though as there was no chance of sleeping because the fella sitting beside me was doing enough snoring for both of us, couldn't help feeling sorry for him and once the musicians came on the stage, Mr snorey head beside me was the last thing on my mind. 
I think maybe for a Proms virgin, Leningrad, although bloody amazing was a bit heavy and sombre. The atmosphere when we got there was totally different to the other events we have been to. We sat on the steps outside the hall waiting for 6.30 to come along. Outside there was a long queue of people who I assumed were also waiting for the 6.30 doors opening, but the more experienced Nanas explained that these were 'Prommers'...so, these are folks who buy tickets on the morning of the concert for £7.50, their tickets allow them to go into the arena and some spaces right at the top of the building, all these tickets are standing only. Now I recon there was some story about if they attend so many standing concerts, they get tickets for the last night of the Proms. Anyway, this group of people were so friendly with each other that they could have been a massive family, actually, it would never surprise me if they aren't the same group of people that attend through promming each year and all probably know each other. 
And so from my comfy seat in the box I was subjected to seventy-eight minutes of musical emotion produced by some of the finest musicians in the world. More than 600.000 people died during Hitler's attack on Russia which inspired a then 35 year old Shostakovich to produce such a moving piece of music just a few weeks after the attack. The Orchestra, on Monday were amazing, a very finely tuned machine, perfect in every single way. At the end of the night I felt like I had been let in on a well kept secret, the story of Leningrad and the magical musical BBC Proms.
Of course. our night, as you might expect. didn't go as smoothly as we would have liked...the concert was being recorded for radio 2...and so if you were listening to live Proms radio on BBC 2 last Monday night and you hear a woman coughing so much you think she might pee herself...well, that'll be my Mum! Sitting behind me I hear a little delicate cough, which slowly turns into a ...oh crap I need a glass of water now cough, so she takes herself off out of the box, once the door was shut I knew the staff would look after her, but as the seconds ticked by into minutes, she didn't come back, I was just starting to get worried, when the other Nana taps my on my shoulder and whispers that she is going to check on my Mum. off she goes and also doesn't come back. There I am listening to this dramatic music and my mind is wondering to whatever is happening to the Nanas behind the box door...then this vivid image of me dragging to dead Nanas behind me back on the train comically pops into my head, the comical image turned quickly into panic and I cant stand it any longer, fumbling around on the floor for my cane with the intention of going Nana searching, the interval arrives just in time and in bursts two Nanas joking about how they weren't allowed back in while the concert was being recorded, no dead Nanas, all was good!
Anyway, that just about all I remember writing so I'll publish and write about this weeks trip to the BBC Proms tomorrow x