Brain Power

Back again..😁

The thing I love most about writing this blog is the amount of people it reaches, Its not as many as it used to be due to my inconsistency, but life very often gets in the way, and its hard to balance and prioritise.

This week I've had a little 'Step up' in my role, and it has meant that I have spent a lot of time today doing things like filing, checking numbers and figures all match up. I had forgotten how tired it makes me feel doing something a little bit different, its a bit frustrating that my heart says...hell yeah, I have every faith in myself to do a good job, but my brain says...errrrr, what the hell do you think you are doing woman, this is NOT our usual routine, now I am going to have to remember all this new stuff, process it and then bring it to the front of your mind in a way which your eyes will let you see it next time you go to use it, so therefore, when you have finished work I strongly suggest you go home and have a tantrum because no one has washed up, trip over the dog because he was way too excited to see you after ten hours out of the house, then you should cry your eyes out because you have no idea what to cook for tea, then you should shut yourself in the bathroom because no-one can reach you in there and fall asleep on the loo!

Of course, I always do exactly what my brain tells me, so now after having a hot bath and curling up on the sofa with a blanket, I have had a nap, and have woken up to my brain forgiving me after giving it such a shock.

My strength comes from talking to people who experience similar difficulties, because suddenly I know I am not alone, and I can be kinder to myself knowing that this sort of exhaustion comes from having a sight impediment and that when my brain says STOP I have to do what I am told, otherwise I will either completely burn myself out or turn green, bust out of my shirt and jeans, and scream so loudly I'd send the earth moving for miles!

So, this evening I was thinking of some of the people who I have met through RNIB, if I was allowed, I would write a book about all the people I have met, write about their stories and the people they have become, there is nothing quite like being told you are going to loose your sight and everyone moves forward in different ways.

One lady who lives on her own with her Guide dog, has the most fantastic sense of humour, I've only met her a couple of times but she is fab!

Then there is a lady I shared my 4x4 experience with and a couple of ladies who read my blogs, all these people have stories, journeys and ways of coping with the way their lives have changed.

Its easy to want to cut ties with everything 'blind' and pretend everything is 'normal' but normal doesn't always understand me, and actually these people form a family, it doesn't matter what the problem is, there is always someone to connect with, someone will offer guidance and support in such a way that speaking with your nearest and dearest doesn't always get the right result.

I've been talking to people about their lock own experiences, I think I've been a little self-centred when it comes to lock down, its been very hard working, but when I actually think about it, the very worst thing that has happened to me over the last three months is my dish washer broke...yup, middle of March the bloody thing packed up, and I felt like there would be no chance of getting someone out to fix it, and I didn't think there would be much point in ordering a new one either, so I brought some rubber gloves and washing up liquid and cracked on with it. After about three weeks, every time I said I was doing to do the washing up, one of the daughters jumped up and said...I'll do it Mum! At first I thought, ahhhh that's lovely, My girls want to help me, then about five weeks ago, I was on the phone to my Mum, telling her all about my wonderful young ladies, and Mum sighs, and says...Lynda, That's because you're crap at washing up!! 

Oh, well that burst my bubble, when I got off the phone, I collected my beloved daughters in the kitchen, sat them down and asked what they thought of my washing up....silence for a few minutes, and then youngest says...errrr Mum you are proper crap at washing up...please can we order a new dish washer??? Eldest is rolling around on the kitchen floor laughing...for a split second I was offended, then youngest says, well, you are only crap because you cant see, if you could see you'd be great at it, but please please please can we order a new one. 

So, last week while I was safely out the way at work, a new dish washer was delivered, the old one removed and the new one installed.

The only thing is, its all singing and dancing, all I want it do is to fill it and press go...this asks you about twenty different questions before it will start, and its so bloody quiet I keep having to check that its not broken, its going to take me another three months to get used to it!!

My brain is telling me I'm tired again, so I'm off to bed, speak soon and stay safe xx

Just being Blind

WOW, that was lucky!!

My laptop did a 'clean up' thingy and completely wiped all my info, I don't ever write any passwords down, I usually just press 'forgot password' and make a new one, but this had even cleared all my email addresses, my blog email is different from my every day one, and I just couldn't remember it! I must have tried about 50 different combinations of words that I thought it might be and I was starting to think I had lost the whole blog, then yesterday, standing in front of the polo mints at work, I was talking to one of our temps, and BOOM, there it was, it popped right into my mind, as clear as day, absolutely no bloody clue what the password was, but hey, there's a way around that, so, here I am....back again!!

You'll be pleased to hear my Teabag stains have almost vanished, thanks to my magic cream applied twice a day!

It been a strange couple of weeks, my sister-in-law returned to her house on the top of a mountain in Spain last week, I am so pleased she is there safe and sound, because its such a beautiful place, but its triggered me into some very deep thinking. ...….like, Up there, on her hot and dusty mountain, she has solitude, I know not everyone likes their own company, but that is something we very much have in common, I miss having time to myself, just to sit quietly, no telly, no one asking me what I am doing sitting quietly, I admire her confidence but I am also envious.

And then I wonder if my craving to want to be somewhere quietly sitting on my own is a sign that I am either doing to much or that I am ready to stop or slow down the craziness of my life. I mean when and how will I know when I am too blind to do stuff. Obviously, I am wayyyyy to blind to ride my bike anymore, and that used to be my solitude, my peace, my healing if you like, from the day, the transition from work to home gave me chance to process my work, and clear my mind, ready to cope and manage whatever I walked into when I got home...Ie, a shit ton of washing, and mountain of washing up, cos no one seems to understand how to load a dishwasher, operated a washing machine or push a hoover around.

These days are so different, I spend nine hours of my day thinking about the best and quickest way to do things, thinking about my team and customers while trying to disregard the fact that half the time I cant see bugger all, and things often take me twice as long as a sighted person. I'm then driven home and delivered at my front door, where the whole process of being a mum, dog walker, cleaner and partner starts off again

 I'm scared that I will become too blind to do my role at work and not realise it. This week has been challenging to say the least, and I know I've made some mistakes, and everyone makes mistakes sometimes for all different reasons. 

So, why am I doubting my ability? It could be that I stood at my bedroom window the other day looking out at the back gardens, when I noticed a big black cat sitting in my neighbours garden, So I yelled to daughter number 1 to come and look at the big cat, Daughter number 1 comes running in and leaps on my bed to look out of the window at the 'cat'.....where Mum?...look, there, just sitting by the table in the garden......its a garden chair Mum!!…….oh! Shit, I thought it was a cat....

So, there's been a couple of occasions this week where I've got stuff completely wrong. Am I thinking too much into this? 

I think the trouble is, no one understands my absolute elation when I get something right, or how incredibly low it makes me feel when I get something wrong, when I get something right, I'm like...ohhh helll yeah, I did that on my own, even though my sight is crap....but getting something wrong, triggers this whole...if only I could see a bit better then I would have stood a better chance of getting that thing right!!

Then I start feeling sorry for myself, and then that's when I crave sitting on the side of a mountain in Spain with my sister-in-law because, if there is one woman in this world who understands, it is gonna be her.

This weeks deep thinking trigger was a young woman who came into the shop looking for Tonic water, she was tottering around excitedly talking loudly to anyone who would listen about how she was JUST BEING SOOOOO BLIND because she hadn't seen the Tonic water and it was in front of her this whole time.......what the hell does that even mean???

Why do we say that? Why?

 If we cant see something why do we say we are just being blind, Just being blind isn't something that we can put JUST in front of, other than that you are not bloody blind, you are JUST too bloody lazy to look properly and ask someone to help you, and then say you are just being blind as if that's some kind of bloody excuse! 

This usually doesn't bother me, but I was really offended by the giggly way this woman was almost suggesting that someone who is blind wouldn't be able to find a bloody bottle of Tonic water on the shelf, Luckily for this woman, the wonderful young man I was working with, whisked this woman off to pay for the said bottle of Tonic water before I punched her on the nose.....for your information, before you stereotype blindness, I think you will find that a person with a visual impairment is way more likely to find something on the shelf, because we look properly, we think about what we are looking for and wouldn't even think about looking for Tonic water in the bread isle, we are methodical in thinking, yeah, ok, we might not be able to read the label underneath the product, so we rely on you sighted folks to match the product with the correct label, but don't ever think you can use the excuse of just being blind because you can't find something, try using your common sense, cos that something most of us have blind or not!

I'm ranting now, I hear people say it ten times a day! you wouldn't swear at someone and then say ohhh sorry, I'm just being like I've got Tourettes syndrome would you?

Plus it makes a mockery of me, I spend most if not all my time covering up the fact that my sight is very poor and ignoring the fact that I will eventually loose it completely, so IF I couldn't find something and had to ask for help, I would avoid admitting the reason for this is that I am blind.

Like I say it doesn't usually bother me at all, so I don't really understand why I let it upset me so much, maybe she made me feel a bit useless, but I know my brain more than makes up for what my eyes don't see!

The last three months at Tesco has caused us to meet people and form relationships and bonds with people we might never have met, customers and staff. The bond we have as a team has become very strong, and I appreciate every single moment I have spent with our little Tesco team, they never ever see me as anything else that ME, they tolerate my mistakes and eat my cakes, whatever happens next, I will always think about the COVID19 of 2000 with fondness of the fun we had filling shelves to feed the nation, you are fab Team H.

Right, I've gotta go take my little hairy bestie for a walk...speak sooonnn xx

Tea Bags

Back again! I've got to say I am feeling a bit cranky today, no-one seems to understand the effort it takes just to get up in the mornings sometimes, and then all it takes is one negative encounter and BOOM, you're sent scuttling into the safety of home.

A few weeks ago (when the sun was actually shinning and I sat in the garden with a small strappy top on trying to catch some rays) my daughter noticed some brown splodges on my skin, they look a lot like tea stains, since then literally about fifty times a day at least one of the daughters is asking me if I have rung the doctors about my splodges...NOOOOO I haven't....Do you know how difficult it is to get to see a doctor??

Eventually I ring the surgery, I request an appointment....at the moment we are only providing telephone appointments, the doctor will ring you tomorrow between 8am and 12. 

The following day, said doctor rings me and asks what the problem is, I try to explain that it looks a lot like someone has been throwing wet teabags at my chest...he ignores me and asks if I pay for my prescriptions.....errrr what's that got to do with my teabag situation.....No, I do not pay for my prescriptions.....in that case, go to the chemist and ask them.

He then tries to dismiss me, but I also need a repeat prescription for a different aliment, so I get a sigh and a ok, I will send it to the chemist, Goodbye, I'm left staring at the screen of my phone as it turns back to the photo of Ralph I have on my home screen.

Mate, You cant catch Corona virus down the bloody phone line, the more I thought about it the more irritated I became, So, Its ok for me to go join the que at the chemist, lift my T shirt up in the middle of the shop for half of the bloody village to inspect my Teabags, But its not ok to actually have a doctor look at it, why is he any more at risk than anyone else? Why are the doctors not seeing anyone? How much did he get paid for 30 seconds on the phone to tell me to bog off down the chemist?

I know my teabag thing is probably just a skin complaint, but I bet if I google it, its gonna be some rare disease and I'm gonna be dead in the next 24 hours......how many people are ignoring symptoms of something bigger because they know the doctors are on lock down?

Its ok though, cos next week you'll be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with people in Primark and all touch the same clothes!

The 'real' NHS workers are over stretched, while Mr Doctor down the road causally passes the buck onto whoever is nearest.

Anyway, the following day, off I go to the local chemist, outside the shop is a little wooden table with a sign propped up saying...well, saying something, cos no one thinks about the fact that some people cant read small print, so I hover around the wooden table as I feel the massive knot in my stomach start to rise as I have no idea if I am supposed to wait outside, then I hear...COME IN...being barked at me, I assume its me anyway as I don't have anyone else standing with or near me, so, in I go...how can I help.....so I explain about my teabag problem and that Mr Doctor down the road had told me to bring my teabags into a public area so that the village can gossip that I have been having kinky sex with some teabags. Silence... Mr Chemist steps forward, and apologies for Mr Doctor, leads me into a little room and looks at my teabags from a distance and recons he has some cream for that!

I come out of the little room, by which time two other people were in the shop and about five were standing outside, I buy my cream from the lady behind the screen and just as I am about to turn to leave I remember I also had a prescription to pick up, with a sigh the lady behind the screen finds my prescription and asks if I pay for it.....No, I do not pay for it.....Well, tick the relevant box and pushes the slip under the space in the screen, since I am on my own I explain that I cannot read the slip so I will need help, well you would have thought I had taken a bite of her cream cake....I CANT DO THAT! well, my lovely lady, if you want me to tick the bloody box you are going to have to show me where it is, or tick it for me! Silence again and I can feel her staring at me though the screen daring me to refuse to tick the box, So I take a little step forward and point to the bright yellow badge I wear on my work uniform which says I have a sight impairment, and say I'm sorry, but I literally cant see where or what box needs to be ticked.

The next minute, the chemist man was around the side of the desk quicker than a whippet, snatched the prescription off the lady behind the screen, quietly asked me which category box I fitted into and filled it in for me, he then slapped it back on the counter by which time the lady behind the desk had already expressed her sorryness about fifty times to which I was saying its fine, and the chemist man was saying its not fine! The chemist man helped me out of the shop and I stood quietly for a minute trying to calm the big ball of whatever it is that makes my heart beat faster and my eyes want to leak big fat tears. In the back ground I could her the lady telling the chemist she was sorry, but he was like, you are here to help, it doesn't matter if that person has a disability or not, it could be something you cant see, if someone asks for help...you help, we are here to help each other out. 

Yesterday, I had to push myself to get out of bed, Yesterday I couldn't go out on my own, Yesterday I couldn't face the supermarket, Yesterday I didn't get dressed, and that is all it takes, one tiny negative encounter, be careful how we respond to each other out there guys, you never know how your reaction to a situation will affect that person.

Take care and speak soon x