Getting Caned

Ok Ok crazy cat lady is doing better. To you, and you know who you are, who sounded a little nervous about my state of mind, I can honestly say worry not. Matina came back neither in a plastic baggie nor a Tupperware pot but in a beautifully crafted small wooden box that looked like it was full of jewellery- so I promise only WE will know I have a dead cat in my bedroom… (unless of course I go to pull out some earrings in the dark …)

I have just come back from London where we were doing the voice overs for the photo exhibition in December. There will be MP3 players with descriptions and information about each of our photos as well as Braille and a few tactile photos. Bill, the completely blind photographer, was interesting as he says that tactile photos are not much use to either sighted or non-sighted without very clear description. Just too complicated even for very gifted fingers used to Braille.

Also interesting is noticing who uses a cane and who does not. Several of the other VI participants (the Londoner’s) don’t and there is nothing but a quiet caution in their demeanour to denote a visual impairment. I do use a cane, especially when travelling. Normally it doesn’t stop people crashing into me whereupon I always apologise like the dreadful wimp I am. Today however, I am rushing across the platform at Kings Cross and I collide with a woman who literally flies several feet through the air and lands (amazingly) on her feet. She rounds on me puffing up like a balloon, sees the white stick and makes a deflated hissing kind of a noise before apologising profusely. This is a marvellous turnaround. I deliberately bump into a man as I come to the top of the escalator. He turns to bark and I wave the cane. He whimpers with heartfelt abasement. Twice more, as I leap onto the train home and step on two pairs of very expensive boots and leap off the train to nearly demolish a small posse of students, I am given heart felt and overlong ‘so sorries’
Grinning with my new power I stride through the night, head held high and five minutes from home smash painfully into a black bin disguised as night air. Guess who apologised?