Victorian Blind Tennis – Singapore exchange
For my whole life, I’ve wanted to be a playing member of a sports team. Anything would have done, particularly anything to do with balls. But I was shunned for perfectly good reasons. I could never catch a ball. Kick a ball. Hit a ball. Or even throw a ball in the direction of another […]
“That’s not too bad then”.
It all started with the Christmas Tree biscuits. I was admiring them when the lady at my local bakery asked me, “How much can you see”? As I had a pair of Vision Australia (VA) simulator glasses in my bag, I showed her. She tried them on, looked around then piped up, “that’s not too […]
How to make great playdough
I’ve got four little grandchildren (grandies) but as a grandparent I’m not really your Ms Average. I’ve got a toddler car seat but no car. I’ve got eyes that are not much more than just a facial feature these days. I’ve got legs that are shaky with anxiety. If you’ve had falls resulting in a […]
A legally blind harpist on the healing power of music
The music had stopped. The silence was broken by the sound of an elderly woman’s voice coming from the back of the room. “That was really beautiful,” she said. She had waited for her moment and was heard by everyone in the room. The carer sitting next to the woman was overwhelmed. They were the […]
Employers – get a backbone and hire a visually impaired person
How often have you lost a job or not got a job? You know it’s because of your visual impairment. But how can you prove it? Employers are not going to admit to it. In Australia discrimination against job seekers who are vision impaired is still common. Naturally this makes them reluctant to disclose their […]
Get a life Mr Faking It
Today I was walking down the street with my best friend, my mobility cane. Suddenly a male voice shouted out ‘faking it’. I looked around. I could only see one man sitting on a park bench. And I was the only one walking in the vicinity of this out-of-control clap trap. Has anyone else ever […]
For f…. sake, watch where you’re going
An average person said to me last week For f…. sake, watch where you’re going. I’ll never forget it. it’s been added to my bank of other comments of the same ilk. I’ll never forget them either. But thankfully it’s only a small minority of people who show that level of intolerance. Just the same […]
How I met a quokka and rode a bike
I did a bit of bike riding prior to the Lycra Boy episode. One particularly joyous time I recall was on Rottnest Island. Rottnest Island is a picturesque island 18 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia. It is home to the quokkas, cute little marsupials that are unique to Western Australia and distant cousins […]
The secret life of me …
For many years I kept a secret. The ‘thing’ that led to the secret started in my childhood. My parents brushed it off as clumsiness. I bumped into walls, doors, furniture ,,. Outside it was worse. I bumped into signs, fell into holes and tripped over constantly. Mealtimes often ended badly because I’d spill my […]
Low vision No vision – Coping during Covid
People with low vision or no vision have challenges in life that impact on everything they do every day of their lives. I know because I have low vision, specifically Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), a disease that causes blindness. The pandemic has added another dimension to the challenges we already face. For example, it’s impossible to […]