My daughter moved from Rainbows to Cubs in September. She has been a very busy bee with her challenges, leaving me with the joy of sewing them on.
Until recently I had called upon my ex-partner to do this, but on Monday evening when Alannah came to me stating she needed her art challenge badge sewn on before her meeting in 45 minutes time! Eek….. It was down to me to get out the needle and tread.
Well, you can imagine, just threading the needle to start with was fun! Not.
Then trying to figure out where the badge needed to be placed followed with a quick call to a friend who is a cub leader.
Calm restored, the sewing began. It went very well, it was neatly done and in the right place as described to me.
Although the badge itself…. Was upside down!
Dilemma struck.
Do I un-pick it and send her in in-complete uniform or make her look a fool?
I admitted defeat and un-picked it.
Alannah explained to AJ her leader about my ‘silly sewing’ And came home with yet another badge for me!
Thankfully she didn’t loose points for my mistake and I have already had an email offering me sewing support too.
Having a friend that is a cub leader I was invited by him to speak to his cub group about my sight, having a guide dog and help them to understand that people have differences in how they communicate and see the world.
I have done talks before about having and using a guide dog, I have even visited my daughters school to explain about Vicky and as the age of the children increased, the questions moved away from guide dogs and included things like “how do you see your mouth to put food in it?” “How do you see your bottom to wipe it when you’ve been to the loo?” (Which horrified the teacher. Thankfully not me.
So, I started my talk explaining about Vicky, what she did for me, how to react when you see someone with a guide dog, the usual awareness type talk. I then went on to explain about ‘being blind’ and what I couldn’t see rather than what I can’t, after all as I always explain about my sight, I don’t know what I can’t see.
With the help of an app on my iPad that shoes an example of what it is to see with particular eye conditions I was able to show them what a picture looks like for me.
They say apicturespeaks a thousand words. Would you agree?
Above on the left is how I see (without the blackness or red ring) on the right is the actual photograph. With the cubs I did this by taking an image of their cub leader, they were all amazed by it.
The cubs were fantastic, they asked lots of questions including how my guide dog guides me, so by splitting the group up to make a corridor, leaving one child sitting in the middle of it, I showed them.
Vicky walked me along and when she came to the obstacle (the child) she stopped and stood, she ignored the child. I gave her the command to walk on, but as there was no space for us to do that she sat down. I asked her to find the way and she turned me around and walked around the children instead.
I went on to talk about Braille and allowed the children to see an example of this. Again this bought up many questions.
My talk lasted over 40 minutes, but the cubs sat happily listening and asking questions. Speaking with the leader afterwards he told me that he had never seen them so enthusiastic about listening and learning before.
I got a lot out of my talk with the cubs, I just hope that they did to.
I wrote a blog last year about good friend who was joking with me about dating, how it really would be a blind date in my case!
But as new year roles in and friends were kissing their partners, I got to thinking ….. How do the blind date ?
There is the world of Internet dating, you can meet hundreds of people just like you (so the adverts say)
There are even dating websites for ‘those with disabilities’ and there is the tv series on Channel 4 that highlight the whole thing with the documentary ‘The Undateables’
I’m not the sort of person who has ever gone out looking for love, it’s just always …happened! I’m not looking for it now either, I am happy as me, but I do miss being with someone when with other friends. As I am beginning to feel like a spare wheel, especially during the festivities.
So, how do I go about dating?
I suppose sitting in a pub with a guide dog is good ice-breaker! But my days of catching the cute guys eye are long gone….. I do t think I could even spot the cute guy, let alone catch his eye!
A friend offered to set me up with a friend, is that how it’s done?
I sound so naive, but my last partner was the best man at my wedding (it sounds like we ran away together when I put it like that-but that’s another story) I knew him for a while, we were good friends. I have always had more male friends, but there aren’t any of them that I would consider dating now, I know them all TOO WELL.
So, how do I date?
I have looked at the dating sites for the disabled, it’s not that I don’t want to date someone with a disability, but just as I don’t have a preference on hair colour or even skin colour I don’t feel that because I have my own disability that I should be defined by it.
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