Good Friday activity

Last Friday, being Good Friday, husband was unusually at home aiming to catch up in the garden. So my Friday morning routine was postponed, as was the fortnightly piano lesson which also happened to fall on that day. So no blindfolding at all that day. (see my website page 9 if you don’t know what our usual routine is!)

However, a few days earlier, I had met my piano pupil in the street and we were commiserating on missing out the lesson and our mutual blindfold session. She asked though that as the family, who’s Granny Annex she rents, were away all over Easter, could we not simply transfer the lesson to there- she has a piano there you may remember – as we would have the place to ourselves. What a good idea I said, I would bring my blindfolding scarf and my guiding cane with me.

She has really entered into the spirit of things these days and, when she answered my ring on the door-bell, there she was, though not already blindfolded as I would have been, but ready to tie a scarf over my eyes straightaway, which was alright with me of course. She had been looking forward, she said, to watching me find my way around a strange place, blindfolded and using my cane. I have been inside there before for an occasional coffee morning with others, but didn’t remember much of the detail. This would be fun, for me as well. So, after handing over the couple of cream pastries that I had bought, I groped my way to the piano and, after blindfolding her with another scarf that she had ready, I gave her the piano lesson. She is currently concentrating on a reasonably advanced piece of Schubert and is doing very well now, quite up to an exam standard. Except for her ‘sight-reading’ skill. I give her some music to try at home, playing it directly after just a short review as required in piano exams, but I never get round to hearing her do this during our lessons for obvious reasons.

After the lesson, she took off her own blindfold so that she could see to make coffee, not being as accomplished at that sort of thing as I am, but said I ought to remain blindfolded as liked and she would like to see how I managed with coffee and cream cakes!

After that demonstration of my blindfold skills, she asked if I would like a walk around the garden, there being no-one around who would be watching, it being a garden well sheltered from the neighbours. I had to take her word for that, of course. As she walked me around in the sunshine, I soon suggested that we should reverse roles and let me guide her, blindfolded, around the garden. "No way" she said as she has done every time that I have suggested an outdoor blindfold outing. After a short while, I suddenly remembered my husband would be expecting some lunch and I had to ask her the time. Yes, unfortunately it was time to go, so that was the end of my blindfold time for that day.

Away on holiday next week – no blindfolding activity, worse luck.

I now move onto fortnightly bird ‘watching outings’ with my guide who meets me at the bus-stop close to the bird reserve. We were doing monthly or less during the recent winter months but now the birds are active and the summer visitors arriving and for this last week’s trip, the weather was splendid. It was chilly at first and I was glad for my coat but once at the reserve it was soon discarded. Waterside birds are very noisy. I could easily identify the honking of Canada geese and the different call of the grey-lags. Being blind(folded) the sounds do get confusing and when my guide said there were swallows flying low over the water (which I couldn’t hear) I had one of the occasional moments of regret at having made the choice to be blind for the time-being. I do prefer it when we make a detour into the adjacent woodland – robins every 5 yards it seems, blackbirds, thrushes and now the chiff-chaffs, first of the visitors from over seas or perhaps second to the swallows. Any real experts out there?
My journey both ways was exactly to plan – as it has to be when you are blind and travelling unaccompanied, of course.
We were not far from where the cliffs have been falling into the sea as some of you might have seen on the TV News. Would I like to go there my guide asked? There’s a thought! But I declined on the grounds we could no longer get lunch there and I wouldn’t be able to see much would I! He laughed politely.

Someone has e-mailed me at me_blindfolded@yahoo.co.uk (and you are all welcome to contact me here! Please do!). He asked, ref last week’s blog ‘why did I tap my way around the bus stop?’ Most people, he says, sweep their cane side to side and have a ball arrangement on the end. He is right, of course. I tried the ball attachment a few years ago and it was difficult on the rougher ground that I tend to find myself on when blindsimming/ birdwatching as I have been describing. I do sweep as well as tap however on harder surfaces.

When I first started using a cane many years ago, without any real instruction of course, I thought that tapping was the way to do it and became quite proficient at it. I suppose ‘poking’ might have been more appropriate to me then, going round bird reserves blindfolded with my brother, Chris, as a guide.

Incidentally, when I wrote ‘bus stop’, I should explain that it is a biggish bus shelter with seats in it. You might have imagined just a pole on a grassy verge and wondered how I would have even found it! Probably wouldn’t have, although I have learnt that particular route very well. I always cross the main road to the correct side before going into blindfold mode! And, to finish answering the questions from my ‘correspondent’, I now have a folding stick which just fits into my large handbag, together with my two pairs of blind dark glasses and other things necessary for a day blindsimming out-of-doors, cash but no cards – for obvious reasons.



In those younger days, I remembered that horrible Blind Pew from Treasure Island. I expect you too read it as a child. Chris found a picture for me of Blind Pew, which raised another of my childhood concerns. If people are blind, why do they need to wear a bandage over their eyes? I remember wondering the same about illustrations of ‘Three Blind Mice’



However – can anyone explain how we can upload a photo to this blog, please?

We get as far as uploading the photo into the separate blog Image Field, we click so that the photo then has a blue frame but get no further. Even using the Picasa button, there is no option appearing to deal with Layout or Image size. In fact we can’t close the image even to get back to the draft blog.