At a charity conference last week. What a mass of talent in the room: a former rugby player and singer, a defence specialist, a company law consultant, a member of a benefits tribunal, a tax specialist. And those were only the ones I managed to link up with. Lots of skills and experience around the tables – and did I mention that they all have significant sight loss? Having a disability doesn’t mean our brains or abilities have gone too.
Yesterday was another bee-fest: lots of locals sharing knowledge in a field in front of some wooden boxes, probably looking a bit like the Klu Klux Klan in their bee suits and wisps of smoke. I left them to it and simply chatted in the sun. Home to find that the sous-chef has his latest parcel: an incubator for rearing queen bee larvae. (For the more rational of us, it’s a mini-fridge for a caravan or boat but it pleases him no end!).
Meanwhile, I’m not quite celebrating the NHS’s latest wheeze: accessible bowel cancer kits (allegedly). The third most common cancer and often responsive to early treatment after early detection. They’re testing whether Braille (and other accessible instructions) plus some method of sample capture will work for us. I’m not holding my breath.