Snow, Dragons and my fab cousin

Today we had snow! Although the north and east of the country have had snow for a couple of days, the snow has only just arrived in Bedfordshire. We haven't had much snow, just a dusting but it has made everything look really pretty. I went out early this morning to take some photographs of the back garden, above is a picture of my lavender plant. Whilst below is a picture of the front garden.
I'm looking forward to going to market this morning, I'm hoping that it will feel quite Christmassy with all the snow.

After the exciting news about our house move which is now only two weeks away, I'll be spending most of the weekend sorting out packing.

as I've mentioned in earlier blog entries my eyesight is getting worse, something that I thought wasn't likely to happen. So I've been thinking about ways in which I can avoid eyestrain and make things easier for myself. One of the ideas I had was to use some voice recognition software; in the past I'd worked with colleagues who used voice recognition software called Dragon. In the past Dragon was mainly used by people with dyslexia, dexterity impairments and by a few people with visual impairments. I'd heard that the actual technology had come on a long way in the last couple of years so I thought I might as well give it a go. So at the moment I'm dictating into a headset my blog entry. It's not quite like Star Trek where you just talk to the computer and it does what you say, but it's not far off. I'm hoping that this will really help me with long report writing and particularly where I'm in the planning stage, I'll be able to dictate my thoughts and initial ideas and then use that to dictate all organised report. The only thing I have to get used to with Dragon is speaking naturally but also precisely and also remembering to put punctuation in as I go.

Yesterday I had a very busy but exciting day. I went to Essex to meet with Essex Coalition of Disabled People, I know quite a few people who work there already. So it was nice to see where they actually work. I had a really productive meeting and it looks like I'll be doing some training with Essex in the New Year. Essex coalition of disabled people are based in Chelmsford which is where my cousin Helen lives. I got in touch with Helen to let her know that I would be visiting Chelmsford but didn't realise that her house is about 5 min away from Essex coalitions offices. So I had a lovely afternoon with Helen catching up, and hopefully in the New Year I'll get more opportunities to spend some time with her and her family.

Anyway I'm about to go out in the snow not that there's that much, visit the market and a bit of shopping. I'm taking my camera with me so made post some extra photos latest today.