What Great Disability Awareness and Service Looks Like

So I'm writing this post because I have just experienced some of the best customer service in a cafe or shop in a long time. It left me wanting to praise this member of John Lewis' staff publicly. It was only when I was composing my tweet to John Lewis that I realised that not only was it great customer service but a fantastic example of disability awareness. I had been helped in a way which actually made me completely unaware that the motivation for the help was because of my sight impairment. It was like ninja disability awareness!

When I sat down at my table in the John Lewis cafe in Birmingham with my coffee and sauasage sarnie I did so smiling because a member of staff had been so helpful. But as I thought about it I was puzzled. It was almost as if this member of staff knew I was partially sighted. But because I had my hands full with bags and a rucksack on my back, I wasn't using my symbol cane. How had this John Lewis staff member known?

Well the whole thing went like this.

I arrived in the cafe and made my way to the "hot food" stand. There was a couple waiting in front of me. The chap serving cheerfully greeted me and said "We're just waiting for some fresh bacon and sausages."
"Ok" I said, looking at the menus pinned to a board next to me but that menu was for lunch.
"Do you know what you'd like?" He asked.
"Um that's the lunch menu do you have a breakfast one?"
The chap in front of me indicated it was in front of him and moved aside so I could look at it. Of course I had to get up close to read it. I am guessing at this point our breakfast server knew that I couldn't see very well. Though he didn't let on.
Instead he casually started to tell me what was on offer.
"I'll have a sausage sandwich" I decided.

So the fresh food came out and the couple in front of me were served. Then it was my turn. After making up my sandwich the chap told me very clearly where the cutlery was and asked me if I wanted a drink. There was quite a queue at the coffee station so I asked him if there was somewhere else to get a coffee. Her replied
"Yes there is, we have a couple of machines, and it's the exact same coffee beans. Look I'll show you where it is."

And so he left his station and took me to the coffee machine where he made me my Americano. On our way over there he offered to carry my tray because "you have a lot of bags." I politely declined.

He made sure I got to the till safely and left me there after I had thanked him profusely.

Now that might all have been just good customer service and if so that's great because everyone will benefit from that. But in hindsight I think he was particularly attentive because he'd worked out that I couldn't see very well and might struggle using the coffee machine.

I know John Lewis provide disability awareness training for their staff and take customer service very seriously. It really shows when things like this happen. I'm usually not a fan of this kind of canteen / self service set up but John Lewis are clearly making sure that it works for all of their customers. If only other retailers could take a leaf out of their book.

New Camera - pictures of Lumpy cat

So over the years I have posted my pictures on this blog, sometimes more regularly than recent times, and I've also blogged about being a partially sighted photographer Well I have started a new journey with my photography. I have taken the plunge and got a proper digital SLR camera. A Nikon D7200 no less. I had resisted for a long time convinced that I needed the large digital screen, that digital cameras have, to be able to take photographs. My Nikon V1 camera meant I could have all the benefits of a digital camera with a digital view finder and try different lenses and different settings. The trouble was that after a number of years I had two lenses which broke and there just wasn't anything new coming out for the camera. It was like Nikon had forgotten about their V1 camera. Maybe they thought those customers who wanted more would just move to a DSLR.

Jason let me have another go with his digital SLR and I found that I could see through the view finder. What had seemed difficult before now didn't so much.  My eye sight hasn't got any better in the last few years so that's not making the difference. I think the difference is that I have now spent the last 6 years taking photographs and getting used to composing images through a small square. Even with the digital view finder and screen I would regularly take pictures which contained things I had no idea were there. I love taking photos of flowers and often I don't spot the insects or bugs on the flowers until I'm processing the photos on my computer! Often I use the zoom to look for bees using my ears to seek out their direction. I know that I must miss plenty of things other photographers wouldn't but when I do track down that bee using my ears and my zoom it's like finding rare treasure. I am sure the thrill is just the same for those photographers who capture a rare mountain lion.

Speaking of rare mountain lions. I have been using my tabby cat Lumpy as a model for some of my first photographs. So far I am finding no problems using the view finder, once I worked out that red rectangles mean it's not focussing and black mean it is. (My old camera had black meaning not focused green in focus.) Sometimes depending on the background the black squares don't show up too well but that's where being able to choose where I want the camera to focus gives me more control.

The camera has so many settings it's quite a job getting my head round it all. I downloaded Thom Hogan's guide for the Nikon D7200 to discover it had around 1000 pages! Thom Hogan does a great series of guides to cameras which are well worth checking out and buying if you have a new camera or are considering a new one. A little daunted by all of the detail in Thom Hogan's guide I also started watching a YouTube guide for my new camera by Tony and Chelsea Northrup They also have some snappy videos on YouTube which describe general features of digital photography right down to very basics. Jase has also been a real help, explaining things to me. I am not a patient student but he is a very patient teacher!

But it would have been useful to know when Jason changed the camera settings after borrowing it to test how it was working. He set it up to his usual settings, which is to slightly under expose everything. I didn't know this and went outside to take some pictures of Lumpy. It was a very dull day but not so dull that I shouldn't have been able to get a brighter shot of Lumpy than the one directly below.

Lumpy the tabby cat walking towards me - under exposed

When Jase got home from work I said to him I was worried the camera had a fault as it couldn't manage with low light even when I adjusted the aperture, shutter speed and ISO. It was then that he remembered what he had done! He had set the camera to take pictures at 0.7 of an F stop below what the camera was set to. So this under exposed all of the photos I was taking, making them look gloomy.

Of course I was able to adjust this once I was processing the photos. The picture below is after I adjusted it.  

Lumpy the tabby cat walking towards me - brighter this time

 Yesterday I started to practice changing how the camera focuses and took this photo of Lumpy sitting on a box in the garden. I focused just on his face and in particular his eyes.

Close up of Lumpy's face his eyes narrow

I'm lucky that Lumpy is a very willing model when he is in the garden. I have taken pictures of other things other than Lumpy, which I will try and share later in the week. I went to St James's Park in London to take photographs of the birds there. You can always check out my photos on Flickr which I upload regularly.

Camden Town

This weekend I went to Camden with my two friends Ruth and Rachel. It was about a decade since I had last been to Camden. There was a lot which reassuringly was still the same but also quite a lot that has changed. Gentrification is creeping into Camden, which is a real shame. As the woman in the piercing place said to me "You don't come to Camden to buy artisan bread, there's plenty of places to buy artisan bread now in London but there's only one Camden."

After our visit I have written a series of haiku about Camden. I liked the fact that haiku are like little snap shots of a time or place. Camden being even busier than I remember, I thought the haiku could capture those fleeting glimpses you get of the quirky and classic Camden as you mill about through the vast crowds.

Camden Haiku Octet 

Shadows amongst the 

London grime, goths slink seeking

Fancy frills and thrills

Grizzled punk's hair spikes

Skyward in parrot feathered

Breath taking colours

Nirvana is a

White slash across the back of

A middle aged Dad

Indian silk bed-

Spread, patchouli scented, burnt 

Orange elephants

Food from a thousand

Cultures entice the weary 

Tourists to devour

Your future laid out

In intricate cards: your life 

A patchwork of myths

The canal's flank churned

To mud for money feeding

Gentrification 

How long a haven

For hippy, indie kids and

Joyful subversion? 

My first poem selected for publication

I've been posting a lot more of my creative writing on my blog in the last few months. Mainly poems but also this short story I wrote for Halloween. Then earlier this month I submitted  this poem  to the online (and print) Exceptions journal  and it was accepted. I was over the moon. It is my first poem chosen for publication, on their online journal for now but I have asked for it to be considered for the print publication as well, so fingers crossed.

So I thought it might be interesting to write a bit about writing. When I was growing up I had two dream careers, one was to be an actor the other a writer. I ended up teaching drama and English! Woody Allen's droll line "Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, teach Phys Ed" was always at the back of mind. But I didn't stay long in teaching.

I started writing regularly for pleasure (not just school assignments) at age 12. I wrote poems (back then they resembled pop lyrics) and I wrote romances which I would share with my friends at school. One lunch time when I was busy writing the next instalment to my Emi-Sue romance, in a class room which still had old fashioned wooden desks with lift up lids and holes for ink wells, a boy caught hold of my story. He read bits of it out loud to the others in the class who fell about laughing. In a fit of pique I snatched the pages off him and threw them in the bin. Something I have regretted ever since. My confidence was well and truly dented. I carried on writing though just not in school.

As a teenager I started to write "protest poetry" one rather memorable example, for all the wrong reasons, was written about climate change where I criticised George Bush Snr; I described him as a "hater of broccoli" and then realised I couldn't find anything to rhyme with broccoli. It wasn't long after that that I gave up on rhyme. I was also studying different poets at school like Philip Larkin, Wilfred Owen, Gerard Manly Hopkins and Sylvia Plath. My poetry as a result became more gothic in description and more streamlined in style.

I was still writing stories as well but now they were about the super natural or sic-fi. I didn't share my stories with anyone but I did share my poetry with my friend Lorraine and through out my late teens and early 20s Lorraine and I would have regular poetry writing sessions together over tea or beer, brilliant bursts of creativity.

I never shared my writing with anyone other than Lorraine and a couple of other close friends though.

I stopped writing almost completely for about 10 years. I was always very busy at work and actually writing a lot of reports and guidance for my job. It was something that troubled me a lot, as I had always found writing creatively a cathartic experience. I also started blogging in 2008 and took up photography which seemed the fill that creative gap somewhat.

Then in 2010, I attended a mental health recovery group, which encouraged me to use creative writing as a way to understand and manage my mental health. It was life changing. Within months of taking the course Jase and I had moved from London and I was running my own business, working part time. I started writing again. At first just story ideas and fragments of poetry. Then in 2013, I joined a challenge to write a poem every day. I haven't looked back since.

It is true, I think that writing is viewed differently by society than other creative pursuits. I was very much involved with photography and received no end of encouragement. I had no intention of doing photography professionally. I had no desire to have my photographs published. Though in fact they have been in RNIB publications at work! Similarly I have plenty of friends who are musicians and artists who aren't aspiring to do either professionally. (I also have friends who do want to do this professionally.) But if I say I enjoy creative writing to people they always ask if I have anything published. It's like if someone says "I play the guitar a bit" and you immediately asked them if they have had a top 40 hit yet. Or if someone says "I paint a bit" and you ask when they last had an exhibition at the Tate.

It's harder to share creative writing with an audience as well I think. The internet has made sharing easier particularly in areas like fan fiction. But I've looked, and locally we have no writers groups. I'd need to travel to Cambridge or London to take part in a regular writers group. (To be fair Bedford might have something but that's far harder for me to travel to than either Cambridge or London and yet it's closer! Thanks to crappy public transport in Bedfordshire.)

Anyway all this made me realise that I needed to write for myself, then see if there were any journals or online groups that might be interested in publishing my work. But first and foremost I would write for fun, for me. So that's what I am doing.

I'm hoping to start attending a writers group and course for women in Camden later in the year and I am writing more and more in my spare time both poetry, short stories and I am working on a novel. I find writing lowers my blood pressure which is a plus. So expect more creative writing on here and hopefully a few more of my pieces will be chosen for publication. I'm also following a creative writing course book and trying to be more disciplined, diverse and experimental with what I write. I am filling up note books fast and to paraphrase Virginia Wolf I am searching for the pearls within all the writing within them!

Mental health poetry

As I've mentioned before I am taking part in a challenge to write a poem or something creative every day during 2016. I post what I write on a small Facebook group for friends also taking part in the challenge to write more.  

Over the last month or so (actually since the beginning of December really) I've been struggling with my mental health again.  Amongst the poems I've drafted about nature or train journeys I've written about my mental health. I thought this sequence of poems might be useful to share to show the stages of my mental health. 

Mindfulness 

Empty your mind

They say as if

I could just break

Open its shell

Fragile casing

And pour out its

Meagre contents

Like cracking an egg. 

Brittle fragments

White sharp shards of

Memory and

Matter mixing

With the mess of

Thought impression,

Leaving nothing

Behind but a void. 

Ambushed

Ambushed, my memories wrenched from me

Leaving behind jagged shards and bright splinters

Like glimpses of my past through shattered mirrors 

Half an eye or a lip all that remain of a face. 

Flickers and fragments of chaotic scenes:

Grown men weeping

The arch of a flaming branch swinging

A motorbike roaring down a school corridor.

Disjointed but not unrelated,

Scattered leaves before a bonfire, yet to catch light.

Facebook On This Day

Washing stagnates in the belly of the machine

No longer rocking queasily 

Dirty dishes heaped in squalid piles, offerings 

To the gods of procrastination

A walk to the post box and arctic expedition

So I stay at home 

Facebook's Never Miss A Menory, tells me of

Nine Februaries spent like this 

Black Dog

When the black dog comes

I can not make a simple choice

When the black dog comes

I can not perform the simplest chore

When the black dog comes

In the smallest things I find no joy

When the black dog comes

I am a tree petrified to the core

When the black dog barks

He drowns out all sound

When the black dog barks 

I cower for cover

When the black dog barks 

I can not be found

When the black dog barks 

I have become another

When the black dog leaves

Which he always will

When the black dog leaves

I struggle free

When the black dog leaves

My senses fill

When the black dog leaves

My life unfreezes. 

New Day

Rain washed morning streets

Fresh light on an old scene

Paving as reflective as mirror

Inverts the brightening sky 

So the gulls reel at my feet, 

Their cries a scree of sound, 

Fragments falling from the clouds 

Raining on the park birds' song. 

Walking as far as the light house,

Looming sentinel of saltiness 

It's eye blank never blinking 

Blind to the sea's gleam and glitter, 

I notice on my way but not when coming back

An abandoned sodden bobble hat

Strewn like a bloated sea urchin 

In an expanse of inky Carpark. 

Wishing I'd brought a coat 

In a dress smothered in poppies

I shiver towards the memorial

Where a lone man reverently reads 

The names of all of the fallen

I'm so grateful for this journey 

And chance to see new places

And think of the old things differently.  

This is something I couldn't do last week

Sit back, eyes closed listening 

To rain peppering the roof 

Of this train platform shelter

To the flourishes of bird song 

The scurrying sound of nature 

To the industrial roar of the 

High and low speed trains 

To smell my freesia and pear

Perfume, a rare luxury 

To drink scolding creamy coffee

Savouring the flavour 

And just enjoy the experience

For what it is: being alive.  

Inspiring women

I'm currently working my way through a creative writing course work book and being challenged to write about different things. The challenge a couple of weeks ago was to find news stories to spark ideas. I read an article about a pilot who had flown from the UK to Australia in an old bi-plane so I chose to write about women who inspired me. 

I think of Margaret Atwood's description 

of a red thread stitched through and between every woman

passed from mother to daughter, 

linking Aunt to niece, friend to friend, sister to sister.

A great crimson tapestry of all our strength.

I think of the women I know, who inspire me: 

The ones who travel fearlessly on paths overgrown and remote

seeking the adventure of new experiences and finding peace.

Those who create and have confidence in their creations. 

Flamboyant performers with scorching determination, 

doggedly refining their art.

Those who get through each day on cups of tea and carrot cake,

offering kind words and hands to steady me. 

Those who are raising children with such devotion

in a cauldron of love and transformation. 

I think of the women who helped me become who I am today,

with buckets of patience and unending persistence, 

with good humour and imagination,

I want them to know how grateful I am.

Blue Monday

So I've written this poem today in response to the "Blue Monday" nonsense in the media. As Mind quite rightly point out. Any day can be blue! 

Blue Monday

It is dark

The air twisted with frost

We've pushed out into this new year

Too far to turn back,

Even amongst the ice we must 

Pick out a careful course

Keep momentum,

It's a nice thought

Intrepid explorer of life

But really I'm sitting in my kitchen

Pinpointed by light

Listening to a radio burble 

About blue Monday,

And they're not playing New Order.

It's that day the travel industry decrees 

Is the lousiest of the year,

When we're supposed to be in the doldrums 

Still lugging Christmas around;

Grease on our bones.

Half of us detoxing;

Feeling vile.

The other half in despair

About our tax returns.

All this they claim makes us blue

But for me, and more besides,

Any day can be that wintery slatey shade.

Depression doesn't strike 

because I need Florida's citrus sun

Or a pick me up in the Med,

Depression stalks me

Seeking me out on the sunniest days,

During Christmas and New Year,

When the autumn leaves brighten and shed,

Depression is never far away.

So yes today is dark

And the frigid sky is tinged with steel

But we've rushed out into this new year

Gone too far to turn back,

So let's push on into the heart of this adventure,

Intrepid explorers! 

Wrap up warm and grab my hand, 

We have places to go

People to meet

Books to read

And life to live

One day at a time!

Christmas spiced apple and cherry jam

This is a jam recipe I concocted myself because I had a tin of black cherries I needed to use up!

Ingredients:

1kg of cooking apples
1 400g tin of black cherries in light syrup or juice
125 ml of water
1kg of golden caster sugar
Juice of half a lemon
2 cinnamon sticks
1tbs mixed spice

Equipment:

Jam pan or an extremely large sauce pan
Muslin
Jam funnel (optional)
Sugar thermometer (optional)
2 saucers or small plates
Jam jars - sterilised (5 or 6 small jam jars - 2 - 3 large ones

Method

1   Place the 2 saucers into the freezer - you'll need them later

2   Peel and roughly chop the apples

3   Add the apples, lemon juice and water into the jam pan and heat gently, stirring occasionally,  so to soften the apples.

4   Wrap the cinnamon sticks and the mixed spice in the muslin to make a muslin bag tied at the top. Then add the bag to the softening apples.

5   Once the apples are soft add the sugar and stir in. Gently heat until the sugar has completely dissolved into the pulpy apple and juice. Then add the cherries and continue to heat gently for another 5 minutes.

6   Remove the muslin bag of spices and turn up the heat. Make sure to stir regularly so that the jam doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan. Simmer vigorously. If scum appears on the top either skim off the surface or add a knob of butter which dissolves the scum.  If you are using a jam thermometer you want to get the temperature of the jam to 104. However, I find that my jam can sometimes set before my thermometer claims it's at temperature. So once your jam has vigorously simmered for 15 minutes or when it is approaching 104 on the thermometer you can test the set.

7   You need those saucers in the freezer for testing the set. Take one of the saucers out of the freezer and spoon a teaspoon amount of jam on to the cold saucer. Wait for a minute and then nudge the jam with your finger. if you can plough your finger through the jam, and your jam wrinkles as you push, it has set. If not keep vigorously simmering the jam for another 5 - 10 minutes and test again.

8   You need some sterilised jars - please see the mincemeat recipe for how to sterilise jars - about 5 or 6 small jars or 2 larger kilner jars. Using a jam funnel spoon the jam into the jars and allow to cool. The jam will keep well but once opened keep in the fridge. It's a beautiful rich purple jam thanks to the black cherries.

Christmas Mincemeat Recipe

Due to popular demand I am posting two of my Christmas recipes on my blog tonight. The first is my Christmas mincemeat recipe which always goes down well I've experimented with different alcohol bases (though ti works as non alcoholic too) and I've added pear in the past. But this recipe which I made this year is the best I think. 

Vegetarian (suet free) Christmas Mincemeat

Although this was originally a Nigella Lawson recipe, known as Hettie Potter’s mincemeat (I believe Hettie was Nigella’s assistant) I’ve tweaked it enough to make it my own I think.

(Makes about 4lb/2kg which I think is about 6 small jam jars or 3 of the larger kilner jars)

250g soft dark brown sugar

250ml fruit cider - especially berry ciders - this time I used Aspalls Isabel Berry 

1kg cooking apples, peeled, and cut into chunks

1 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp ground cinnamon

500g dried mixed fruit - this time I used Waitrose luxury mixed dried fruit with cranberries, apricot and pineapple  

75g glace cherries roughly chopped, (I use the nice dark purple ones you can get now) roughly chopped

75g mixed peel ( If you  don’t like mixed peel just add more glace cherries!)

zest & juice of ½ lemon and 1/2 a tangerine or satsuma 

6 tablespoons brandy (alternatively rum)

Non alcoholic version - skip the brandy and substitute the cider for apple and blackcurrant or apple and raspberry juice.

1. Place the cider and the sugar in a large saucepan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved into the cider, unlike when making jam it doesn’t matter if every last grain hasn’t dissolved.

2.  Add the roughly chopped apples to the saucepan and stir well.

3.  Add the remaining ingredients, apart from brandy (or rum).  Simmer for around 30 minutes until the mixture is soft and pulpy. This sometimes takes a bit longer than 30 minutes but it’s usually pulpy enough after 45 minutes. Your kitchen will also smell of Christmas!

4.  Meanwhile wash the jars well and sterilise. I put the jars in an oven set to 110^oC/ 250^oF/Gas 1/2 for 10 minutes. Lids can be placed in a small pan of boiling water.  Shake as much water from the lids as possible before filling.

5.  Remove the mincemeat from the heat and set aside to cool for 5-10minutes.  Stir in the brandy (or rum) and transfer to sterilised jars. I find using a wide jam funnel helps here as I’m very messy! But this is much chunkier than jam so it’s not too hard to transfer.  Once the jars are filled and the lids well screwed on, invert them to improve the heat seal. Turn the jars the right way up once they are cool.

6.  This mincemeat can be used immediately after cooking if you wish, but improves with age and keeps well.

Loneliness

I read this article earlier today about men losing touch with their friends during their 30s and more broadly loneliness. I'm always interested about loneliness for lots of reasons. We moved house a lot when I was growing up becausse my Dad was in the Air Force and that meant starting new schools at age 7, 11 and 14. It wasn't easy. I'd always feel very lonely for quite a while when we moved. But looking back it never took long for me to make friends. The worst time was moving age 14. I'd had a rough time arriving in Cornwall age 11 but by the time we were due to leave for Yorkshire age 14 I had a small band of very close friends I was desperate not to leave behind. I was heartbroken to leave Newquay. I still have a reoccurring dream that I have returned to Newquay and I am so happy in this dream that it is painful when I wake up and realise it's not true.

As an adult I've moved a fair bit and my friends from School in Yorksire and university are pretty scattered around the country (even the world.) My best friend Lorraine lives in Inverness. Luckily my oldest friend Ruth lives closer in Kent. At each place I've worked I've made friends who I have kept in touch with to some degree. There have been good friends who have drifted away as well. 

But when we moved from London to Biggleswade it felt a little like moving house as a child. Especially as I was no longer working in an office but working from home. I felt really, really lonely. I was better off than so many people, I have Jason and family less than 2 hours away. But I had no one close by to talk to or share time with. I met a couple of local people on Twitter, one of whom Pete, I met up with for coffee not long after having eye surgery that went a bit wrong, so I could hardly see a thing when we met! That was in the July 2011 but after Jase and I got married and Christmss was approaching that year I had to admit to myself I felt really lonely. It was making me feel depressed. So for the first time in my life I admitted that I felt lonely and I told Pete I was lonely and asked him if he knew anyone I might get on with. He suggested a meet up with his friend Alice. 

Since then we haven't looked back. Alice and I meet up for a natter and a coffee regularly. Luckily both our husbands get on which is great. We have gaming evenings, BBQs, walks in the summer and I haven't felt lonely since. We're all very excited now that Alice and Jon are about to have their second child. 

It turns out that my friend Pete also read the article in the Guardian today and we had a chat on Twitter about loneliness. We both felt that it can be particularly hard to make friends if you don't conform to a particular "type" - say for example in your 30s or 40s but have no kids. So if you're a parent, particularly a Mum, you get to meet other parents at the school gate or through your children's friends. Though a number of my friends with Children have pointed out that you're lucky if just one of these friends you meet through your kids, genuinely has the same interests as you. Also if you're shy and the thought of a mother and toddler group terrifies you, you're not likely to go a long. If you aren't one for small talk, or if you're a man and you don't talk "football" I've been told, this can be difficult. 

I think loneliness is a real issue for so many people yet we don't talk about it. Admitting you're lonely is like admitting you're a failure or that there's something wrong with you. Yet I've not met a person yet who hasn't admitted to being lonely at some point of their lives. 

I think that the Internet can help - I've met some lovely friends through Twitter who have become offline friends as well as online ones. I have even managed to connect with those friends I left behind in Newquay 27 years ago, through Facebook, this year which has been so lovely. 

So I wanted to blog today to say if you're lonely, don't be hard on yourself and think you've done something wrong. The important thing is to reach out. Find likeminded people either locally or on the Internet. It does work.