The Blind Truth

When Grace Jones slapped Russell Harty she created one of TVs' iconic moments.

Whatever you think of her response to her host turning his back on her, she did it with a very good hair cut. I know this because Trevor Sorbi cut her hair. It’s not that I know Trevor, but I know a man who does. He’s the man who cuts my hair. 

For fifty years I’d been buying bad hair cuts from hairdressers the length and breadth of the land. After we’d settled the question of what my boyfriend did for a living and where I was going on my holidays, the conversation always followed the same turn. My hair was very hard to cut. “It’s because it’s all one colour”, they said. 

So it was my fault. A few of my hair cutting foes took me by surprise by asking how I got my roots that colour. “It’s all Gods work,” I’d usually reply, my blond hair being intimately connected with my lack of sight. “I’m a natural blond,” I’d boast. 

A hairdresser who can’t tell a natural blond at thirty centimetres doesn’t inspire confidence. As these increasingly expensive hair cuts racked up, I’d look into the glare of the back lit mirror (too much trouble to be turned off) and wonder what was taking shape on the top of my head. 

“That’s quite a helmet of a hair cut you’ve got,’ said a surprised friend as she opened the door to me. I thought it might be bad but I had no idea it was that bad. 

One particularly bold hair cutting foe suggested I dye my hair brown. “I’d look ridiculous” I said. “It would make you look normal,” she replied. Normal. What is that? 

My anxieties about the way I look do not extend to the colour of my hair. I might not choose rubbish sight but the matching blond hair I can happily live with. The Flat Mate always has good hair cuts and I went to keep her company while she had hers done and was transfixed as the hairdresser went about his work.

 It took twice as long as my hair cuts and involved Prosecco.  I was impressed and said so.

“I’d love to cut your hair,” he said. “It’s very difficult hair to cut.” I was being defensive. He thoroughly ruffled my head. “I don’t see why.” 

These days I love going to the hairdresser.  Tom doesn’t find it a chore to switch off the mirror lights to take out the discomfort of the glare. He talks me through the hair cut, telling me about what I cannot see. He paints the picture as his cut takes shape.

Sometimes he’ll ask if I want to stop and get close to the mirror to see what he means. At the end when the full glory of a really good hair cut is revealed and that big old mirror gets flashed behind my neck, he’ll use his hands to explain exactly what is happening on the back of my head, so that I can form a sort of map of my head in my head. 

After eight years of good hair cuts I wonder how many of my former hair cutting foes thought that just because I couldn’t see I wouldn’t know a bad cut if I had one?  

I no longer blame myself. Difference need not be a bad thing. I celebrate my blond hair, and Tom's talent, sometimes with Prosecco, sometimes with a cup of tea as he goes about his work. I’m emboldened by my good hair cut. If anyone suggests I dye my hair brown they might just be in for a slap.

In my favourite shop the retail assistants wear luminous yellow jackets which makes them easy to spot as they weave their way in and out of piles of brown furniture. Over the years I have bought wardrobes, bellows, semi precious bunches of stone grapes, lead glasses and assorted cutlery. I am able to exercise little self control except in the matter of retail assistant number one who recently asked me what was in the bag I was carrying. “Trainers” I declared. “I’m going to go running and get fit.”

“You look pretty fit to me,” number one assistant said.  “I reckon you’re built for comfort as well as speed.”.

Overlooking the obvious forwardness of this observation, the truth of the matter is that I might not be getting any younger or any thinner but have developed an ambition to run an uninterrupted mile. Then I am stopping before I do myself an injury.

Experience suggests that if I want to avoid running into things I will need a guide. The son, who is a serious marathon runner, is right.  He says the best thing to do is to roll up a tea towel so that guide and runner each take an end and run together. The tea towel provides all kinds of useful feedback to the blind runner who can feel the direction of travel which grants him the freedom to simply run. The son suggested, that with me attached to the other end of the tea towel, we should run round Tooting Bec common together. This seems to me to be a complete reversal of our relationship and just plain wrong, so I slapped him down hard.

At school I was the person no one wanted in their team because I couldn’t see the ball. One brave sports master was so sure I was faking it he ordered me onto the hockey field. His remorse was near instantaneous and his shin injury, long lasting. As a young adult so much social life pivoted around sport, which I never took part in because I couldn’t see to do it.  It was a double wammy. I didn’t know that there is a whole world of sport open to people with sight loss.

A long time ago I did try to go running on my own. On my very first outing I collided with a man who was waiting patiently for me to navigate my way past him. In hindsight, which is the best sight, I suppose it reasonable that he would have assumed I was going to run round him rather than in to him.

I’ve yearned for the imagined sense of freedom of running. In my imagination I am free from constraint and effortlessly powering ahead.

Setting aside the obvious challenges of being old, a bit on the round side and crushingly unfit, I’m quite enjoying running now that I’ve made a start. My running guide, says my technique is pretty good and I have nice breath control and the leg pain will pass.  Who could imagine that something as simple as a tea towel could set one free.

Slowly, I am learning to let go and let someone else take the strain for a change. My running guide and I have now progressed to guiding by voice. I run at her left shoulder as she provides an ongoing narration of the terrain. It ranges from “that big tree root again left” to “a couple of stoned teenagers coming straight at us. Breath in now” to ” downhill nice and muddy” to “veer left for dog shit” to ” oops, that was a low hanging branch”.

I might even let the son take charge for a Tooting Bec Mile.

Middle age can be a productive time in a woman’s life. Who knows what the meaning of productive is. Is being productive the same as being busy? No. Is being creative the same as being productive? I hope so. I feel in a creative phase.

Doing new things mean learning new skills, so I’ve been scouring the internet to see what learning opportunities there might be for me to develop some of those skills. I settled on a course but before I signed up, I thought I had better give the Well Loved Institution, hosting the course, a call to check that learning materials would be accessible.

A person who sounded as if she was still in bed asked if she could help me. Her tone reassured that what she really meant was “Yeah. What do you want idiot? You’re disturbing me.” I explained that before signing on the dotted line, I wanted to check on the arrangement for accessible course materials because I am registered blind. There was a bit of argy bargy on where to find the course code she needed before she could answer the question. “I’m looking at that page on your site,” I said. “Whereabouts on it will I find the course code?”

“Ehh the internet,” she yawned.

I repeated the reason for my call and she said, “We don’t do courses for the blind. We only do courses for deaf people.” I tried again.  ” We only do courses for deaf people. You could do a lip reading course.”

Giving careful consideration to my response for slightly less time than it took me to inhale, I said, ” I think lip reading for blind people could be a bit of a stretch.”

“Alright,” she said and put the phone down.

I contemplated calling back to make a snide remark but decided against it because I was clearly the better person in this exchange.

Now, the Well Loved Institution has a reputation to uphold so I paid my £199 in the hope that by its completion I will be an upgraded version of myself. Back came the reply that I was in, swiftly followed by a second email telling me what the evacuation procedures are for sight impaired and disabled students.  We are to make our way to the clearly signed assembly point next to the lift on the first floor and wait for help to arrive.

Even if I could read the clearly marked assembly point sign, hanging about in a burning building waiting for help to arrive does not appeal. I get that on aeroplanes it’s every man for themselves and anyone who can’t operate the escape hatch or who can’t see enough to work out what’s going on might stop other people from getting out, so I accept that I get to sit where I won’t get in the way in the event of having to jump. But seriously? The best the Well Loved Institution has to offer is to direct blind people to a clearly marked assembly point and wait for help.

Learning new skills is always an adventure. Learning to apply those skills means that you have to be prepared to take a chance in life. What’s the worst that can happen? I might make a fool of myself. I might not enjoy myself. It’s unlikely I’ll get burned in the process, so I’m not worrying about fire.

Not enough people have signed up for the course so the Well Loved Institution is giving me my money back. I’ve signed up for an on line course, between 7-9 on Tuesdays. I got the concessionary rate and I can lie in bed while I expand my mind.

“Coleette” was showing at the flicks, so a couple of friends and I found ourselves navigating our way around an enormous windswept rooftop car park in a tiny car. The cinemas beckoned. At the ticket office an adolescent made me an offer like no offer I have ever been made before.

“Would you like to make use of the audio description facility that is free?”

I don’t know why it has never occurred to me to try this before.  Imagine, you can go to the cinema and just as you might have naturally leant into the ear of your friend and asked what’s happening, a voice pipes up in your own ear “Missey is bearing down on Collette in an act of passion”.

“All you have to do is put them on and the description will automatically start when the film starts,” said the youth.”  The excitement mounted. Nothing happened, because, the Youth had not switched the headset on and we were probably not the first people who couldn’t work it out as we fumbled about in the dark.  I leant into ask my friend what was happening.  “It’s a sex thing. I can’t really say,” she said. I don’t know who was more surprised; my friend at being asked or me because I never had her down as coy.

On the way out, I sniped at the man who used to serve clothes up, with such charm in #Hobbs, and now served popcorn at #Everyman. “You need to turn them on,” he said in a tone that pointed out my failings.

“I tried,” I said, “but nothing happened.””Look,” he said. “like this.” Presumably he was demonstrating.
“Your colleague said they were on, all I had to do was wait for the commentary to start.
“Everyone knows how to switch these on?” he barked to the team behind the bar.
“No,” came the reply.
“I’ll give you your money back,” and he did.

Reviews for “The Green Book,” looked good. Now I was the passenger in an enormous car that yet another long suffering friend was trying to park in an impossibly small parking space in a tiny car park. At the ticket office a fuzzy faced teenager asked me if I’d like to avail myself of the audio description. I said I would. “All you have to do is pop them on when the film starts.” He said.

“Do I need to turn them on?””You don’t need to do a thing. They’re good to go. Just enjoy the film.”

As the opening scene began, the static in my ear got louder and then it died.

This time I didn’t need to lean in to ask what was going on. My companion, who had not felt the need to offer any commentary up until this point, leant in and hissed “He’s been in a sauna having sex with a man and is going to get caught and beaten up by the police.” The point of audio description is not to anticipate the consequences of the action, but just to describe the action.

“What’s happening now?” I asked.” I told you. The police have arrived.”

At the till the fuzzy faced youth said, “And how was that for you today?””They didn’t work,” I sighed.

After a bit of close examination he announced they were broken. As he printed out vouchers for two free tickets he said that, “to be honest they never work anyway.” It didn’t surprise him they were broken.

I might use my vouchers for #The Vue to see a film that has had excellent reviews. Let’s hope the audio description works this time. The film is “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” I’d say that depends…..

The Sceptic Tank, (slang for Yank, as in a person who hails from North America) told me that on a recent taxi journey her driver asked her about her blindness.  Her philosophy is to always engage as she’s educating the world about living with sight loss, one taxi driver at a time. 

She set out the situation of the genetic time bomb, programmed to go off and trigger blindness just when you’ve bought a new car, and then tied it all up neatly in the richness of her life which is why she is not complaining.  The taxi driver suggested to her that if she put her faith in God, she would be cured.

Sceptic Tank suddenly felt the need to pick up her emails and this would necessitate earphones. She excused herself from the conversation. The awkwardness was palpable. They both knew it. No doubt in an effort to relieve the tension, the taxi driver asked if she would mind if he put on the radio. She didn’t, so he did.

Christian rock was not a genre Sceptic Tank was familiar with so when the tune of something that sounded a bit like The Sex Pistols “God Save The Queen” came on she was a surprised to hear different words. Jesus loved her and he was letting her know Punk style. Jesus and the Sex Pistols seemed an unlikely union. This was turning into a surreal cab ride.

As she was telling me this story, including a full throated rendition of how alarming Christian rock had appeared to be, I was coughing with laughter. Once I’d got over the amusement of my amazement, it reminded me of just how outrageous some people’s behavior, in the name of Jesus, can be.

My chum Radiator (known as such because he is big and warm) was minding his own business sitting on a sofa in a shop, in the way that spare husbands do, while his wife was trying on clothes, when he felt hands on his head. Blindness prevented him from taking a swipe at the person to whom they belonged. “I’m a Christian,” said the owner of the wandering hands. “Let me pray for you.” Feeling trapped, Radiator felt the best things to do was not to make a scene and hope it would be quick. “Oh Lord…heal this miserable sinner of his affliction…” and so on and so forth, delivered with all the gusto of Billy Graham but in Fat Face, got rave comedy reviews by shoppers. 

My uncle, the Monk, wrote to me twice last year to say he was putting me on the prayer list. I’m not in the least bit put out by this. It won’t do any good but it won’t do any harm either. So what’s the difference between going on the prayer list to be prayed for by monks, and the laying on of hands in Fat Face?

The prayer list seems to me to be a gift, an act of generosity, in which one person applies their energies so that others may benefit, and it happens far away where I don’t have to witness it.  The taxi driver and the Fat Face assailant both support a view that it’s lack of faith, not being good enough that have brought blindness to our doors.  In other words, “it’s our fault”. And there was I thinking my parents played Russian roulette with their genes.

In the bad old days of my youth, when people felt free to express their prejudices about blindness in public, my Mother would whisper in my ear, “It could be worse. You could be stupid. You see, there are always people worse off than you.” 

I met the Builder coming up the road with his dog. He was chuckling to himself and told me that he had just seen a very funny incident. He said he wasn’t sure if it was politically correct to laugh at something to do with blindness but he couldn’t help himself. I asked him if it was a blind person or a sighted person who came off worst out of this story. “The sighted one,” he said.

“Go for it,” I reassured.

He was walking his dog when he spotted a blind man with his guide dog waiting to cross the road. The Builders’ dog began to pull, so he reigned in the dog in the hope of avoiding a diplomatic incident. As he got closer he noticed that a car had stopped and was flashing its lights to indicate to the blind man that he could cross the road. When nothing happened the driver started tooting his horn. Still nothing happened so he revved his engine while continuing to toot his horn and flash his lights. Still nothing happened.  He gave up and put his foot down, disappearing in a trail of exhaust fumes.

The blind man and his dog stoically waited on the side of the road until both man and dog were satisfied it was safe to cross and there were no more lunatics tooting and revving their engines for who knows what reason.

As he told this story, the Builder began to wonder what this commotion must have been like from the blind mans’ perspective. “I can imagine it could be pretty unnerving to hear all that and have no idea what was going on. What an idiot. I mean the driver not the blind man,” he added in case I doubted his intentions.

Learning how to safely cross a road if you can’t see the oncoming traffic is quite a skill.  Whenever a car stopped to let me cross it seemed cherlish not to do so. Then came the dreaded day when it revved its engine and tooted its horn and juddered towards me. From its hidden interior came a disembodied voice “You people make me sick. …… Idiot.” These days when a car stops, I wave it on and stand my ground. Just because a car has stopped does not mean that it wont’ start again.

The kerb offers protection from inadvertently wandering into moving traffic. It’s a touchstone that keeps me safe and is rapidly vanishing from urban landscapes as planners favour the development of #shared space where pavements and roads merge into one.  #Raised dots don’t offer the visually impaired pedestrian the certainty that herein ends the pavement and begineth the road.  It might look like good design but not if you can’t see.

In a snow covered city centre I once wandered from car park to four lanes of traffic without noticing I’d left the car park. That’s what #shared space has to offer me. I may as well be walking in snow. How will #guide dog owners know when it’s safe to cross if not even a dog can tell when one ends and the other begins?

Perhaps #shared space could build in a place for a spotter up a ladder with a loud hailer, who can keep an eye open for wandering pedestrians, and offer suitable instructions to any blind people meandering into the traffic. It could be modelled on an announcement I once heard at #Wokingham station. “Could the man with the guide dog please move to the other side of the yellow line.”

Much as I don’t like to toot my own horn, I could be on to something.

Only very recently did I take my first tentative steps into the world of social media. It’s a mine field. It’s like the girl with the curl. When it’s good it’s very very good and when it’s bad it’s horrid.

I know plenty of people with no sight who navigate the digital world with aplomb. I am not one of them.  I considered going on a course in order to develop my skills to a level of #Twitter and #Facebook self sufficiency. Classes, it turns out, are not readily accessible if you can’t see much. So, I did the thing that anyone would do. I turned to #Google. #YouTube. Video tutorials are the perfect format for anyone who can’t see much. Clever old me!

I had to check what I click on to access #Google.  It’s a browser.  I’ve just changed mine. I used my browser to see if I could find an on line tutorial on how to invite my friends to join me on #Facebook. The choices were almost limitless.  #YouTube came up trumps.  I plumped for one. I had to sit through five minutes of an oriental dance troop but then the tutorial began.

There is always a video on #YouTube for just about anything from how to hammer a nail into a wall to how to strip down and rebuild an engine. If I could get my meringue to rise thanks to #YouTube, surely I could learn how to invite my friend Charlie to be my friend on #Facebook.

Screen magnification is a wonderful thing but if you are using it, you can only ever see a part of the screen at any one time. You have to be nimble to move from one part to another and keep a mental map of where you are on the screen at any time. I was looking at the lower left quarter of the screen.  “At the top of your screen,” said the expert. I moved my mouse like fury and overshot. I’m now on the the blue space of screensaver. “Click on it,” She continued.

 “Click on what?”

“Then simply move your cursor to here, and click on that.”

I’ve lost the plot. Where is “here” and what is “that”? In an effort to re-run I enjoy five more glorious minutes of oriental dancing, which, the narrator explains, was once nearly lost to the world. If only.

The expert tutor goes through a long and complicated explanation of what to do. After some frantic note taking and a few re-runs I go to #Facebook and give it a go. It doesn’t work. I go back to the tutorial. After more oriental dancing, the expert explains that there is an easier way to do this, with just a couple of clicks of the mouse. I do it and discover that all this learning has been for nothing because my friend Charlie is already a #Facebook friend.

I now know how to delete a post. Whether I remember how to do this is a different matter altogether. I know what a browser is but where “here” is, I don’t know. What “that” was, is forever a mystery. Ah well, few of us have the luxury of making our choices on absolutely all the available information.

His suspicions aroused by the large quantity of bleach nestled behind my loo, my friend Dan asked me if I was planning to make a bomb.  I was not, but it got me thinking about the reason why and how I approach my rare trips to the supermarket.

The thing about shopping, if you can’t see, is that nothing is done on spec (excuse the word play) because you are going to have to carry it home. A Buy One Get One Free offer is all very well, but what if it’s a forty-minute wait for a cab or you end up having to walk?

At the supermarket, I’m the woman with the enormous trolley stacked high with loo roll, dishwasher salt and laundry soap. While I might shop like a polygamist with two dozen children at home, I’m simply taking advantage of some nice person who has offered me a lift to the supermarket and who has the space to spare in their car, for me to cram it with stuff that I don’t want to have to carry on my back because it’s heavy.

If I’m not to queer my pitch with my host driver, by keeping them waiting, a supermarket shop has to go like clockwork. The enemy of this approach is the ongoing choreography routine with just about everything from shampoo to granola. By constantly moving stuff about supermarkets sell more because shoppers have to continually scan for what they are looking for and end up buying things they weren’t looking for and didn’t know they wanted. Blink and it’s moved.

In a brilliant move I have cracked this obstacle to efficiency and at the same time managed to get in a full work out of squats. I calculate that this is about as much as it takes to work my way up and down the isles with my nose at label reading distance, bobbing up and down as I scan the shelves.

The top shelf is a mystery to me. I start with the next shelf down, press my nose forward and scan downwards. Sticking out my bottom gives me a better bend and I can generally get down as far as the second to bottom shelf. Then shopping etiquette goes to hell and I just pull the label off the shelf to do any price comparisons I think might be needed, or to avoid confusing tinned tomatoes and tinned peppers, chick peas and butter beans.

The blinky bob has only let me down once when, a search for biros went a bit wonk.  A stubborn pricing label resisted parting company from the shelf.  I sank further and further towards the floor in what I felt was a slow and controlled movement that a member of the public mistook for a total collapse.  In a breach of first aid guidance, the ambulance was called before a proper assessment was made. The embarrassment was not mine.

At the end of an average trip to the supermarket I feel I’ve done circuit training; lifting, squatting, exercising the large muscles and moving at pace. My fantasy end to all this “exercise” is that in addition to the free paper or coffee I get offered at the till (neither of which are any use to me since I can’t see the papers and dislike coffee), I should also get a free foam roller, the type that runners use to loosen out their leg muscles at the end of a workout.

Together with the free paper reading coffee sippers, I could perch horizontally on my free foam roller, slowly rolling my thighs across it while letting out expletives to celebrate the good that shopping has done me.

My neighbour was kind enough to drive me to #Heathrow terminal five. It rose out of the Hounslow ground like the architectural jewel of an emerging state, and proved equally hard to navigate our way into. Once there, it gleamed even brighter than the orange façade of #Luton airport departure terminal. The unprepared traveller could be blinded in the reflection of all that glass and chrome. You need dark glasses to enter there.

How to work out where the walls, stairs and floors began and ended in all that reflected glory turned out to be quite a challenge. Hardly had I had time to get my cane out when the much trumpeted #British Airways customer service swung into action. An explanation of my predicament was met with an equally firm explanation that the worlds favourite airline no longer offered assistance. Politely but firmly, I offered up the best challenge I could for six in the morning. “I can give you directions to the gates”. Was the reply. That would have to do for now. “Certainly Madam, they’re over there”. Just like an air hostess pointing out the escape routes, she pointed into oblivion.

“I have no idea where over there is,” I said. “I can’t see; so can you describe how I get there?”

“It’s over there,” she said.

On the third time of asking she got it.

Standing bare foot and vulnerable while my shoes are checked for explosives and my bags are being rifled by youths in crisp new uniforms, that they shift about awkwardly in, I am approached by one of them who informs me that weapons are prohibited and must be surrendered. I explain that I don’t have any weapons. “What’s that then?” he says making a play for the cane.

“It’s the universal symbol of blindness. I can’t see much.”

I don’t put up any resistance to his request to check for hidden explosives or elicit mascara or whatever it is he thinks I have concealed. My feet are now freezing.

He returns with my monocular in his hand. The monocular is an essential, something I use every day for reading signs when I’m out and about. (like half a pair of binoculars).

“You can’t have this,” He says with an air of triumph.

I protest that no one has ever tried to take away my mobility aids and that I will not put up with this.

“it’s a weapon.” The youth is obsessed. “You can’t have a gun sight,” he says.

I am momentarily stumped by this. Very slowly I explain that I am blind, not an assassin.

“You don’t look blind to me. You need a doctors’ certificate. How do I know you are not lying?”

My mouth is hanging open while I compose myself and consider my dignity as I think about how I want to respond to this. Pausing to allow enough time to engage the brain with the mouth is a useful skill come of age. It is a skill the youth has not yet acquired. He does not let the grass grow under his feet. Sensing he is now onto something, he delivers his killer question. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

I say that I don’t have to subject myself to this and demand his supervisor is called. He repeats the question.

Who knows how many fingers he was holding up, but on balance it seemed best to humour him, bring matters to a swift conclusion and move on. I stuck up two fingers and we all know what that’s the universal symbol of.

The God Daughter, has the most phenomenal finger nails I have ever seen. They are long and polished and sometimes bejewelled. I wonder how it is possible to be a working Mother with these finger nails. The God Daughter is a tour de force and has probably taught her children the importance of being able to deliver a good manicure as part of their preparation for pre-school.

I confess that I am jealous of the God Daughter when it comes to finger nails.

I long for the well manicured hand like those of my friends who are inclined, and able, to do this for themselves. I am not organised enough to book a manicure and have an in built aversion to discussions about where I am going on my holidays, or where I have been on my holidays or whether or not I was waxed for my holiday or want to book to have my hair ripped out by the roots as part of the preparation for going on holiday.

I am unsure what my hands look like in comparison to the gold standard of the well manicured hand and suspect that not everyone has as much of the detritus of their sinks under their finger nails as me. I could be wrong about this.

The manicure is largely limited to a quick swipe with an emery board and a dab of hand cream. I think that’s passable. Feet though. Well feet are another matter altogether.

At a time when I could see my finger nails in front of my face I still knew what my feet looked like. Nowadays my feet are an overseas dependency. Toe nails are invisible. What I dream of is feet that can be taken out in public and are not a shrine to talons and scales. How do you avoid having the feet of a dragon when you are thinking of being a kitten?

You might take yourself off for a pedicure and polish. It never seems to offer the vigour required to alleviate the dragon in me. What is required is a trip to the podiatrist. I imagined, briefly, once, that not being able to see your feet would qualify you for NHS podiatry.

“Can’t you ask a friend to cut your toe nails?” said the GP.

“Would you ask your friends to cut your toe nails?” I snorted.

She took my point.

Every NHS Clinical Commissioning Group sets its own rules about who gets access to podiatry. Mine operates on a points system: You can score a possible sixty-four points. You need thirty-two to qualify to get your toe nails cut on the NHS. Points are accumulated by means of having long term conditions like poor circulation, ulcers, arthritis, diabetes and so forth.

Its tough luck if being blind is the only bar to cutting your own toe nails. You only get sixteen points for being blind and that’s not enough to qualify you. You will simply have to ask a friend or pay £40.00 every time you get your toe nails cut. At the rate my nails grow, I calculate that the average annual cost of about £400. My local Clinical Commissioning Group https://www.westhampshireccg.nhs.uk/ is rated as “in need of improvement”

I calculate that I would be better off putting the God Daughter’s children through Beauty School rather than pre-school. They would have a skill for life and I’m sure I would find ways of helping them express eternal gratitude for my generosity.

The God daughter and I agree on a lot. What a pity she could not see the merits of this scheme. I have not seen her since I suggested it. She is probably giving herself a manicure.