BLINDSIMMING LADY

A building project came up at Eastbourne which involved Chris in weekly visits, coincidentally on the morning of the day I went into the office for my blindfolded afternoon. If we left early enough, no difficulty for me, he would drive me to a place blindfolded, take me for a walk there still blindfolded and then on to Eastbourne where I could spend an hour or so shopping or on the beach, etc. His intention was that I was never to know where it was that the walk took place. It sounded rather fun, I must admit. To avoid curious onlookers, we would devise a means of blindfolding that was secure but not noticeable to other walkers, mostly, I soon realised, being housewives taking dogs for walks. Chris bought me a proper white stick and home-made eye patches and wrap-around sunglasses with reflective lenses as the first solution employed. This took a couple of afternoons in the office to perfect. As I have said, I preferably want a blindfold to totally remove my ability to see anything at all and Chris realises this. On the other hand, the patches behind the sun-glasses need to be invisible to onlookers, not easy despite the mirror like reflective lenses.

So the first day arrived for this new adventure. We started out quite early, in fact soon after my husband had left to catch his train up to London where he worked. This was so we could have an hour walking before going on to Eastbourne for his meeting at half past ten, me to the shops and coffee. So he picked me up in the town and drove to a layby a few miles down the road towards Brighton. Here we spent a few minutes getting the blindfold, patches and reflective wrap-around sun-glasses fixed. Once blinded efficiently then, I moved into the back seat and off we drove, I didn’t know where. Over the next few similar outings, I discovered it to be a reservoir with a car park, a long hard surfaced path with a fence and hedge between the path and the water’s edge on the right, grassland on the left, occasional bench seats and at the far end, a gate into a bird reserve. I didn’t see any of this, of course, and it took a few visits to familiarise myself with these features even. It didn’t take long by looking at a map at home to work out where it was, between our home and Eastbourne but I pretended to Chris that I didn’t know. At first, Chris walked me along to the gate and back, but then he suggested that I knew it well enough to find my own way. So I did, at first with him walking behind then, much more adventurous, with him waiting at the car park, watching while I did it unaccompanied, even finding the bench seat and sitting down to have a cigarette. This led to my first exciting encounter when, having sat myself down and found my cigarettes, a voice quite close offered me a light! Well, I had to accept and a man sat down beside me and started chatting. He was a fisherman, with a permit that allowed him to fish from the water side of the hedge, had seen me on previous weeks as he always came on that particular day of the week. Retired, I soon gathered. I hurriedly explained that my brother was waiting in the car park, catching up on his work in the car – as he probably was. He asked among other things how long I had been blind and I said for some time and why I didn’t have a guide dog. I was to be asked this particular question quite a few times so I had a ready answer, that I didn’t feel able to look after a dog and that I could manage quite well with a stick! He said he would help me back to the car-park and perhaps meet my brother. My brother was quite able to cope with this being sprung on him and it went well. The following week, the fisherman was there again and again chatted and again offered to light my cigarette. This time I became just a little concerned, not being able to see of course, and feared that he might be peering hard into my eyes at the time and I started wondering whether he could see my eye patches. That afternoon, back in the office, I raised my concerns with Chris and he gave it some thought and came up with an idea that we adopted and I have used on outdoor occasions ever since.

So over the next month or two, Chris researched and I tried out various options of his on Wednesday afternoons and on the following Wednesday mornings out at this reservoir, if it was one of his site-visiting days. I accepted that I needed the white stick and a pair of ‘blind-looking sunglasses and we eventually settled on a pair which looked the part and were very similar to those worn by Madonna at the time she was in the news in Africa trying to adopt a child!