Good morning Blind Wisdom seekers!

You’ve heard of the Life of Brian right? Well now we have the sound of Brian! Audio Description is a service delivered by Able and it enables blind people to view television with additional support. In the non verbal, or particularly visual parts of programmes, a narrator identifies certain aspects of a scene and will then verbalise what they think will add to a blind persons viewing. For example on Sunday night’s movie “Consent”, the Louise Nicholas story, the narrator provided a description of the three policeman, and what they were wearing while being taken into the court room. This may sound unnecessary, but it was an important part of the movie as one of the policemen was in uniform while the other two weren’t. This was critical information for the viewer which would become clear later on.

However, on Friday night, while watching Coronation Street, the audio describer began saying Brian was in the Street Cars office which I thought was unusual given that Brian was a school principal and why would he be on the cab company’s switchboard? Brian kept appearing in many places he wouldn’t normallly appear, and this did begin to confuse me greatly, as who should be trusted? The narrator or me? When our world is dominated by visual images and the blind are told their lack of sight is a deficit, then of course I naturally assumed that it was me in the wrong! However, as the programme continued, it became clear that either I was mishearing or they were calling another character Ryan – Brian! This latter was in fact true, as on Monday we received an apology from Able, who confirmed that the mistake was an inherited one from England!

Does then, the sound of Brian need describing? On Friday night obviously not. I knew the sound of Brian more so than a describer with two eyes! This has taught me to trust my ears and my instincts and that lack of physical sight does not mean that the blind cannot see! As Helen Keller said, “we can see better than those with two good eyes!”

Here are the 10 things my 4 senses are grateful for this week!

1 the smell of doggy pooh I collected on my shoe on yesterday morning’s walk!

2 the smell of dish washing liquid in hot water to shoo it off!

3 the taste of my leek and potato soup I made for tea! Mum said her last lot was like glue and she had to throw it out! Mine was too so I was relieved with last nights effort! Basil mint in at the end for some flavour!

4 the sound of Ron’s voice when I told him it was Leek and Potato soup for tea! I followed up with “I’ve done chicken legs for the meatos too!” I could hear his relief all the way down the phone line!

5 the smell of the dye going into the jam pot – to die my wedding dress black! My son Sebastian was horrified! So was my husband Ron! Oh well! I was never going to wear it as a wedding gown!

6 the feel of the chocolate truffles we made for Zac’s 21st truffle tree!

7 the feel of the chocolate quotations under my fingertips as I put together a box of truffles for Rape Crisis! Yesterday was World Humanitarian Day and I thought they do great humanitarian work and might enjoy some chocolate coated inspiration!

8 the sound of Eddie McGuire on Who wants to be a millionaire! I do Eddie! Pick me!

9 the taste of my hot porridge for breakfast – I got it right today – it’s my second time with the porridge sachets so I was quite pleased!

10 the feel of the two chocolate ‘w’’s we made for Dad for his birthday! W for Willis and W for Woods!

I may not see but I can smell

And taste and touch and listen

And when I do this every day

I find my optimism!