h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So I was walking back from Scouts tonight, and I was musing on something my mobility advisor had said to me.

Dundee city centre has been designed so that different surfaces, mean different things. Cobblestones are around benches and bus stops, bins and trees. There is Blister paving at crossings, and striped paving at stairs. some of the roads are cobbled too. Most other surfaces are concrete, tarmac, or paving slabs. Many of the paving slabs are very uneven.

Anyway, i was thinking, and walking. and i realised i'm getting better at recognising the different tactile surfaces, not only the blister paving at crossings, but the slabs, and cobbles, i'm becoming more aware of how the world at my feet feels.

this is all down to my using my white cane. Something that i'm beginning to get into the habit of doing during the hours of darkness, or (as in Manchester) in new places, or when it is very busy.

I'm not looking for praise and encouragement to keep me doing it, as I'm beginning to see the benefits myself. I have a new way of seeing the world, and I'm safer too, which is a Good thing.

mini

Read more Discworld - you're gaining the same ability as Vimes

But then she'd have to wear worn-out shoes with paper-thin soles.

I could give her such a pair.

In my local shopping mall, there's what seems to be marble floors - but in the middle, all through the mall, there runs a stripe of red granite. When the new landlord allowed a shop to be set up in the middle of a 'crossing', several visually impaired people protested, since they use the stripe to navigate through the mall. I've never thought about it myself, but it seems the texture of the granite stripe differs enough to be perci- perce- *reluctantly, for once, uses dictionary* perceptible.

I still find it difficult walking any distance up my road, on my own, wearing my new boots.... the soles are too thick and new and I can't feel what I'm walking over... whereas my old boots are brilliant for feeling exactly what I'm walking on... sadly they're also rahter good at letting water in The tactile bits at crossing can be helpful, but it depends a lot what the rest of the pavement is liked... once its old and cracked and uneven it gets a lot more tricky to actually figure out which bits are proper tactile pavement, and which bits are just uneven nonsense

Oo... talking of feeling things through your feet... I was walking in the mis-named 'Grand Arcade' today, and noticed something I've never noticed before....
I stopped, and asked William if he could feel the vibrations through from the floor... he couldn't but I definately could.... I was wondering what it was, and then he mentioned there is an underground carpark underneath Felt quite pecular that one

oo... and another one that can be quite useful, is if on the pavements you've got that kind of slightly dipped channel which lets the rain run away towards drains, as its useually straight and you can follow it qutie easily qith a cane; Simularly on the road near me leading up to all the shops and towards the town cetnre, there is some channel running underneath the pavement three or four foot away from the shops, which has cable or pipes or something under It I guess, and I can just* follow it with my cane/foot, and so avoid the worse of the horrible A-frames outside the shops Though knocking over A-frames in my wake is one of the more fun bits of walkign down the highstreet If you've got paving slabs too, and they're fairly good and not too cracked, you can count the number of slabs from one bit to find the say enterence to the shop, or where to cross the road to end up at the right place on the other side I must get a new pair of boots, with pre-warn soles on them

Things that can help to preserve eyesight, bilberry jam.

They used to give that to WWII RAF pilots to improve their night vision, and it slows and can even to some extent reverse senescent and other degenerative changes in the eyes.

Vitamin A in its various forms is long acknowledged an essential of good vision.

I find it sometimes makes my eyes almost painfully sensitive if I overdo it.

I've only good results to report with bilberry jam, though I would caution against any bilberry product with the word 'standardized' in the labeling information, since that means either that the the amount of its active component has been reduced below natural levels, or it has been chemically modified in some way.