New documents on the blog

After the rigours of yesterday, today I have been house bound. Alice, George (our Greek tekkie) and I have updated the blog. The most strenuous part of this tripartite arrangement involved my lying on the floor trying to understand what was happening. The result of our labours was that we have improved our home-made Readers' Manual so that it deals better with the techniques with amending the blog. You can now find under a new dossier called "Travel (conferences and holidays)". there are two sub-folders there: Db Holidays and Conferences. You can see articles I have written about the very successful Db holidays I enjoyed in 2005, 2006 and 2007. You can also see accounts of the important Helen keller world Conference held in Tampere, Finland in 2005. Also there is an article about the 14th DBI World Conference held in Perth, Western Australia in 2007. More articles soon.

Picnic in Hove Park

In recent months I have enjoyed some social outings with City Synergy which is a social club for visually-impaired people in Brighton and Hove. These outings are always well conducted. On Sunday, 26 July 2008 the social consisted of a picnic in Hove Park. I did not find it too strenuous as I spent most of the picnic lying on my back in the shade of a large tree! It was a very sunny warm day and the shade was appreciated. After our picnic we visited the children's steam railway in the north end of the Park. This can carry about 5 passengers and the locomotive is about a metre long and fired by real coal and from time to time emitting satisfying blasts of steam. An evocative smell of coal hung over the tiny station of Hove Park North.

Day two of the peasant's revolt

Today I returned to resume my protest outside the barristers chambers in Church Street, Brighton. I was only there today for just over an hour, I had a pleasant surprise in that an old chum of mine, Jack, came up to me and started chatting. I hadn't seen him for twenty years. We spent a lot of time together in the 1960s travelling to the East-before the hippy's. If I am described as an aging hippy, I point out that I am a pre-hippy. Please see the fresh photos taken today.

Lawyers: a peasant strikes back!

Some readers may have had problems with lawyers, as I have in particular I have been given a hard time by a shameless barrister whose chambers are in Brighton. There is a growing awareness of the unscrupulous behaviour of many lawyers but it is not easy to achieve redress through official mechanisms. However, I am attempting that but in parallel I am embarking on direct action. Wednesday, 23 July 2008 saw the first stage in this endevour. I demonstrated with my placard outside the barrister's chambers on the north side of Church Street, Brighton at its eastern end. Below you can see some of the photos taken. I would welcome comments. I was there for nearly four hours and it was quite hot. I would like to say that some shame-faced barrister's threw themselves on the pavement begging forgiveness. Alternatively I would like to say that some of them rushed at me with sabres and that I fought them off single handed. I have to be truthful and admit that neither of these things happened. However, I think I made an impact and I shall be returning.... I welcome information about the actions of others where lawyers are concerned.

Preparing to leave Hove for the Royal Garden Party in London on 15 July 2008

There was yet more excitement in my drab life in July 2008. I had been asked to represent Sense at the Royal Garden Party to be held in Buckingham Palace on 15 July 2008. Alice kindly consented to be my companion for the day. Although the weather forecast had been grim the day itself was very fine. In fact it turned out to be the sunniest day so far this month. We both enjoyed ourselves. We didn't have a lot of time with the Queen herself because as Alice remarked; "she's awfully busy assigning things". You might think that we sipped Pimm's and champagne all afternoon but no alcohol was served. Mind you, secretly, we did enjoy a noggin or two with the Queen in her private marquee. To our frank astonishment the sandwiches were square-cut and not triangular. However, we overcame this problem. The grounds are magnificent and we wandered around the tree-studded park-like garden with its rose-gardens and duckpond. I fell in the pond much to Alice's embarrassment. For some unknown reason she saved me from drowning. After lying in the warm sunshine for an hour I'd dried out enough to wander into the Palace. I found that queues melted in front of me. I can't think why although I did notice that Alice also kept her distance.

My Metropolitan activities

I had the pleasure of two activities in London in mid-July 2008. One was meeting my cousin, Pepita, after a gap of some 40 years. We had re-established contact this Spring and at last we met at the House of Commons on 9 July 2008. Pepi is married to Keith Simpson MP. Pepi, Alison and I had a very enjoyable conversation followed by lunch. We then did a very quick tour of Westminster Hall and you can see the four photos we took above.

Two Recent Social Outings

I'm sorry but I rarely make postings these days because of other commitments. However, I would like to talk about two social outings I have had lately. The first was on 27 June 2008 when I attended an explanatory visit to Whitehawk Hill in Brighton which is one of the earliest archaeological sites in England. This site has been somewhat neglected by Brighton but there is a concerted effort now being made to protect it and make the public more aware of it. This event was attended by LAF members and councillors. On 28 June 2008 I attended an outing organised by City Synergy (a social group for blind people in Brighton and Hove) to Hollingbury Hill Fort in north Brighton. We were given a very interesting tour and explanation by John Funnell, secretary of Brighton and Hove archaeological society to whom we are indebted. You can see two pictures from Whitehawk and sixteen from Hollingbury on my Flickr photo gallery. This is the link http: www.flickr.com/photos/hova/