Random Ramblings, Kitchen Tours, And Community Calls

The weather, thankfully, cooled down where I am.  Parts of the UK were still dealing with extreme heat – maybe still are, though not as badly as they were during July and August – but not here.  Not in the part of Wales I’m in.  Where I am we even got some rain.  I love the sound of the rain, and it was even more welcome after the heat we’d been dealing with.

 

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When we first moved here, back at the end of 2020, we were offered a corner sofa.  They said we’d get the corner piece now, and eventually get the rest.  We’re still waiting.  So, when we were offered a free sofa – including free delivery of said sofa – recently, we accepted the offer.  We wanted a sofa, but only had hat corner piece of the corner sofa and two armchairs (one of which we only held on to for the extra seating, but really thought should be thrown out).  Now we have one.  And I happen to think it's a really nice one too.  It's really comfortable.
 

*~*

 

Another September 1^st has come and gone, and still no trip to Hogwarts for me.

 

You know what? One of these years I’ll have to plan things so I have a Harry Potter themed feast on the evening of September 1^st, just so I get that part of the experience.  Maybe I can eat it while watching the first Harry Potter movie or something.  That would be fun!

 

Another fun idea would be a Harry Potter themed blog party.  But people aren’t taking part in blog parties so much these days, so I don’t know how well that would work out.  Still a fun idea though, even if I’ll likely never do that one.  Though I’d probably take part if someone else did one and I found out about it in time.

 

*~*

 

After an almost month long battle, I FINALLY got a Bookshare account!

 

For those who don’t know, Bookshare is a service that gives access to books in alternative formats for those who have disabilities where sometimes lack of availability of a book in certain formats prevents them reading the book in question.  They provide several formats, including the one needed for my Orbit (Braille reader).

 

It shouldn’t have been that much work, or taken even close to as long as it did.  And, from Bookshare’s side of things, it wasn’t any hastle at all.  They were wonderful.  The trouble was on my doctor surgery’s end.

 

First it took them almost two weeks to get the document verifying I had a disability that allowed me to be able to qualify for Bookshare signed, and then they claimed they’d sent it to Bookshare directly and wouldn’t send it to me too, despite Bookshare being unable to find it on their end.  Eventually though - possibly just so I’d quit calling about it, but whatever – I was allowed to speak directly to one of the admin team who monitor the email for my doctor surgery, and she sent it to me, first sending a test email to ensure she had my correct email.  Then I was able to send it over to Bookshare for them to link it to the account I’d started setting up while waiting for a copy of the document to reach either me or them, and then finish setting up my account.

 

So many books...

 

If I disappear, you know where I’ll be.  LOL!

 

*~*

 

 

I've mentioned before that I co-facilitate a cooking call on the ACB community.  Well, Herbie and I recently did an episode of "Herbie's Cooking Corner" where we gave audio tours of our kitchens.  Here's mine:

If you want to see the full episode, where you can get a tour of Herbie's kitchen too, you can find it on YouTube here. YouTube is where you can also find several other episodes of the show by checking out the Herbie's Cooking Corner playlist Herbie has created.

 

Also, if you’re subscribed to the ACB Community’s daily schedule – which you can subscribe to by sending an email to community@acb.org – you can join us on Zoom every Tuesday at 10:00am Eastern time (3:00pm UK time).  Alternatively, you can enable the ACB Media skill on your Alexa device and tune in to listen to us on Tuesday at 10:00am Eastern time (3:00pm UK time) on ACB Media 5.
 

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I'm going to end this post with another invitation.  Yes, it's part of the ACB community calls as well.  But you don't have to be blind to be a part of the community.  Anyone who has a visual impairment or a family member or friend with one is welcome.  So, why not join me and Patty on Thursday?

 

~

 

Happening each Thursday: Free to Be Me

1:30pm EST; 6:30pm BST

A place to enjoy free-flowing conversation about books and anything else that might come to mind. Come as yourself. All are welcome and wanted.

Join us by emailing community@acb.org for all Zoom call in information.

A #Sale Reminder, Weather, Smart Devices, #Braille Displays, and #Tatting

Just a quick reminder: the Smashwords 2022 Summer/Winter sale is still going on, and my children's stories and poetry books are enrolled at 50% off, making them all $2.50 or less, and in some cases completely free.

 

To grab your copies - regardless of which of my titles you may be interested in - simply click here to go to my Smashwords author profile, add your chosen books to the cart, and go through the checkout process.

 

But hurry, because the sale only runs through July 31st!

 

*~*

 

The weather’s been remaining warm here, though thankfully the traditional Welsh weather (rain) has been a frequent enough visitor to stop it getting quite as bad where I am as it has been in many parts of the UK.  I’m definitely glad of that, let me tell you.  Me and hot weather to not get on.

 

I did get a new, and more powerful, fan to help me deal with the heat though.

 

Actually, if I'm totally honest, it was meant to have been for Kelly, originally, since the one he was using wasn’t working very well and had to be replaced.  But he said I could have this one since I was especially struggling to cope with the heat, and swapped the new more powerful fan with one of the ones I was using.

 

It’s great… At one point I was actually feeling almost cold!

 

*~*

 

There have been other new purchases recently too.

 

 When I moved my computer in to what was the craft room and is now my office, I was out of range of the two Alexa devices we had.  One is downstairs where it can be heard from both the living room and kitchen, and the other is in our bedroom.  I suppose, officially, this wasn’t a big deal.  But – despite my initial reluctance to even get one – I’ve gotten used to having one within earshot when I’m doing most things, and was missing that.  So, when I spotted that the fourth generation Amazon Echo was on sale, I grabbed one.

 

I moved them around a bit though.  I have a second generation I was given, a third generation my Mam brought me for Christmas a couple of years ago, and now a fourth generation.  The second generation has been in our bedroom since Mam gave it to me, and the third generation was downstairs.  But I decided to move the third generation to my office instead of putting the new one in there because the fourth generation looks fancier, and there’s more chance visitors will see the downstairs one.  I mean, other than appearance there’s not much difference between them anyhow.  Yes, there are some devices with extra features and such, but mine are just different versions of the Alexa speaker, so their appearance is the only real difference from what I can tell.

 

*~*

 

The extra Alexa isn’t the only new device I have though.

 

I’ve known for ages they were working on Braille displays (Braille e readers, which can also connect to other devices to work as ways to read what’s on your screen in Braille) but only learned a few months ago via conversations on the ACB (American Council of the Blind) calls that some places were offering them free to visually impaired people via their libraries.

 

Initially I thought it wasn’t being done over here, but then I learned more recently that it was, but only for a limited time during the second half of last year, and - since I knew nothing about it - I’d missed the window to sign up.  They were now offering financial assistance to get them, but you had to get hold of certain documents I’d struggle to get hold of, so I couldn’t qualify for it in my current circumstances.  And, with the ones I’d seen listed on the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind)’s website being in the four figure sums as regards prices, I figured I wasn’t getting one any time soon.

 

I reached out to a few places, both over here and in the US, in a desperate attempt to get my hands on one, but still kept hitting the same hurdles: I either didn’t qualify, or the price tag was too high.

 

Then, on Monday, I was ordering a Braille book from the RNIB (which I’ll tell you about in a minute) and when the sales clerk asked if she could help me with anything else, I jokingly said she could give me a free Braille display if she wanted.  She said she couldn’t, but would put me through to the grants team to see if they could help me, or direct me to someone who could.  I didn’t hold out much hope, since I’d looked in to that already, but I figured it didn’t hurt to talk to them, so I let her do it.  I mean, maybe I’d missed something on their website, right?

 

The conversation with the grants team went pretty much how I expected, with the exception of one thing: a comment by the guy who was telling me about it where he mentioned the grant was for a much lower sum than I’d seen their Braille displays listed for, and – when I questioned that – informed me that one of them - the Orbit 20 - was, in fact, a price that was just about in my price range (though only just).

 

Naturally, the first thing I did when I got off the phone with him was to look for it on their website to verify this.

 

It was true.

 

Why I hadn’t found it when I was looking for the other Braille displays, I have no idea.  But there it was.

 

So, I told Kelly about it.  He told me to get myself one, which I did.

 

I ordered it on Monday.  Even though it was being couriered, I hadn’t expected to get it until today – maybe even next week.  But, nope.  I got it Tuesday.  And I’m loving it!

 

As an added bonus: the RNIB sends them with a bunch of books already loaded on to their SD cards, and among them were some amazing books, including the entire seven book set of the Harry Potter books! Yeah… Guess what the first thing I’m reading with my Orbit 20 braille display is? Because, you know, I haven’t read those books enough times yet. LOL!

 

And I have a piece of software called     BrailleBlaster (click on its name to go to the website it comes from) which is officially designed to enable students to convert textbooks to Braille for their devices.  But there’s no rule that says you have to be using it for that, and it will convert any document (assuming it’s in one of the supported file formats to start with) so I can use it when I get given digital copies of books to review to have the choice of whether I want to read it on my computer, Kindle, or Orbit.

 

*~*

As for the Braille book I mentioned ordering… Well, that’s not actually here yet, since it’s coming with regular articles for the blind post, and that can take quite a while sometimes.  But I’ll tell you what I ordered anyhow.

 

So, among the things I inherited from my Nan when I got her craft supplies was her set of tatting shuttles.

 

Nan started teaching me how to do tatting when I was in my late teens, but I accidentally left the stuff at their house when I left to go to Canada and forgot about it.  By the time I had another chance, I’d forgotten what she showed me, and never got around to having her try again to teach me how to do it.

 

I know Nan would willingly try again to teach me if she was still here to do it, but – since she isn’t – and I want to try and make use of those tatting shuttles ,I ordered a Braille book on learning tatting, in hopes I can figure out how to do it by myself.  Wish me luck.  LOL!

 

 *~*

 

OK.  Well, that's the news from my part of the world.  So, tell me, what's new with you?