Chris's Blind folded weekend!Chris decided to spend one weekend blindfolded. No need to say more, his experience and lessons, all in his own words here: (excerpts from his email)
Friday: headed out in to town after speaking to you by which point the guys I was meeting were well on their way to being very drunk. After a few more drinks and being turned away from one club for being “a big group of lads” (there were 5 of us) we ended up in the main club in town which suited me down to the ground as it was the monthly breakbeat night. It did mean that I didn’t get home until well gone 4am and then blindfolded myself so that I would wake up like that in the morning…
Saturday daytime: Woke up in the morning and realised my first problem, after negotiating going to the toilet, was working out what the time was and if I should be up and about or if I could justify more time in bed. The radio was my best bet though I had to wait 10 minutes until the news came on before the first time check was given (9:30). Leony came back in to the house not too long after that after her night out and helped me choose something to wear (and she ironed it for me, bless her cotton socks) though I had to do the whole dressing thing by myself which wasn’t actually that tricky. She was meeting her mum on a coffee shop in one of the department stores in town so I went with her. Unfortunately we didn’t park particularly close to the shop we were going to and although I had got Leony used to the idea that I was going to have to hold on to her arm and be lead in a very trusting fashion it took a few goes for her to remember to point out things like curbs etc. Oddly only had one stranger, an old lady, come up to me and ask what I was doing though I’m informed I did get a few strange looks. Had a coffee and panini & chips though decided that using my hands was a far better idea than a knife and fork. After a bit of a chat with Leony’s mum about the wall paper for her new downstairs toilet headed back to the car and back home for the afternoon. Oddly this part of the day was one of the most challenging – what do you do with yourself when you can’t see. Couldn’t watch TV, read a book, text people (though I did have eD on speed dial but he didn’t answer), use the computer, go for a walk, tidy up or any of the other pottering around activities that usually fill my Saturdays. Could just about mix but I couldn’t tell which records I had picked until I started playing them. In the end went back to bed to try and catch up on my sleep, listened to the radio for a bit and had a go at listening to Deal or no deal…
Saturday Evening: We decided the best place to go to was the pub so had another go at the whole eating thing, this time with cutlery which seemed to go quite well and then got a taxi down to the quayside. Oddly the taxi driver didn’t ask what I was doing, I hate to think what he assumed. Went in, got some drinks, sat down and then met up with a couple of Leony’s friends. I was pretty much totally reliant on other people and had to trust them enough just to hand over my wallet to buy drinks with, for them not put anything in my drink or just up and leave me where I was. Mave, who I used to live with, had just started working at the pub we were in and after explaining what we were doing mentioned that Mark Ronson (who probably hasn’t reached as far as France yet but I will play you the CD when you get here, I think you’ll like it) was playing over in World HeadQuarters, a club on the far side of town. After a few drinks the best way to get there was obviously all to link arms with me somewhere in the middle and walk, attempting a kind of obstacle course between bollards, under ropes and traffic signs. When we got to the club there was a queue so went in to the pub opposite for yet more drinks before finally making our way over to the club about 1am. Like I mentioned before the bouncer took my blindfold off at this point but as it was rammed inside that probably wasn’t such a bad thing, I’d only have ended up seriously damaging myself or others. Needless to say everyone agreed the club night was an absolute cracker and eventually got a taxi home about 4:30.
Sunday: (just for the sake of completeness). Went out to see Leony’s parents for lunch in a pub in a village close to where she used to live, met some more people who lived in that area for some tea and had a fairly quiet evening.
After all that the points I am going to take away from the whole experience are:
· I don’t know quite what’s happened to people but either they’re not very inquisitive or there is a general phobia in this country of speaking to strangers as through the course of the whole day, apart from people I knew already or friends of Leony’s, I was only asked what I was doing wandering round with a blindfold on by one old woman in the coffee shop and a couple in the queue for the cash machine (who were p1ssed).
· Finding things to amuse yourself, when no one else is around, can be very tricky. I think I would have to learn to use a musical instrument or something along those lines as I think it would be the boredom that would get to me first. Even in the short time I had I ended up just going back to bed, partly because I was knackered after going out the night before and but partly also because I had nothing better to do.
· How well the whole thing went depended largely on the fact that Leony was up for it, generally willing to help out despite the fact that imposed a lot on her time, took a lot of effort and possibly more importantly did it in the right mind frame which was to have a laugh and experiment rather than it being a burden. It’s very important in that sort of situation to surround yourself with the right people.
· It’s reinforced how poor my hearing is, I was really having to concentrate on what people were saying without any visual pointers to help out.
· Doing things in the house wasn’t as tricky as I thought it might be as I had a fair idea of where everything was and what everything felt like. If this had been done in someone else’s house I have a feeling it would have been a different kettle of fish.
· Even after the short time I was without sight when the blindfold was taken off in the club sight was, for want of better words, a real novelty and quite exciting to have. Bizarrely though I found myself missing the blindfold for the next few hours, though whether this was as I hadn’t been able to see through what I had set out to do (no pun intended) or whether I had just got used to relying on others and having no responsibility for what was going on, which is surprisingly easy to get in to, at least for short periods of time if you let it, I couldn’t tell you.
· From the other point of view there’s a lot of small things to remember you might not think of such as saying someone’s name before speaking to them else they won’t respond, not using phrases like “over there” or “that way” and pointing out things like curbs when leading people that you wouldn’t normally consider an obstacle.
· And possibly most important of all, if you ever do end up losing your sight, go to the pub – it’s far more fun than sitting around at home.
Marathon-Training-Log
