In the summer of 2012 I visited Blind Veterans UK. Its story fascinated me…this is what I found.
The logo for Blind Veterans UK
Changing names is never easy. St Dunstan’s has had to move very carefully. Nearly a century old, and trusted by the blind, it shed its name in February to become Blind Veterans UK.
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Gelato Village Leicester, England
The trip to Leicester was an impulse – something to do with the heatwave, and meeting Antonio De Vecchi and Daniele Taverna in Turin. All we talked about in Turin was food, and their passion was gelato…so much of a passion that they started Gelato Village in Leicester, England.
I’d never been to Leicester. Now I had two reasons to go.
The cold breath of Storm Emma reaches Cornwall
Should we go? Shouldn’t we go? Mad to go! Mad not to go! Outside the window the snow drifts … ominous and unsettled.
“If we can get out of here the middle looks quiet.”
“No storm here yet,” they assure us in St Ives.
Gargoyle on Gloucester Cathedral, England
Gloucester is a city with heart and a sense of self. It knows its bones, and lays them out with pride.
Sidmouth, Devon, England
Happiness … a folk festival set in a patchwork bowl beside the sea.
Early August means FolkWeek when Sidmouth, in Devon, ties bells below her knees, plumps her seafront with craft stalls, and flies a few tunes up her hillsides.
The docks in Liverpool, England
My first real visit to Liverpool was on foot this summer. I didn’t walk all the way but I did do five miles through the outskirts to the cathedral as part of a fundraising walk on a hot, sunny Sunday.
It was only afterwards that I learned about the tension – that the city’s world heritage status was on the gangplank, and that Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) was about to decide whether or not to give Liverpool the final shove.
(Handmade, handheld video of degree ceremony. Focus is clear by second 8! Pneumatic drill was not mine.)
Oxford and its university are dug deep into England.
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