Sport Spectator Turned Sport Journalist

July 2021 has been a crazy month, full of work, mostly as a sport journalist, socialising, entertainment and disappointment all in one.

Disability Horizons

Of course, if you read my blog regularly, you should know by now a majority of my time is focused on creating and producing amazing content for Disability Horizons. However, this month has been busier than ever for two reasons.

Firstly, it’s 25 days until the start of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games and I’ve spent the past few weeks as a sport journalist organising and conducting interviews with athletes from Team GB set to compete next month.

We’ve published three interviews so far and expected to feature up to 20 athletes over the next four weeks:

The second reason I’ve been busy at DH HQ is because our editor has been off work for a couple of weeks and put her trust in me to write, edit and schedule most of our content on the site this month.

Therefore, as well as my usual work, I edited and uploaded articles from other contributors and bloggers in our community:

All my Disability Horizons content is now available to view in one place on the Emma Purcell Author’s page. This link can also be accessed on the “Disability Horizons” button on the menu page on the left of this site.

My featured content, product articles and sponsored posts for Disability Horizons can be viewed in my Journo Portfolio.

To read my latest news stories, interviews and featured articles on a regular basis, as well as browse other content from the rest of the amazing DH team, subscribe to the Disability Horizons newsletter.

AccessAble

After over a year, I got to publish a new blog post for AccessAble about the accessibility features available on the AccessAble app – 5 accessibility features to help browse the AccessAble App on your device.

Football

Now I know it’s been three weeks since England’s heartbreak defeat in the Euro 2020 final, but I just want to take the positives from it.

We beat Germany for the first time in 55 years, we thrashed Ukraine 4-0 and we reached a final for the first time and reached it all the way to penalties.

I admit, as someone who only follows League One football and barely knew most of the England squad until this tournament, I didn’t have much hope to be honest.

But as the tournament went on, I grew to like the team more and understand each player. I definitely have more hope for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

In the meantime, I get to enjoy the Women Team GB squad compete at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games over the next couple of weeks.

Although, sadly in the past few minutes Team GB were knocked out in the quarter final against Australia. They worked hard but it wasn’t meant to be.

Roll on Portsmouth in the League One season next week – Play Up Pompey!

Guide dog dream is over

Over 18 months ago. I had an assessment to see if I would be eligible for a guide dog. I was awaiting to meet with a specialist to try out harnesses and other adapted equipment. Of course, Covid-19 hit, and it was postponed.

This year I’ve continued to wait for a suitable time to meet with this specialist. But then a couple of weeks ago I was told that the man I was hoping to meet is no longer in that role and I will not be meeting him.

They said that they met with a lady with a similar disability to me about three years ago and discovered it wouldn’t be possible for her to use a guide dog one-handed and control a wheelchair.

Therefore, they’ve looked at my application and came to the conclusion they cannot continue my application process for the same reason, unless I was permitted to speak to an OT and fund for head controls on my wheelchair, in the knowledge this may not work too.

I understand the likelihood of me getting a guide dog was slim, but I’m slightly disappointed in how the Guide Dogs charity handled my application. For a year and a half, I was under the impression I was awaiting to meet with this specialist before making a final decision. Now, I’ve been told the service is unavailable and there is nothing more they can do.

I still think Guide Dogs is an amazing organisation for people with sight loss and they do have alternative services I’m planning to look into, but to wait 18 months for an additional assessment and then nothing to happen, is slightly frustrating.

Friend reunion

I managed to go on a day out to visit my friend Lottie, who I had not seen since February 2020. The amusing thing about Lottie, is she isn’t the most organised and can be very forgetful.

The day before, she told me to meet her at a pub near her house at 1pm. I arrived at 1pm and got our table and ordered a drink. I then text her to say I arrived.

30 minutes later, still no sign of her, I ended up ringing her only to find out she had completely forgotten and had already begun making lunch – typical.

She then abandoned her pasta and turned up 10mins later. We finally enjoyed a pub lunch of burgers and chips and a good old catch up.

After lunch, more drama happened when Lottie discovered she had a flat tyre on her car. Luckily, there was a garage right round the corner so we then spent the next half hour chatting in a pub carpark while her tyre got changed.

We then got back to her house, chilling in the lounge and having cuddles with her dogs Lola and Milly.

Books

Sadly, I gave up on My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. It was rather slow, confusing and at time boring to be honest.

I’ve now started reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which is about the friendship and lives of four men in New York City. It was suggested by fellow blogger Caz from Invisibly Me, when she mentioned it in her RFD Question Time interview.

It is a rather long book and at times I get confused which character is in each chapter, but I’m determined to keep going with it for now.

TV

Despite my busy workload, I still managed to get through a fair bit of TV this month. Of course, the first two weeks were mostly filled with the Euro 2020 football.

I binged watched the fourth series of Atypical on Netflix, which was awesome.

I also watched a few stand-up comedy shows on Amazon Prime including Chris Ramsey, Josh Widdicombe and Adam Hills.

In addition, I’m three-quarters the way through an Apple Original crime drama called Home Before Dark, which is based on a true story of a nine year old investigative journalist who uses her publication to solve mysteries in her local town.

I binge-watched up to series two episode seven but then found out new episodes are every Friday. So, I got to wait three weeks for the conclusion.

Audio Description petition

My campaign for audio description has continued throughout July 2021 and the petition has reached 3379 signatures, which is great!

But I’m eager to reach thousands. The more signatures we get, the more likely changes could be made within the TV & films industries. Please, please, PLEASE continue to sign & share my petition!

Guest Bloggers Wanted

I’m still eager to collaborate with even more bloggers in 2021. So, if you’re a lifestyle, disability and/or music blogger, send me your blog stories. Plus let me know if you’d like me to feature on your blog as a guest blogger.

I’m flexible with any type of blog posts; life story, disability awareness, music event, musician promotion – basically anything to do with life, disability or music!

In addition, I have a guest blog series called “RFD Question Time with…” where I interview disabled people and/or bloggers. If you’d like to be interviewed in this series, please also contact me.

Blog post roundup

In case you missed any of my blog posts this month, here is a roundup of them:

5 favourite blog posts

Here are my 5 favourite blog posts I’ve read this month:

What Will AR Glasses Do for Disabled People? at The Life Quadriplegic
The Biggest Life Lessons I Learnt In My Early Twenties at New Lune
THE OBVIOUS ANSWER IS NOT ALWAYS THE WHOLE STORY at Sightlessmusings
Disability Pride Month at From This Window
The Rise and Fall at Diary of a Disabled Person