Project 365 day 304: Rainy

Saturday - Halloween - was exceptionally wet and windy. I was not enthusiastic to go outside, so I was grateful to J for noticing this leaf stuck to the rain-speckled window. It's from the large shrub outside the dining room, which has produced wonderful, constantly changing leaf colours with clearly defined veins; they figure in J's pressed leaf animation, which is taking shape.

J joined the 1Voice Halloween party on Zoom, which means I had to be there to provide sign language interpretation. 1Voice is a small charity which supports children and young people using alternative and augmentative communication, most of them with speaking computers broadly of the kind made famous by Stephen Hawking. 1Voice has been an important part of our lives for twenty years, providing friendship, inspiration and fun and raising aspirations for the young people it supports and their families. The party brought together old friends and new, and was followed by a DJ set by a talented teenager who operates DJ software with his eye gaze system. The novelty of seeing a screen full of thumbnails of people dancing, many in wheelchairs, in their bedrooms and a kitchens, has long passed, but it was very well done and a lot of fun. After all this excitement, the day's second big event: after months of anticipation, was the first episode of the new Dr Who series. J has been a huge fan since it returned to the BBC in 2005, watching every episode and collecting every DVD. She pronounced it really exciting but a little bit confusing, and it ended with the expected cliffhanger.