The conference venue is nice and bright and welcoming with really good coffee. So we were quite happy to wait for the fun to start.  Being early has meant that the offered guide from Holloway Road station wasn’t needed but actually it was quite easy to find with location being on the same road as the tube station.

Everyone seems to be really friendly though it’s hard to push past the nerves of being in a new place and new people and lots of noise to speak to many people to start with.

I force myself to talk to a lovely lady, her dad and her guide dog, who turns out to be speaking during the conference.  Having that initial really positive interaction made a big difference to how I felt the rest of the day would go.

We were showed were we could hang our coats, put our bags, get a drink and waited for the fun to begin.

I’m really glad my hubby was with me, who has sight as I think I might have struggled with the whole experience without his support emotionally and practically.

I found the speakers very interesting on the whole, but not having been to a conference about something so personal to me before, I found the experience quite intense.

I would definitely recommend you go to a future conference, if you want to find out more about aniridia and get the benefit of other’s experiences.  Even though I needed to pluck up a lot of courage to find and talk to people it was definitely worth it, 100%.

I left knowing more, feeling more like there were different possibilities in the future than I had thought of and like I belonged to an extra family full of support and shared experiences.

I will be waiting keenly for the next conference dates to be announced.