On Thursday 5^th February 2026, I once again made the journey to Warwick Arts Centre (WAC).

This time was a little different to my last visit to WAC. This time I had to go alone – using the train.  Being February, it was still rainy, so I took a taxi from my house to Derby train station.

I find taxi journeys difficult. The drivers drive too fast for me which is not good for my vertigo. This makes me feel sick and dizzy. Once I have arrived at my destination, I need to take a moment to compose myself. I also find the smell of the air fresheners that they use in the cabs very strong and overpowering, which makes me nauseous, unless I can open a window.  In addition, sometimes the choice and volume of the driver’s music adds to a very uncomfortable journey.  Sometimes sleep is the only way I can block out all these different sensations.

As I live in Derby, I had to get up much earlier than usual to be on time for the training day.  It was necessary to take my medication, bathe and dress all before 9am. Usually, I would not start my personal care routine until 10am.

Once at Derby station I brought my tickets from the ticket office. I like to speak to a human being, as if anything goes wrong, you know directly who you are speaking with. I cannot remember the specific details of this train journey as it was a while ago so I will just say that I went back to sleep until we changed at Birmingham and then transferred onto the Coventry train. I went to the Sainsbury’s next to Coventry station to buy lunch and then I got another taxi to Warwick Arts Centre. I did not want to risk a bus journey as I found it incredibly stressful on my last bus experience.

I arrived at Warwick Arts Centre at approximately 10am and what struck me was that it was like a different building. It was so lovely and quiet when there were no students about.

I went to the loo and set up in my chair to wait for Liz and Lilly to arrive. As they were not due until around 11am, it gave me time to catch up with my work and enjoy a hot chocolate.  Liz arrived at 11am and we had our meeting to go through the progress and status of our partnering theatre venues and what actions that needed to be done. We also discussed how we felt the project was going so far.

Just before lunch, Bethany joined us and took us to the training room space so that we could set up. It was a different room this time. Still just as lovely but we had to make sure we were set up so that everyone could see the presentation screen. Lilly arrived and set up her recording equipment and created an area in the training space so that she could be comfortable taking photographs and filming.

We had an hour for lunch, and during this time, I received a notification to let me know that I had got the role as The Cheshire Cat in Your Chance productions, Alice in Wonderland, this summer at The Duchess Theatre in Long Eaton. This made me feel really happy and positive and was a great start to the training session!

The learners were just as engaged this time as they were during the first session, which was fantastic. They appeared to enjoy our ‘taking things literally’ quiz and they even cheered when they got to redesign their own signage around the building.

The group was very engaged and focussed during the exploring ‘easy read’ guides section of the training. I really enjoyed the role play activity with the tech team – now forever fondly named the ‘corner lads’, as they sat in the space we had allocated for the role play section.

They were good sports and helped us demonstrate how to make meetings more accessible. Examples such as: lowering lights and allowing people to choose their own seats, are such powerful and impactful examples of how access can be implemented in a way that is potentially life changing for the person who needs those adjustments.

We filmed some parts of the sessions for future training purposes and also for people who were unable to attend that week. One of the areas filmed was sharing our experiences of how to support communities with unknown access needs and developing relationships with them.  (I was really pleased with how the footage came out.)

The session went very quickly but we had allocated time to help the learners design session 3. All the learners contributed to this and it was so lovely experiencing the staff openly sharing their ideas, bonding and laughing together. This was great to see as I know that they may not always have time to meet in this way due to their busy and demanding work commitments.

I left Warwick Arts Centre feeling incredibly pleased with how the training was going. You never really know what impact your words have made on someone, and I believe kindness spreads like a ripple effect.

I am hoping that what the staff learnt in this session, could also apply to family members and friends etc so the training reaches more people than just those in the room.

On my return journey to Derby, I was able to reflect on the session and I realised that the experience of creating and designing a training package has also helped me to expand – not just professionally but personally. I have been able to cope with more things that life has thrown at me, such as uncertainty of train timings and managing meeting new people in environments I am not familiar with.

I would like to thank Warwick Arts Centre for engaging with the training in such a committed and enthusiastic way. Hopefully this will lead to many more collaborations in future.

I would like to thank Open Theatre Company not only for their support with this project but for their encouragement and support of me for the last eight years.

I would like to thank Liz and Lilly for being a dream team and helping me manage my mental wellbeing and the delivery of this project.

Finally, I would like to thank Arts Council England for providing us the funding and opportunity to develop this training and work with such fantastic people. I do not know what this adventure will lead to, but I am certain there will be something positive and accessible at the end of the tunnel.