I don’t know if you have heard of them or not but there are spectacles you can buy which enable people who are colour-blind, to see the world as it really is. They are made by a company called Enchroma.

I have watched many videos on YouTube where a friend or family member gives someone they love these Enchroma glasses and the reactions are beautiful. You can often see them sliding them down and back up again, to see the two worlds they are simultaneously inhabiting – the world as others view it and the world they have lived in up until then.

What struck me though is how many of the people talk about the many different shades of green there are. Not the striking red rose on the balcony beside them or the stunning yellow flowers across from them. No, it’s the different shades of green in the one hedgerow or the trees in their field of vision.

I had never thought about the various shades of green all around me. The next nice day weather-wise, I stood outside and at first all I saw was a big block of green but then as I looked, I noticed the various different shades within that. It blew my mind. Why had I not noticed this before?

Then I heard the birds. Not just one continuous background sound but all the various individual birds within that. Before then, I had simply taken them for granted because they were always there I suppose. I made a cup of tea and came back outside. The world was revealing itself anew to my 40+ year old eyes and ears.

When I have tried to tell others about this, some have openly jeered/mocked me while others have looked at me pityingly. Not one person has taken seriously what I have said, as if it’s of little to no importance and perhaps in the grand scheme of things it maybe doesn’t appear so however I feel that if more of us approached the everyday, and some might say, mundane aspects of life with renewed interest I don’t feel that can ever be a bad thing.