I work part-time for the National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI), editing its talking magazine, Focus, which is sent out fortnightly to more than 1,000 people free of charge.

I also do a little bit of reporting for RTE's Audioscope and a little bit now and again for Not So Different. I'm just back from a crazy charity cycle, 3,000 miles from the east coast of America to the west coast on a tandem, which took 26 days. I'm an early riser - I'd be up at about 7 a.m. First thing I do is feed and groom my guide dog, Becky, and then feed myself. Depending on the day it is, I might be sitting at my computer, which, of course, is a special computer for blind and visually impaired, because it talks to me. At present, I'm working on an article about my trip across America.

If I have to go into PV Doyle House, which is the headquarters of the NCBI, Becky and I will take off, and - if it's a fine morning - walk down to the DART in Bray, Co Wicklow, where I live. That's about 35 minutes' walk. I am a fitness freak. I love to be fit. I love to walk and I love to cycle. I don't drink or smoke.

I get on the DART, go into Dublin and, again, if it's a fine day, walk over to Drumcondra from Tara Street. If it's a wet day, like it is this afternoon, I'll jump into a bus or taxi. At the NCBI, I pick up my mail for the magazine.

The magazine goes out on cassette, and then we ask the recipients if they have a comment to make on the magazine or about anything they've heard. They can actually record their message on the tape and place an elastic band around so that I'll know there is a message for me. I'll maybe do one or two interviews in the studio there. I'll do those interviews, then come home on a crowded DART and fight my way through the mass of humanity that is Tara Street station at 5 p.m. I have to prevent at least three people from feeding my dog: "Yeah, she likes crisps but she's not getting one."

This evening I'll have my dinner, then look through the mail that I've got. When I say "look", I put the mail through my scanner, and have my computer read my mail back to me. I have a piece of equipment called a Braille and Speak, which is rather like a laptop - but it's not a computer, it's a note-taker. I can write braille into that and it will store it for me, or I can hook it up to my computer to print out.

Tonight I will work on the script for the magazine at the same time as listening to the match on television. I'm a sports fanatic. I could possibly make some phone calls and arrange things for next week, because next week I'll be probably going down to Cork to do some interviews for RTE's Audioscope. Being in the media, these things can happen out of the blue. I enjoy doing what I'm doing because it's so variable.

My autobiography, called Out of Sight, was published a few years ago and did very well. I would like to continue writing. I would love to write for newspapers. I would like to write a bit more about disability, because it's a coming thing.

Awareness is coming, but not as far as I would like. For instance, if I walk down to my local DART station with my dog and get on the train, everybody thinks (A) I'm brave and (B) it's a miracle. It isn't, because both myself and my dog have been trained to do this.

So, I'm slowly converting people around me to seeing that Joe Bollard isn't brave and he's not a miracle. He's just a guy who's outgoing, who enjoys life, enjoys a good laugh, loves his music and loves people.

In conversation with John Cradden