Excuses, excuses…

The reason for my late blog today is my new haircut! Hurrah!
Now, don’t get too excited – it’s much the same as before just without the straggly ratty ends.
I thought about going brunnette but Shakira-Shakira said NO! I thought about getting a bob but I think it would make my
already-round face look about 10ft wide! So instead I just got a trim, but now when I turn my head my hair goes swish, swoosh
over my shoulders as though I'm in a Timotei advert!
However, as a result of using my lunch hour for a haircut, I now have lots of very important work to do!
So it's hair today and blog tomorrow…

My cider-drinking weekend

I had a lovely weekend in Devon with Onion-Soup Mate and FSA Boy and drank ever such a lot of cider! I didn’t even think that I liked cider, but then the last time I had it was in my friend’s bedroom in the late 90s and the brand was White Lightening!

My journey down was uneventful except for my change in Bristol where the Platform Person’s whistle nearly made me fall over. To cut a long story short, there I was, stood on the platform, a train to Cardiff waiting to depart, when suddenly a whistle blew, and I found myself crouched down gripping a railing, one hand clasped around my head, suitcase thrown one way, handbag the other. Seriously, this whistle was so loud I expected to see the Four Horsemen come riding in.

The woman with the whistle thought it was hilarious and I think a lot of the people on the train did, too!

*blush

Anyway, once there, we certainly packed a lot into the weekend. On Saturday morning we went to see the most haunted castle in England – there was an audio guide so Onion-Soup-Mate translated for me and together we learnt about Berry Pommeroy and it’s fairly tragic history. In the bottom of a turret that was dark, damp and eerie, we learnt of Margaret, who was imprisoned there and starved to death by her jealous sister – I tried to do a runner but OSM stopped me and we sat for a while wondering where her ghost was.

Growing impatient, I kind of ruined the mood by yelling ‘Margaret, Margaret!’ like Matt Lucas does in Little Britain!

*tut tut!

There was also apparently a Blue Lady ghost whose presence meant death –so I kept my eyes shut when hearing about her!

On Sunday, we went to see Big Top and Little Top for lunch, which was lovely and delicious and I was very sad to leave for my train home. Had I known what lay ahead, I would have refused to leave.

I had booked a seat in the Quiet Coach, thinking I could have a nap, read and enjoy a restful atmosphere on my return to London.

*ha bloody ha

The quiet coach was rammed, with people who were sat in other people’s reserved seats – so there were shouting matches at every station. In the gangway stood a Spanish boy of about 10 who sang badly throughout the journey and to my left sat a 3 year old who had the loudest learning toy ever that kept emitting tinny music. Opposite her, sat her brother who was playing on a Nintendo DS and kept shrieking at it. Beside him sat their mother who didn’t seem to think there was any problem with the ruckus her children were making… in the QUIET COACH! I had to bite my tongue to prevent myself from standing up and screaming ‘SILENCE’ like some sort of demented newly-qualified teacher.

Across the gangway sat an man, whose expression of horror mirrored mine for much of the journey. If anything, I feel more sympathy for him, because I am deaf – and if the racket was that bad for me, I hate to imagine what it was like for him.

Thankful Friday strikes again…

Thankful Friday has come around awfully quickly this week! Where does the time go?

Well, as usual I have a host of things to be thankful for – one is my wonderful Pa who spent the morning packing up my room at home for the decorators. He’s not been well recently and did it in spite of that… and my lack of minimalism meant that this was probably a stressful and time consuming event for him.

*Guilty pause…

Moving on, I am also thankful for the sunshine! I am off to see Onion-Soup Mate in Devon this weekend and the sun is due to shine all weekend. She’s married to FSA Boy and they have a lovely house, which I have yet to see. I am most excited about seeing it and also about the cream tea that I have been promised.

We are also going to see Big Top and Little Top, Onion-Soup Mate’s mum and dad – they are fabulous and over the years put up with the entire university climbing club pitching tents in their garden, drinking their tea supplies dry and talking during the Grand Prix… actually it was just me doing the latter as it’s soooooooo boring.

I have just checked and there is a Grand Prix this weekend…

*Harrumph

I just don’t really get it that’s all – the cars go round and round and round and round until someone, usually Lewis Hamilton, wins. Sometimes drivers are ordered not to win and there’s lots of scandals and spilled champagne. Hmmmmm!

However, this particular race, which is in Singapore, actually sounds quite exciting though as it’s the first night race in Formula-One history and the first street race in Asia, too…

Maybe I will watch it after all…

It's pink and fabulous

Yesterday my credit card took a hammering! But when the reason for the plundering of my savings arrived my smile was so wide that even my bank manager would have forgiven me. Thankfully he doesn’t need to know as I had kind of been saving especially.

I am now the proud new owner of the smallest pink laptop I have ever seen… it’s actually called a notebook but it kind of looks like a laptop that never grew.
I am completely and utterly in love with it actually and, after much exploring last night, with the help of Big Bro, I think it and me are going to be good friends.

Now, I do have another laptop but it’s so old that it wheezes when you switch it on and the battery has long since given up so it needs to be constantly connected to the power supply. It was an emergency replacement laptop after the demise of my three previous ones.

Actually thinking back to all their grizzly ends, I am a little bit nervous about my new one. To be fair the first one wasn’t my fault – it was at Uni in my first year and a naughty man broke into my room and made off with it.

*sniff

Number 2 met a sticky end while I was writing my dissertation as I poured a pint of water over it. It hiccupped for months before I finally replaced it.

Number 3 met the stickiest end of all… I dropped a lever arch file on it and shattered the screen. I remember calling up my boyfriend at the time, Rock Boy who worked for IBM, and asking him if it was repairable as I had three urgent articles due in for my post grad. It as 2am and like every knight-in-shining-armour would, he came over with a spare laptop of his that I could use and gently broke it to me that my own laptop was um… broke

Mental note to self, must keep my new one away from heavy things that fall, burglars and pint glasses of water…

My main reason for buying my mini pink laptop is that my paper notebooks are getting full. I always carry one with me for scribbling new ideas in – I start from one end with stories I am working on and from the other with ideas for Deafinitely Girly… but just recently I have been meeting in the middle with the most alarming frequency.

So I had the idea of getting an ultra-portable laptop that I can fish out of my bag on the bus and tap-tap away whenever I get inspiration. It’s also got wireless internet and whatnot so now, wherever I am I can do the blog…

No more posts of ‘Yah, I’m jetting off to Monaco/Paris/Istanbul so won’t be writing today…’

No, no, no, no, no – Deafinitely Girly is going mobile and she’s hoping you’ll follow her!

Hear the world…

…make it a better place!?

That’s what Bryan Adams wants to do with his photographs at the Hear the World Ambassadors Photography Collection in Zurich this week. He’s the official photographer for Hear the World, although I must confess I thought he was the guy who sang at the end of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. Apparently though, he does both!

It turns out that Hear the World is a global Phonak (Hearing aid peeps for those of you who don’t know) initiative to raise awareness about the importance of good hearing and the impact of hearing loss. The press release I found also said that 500 million people suffer from hearing loss, the discovery of which prompted me to break into another Michael Jackson song You Are Not Alone – as according to this, I am not.

I checked out Mr Adams’s photos on the Hear the World website and there are loads of famous music-related faces jumping on the bandwagon including Annie Lennox, Kelly Osbourne and Amy Winehouse… although I think the latter has a bit more to worry about health wise than going deaf.

I don’t really know what to say about this initiative to be honest – I don’t really think it’s meant to excite already-deaf people like me – more impress the importance of not damaging your hearing on peeps who as yet don’t have a hearing loss.

What did make me chuckle was the Facts About Hearing section, which was subtitled as ‘Our ears never sleep’. What part of our body, when considered individually, does sleep? If a sciencey person knows the answer please let me know, but my non-sciencey self has had a think and the brain doesn’t sleep – it’s still working away when we’re snoring, none of our vital organs sleep – well at least I hope they don’t or we’d all be dead.

For all you hearies out there though, there’s a rather interesting section called Hear the World with different ears, which allows you to listen to how people with hearing loss hear music. You can check it out at http://www.hear-the-world.com/hoeren_und_hoerverlust/hoeren_mit_hoerschwierigkeit.htm

Please let me know what you think. I am going to have a listen too – then I will be a deaf person listening to how a deaf person hears music…

Hmmmmm

Tree, little, milk, egg, book – hearing test I took…

A look in my diary this morning has shown that I am due for a hearing test soon. I haven’t minded the last few visits I’ve made to the audiology clinic as I have a great new audiologist who is determined to find hearing aids that will help me.

She hasn’t succeeded yet, but she has the patience of a saint and the most incredible determination. Last time I visited she told me that she’d been researching on the internet and had come across a company that are creating hearing aid that can change the pitch of sounds. This would be amazing for me as I could make all the high noises I can’t hear, lower.

Thinking about it though, it could be a little weird, too. A cat walks past me and meows – to everyone else this is a fragile high-pitched bleat… to me it sounds like a lion on acid.

But do you know, on my first visit to the audiology clinic they didn’t believe I was deaf. It was shortly after meeting Fab Friend, nearly four years ago. Her success with digital aids convinced me to make get a referral – which involved my GP checking my ears for wax, just in case that had been making me deaf all these years.

*Hah, I wish!

As I hadn’t had a hearing test for over eight years due to moving house and university, no one at the clinic seemed to know the whereabouts of my notes and all they had to go on was a GP referral to confirm my ears were wax free.

So, they shut me in a box, but I got Goldilocks syndrome – the first one was too small and made me very claustophobic, the second was occupied and the third one was just right. Headphones on, finger poised over the button, I waited for the test to begin…

SILENCE

The lady testing me came into the room. ‘Press the button when you hear the sounds,’ she said.
‘I will,’ I replied as she shut the metre-thick door.

Again, I readied myself for the beeps.

SILENCE

Again she came back in and fiddled around with the machine. ‘It’s not broken,’ she said. ‘Why aren’t you pressing the button?’
‘Because there aren’t any beeps,’ I replied before biting down hard on my tongue to prevent any sarcastic follow-ups.

She went out again and after a few moments some low beeps started playing, so I pressed the button and then it went silent again for quite a while until she came back in – a grave look on her face.

‘I’d like you to see a consultant,’ she said and after a few minutes I was ushered through to meet the bespectacled little man.
‘We have found you are very very deaf,’ he said.

‘Yes, I know I am very deaf,’ I told him, wondering if he was going to say anything more enlightening than that. ‘I did let the others know, but I don’t think they believed me.’

‘Have you always had blue eyes?’ he asked. ‘Any heart, liver or kidney problems?’ he added quickly.

‘Um, yes and no – not that I know of.’ At this, my heart began beating very fast as I imagined all sorts of worse-case scenarios and wondered how crap ears could affect my vital organs.

‘OK, you are free to go,’ he said.

And that was that…

I thought about hitting Google to see what I could find out, but I have a pact with myself never to type medical symptoms in and hit search. The reason for this is that you will always have cancer. If you have a sore toe, it will be toe cancer, a sore tongue – tongue cancer, a sore head – a brain tumour.

If I Google this I will be scared forever…

*Squeak

Can you get ear cancer?

My friend Pete…

This weekend I saw Big Bro and his wife, Maxi Clog and their son, Mini Clog. Mini Clog is quite the most gorgeous thing in the whole world and it was lovely to meet him again after so long. When he called me aunty I almost fainted with shock, having quite forgotten that I am one.

*note to self – must try and act a little more responsibly…

I got to see Nottnum Cousin 2 and Nottnum Uncle too, and it was so nice to see so many of the important men in my life in one weekend! Men I find are classed in several categories… there are those who I love, those who I really really like, and those who I wish would take life-long sabbaticals to Timbuktu… and then, there’s Pete.

Now, the reason I’m on first-name terms with the ticket officer at the Rents’ station is that quite simply, he seems to think his sole purpose in his life is to make my life miserable… and I’m not just being my usual egocentrical self either. He’d let a ticketless vagrant through those barriers sooner than he’d allow me through.

So let’s set the scene…

In order to enjoy a full weekend at the rents, I often choose to return at stupid o’clock on a Monday morning and, due to rail fares being half my monthly salary, I choose the cheapest option available, which allows me to take one of two trains an hour.

Now, this is all well and good – and in an organised country like Switzerland, I would have no concerns with this. But, unfortunately, this is England and both those trains are owned by Richard Branson.

To be fair, I’ve got nothing against him personally, but I do have a problem with a company that thinks its trains are running OK if they turn up at some point that week.

So anyway, I usually turn up at the station with a few minutes to spare and to subtly waft my ticket in Pete's direction. The first time I did this, he told me it wasn’t valid and, even though the exact time was printed on it and Mr Branson had posted it to me, he tried to make me buy a new one – the cost of which would clear a small country of its debt.

*Pah

I tried very hard to contain my tantrum and even resorted to my Cat-from-Shrek look, but nothing worked. However, eventually, when it became clear that he was WRONG and I was RIGHT, he let me through and, with about 2 seconds to spare, I hurled myself on the train.

Pete and I have come to blows no less than six times in our short ‘friendship’ – one time it cost me £18 – but to be fair, that was partly Mr B’s fault as his company decided to reschedule all of its trains to arrive the following week and that was too late for me.

One time he made me cry as I watched my train come… and go…

This morning he was there and recognised me instantly. The Spaghetti Western music started up as we squared up across the ticket barrier and he hmmmed and aaahed over my ticket, inspecting it this way and that. Eventually he said, ‘Have you got a young person’s railcard?’
‘Do I look like I should have?’ I snapped impatiently, cross with him as in big bold letters it says ‘Only valid with disabled adult’ on my ticket. In the end I said to him slowly and carefully with an edge of irate pit bull in my voice, ‘I am disabled’ and it was then I realised I had said the magic word.

He waved me through, in a flurry of DDA panic and I made my train. But I have a feeling this sorry saga is not over. I will be seeing him again in just under two weeks and I bet this time he asks to see my wooden leg as proof.

Thank crunchie* it's Friday

OK, OK, I know, it’s a poor show that the blog went up so late today but if I said it’s because I was out partying with Kate Moss last night, would you believe me?

I was actually in the same place as Kate Moss and she was right beside me… but we didn’t speak… does that constitute as partying!?

But enough of that – today is Thankful Friday so here goes…

Firstly, I am thankful for Diet Coke as it’s helping me feel a little bit better at this exact moment in time. Secondly, I am thankful for airplanes. These marvellous contraptions mean that Big Bro has come over from Clogland for a visit with his wife and my nephew Mini Clog.

Mini Clog is very clever, he’s only little and can already speak two languages. He speaks English with Big Bro and Dutch with his Ma. Apparently there are some words that he only knows in English and some he only knows in Dutch so Big Bro and his wife, Maxi Clog are often called on for different things!.

I am very excited as I haven’t seen Big Bro and his family since December, which seems and is a very long time ago. He emailed me this week to let me know that he has got me a jar of the spectacular Speculoos, which I am also thankful for and I am planning to eat it with a spoon as soon as I arrive at the Rents.

I will also be exceptionally thankful for home time tonight, as I need a nice sit down and a cup of tea.

*©Beeb Boy

Trio, triiii-o…

Last night I went to the most fabulous concert at the Wigmore Hall, which is one of my favourite concert venues in London. The inside is quite exquisite and it’s also small so you feel like you really get to ‘see’ the concert.

The Royal Festival Hall comes a close second, mainly because of the fabulously retro carpet, which is oh-so-me. Onion-Soup-Mate might not agree with me on the latter though as she was once left traumatised by a particularly long and unusual Tangerine Dream concert that my Pa and I dragged her to. Had she not have been so polite, I think she would have run, screaming from the building.

Anyway, I’m on the mailing list for the Wigmore Hall and a few weeks ago I got an email informing me that for the next two hours tickets were half price. Fabulous, I thought and visited their website immediately.

And this is where I must confess to having a rather blonde moment…

*blush

I’m not even sure I should admit to it actually – only The Writer and The Rents know about it – but in all truth, I still think it was an easy thing to misunderstand.

If I say Piano Trio what do you visualise? If like me, you thought it was three pianos, you’re wrong. But, in the short time that I thought it was three pianos, I got really excited. Three pianos I could deafinitely hear and how unique that would be, too. Wasn’t Beethoven forward-thinking for his time, I thought to myself…

and that’s where alarm bells started to ring. A quick Google revealed that a Piano Trio is usually a piano, violin and cello… So why’s it called a piano trio then?

This was still good enough for me – I always like to see things by fellow deafy Beethoven and I reckoned that it would only be the violin I wouldn’t be able to hear. So I booked my ticket.

And, it was absolutely marvellous! I couldn’t hear the violin at all, but the cello was beautiful and there was such a wonderful mix of soulful slow movements and lively and loud quick movements that I honestly felt as though I had heard the whole thing and I almost forgot I was deaf.

In the interval I got chatting to an American lady who comes to London for two months every year just to go to concerts – she’d already been to six this week and happily reeled off her forthcoming ones.

It was quite inspiring – if a little bonkers – that this woman spends her whole life at concerts… perhaps I should stop hankering after a holiday in the sun and take a holiday in London instead.

While I'm on a roll…

Oh dear, oh dear, I am having a moany week. Perhaps it’s the weather getting me down, or perhaps I need a holiday in the sun. Whatever it is though, I am going to try and get it all out of the way so I can have a Thankful Friday at the end of the week.

So what’s on my mind today then? Pah… the lack of subtitles on the BBC iPlayer. I first discovered this brilliant online service during the Olympics. I wanted to watch things like diving and gymnastics but it was all on when I was at work. But the iPlayer meant I could catch up on the latest action while munching on my M&S salad over lunch. It was great but quiet…

…the reason for this is that virtually none of the programmes on the iPlayer is subtitled. Sure, there’s a little bit in iPlayer help about how to switch subtitles on but this is totally pointless as for most programmes, there are none.

I would love to watch back episodes on Mock The Week, a programme I love, but always miss, and it would also be a great way to pass rainy lunchtimes now there is no Olympics but alas it is not meant to be.

As I have said in the past, I just don’t get the lack of subtitles when it comes to the BBC. I am a licence payer and deaf people aren’t offered reductions on their fees. Why should we pay the full whack when we have a substandard service? Granted, I am not sure the licence fee funds the iPlayer and have yet to hit Google to find out, but if these programmes are subtitled on TV, why can’t they do the same on the iPlayer? If the technology does not exist then why can’t they get someone to invent it?

And, don’t even get me started on their other products…

Jeremy Clarkson’s latest DVD? Unsubtitled. Every single Top Gear DVD ever? Unsubtitled.

I have written to the Beeb about this before but my complaint seems to be falling on deaf ears – haha – no, I didn’t laugh either…

I think for now, I am done complaining – I am sick and tired of writing emails to bigwig companies asking for better services only to be told that there’s no budget, no demand, or worse just to be ignored. And I know that if someone from the BBC explained to me why it is so rubbish, I just might see it from the Beeb’s point of view…

But for the time being, I am going to marvel at the fact that my bus has better subtitles than the BBC – this morning for example, scrolling text informed me the next bus stop was not in use… Granted, it’s not as entertaining as a subtitled iPlayer would be but for now, it’s all I have…

Two's company, four's a great expense…

After a long year of waiting, Billy Elliot is finally being shown with subtitles this evening. When I found out about it, I was so excited.

I have actually already seen it twice before – but never with subtitles and, although the music is great, I’d really love to know what people are saying that has the audience either laughing or crying the whole way through.

I told London Aunt as I know that London Cousins 1 and 2 would both love to see it and suggested that I bought them tickets as an early Christmas present. And, what’s more, the website said that subtitled tickets were £25, which seemed very reasonable.

All good so far?

I thought so. So I rattled off an excited email to the box office peeps asking for four tickets and stating that I was the deaf one. Someone duly emailed me back and told me that my companion and I would get tickets for £25, but that the seats were in the stalls so I could see the captions and that additional tickets were £60. She said it would be cheaper to get a family ticket, which cost £152.50. ‘Cheaper than what?’ I thought… a weekend away? Two trips on the Eurostar?

OK, so I know that going to the theatre is not cheap, but I thought that the whole point of subtitled theatre was to make it accessible to all. The National Theatre manage OK – I went recently and you could see the subtitles from every seat. But apparently, to see Billy Elliot with subtitles, you either have to be very rich or have only one friend.

I wrote back and politely explained that I felt it was unfair that deaf people going to the theatre with their families should have to pay the price needing to sit in expensive seats to view the subtitles and hoped to appeal to her kind side… no chance – she simply commented on the fact I had made a typo in my email to her.

In fact, I don’t even know if it is the case that you need to sit in Premium seats to see the captions – Fab Friend is unsure as she has been before and didn’t get ripped off – but I do know that the box office lady wasn’t budging at offering me a more affordable option.

I thought about lying and making my cousin deaf for the night but I don’t like lying… I thought about arguing more, but to be honest I don’t think I would have got anywhere. So tonight, I am not going to see Billy Elliot – I am going home to eat salad and baked beans and watch crap telly…

*sniff

I will take London Cousins 1 & 2 later in the year for less money, without subtitles – it is, after all, their present… perhaps someone could send me the script…

Some sciencey stuff

Here we are, another weekend over, another week beginning and a scan of the day’s news – overlooking the bankruptcy and financial despair – has revealed something very interesting a bunch of Canadian scientists have been working on.

They carried out an experiment to look at why deaf people are still able to speak coherently, sometimes years after losing their hearing!
Me! Me! Me! Me!

Except after rum… ho hum!

Anyway, they recruited five middle-aged, and now profoundly deaf, adults and got them to repeat specific sounds while their lower jaws were pulled forwards by a small device attached to their teeth – to distort their speech.

Upon reading this article this morning, my first thought was, ‘Where on earth did they find the volunteers for this in the first place?’ But, it seems they did and, if there was money involved and I lived in Canada, who knows, I may have been up for it, too. Although I’m not sure they’d class me as deaf enough as I am still able to hear my own voice – well either it’s that or I have another voice in my head!

Now, where was I? Ah yes… what the science peeps discovered was that even though the volunteers were unable to hear what they were saying, they learnt to fix the errors in their pronunciation as they ran through the words 300 times. In fact, they learned as fast as a group of normal hearing people who did the same experiment.

Apparently they could correct their speech thanks to the adaptive power of the nerves and soft tissues in their vocal tract – these remember how they should feel when a word is pronounced correctly. So basically we remember not only what a word sounds like but what it feels like, too.

I often get asked how my speech is so good when my hearing is so bad and it’s quite nice to have the scientific explanation for this now. I remember going to an audition once and singing higher than I could hear – even I was a bit taken aback by this but it’s true – you learn how something feels.

And this got me thinking about how I manage to play the flute and in many ways I guess, it too is based on remembering how something feels. I know the body tension required to get higher notes and visualise them in my head and hey presto they come out. This took quite a lot of practising however and although the hours were silent to me, they weren’t to everyone else – and now they’re probably wishing that I lived in Canada, too!

This is your bank calling…

Hurrah! I’ve got that Friday feeling again! And, as usual I’ve got something to be thankful for apart from the impending weekend.

This week I have been especially thankful for my bank’s fraud department. You see I got a text from my Pa this week saying, ‘Call bank on this number – they say it’s urgent and about fraud.’

Now, as you know, I don’t normally make phone calls, but the volume on my Pinkberry is quite astounding and the thought that someone was plundering my account was enough to make me dial and hope for the best.

‘’allo,’ said a voice at the other end. ‘pnfa aaah ooheiii ghiaaah, please’

Ummmmmm…

While thinking, ‘Oh crap,’ I took a deep breath and quite simply said, ‘I’m hard of hearing, I have had a call about fraud on my account and I was hoping I could sort it out on the phone as I can’t get to the bank right now.’

‘OooooooooKKKKKKKKKK,’ a voice replied, loud and clear as a bell. ‘Lee-eeet meeeeeee haaaaa-aaaave yoooooo-oour acccoooouuunt nummmmmmmmber pleeee-aaaaase.’

WOW!

Seriously, this guy was good – he slowed down and shouted so loudly that every other bank customer calling that centre could probably hear him and quite a few more besides. But most importantly, I could hear him.

Anyway, it transpired that there had been some unusual activity on my card and was I by any chance in the Dominican Republic?

‘Ha! I wish,’ I replied before realising that this probably wasn’t the time for jokes and informing him that I was not, had never, and had no plans to visit the Dominican Republic – particularly as they seem to be having a few weather problems right now.

Teehee, ahem hmmm… again not the time for jokes…

It then transpired that someone was in the Dominican Republic with a clone of my bank card have a jolly good time with it! But thanks to the vigilance of the fraud peeps this was cut a lot shorter than the thieving little gits might have hoped for.

Indeed, I have spoken to lots of people since and it seems I got off lightly with the amount just within three figures… one of my friends had a four figure sum swiped from under her nose, and The Writer had quite a large amount spent on carpets in Tunisia. It seems the thieves have far more exotic ideas about what to do with our money than we do!

I cannot, as yet, say I am thankful that I got the money back, as I haven’t. Let’s hope I’ll be able to be thankful for that next Friday…

Talking buses

Every day there are two buses that I can take to and from work. As I mentioned in Subtitled Travel (July 08) one of those buses now has a shrill talking voice announcing the next stop, accompanied by some rather nifty subtitles. And, I discovered on my way home from work yesterday that the other bus is at it now, too.

But this one really freaked me out and here’s why…

As a teenager I used to have to go for fairly regular hearing tests on account of my every decreasing hearing. This involved being shut in a soundproof room the size of a small cupboard and having headphones clamped to my head, which then emitted a series of sounds to which I had to respond to by pressing a button.

I used to hate these tests – not even the promise of missing the afternoon of school was enough to want to make me go and there were often tears of frustration as my tinnitus kicked in, I failed to hear any of the beeps and I was told yet again that my hearing was going. They’d then pack me off with my newly-adjusted hearing aids, which were always so loud I fell over.

Now, because my ability to understand speech is one of the main problems that I have (consonants are pretty unheard of these days), I used to have to do a word test, which involved sitting on the most uncomfortable chair opposite a giant speaker out of which a voice came spouting words, which I then had to repeat back. You could get up to three points for each word if you got the beginning, middle and end sounds correct.

Ha!

So the word test went something like this:

Word list one
Book… took… look… hive… thrive…five… duck… luck… truck…

I was terrible at these tests and most of the time my responses sounded like a caveman’s alphabet. Unsurprisingly too, the last words in the above list were my favourite as I always managed to hear an ‘f’ really clearly at the beginning of every single one. It was a fantastic way to let off steam.

Now, I haven’t had one of these word tests in a really long time – I had buried them in the back of my mind labelled ‘Unpleasant Experiences Not To Be Repeated’ along with double maths at school and the performance section of my degree! I had almost completely forgotten about the taunting voice of the word test woman

until yesterday…

…when she started talking on my bus. I actually broke into a cold sweat when the bus number and location were announced – all these memories came flooding back and at every single bus stop I half expected her to blurt out, ‘luck… tuck… duck’

Aarrrrrrgh!

I walked to work this morning…

Dans Le Noir

On a rare quiet evening in the other night I decided to watch Freaky Eaters – a BBC programme that sorts out eating disorders of a less common kind. This particular episode featured a BBC DJ who was so afraid of fruit and veg that he couldn’t even say the words.

It was astonishing, but his cheekiness and determination, which eventually saw him not only cooking but eating a vegetable-laden meal, were incredibly endearing.

One of the treatments that his psychologist tried on him was taking him to a restaurant called Dans Le Noir, which is in Clerkenwell Green. The name translates literally as ‘In the dark’ and that’s exactly where you eat! I think the thinking behind it was that if this guy couldn’t see what he was eating, then he wouldn’t be able to freak out about it and might actually enjoy it. And that was exactly what happened. He even said something nice about the Savoy cabbage!

The idea behind the restaurant however, was not to cure freaky eaters but to instead give people some idea what it’s like to be blind – a concept that dates back to the 18th century when charitable foundations organised dinners in the dark to promote awareness about blindness.

The waiting staff at Dans Le Noir are all visually impaired and you are guided into the dark dining room by them. They actually have the advantage of knowing their way around the restaurant and the tables are turned from their experience in the outside world.

I do think this is a brilliant concept actually and if I wasn’t deaf, I would deafinitely be up for a visit. As it is, I think a visit there would be downright disasterous. Apart from for all the obvious reasons being that I wouldn’t be able to hear anything, I have an incredible fear of the absolute dark.

I can do nearly dark, street lit dark, eyes-will-get-used-to-it-in-five-minutes dark, but just not absolute dark. On the few occasions I have been faced with it, I have totally freaked out and found light again as quickly as possible.

Losing my sight has always been my biggest fear. When I was 16 and going steadily deafer, I used to pray every night that I would never go blind, too.

Well, perhaps I should face that fear and try out Dans Le Noir and see what it’s seeing nothing and hearing very little – it could be interesting to see, if without sight, my hearing improves…

Perhaps I’ll ask Fab Friend and we can try it out together.

Visitor from t'norf

I had the pleasure of a wonderful dinner with Nottnum Cousin 2 the other evening. He’s a bar manager don’t you know for a posh hotel oop norf and was down at a London to talk about wine. It was lovely to see him as I rarely do usually – in fact I have never ever met him in London before – if I am going to terrorise him, it’s on his own turf.

Anyway off we went out for a drink, or three in my case, and every so often I had to ask him to repeat what he was saying about five times. First of all he said Ch’got to me when my meal arrived. ‘Um,’ I replied, looking at him like a rabbit caught in headlights. ‘Ch’got,’ he repeated.
‘Um, what?’ I replied.
So he slowed it down, ‘Ch Got’
‘Aaaaah,’ I said, ‘veggie curry.’

Halfway through the meal and probably with a mouthful of veggie curry – which had banana and snow peas in and was quite delicious – I asked him how his dad was – my Fab Uncle who is going to be on TV soon.
‘Zaying,’ he said to me.
‘Here we go again,’ I thought to myself. ‘In English please,’ I said instead.
By this time he was finding all this very funny and reverted to the Queen’s English so that we might actually hold a conversation.

Intrigued by this whole new, and unintelligible, language he seemed to be speaking, I emailed him the next day to ask him for more strange colloquialisms so that I could include them on this blog. He gave me one more – Art Twoker, which allegedly means beautiful girl – but I am unsure about this as both Nottnum Cousin 1 and 2 have a mean old habit of pulling my leg quite a lot.

Did you know that Nottnum Cousin 1 managed to convince me that he was in fact born the year after me, not in the same year. I tried my hardest not to fall for that one but in the end he was so convincing I rang my Pa to ask him if I had really got it wrong for 27 whole years. Cue, my whole family realising just how deafinitely blonde I really am.

So, if anyone knows if Art Twoker really does mean a beautiful girl in Nottinghamshire-ese please can they let me know? That way I can email Nottnum Cousin 2 and demand to know why he’s never called me that before!

Lashings of lycra

Swiss Boy was visiting this weekend – he’d been in the country for important drug business and I met up with him yesterday for a spot of gentle sightseeing.

We started at the Tate Modern – where I would happily live, if it was possible – and ambled our way from room to room taking in amazing works from Monet and Miró to Matisse and Mondrian – plus a whole lot of other artists whose names did not begin with M.

Perhaps my favourite, and it has been for some time, is The Snail by Matisse, which was created in 1953. I love it because it was Matisse’s last work before he died in 1954 – and although he had cancer and probably wasn’t feeling too great, he still carried on.

OK, so he didn’t paint much anymore – he had people paint paper, which he then cut out and arranged on a massive board – but the point is, he didn’t just give up when he couldn’t do what he wanted… he found another way to do it. Quite inspirational I thought.

After the Tate Modern, we crossed the river to carry out some important chocolate raisin-buying duties that Swiss Boy had to fulfil for my First Ever Friend, who just happens to be his sister.

As we walked over the Millennium Bridge, I was suddenly aware that I couldn’t hear Swiss Boy talking anymore as there was incredible din going on right above my head. Looking up, there were two helicopters hovering. They were so loud that I was concerned I might fall over.

Anyway, once we got to the other side, the reason became apparent – the Tour of Britain was doing its London section. People lined the streets awaiting the cyclists, men with camera lenses as long as my arm crouched poised ready to snap, snap away and I have to say I got quite excited.

I’m not what you would call a cycling fan but the atmosphere was great – so we waited by a cordon for the pack to appear. Six police bikes later, they came in a whoosh of vibrant lycra. I thought the noise was amazing – but remember I am deaf. It sounded like a soft whirring noise and I found it slightly hypnotic.

It turned out that we had stumbled on some sort of circuit so we were able to see them whirr by not once but four times and each time is was equally thrilling. But why hadn’t I heard of the Tour of Britain before? The Tour de France gets massive publicity – hell it even had a section in the UK.

I’m off to do some research about this racey thing and see where I can next catch a glimpse of the lashings of lycra I saw yesterday…

A pain in the neck

Now, as usual on a Friday, I find things to be thankful for…
Today I woke up and it really hurts to turn my head to the right – so, in my haze of neck pain, I am thankful that I can still move my head to the left.

It will definitely make lip reading interesting – anyone on my right won’t have a cat in hells chance of getting themselves heard, and anyone on my left will have a wonderful picture of me gurning at them in the effort to make my head actually move.

Now, of all the pains to have, neck pain worries me the most. The neck is quite important really – it’s the connecting bit between the head and the body – without we are, quite simply screwed. As well as impairing my hearing further, neck pain also impairs my sight – so walking to work this morning I had to hope that nothing was coming from the right as I couldn’t turn my head to look or hear either!

Actually that reminds me, I am also thankful to be alive! I had a very near miss with a motorbike the other day. It was so close in fact that the woman behind me actually screamed! How embarrassing for her!

There I was at Hyde Park Corner, walking home as I often do. The lights turned red, the green man started his flashing and I stepped out… into the path of a very large courier bike. He swerved, I stepped back and watched as he nearly crashed into a group of cyclists! There was such a mass tutting at him from the crowd behind me waiting to cross that even I heard them.

The screaming woman by this point was clutching her chest and had gone white and looked such a sight that I burst out laughing. An odd reaction I know, but I am so used to nearly being run over that it is almost normal for me. Hmmm, now is that something to be thankful for… or something to worry about?

Your daily dose of Deafinitely?

As well as talking about weird recipes with NikNak the other night, we also talked about Deafinitely Girly – NikNak is one of my dedicated readers and if I am mentioning them, then Pompey-Revision-And-Onion-Soup mate deafinitely deserves a mention… and everyone else for that matter.

Some of you may already know but NikNak is a hotshot in the PR world – she has her own successful company and so she was letting me know how I could get Deafinitely Girly so big that I could take over the world! Well, if George Bush can have a shot at it, so can I!

Anyway, she suggested doing a mailout every day once my update was online so that readers got a nice unobtrusive email in their inbox from Deafinitely Girly telling them to check out the blog – and I rather liked this idea.

So, I have forsaken about ranting about Billy Elliot, praising Jessica Fellowes and finally telling the story of the Tabasco Sauce Incident to ask you to join my mailing list! And also to let anyone else you know who would like a Deafinitely Girly Daily Dose in their inbox to email me, too.

For want of sounding like a dodgy TV advert, it couldn’t be simpler, just copy and paste deafinitelygirly@googlemail.com into an email and wing it off to me.

Now, I am going to sit and wait nervously and wonder if I do have any readers after all!

*nervous chuckle

Everything tastes supreme with Heinz Salad Cream

I’m not a great believer of adverts – I rarely see things on TV and think, ‘Oooh must buy that immediately.’ But, if there’s one advertising slogan I do believe, it’s ‘Everything tastes supreme with Heinz Salad Cream’. Because it really is true!

So great is my love for this food stuff that I always have a reserve bottle tucked away, just in case I run out, and I used to keep a bottle at work too, but somebody stole it!

Now, as you may already know, Shakira-Shakira was always very fond of trying out my new salad cream combinations when we lived together, and a particularly nice one that I discovered was mixing it with marmite and using it as a dip for oatcakes and crudités. Deeelicious!

So, it was this rather wonderful dip that we took to NikNak’s flat for pre-night out drinks and nibbles. The Writer and Fab Friend were also there and we were all tucking in to the nibbly feast. NikNak dived in and tried my wonderful dip and before we knew it she was gesticulating wildly and pulling faces worth of Shakira-Shakira’s Ma’s facial aerobics. In short, I don’t think she liked it that much.

So anyway, last night I went to dinner with NikNak and Country Boy and it was lovely. She cooked baked fish with mozzarella, Parmesan and cherry tomatoes, which make a very good combination. We got chatting about food combinations and Country Boy got to hear about NikNak and the marmite and Salad Cream incident. Intrigued he asked me what else I liked and I told him enthusiastically about how well salad cream went with marmite on toast, hot French bread and added to sweetcorn and baked beans. I also mentioned my love of adding marmalade to sausages and also to marmite on toast. At the end of the evening I invited them to dinner the following week – the look on their faces said it all!

Bother boo

Due to a technical fault, Deafinitely Girly can’t post today!
But please hit on her tomorrow…
It will make her smile!

Ver-*sigh

Deafinitely Girly is almost too embarrassed to write today’s post. Remember the post I did on being afraid to say words in case I mispronounced them? (see Words Aren't All I Have – April 08)

Now, do you also remember that I visited Versailles recently? Well ,it turns out that my way of saying Versailles is different from the whole World’s way of saying it and I never realised.

So let’s start at the beginning. I tottered off home this weekend to see the Rents with London Aunt and London Cousins. It was excellent fun – we cycled round the lake, watched a canal boat run aground and I ripped my hands to shreds on some wooden monkey bars.

I also told Ma and Pa about my weekend in France. They listened and eventually after the 20th time I said the word Versailles, Ma could clearly stand it no longer and corrected me.

Apparently the ‘lles’ are silent so you just say Ver-sigh…

WHY DID I NOT KNOW THIS? And that means that all the people inbetween visiting Versigh and seeing the Rents must have thought I was a fruit loop!

My Ma said initially that she thought I was joking when I said it as Versailles but once I had said it repeatedly to her without any hint of laughter, she realised I just hadn’t heard it right – to be fair, I hadn’t heard it at all – you see, the letters ‘L’ and ‘S’ are not only hard to lipread, they are hard to hear, too.

So, to all those people who have heard me talking about the non-existent Palace of Versaaaaiiiilllllles, sorry about that – I wasn’t taking the piss, I genuinely thought that as those letters were there, they weren’t silent.

I guess in a way it’s ironic that the word Versailles has so many useless letters – the palace itself is too big to be seen in one day, the grounds are so big, you could walk all day and not hit the boundary fence, and my embarrassment is so big, it will take a long, long time before I utter its name again.

Vive Versailles

Another day, another instalment of my fabulous weekend a Paree – alas it is almost a week since I was there…

Did I mention I visited the Palace of Versailles – and very fancy it is, too.
There’s loads to see including a gigantic chair that ladies slept in sitting up (apparently it was the fashion in those days, which is why the beds were so short) and a rather expansive gardens. In fact, you would have to see it for yourself to realise just what a complete understatement the above statement is!

French Cousin 2 and I got up very early for our anticipated visit and were greeted with rain – beaucoup de pleut in fact! We took a double-decker underground train to Versailles, dodged the MASSIVE queue and strolled right in – French Cousin 2 has been taught well by French Aunt at this sort of thing.

Now, much of the tour is done on an audio headphone thingy so French Cousin 2 thought she’d ask for a transcript for me only to be told that such a thing did not exist and no one had ever enquired after one before. Deaf people apparently do not visit Versailles.

So, we had to make do with our sight only and this proved to be very useful at dodging the very annoying tourists who were EVERYWHERE and taking pictures of EVERYTHING! One of them actually pushed French Cousin 2 out of the way to get a picture of a fireplace.

But, all that aside, Versailles really was incredible! Outside was very deaf friendly! There was the loudest music playing in the grounds – it was so loud that I nearly fell over in fact! It really helped set the scene and I half expected to see Louis XIV hiding in the bushes with Marie Antoinette.

There were fountains, too. Incredible, massive, humongous and very very old fountains – all still working amazingly well on their original, and vast, pipework.

In true French style, we picnicked. French Cousin 2 had been very organised and made it all that morning. I wolfed down my baguette with jambon et fromage that I had been thinking about since breakfast time and it was delicious.

The Palace of Versailles really is a massive place – to look at, to walk around (my feet can confirm) and to take in – it’s left quite an imprint on my mind.
This morning for example, I walked past Buckingham Palace and thought, ‘Oooh what a cute little cottage.’

Hmmm!

Life on Mars

What do you get if you cross a mad scientist with a strange looking Russian woman dressed in tin foil, some political propaganda and a stupid self-loving musician with no respect for the hearing, the deaf or even the dead?!
Well, aside from an ugly, overly amorous French man snoring the deckchair in front of me, you also get Aelita.

Now, for those of you who don’t know – that’s you, me and the rest of the World, I think – Aelita was the first film made by one of the pioneers of the Russian cinema, Yakov Protazanov, after his return from Europe, where he remained during difficult times of Russian Civil War of 1918–1922.

Aelita is a propagandistic story, told in what is basically a sci-fi film attempting to proliferate communist ideas, and it is based on a Sci-fi novel by Alexei Tolstoy. Are you asleep yet?

If you were watching the movie to a different soundtrack to what we had, you wouldn’t be but I can only describe the soundtrack we endured as akin to being locked in the boiler cupboard of a cruise ship with a flute and a saxophone for company and a man who only knew three notes on each!


Let me first set the scene – the scene I was in, not that our dear Aelita was in. French Cousin 2 and Mustard Boy are those enviable Parisians who soak up culture on a daily basis in the same way people over here soak up gin and tonics, although to be fair they are quite fond of a tipple or two.
And, just around the corner from their lovely flat is this incredible restaurant/bar/club/terrace and prairie!

Eh?

Yes, they turned the top floor into a prairie, covered the floor with fake grass, installed a few water features and filled the place with deckchairs and hammocks – there’s even the essential bar serving cocktails. And this, after our eclectic meal downstairs complete with the rudest waitress ever, was where Aelita graced us with her presence.

So, onto the movie… Meet Los, a scientist, who is married to Natasha and working on a spaceship capable of going to Mars. For entertainment value, the Russian Civil War is raging and people are starving.

In the midst of this are a whole host of other characters portraying communist ideal against bourgeois wealth… I got a bit lost to be honest so stole a chocolate brownie of Mustard Boy.

While all this happens on Earth, we also get to see what’s happening on Mars, naturally! On the red planet, there’s regime similar to that of Egyptian pharaohs, where the working class, represented by the slaves, suffers under tyrannical regime of the ruling class. Heck, they took it so far that even the King looks like Cleopatra! And the slaves were stored in a refrigerated unit – although I don’t really know why. French Cousin 2 explained however, that this was to illustrate how disposable the rulers saw society to be.

It's from this delightful planet that Martian princess Aelita observes the life of Los and, as a result, wants to kiss him. I have no idea why she wants this… Los is by no means wonderful – he’s as attractive as an anorexic Herman Munster, has the charisma of lettuce bathed in olive oil and harbours murderous intentions towards his wife.

To be fair, he thinks his wife is having an affair with a rich man so he shoots her and then sets of in his spaceship to Mars with a man dressed up as a woman and a white rat.

Upon arrival, there’s a slave uprising and revolution, which results in the establishing of the Soviet Republic of Mars! The end?

Well it was for me, as it was at this point that the music got so loud and unbearable that I fell into a coma. But apparently, according to French Cousin 2, Los returns and finds his wife is not dead and she forgives him. They were, it seems, as fond as Hollywood endings as um… Hollywood are – except I have just remembered that French Cousin 2 told me that Los tries to kill his wife again… romantic fellow isn’t he!

Just incase my careful synopsis doesn’t have you dashing out to HMV to buy your own copy of the movie… does anyone fancy watching Aelita with me so I can see how it ended?

I left my heart in Paris

I had a lovely time visiting French Cousin 2 at the weekend and her man, Mustard Boy. I also had the pleasure of seeing French Cousin 1 and his GIRLF, too. And then, as a complete surprise to all of us, French Cousin 3 dropped by… from Stuttgart

Luckily I had bought lots of chocolate raisins.

Now, this post could have almost been called ‘I left my heart in Brussels’ because the 19.32 to Paris Nord goes from the adjacent platform to the 19.34 to Brussels. So excited was I on Friday night that I wasn’t really paying any attention. I showed my ticket to the nice lady, marched up the moving ramp to my train and got into carriage 3.

Now luckily, I am vaguely paranoid about getting on the wrong train on account of my hearing because while a non-deaf person might get on the Brussels train, they probably wouldn’t stay on it due to a lovely announcement telling them of the destination. I, however, would discover my new weekend-break destination on arrival!

But as I was saying, luckily I am paranoid about these things so I stuck my head out the door and squinted to the other end of the platform to see what the sign said… ‘Brussels’!

Argh!

Cue frantic scrabble for suitcase, book, mobile phone, coat, carrier bag with M&S picnic in, Arrow Word book (shhh don’t tell The Writer) and a mad dash across the platform. Luckily I made it – but I was so unconvinced that I was on the right train after that debacle that I was only happy when I saw the Paris Nord sign and not one that read Abu Dahbi or Timbuktu.

So Paris was great but I can’t tell you about it all today as that would take far too long. There was Versailles, Saint Chapelle, and a 1920s silent movie from Russia that saw the founding of the Soviet Union of Mars that was screened in an indoor park with hammocks and deckchairs – and that… deafinitely deserves a post of its own.

from my Pinkberry

It is a lovely bank holiday today and I'm still marvelling at how great the eurostar is at speeding people so effortlessly from France to here and back. I'd love to wax lyrical about it but I can't as I'm still struggling with my Pinkberry keyboard on which I am currently writing this! Beeb Boy warned me it was tricky and he wasn't lying... Gone are the days of speedy flippant, but well-punctuated, texts! Now you'll be lucky to get two words that make sense! So that's the end of today's post -apologies for any errors, the automatic zoeller is so cocky it thinks it can read my mind and my thn umb is conviced that z is the button for s! Until tomorrow...!

Exciting news!

Fab Friend has contacted me from Peru… she commented on this very blog to say hello and that she was having a lovely time (see Holiday!). I was very pleased to hear from her as she seems, and is, very far away.

But, when my Pinkberry flashed up an alert with her note, it could have been as though she was just around the corner from me, in her lovely London flat.

The internet is great like that – no more echoey (ugly word!) phone lines across the Seven Seas telling us she had arrived safely. Instead, a Facebook status update and a Peruvian hit on my blog visitor counter!

On the bus this morning, I was confined to the ground floor because my Parisian suitcase is extremely heavy – it is stuffed to the brim with Golden Syrup, chocolate raisins and crumpets galore – and I find that being stuck down there does not allow for creative thought or writing, so I let my mind wander.

I began to think, as my Pinkberry buzzed through a pointless email, what it would be like if I went on one of those budget TV shows where you have to give up something that really matters. You know the ones I’m talking about!

I once watched one where a Z-list pop star had to give up make-up for a week… once she’d scraped and steamed it all off, it was quite plain to see why she wore so much in the first place. Natural beauty had not graced her face – I considered sending a trowel and some industrial wall filler to her agent.

Anyway, I think those nasty TV peeps would deafinitely make me give up electronic communication – either that or salad and baked beans for tea, but let’s be honest here, the latter would not make riveting viewing.

That would mean: no mobile – so no texting, and no computer – so no email, Google, online booking, and internet in general. In short, I would be screwed!

I would start my day sleeping through, as my mobile is my back-up vibrating alarm clock. Then I would be in trouble at work as couldn’t phone to say I was going to be late. Then I would spend the whole day getting everything wrong, as without computers, everything would have to be done on that beastly telephone.

I would cry, scream, shout and stamp and probably spend the next 20 years cringing over my cornflakes about my shocking TV debut.

Thankfully, this will never happen, so I’m off to Google the Parisian weather forecast and email my Pa as he’s been poorly.

Au revoir et grosse bises!

Deaf or not deaf?

Today I was on the bus listening to the Gabe Dixon Band on my new Pinkberry. I have to have it playing quite loud so was very worried about other passengers getting cross – no one sat next to me the whole journey.

I turned it down, still no one sat next to me – so I turned it back up.

Halfway through the journey a ticket inspector boarded the bus and asked to see everyone’s ticket – I have my disabled one – I had headphones in my ears and I could see him eyeing me trying to work out what I’ve got…

It made me feel a bit of a fraud…

If I have trouble believing my deafness, what of other people? Do they think I am a fraud, too? When I achieve something do people question whether I really am deaf?

I had these worries, thoughts and questions for all of five seconds because on getting off the bus I nearly got run over by a police car, didn’t hear a bloke asking me to move out of the way and blanked a colleague in the street.

I am deafinitely deaf alright.

Thinking of Adrian

If you only do one thing today, I ask that you click on the sidebar link to Baldy's Blog and have a read. It was written by a 25-year-old journalist called Adrian Sudbury, who was diagnosed leukaemia a while back, and who has since campaigned effortlessly to get people to sign up to the bone marrow register.

I'd never met Adrian but found out about him through his widely-publicised campaign.
When I clicked on Baldy's Blog to read his daily post today, as I always do, I found out that he died this morning.

Have a read about what he did and what he thought and I think you'll find it inspirational. He gave me much food for thought and although I hate hospitals I think joining the bone-marrow register is something I am now going to do.

And it's not just me he convinced either...
perhaps he'll convince you, too.

My day's been aura-lly challenged

The weirdest thing happened to me on the bus this morning – someone sat on my aura…

Eh?

Yes, that’s what I thought, too. But she definitely did and it was quite unpleasant.

Now, for those of you with filthy minds, let me first just clarify what an aura is. According to the dictionary, it can be, amongst other things ‘the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person’

I first came across the notions of auras at school during activities week – a shocking infliction that came about at the end of the summer term and involved the forced signing-up for daily jaunts around the Gloucestershire countryside or in my case, a massage course, which was my final activity of the week.

The other activity spanned the first three days and was called Creative Cake Baking. Now, bearing in mind I was banned from doing Home Economics GCSE for fear of bringing the league tables down, I was surprised to get a place on this. I was a panicky baker in those days and everything tended to go wrong.

I decided to make an upright piano cake, which involved lots and lots of ready rolled icing and brown food colouring – it was all going swimmingly until I dropped the keyboard.

*sniff

Anyway, by the time the massage course started I was in need of one myself and so Best-Friend-From-School and I threw ourselves into it with gusto. The woman teaching us was a bit flaky and looked like she ate compost for breakfast. The first thing she told us to do was rub our hands together and feel each other’s auras – now, in today’s climate, the Government inspectors would have been called in for that comment, the school closed and Compost Woman carted off for a long time to a camp for unsuitables before she had a chance to explain the innocence of the situation.

But do you know what, she totally convinced me that auras exist – they’re kind of like a personal space and mine gets bigger and smaller according to how comfortable I am in a situation.

This morning, I was tired and needing sleep and so my aura was quite large and possibly radiating onto the seat next to me – my bad I guess, as it meant that when this woman – clearly without any sort of aura – sat down beside me, she sat on it. And, even though there were loads of other places she could have moved to as the bus gradually emptied out, she didn’t.

It was the most claustrophobic ride of my life. I silently willed her to move but knew I couldn’t say anything to her. After all, what kind of nutter says to their neighbour on the bus, ‘Excuse me, could you move please, you’re sat on my aura.’

And, on that note, I am off to check the palms of my hands for hair…

Hopelessly addicted to…

Today, O2 is my favourite company in the whole world! I still think its online services for deaf people are positively appalling, but the staff in O2’s shops are amazing. One guy in particular has made my day – after all, it’s because of him that I have a nice shiny new PINK phone, which does everything I want it to… and more!

After several emails to O2, which appeared to be falling on deaf ears (ah-ha-ha-ha) I was getting a bit frustrated and my old phone was starting to die at a rapid rate. But then I went climbing with Beeb Boy and he told me he’d got a great deal with O2 with internet and everything and a nice shiny Blackberry to go with it!

Now, as you know, I have been hankering after an iPhone for quite some time but, as you also know, these only come in uniform black, which isn’t very, um… ME. But did you know Blackberry make a Pinkberry!?

So, it was this I set my sights on and after a little bit of research I tripped my way, rather elegantly, into The Rents’ local O2 shop. There I explained my predicament, ‘No online help, lots of emails, everyone ignoring me, broken phone, loyal customer, yah, yah, yah, sob, sob sob.’ And the guy called them straight up to sort it for me!

Even he got the picture of how frustrating O2 online is after the fourth time the dim-witted imbecile at the other end of the phone asked to speak to me. There are only so many ways of explaining someone is hard of hearing and I thought this guy did pretty well!

So, to cut a long story short, he bargained away until they slashed some prices and threw in some stuff for free and now I honestly think that even if I could hear and make the call myself, I couldn’t have done it better.

I’ve only had my phone for 24 hours and I am already hooked – so hooked in fact, that I can totally see why they call it a Crackberry in America...

I must not check my email every five seconds
I must not check my email every five seconds
I must not check my email every five seconds…

Oh sod it…

Spectacular Speculoos

I finally got to taste the much anticipated Speculoos paste at the weekend and have been eating it out of the jar ever since. It's possibly one of the most delicious and moreish things I have ever tasted and I have already been contemplating and planning various culinary experiments centred around it. What a shame that my chief taster, Shakira-Shakira, is currently sunning herself on a Turkish beach – it's so tasty that I am not sure I can guarantee any remaining on her return.

It has the wonderful consistency of smooth peanut butter and taste-bud explosion of sugar, sweet, spice and and what can only be described as GOO. I am planning to whip it into butter icing for a gingerbread loaf, make a Speculoos ice-cream smoothie, and I've also already discovered that it tastes quite nice with lettuce and cucumber.

I am wondering if it might taste nice added to chicken stir fry but as I cannot guarantee it and it's not available over here, I am not going to risk it and waste it on what could potentially be worse than the microwave-sponge incident.

My visit to the rents was great... not only did they turn a blind eye to me eating Speculoos paste out of jar with a long-handled teaspoon, they also took me to see a place called Foxton Locks - which has 10 locks in a staircase that takes a canal boat 55 minutes to go up or down. It was absolutely fascinating and my inner geek got a splendid day out! I am also glad to still be here after tripping and hurtling towards the fast-draining, sure-fire-way-of-drowning lock number 5. Thankfully I was saved from my stumble from my Ma - her blood pressure is only just back to normal... I think.

And now, I am back in The Smoke, and very rested, too – partly aided by my first class ticket down on the train this morning - it really was the cheapest ticket available, how cool is that! I could definitely get used to travelling this way – there was a free newspaper, orange juice and something that should have been tea but that tasted more like coffee – although I am not altogether sure it was either. There was also so much space that I was almost sad that the journey back from my Rents is such a short one...

And now, I am back – ready for the week ahead and my imminent trip to Paris to see French Cousin and Mustard Boy.
C'est bon, c'est trés, trés bon!

Holiday!

I am currently writing this from the sun-drenched countryside, a fresh brew of tea is in the pot, there are cats sleeping in a sunny spot in the kitchen, a tractor has just ambled past and I am chewing on a piece of hay. Honestly, the last bit is made up, but I can see a whole field of hay so if I did want to complete the stereotypical country view, it would be possible... just not that pleasant.

What it is about our surroundings that affects the mental pictures that we build? If I was writing this from a penthouse flat in New York, I would probably have my take-out coffee by my side, a small yappy dog nearby and a maid turning down my bed. Likewise, thinking about Fab Friend in Peru right now, I imagine her at a computer with a plait in her hair, tanned and fab, about to hit the beach 'til sundown.

It's not just situations that we can build up whole, often imaginary pictures, about though. Quite often I will build entire mental lives for people I see, without even having spoken to them, not in a nasty way either, just giving them a character based on their appearance. Do hearing people do this, too? Someone must let me know. I was just wondering whether, in that first, fleeting conversation, if you, like me are building more of a visual picture, than one based on what the person is saying?

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing to do though. It's not judgemental as long as you don't let it get in the way of the person who you are really talking to.

Take the other day, I was out with someone and a tune came on that I recognised. 'Oh, it's David Gray,' I remarked. 'I thought you were deaf,' was his reply. A bit shocked I explained that I was deaf but could hear some stuff. 'It's black and white for me,' he said. 'You're either deaf or you're not.'

So shocked was I, that I didn't even stand up for myself. What I did realise though that was, in those first fleeting moments when he found out about my hearing loss, he built a mental picture. And, rather than letting that change with time as he got to know me, he kept trying to get me to fit it. And, do you know what, it didn't work.

I too had built a mental picture of him in those first, fleeting moments and, it taught me just how wrong those mental pictures can be.

Tomorrow, tomorrow…

…there will be no post as I am having a day off work and ranting!
Instead I will be out and about harvesting new ideas, shouting at the TV for the shocking subtitles of the Olympic coverage and hoping for a sunshiney day!

Bisous
DG

Remember, remember

Ever had a memory triggered because of a certain smell? It’s very common apparently.
Let’s start with a nice bit of science for you… hmmm, actually scrap that – I was never very good at science and all I can find on Google is a lot of complicated stuff that I don’t get. The long and short of it is that when you smell something, your brain often links it to the situation you were in when you smelt it – for example chlorine may make you think of school swimming lessons, curry – university, cheese – your first boyfriend’s feet… etc etc.

Now, while smells do trigger some memories for me, it’s actually sounds that trigger the most – more importantly, music. Weird huh!

Take the other day for example. There I was, driving back from London Aunt’s house when Hazard by Richard Marx came on the radio – something of a regular occurrence if you listen to Heart I think.

Anyway, it catapulted me back, as if by magic, to the early 90s when it first came out, and all these images flashed before my eyes of me and Jenny M, my favourite red jeans from Tammy Girl (they were the height of fashion… kind of) and the last Christmas disco before I changed schools.

It was amazing, it could have been yesterday, and for the remainder of the journey, I reminisced with a big grin on my face.

Then, at work, there’s a song that always comes on the radio – the name of which I don’t know – but it was on a Rosemary Connelly workout video that I bought when I was a teenager. Now, whenever I hear it, I can visualise me dancing around my Rents’ old living room in cycling shorts and a granddad top (the 90s were not great for fashion – Fab Friend did a good line in Lumberjack shirts and leggings apparently). Anyway I can still remember the arm movements and found myself absentmindedly doing them at my desk the other day.

*blush

It’s not just about what sounds trigger memories either, it’s my memory of sounds! I can remember the sounds of things that I can’t hear anymore such as an old music box I had as a child, cats meowing and phones ringing. If someone tells me that a sound is occurring, I will often hear it in my head once I know what it is. But seeing as I last heard a phone ring in the 80s and it was an old bell one, I hear the brring, brring of a circular-dial telephone for even the most modern-looking phones.

I guess in many ways, my memory isn’t deaf even though I now am – how cool is that? It’s like I can sidestep into it and hear things again. When I play my flute, my teacher often plays the tune an octave lower so I can hear it, commit it to memory and then transpose it up an octave in my head – my memory does that! It remembers the pitch, the order and the rise and fall of the notes.

Phew, thank goodness I remembered to collect something good before I was born… I may have been busy collecting my ‘taste for expensive handbags’ instead of my hearing and sight senses but I clearly remembered to get memory, too.

*teehee!

My weather obsession

It would seem that I am officially obsessed with the weather and it’s doing my head in. I can’t seem to hold a single conversation with anyone without bringing it up – mainly because it’s depressing me so much.

Rather alarmingly, I have started to talk to myself about the weather too, although I would like to reassure you that this is not the first sign of madness I have displayed. Last night, driving home from London Aunt’s with the rain pelting down, I found myself giving a running commentary on the puddles, the flooding and the crazy bad-weather driving that was occurring up ahead… to who? God knows, but I must have looked totally barmy.

When I was about 7 years old I fell for that old trick of someone telling you that if you had hairy palms you were mad, so I inspected mine closely, and then BAM – I had a sore nose as someone smacked my hand into my face. It hurt, and I was upset – but I went off and, with glee and no guilt, found someone as gullible as me to try it out on. Kids are weird aren’t they?

But anyway, back to the weather – what is going on? Last week I was fantasising about winter food and this weekend I was thinking about buying thick woolly cardigans – it’s all wrong.

And, it would seem that all my London Friends share this view. Shakira-Shakira has escaped to Turkey for some beach hip-shaking fun, with The Writer set to join her next week. Fab Friend leaves for Peru tomorrow for some guaranteed heat – although Machu Whatsit might by a bit chilly as it’s very high up. NikNak has Country Boy to keep her warm, The Photographer is living it up in Sweden and Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words is off to France…

As for me – well I have Paris to look forward to and in the meantime, I am going to my Rent’s house. I don’t need a passport to get there, nor is the weather forecast any more optimistic than the one in London… but there’s an open fire, plenty of home-cooked food on offer and a big Ma-hug waiting for me. What could be better than that?

Friday rambling!

Those who know what I do for job, will know that it requires using a dictionary rather a lot. The one we have in our office is gigantic and has lots of words in it that I have never heard of. But do you know what – nearly every time I open it to hunt for a word, it opens on one that takes me back to A-level English Literature, which is ‘pathetic fallacy’.

The dictionary definition is ‘the presentation of inanimate objects in nature as possessing human feelings’, and if my memory serves me right, Shakespeare was a fan. But then I didn’t really hear much of my A-level classes.

It’s a wonderfully fabulous word to roll of the tongue too, I find. Go on try it yourself – although be prepared for people to look at you oddly! So anyway, today when I opened the dictionary, there was pathetic fallacy staring back at me from the top right-hand corner of the page, and in pencil, right beside it was the word, ‘Hello!’

It left me chuckling for a good few minutes as now the word pathetic fallacy in the inanimate location of the dictionary has been displayed as possessing human feelings! Confused? Great!

So anyway, as it’s Friday, that means it’s time for my usual post of why I am happy today and what I’m thankful for – and today is no different!

Today I am thankful for British bank holidays, the Eurostar, and French Aunt moving to France. All this means that I get to go to Paris to visit French Cousin for the bank-holiday weekend at the end of this month, eat baguette, squeal when I see the Eiffel Tower and do my Carrie run – hopefully minus the horse manure and the bastardly Alexandr Petrovsky!

I love Paris – French Cousin lives in a wonderfully Bohemian area in a fabulous flat with Mustard Boy, her man – he’s from Dijon. It’s small but perfectly formed (the flat), although getting in the shower takes special manoeuvring.

Last time I visited, they threw a magnificent house party with beaucoup d’alcohol and half way through the night they decided to see how many people they could fit in the metre square kitchen. The end tally made London Underground at rush hour look roomy.

It’s also a great place to gather blog material as I don’t really understand English with a French accent, and while I can speak French, I can’t hear the response. Last time I was there I found there was a Turkish shop near French Cousin’s house and spoke Turkish to them. Apparently they still ask after the crazy blonde English girl who came in speaking Turkish, so I will have to go and say hello!

This time around, French Cousin is going to show me more of Paris and I can’t wait. I will pack my beret and a host of exciting English food for French Cousin and Mustard Boy (he particularly favours crumpets and chocolate raisins) and embark on my awfully big adventure.

Oh summer, summer wherefore art thou summer?

I have spent the entire morning thinking about food. Perhaps it was yesterday’s post on Speculoos that set me off, or just that fact that I like food so much – but whatever the reason, there has been barely a moment of my free-thinking time that I haven’t been salivating over thoughts of shepherd’s pie, lasagne. Good old winter recipes.

And that’s the weird thing, here I am sat here on 7 August, and I am thinking about food more suited to deepest darkest October. What is going on? The air conditioning is disguising the heat outside, which is frankly quite oppressive this week, so that could be why the grey skies are implying a different season altogether to the one we are in.

But in August I should be dreaming of exotic salad dressing recipes and exciting ways to cook tuna – it really is NOT on.

*exasperated squeak

It’s started raining now, too!

I am quite a stubborn person so have continued to eat salads even it’s too grey and wet, and I have kept my flipflops by my bed, even though it’s my furry slippers I find I am reaching for, to try and force myself to believe that summer really is here.

And then today, I read a book called Little Miss Stubborn And The Unicorn as it was on my desk and realised she was a lot like me. She refuses to believe that the unicorn exists even though all the other Mr Men and Little Miss meet it and tell her. She stomps and shouts and generally behaves very badly.

*sheepish blush

I don’t have a blue nose, fat round body or strange stringy hair like Little Miss Stubborn but I will do something just to prove a point. And, Fab Friend made me realise on Sunday that I may take this to extremes at times as I got on some high horse about deaf rights. But in my defence, the gin & tonics were lethal!

*shameful blush

In the light of this, I thought I should go in search of a new Little Miss Persona…
I considered Little Miss Sunshine – but she looks a bit jaundiced and is always nice to everyone – how exhausting! Then Little Miss Naughty – but I am a bit rubbish at being naughty and always seem to follow rules. And suddenly it hit me, Little Miss Chatterbox – I AM HER! She never, ever shuts up – and even gets a job as the talking clock for the telephone.

I think I am happy with that!

Spectacular Speculoos

Exciting news! I won a competition!

*beaming smile

My prize is, rather wonderfully, a jar of spreadable biscuit.

‘Eh?’ I hear you say. ‘Spreadable biscuit?’

I am so intrigued by this product that I simply can’t wait to try it! Apparently it tastes like those little spiced ginger biscuits you get free with your coffee when you’re on holiday in Europe. I like them so much that I always try to steal everyone else’s, too. Those biscuits are called Speculoos and this spreadable version has the wonderful name of Pâté de Speculoos Pasta. Can anyone tell me why the word Pasta is there? Does it taste nice on pasta? Can’t imagine it would… but then I like baked beans on lettuce and marmite and salad cream on toast, so I am willing to try anything once!

The Writer and I are eagerly anticipating its arrival, as we’re both a bit in wonder at what it will taste like. We’re also anxious about whether it will make it to the Big Smoke as it’s going via Ma and Pa’s house in the country and if they get wind of what it is, it might be spread on their toast instead of mine!

*sniff

It’s lovely winning competitions though. I once entered one at Harrods when I was about 7 and forgot all about it. The prize was a giant doll and one day the doorbell range and there was the postman with a massive box addressed to me! Remember that fab feeling of getting post when you were younger? I got it that day and to be honest, I still get it now even though I am practically a grown-up and I mostly get bills.

Housemate-From-Penthouse-Flat is doing an experiment at the moment. She’s got two children and one is only a few months old, so to wile away the midnight-breastfeeding hours, she reads rather a lot of trashy mags (real life trash not porn I should point out). Those familiar with these mags will know they carry wonderful headlines like, ‘A donkey chewed my big toe off in the bath’ and ‘Six kids by different fathers, but still a virgin’ etc etc…

Anyway, at the back of these magazines there are always lots of competitions and HFPF has decided to enter every single one for a month, to see if she wins anything. Unfortunately with mags of that calibre, the only things she’s likely to win are things like – a tattoo of your baby’s name on your right breast, a lifetime supply of microwavable chips and a pound-shop trolley dash.

I don’t hold out much hope for her but fingers crossed. I entered six different competitions by email last year to win a trip to New York and do you know what I got? A load of spam to my email address asking me if I’d like a bigger penis!
Hmmmmm this was not quite the prize I had in mind!

How many people does it take to change a lightbulb?

I used to think just one, until last night, when POOF, my bedside light blew up for the second time in a week! When it happened the first time, I could see the filament in the bulb had gone so last night when Shakira-Shakira and I were in Asda, I bought a new box of bulbs.

Then, I dashed home and popped one in – and nothing happened. So I sat and pondered while watching One Tree Hill and finally decided to check the fuse. I’ve got a rather large collection of fuses on account of the hoover and iron episode last month. I replaced it and proclaimed, ‘Let there be light!’ in my best God voice. And there was, for about 1 second – before POOF, it blew again.

Perhaps it’s my electric personality, I don’t know – but everything electrical I touch at the moment seems to break or blow up. First it was the iron – there I was ironing my favourite jacket in preparation for my visit to the zoo (see Things I Know Now…) when I suddenly heard a POOF, fizzle, and a POP and a whisp of smoke came out of the iron – sadly, not followed by a genie.

It continued to smoke considerably so I unplugged it and put it in the bath, odd I know, but it seemed like the safest place for smouldering electrical equipment! Then, just two day’s later I was vacuuming the hall when SPLUTTER, GASP, GROAN, the hoover ground to a halt.

*squeak

Praying it was the fuse and not something fatal, I dashed off to the hardware store down the road to stock up. But once home, it soon became clear the hoover was dead as a Dodo, kaput, stuffed, a goner. Cue, big Argos order…

Now, is it dodgy electrics, or am I doing to all these things? To be fair, the agency did come round and replace the iron- and hoover-killing plug socket – but what about my lamp? Am I negatively charged somehow? And if I am, can I turn this around to help cut my electricity bills and relieve me of my impending ‘fuel poverty’?

I’m not really sure if that’s the answer to be honest as it’s not just electrical stuff I have an adverse affect on. My poor mobile hates me so much that the display is now permanently upside down. This means that sending a text is a bit like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time. Bloody difficult. Perhaps I should stick to simple technology from now on, like Aga-heated irons, brooms, oil lamps and carrier pigeons. And, if I apply this to every aspect of my life, that means instead of hearing aids, I will have to get a nice shiny ear trumpet, like the one the grandma has in ’Allo ’Allo.

*Ediiiiiiiiiith? Ediiiiiiiiith?

My Innocent weekend

My, what a weekend of change it’s been. First there was the arrival of New Housemate and then there was the weather!

Innocent’s Village Fete was on in Regents Park this weekend – it’s the social event of the year and having missed it the last two years, I was eager to check it out. The Writer is well connected don’t you know, so on Saturday Shakira-Shakira and I arrived as VNPs (Very Nice People) and made our way to the Secret Garden area where The Writer assured us food and drink in abundance would be waiting for us.

But Shakira-Shakira and I got a bit lost, and then it started to pour with rain, and then we got trapped by a Friends Of The Earth charity person – and nearly 2 hours later we finally arrived at the Secret Garden, tired, hungry and in need of a sit down.

*phew

And what a sight greeted us – there was tea and cake, Innocent smoothies on tap and the nicest, and possibly strongest, G&Ts I have ever had!
*hic
Naturally due to the rain, we stayed in the food and drink tent for quite some time and then, once the sun was shining again, we ventured out and it was lovely! There was live music, a helter-skelter that The Writer and I went on together with her shrieking, ‘Ow, I’m getting friction burns!’ the whole way down. I loved it and Fab Friend has photographic evidence of my big beaming smile as I hit the bottom – looking like a 5 year old!

Then, there was the secret after party – not suitable for 5 year olds – which had very loud music and left me feeling as though someone had stuffed a trumpet mute in each ear.

I returned to the fete on Sunday, tired and hungover, as a mortal with Lovely Freelancer and her friends and it was grey and dry, then rainy, then dry, then torrential downpours, and it continued like this all afternoon until I found myself hallucinating a nice cup of tea and a sit down. I was beginning to sway on my feet when I decided enough was enough and headed home for just that and some nice back-to-back episodes of Top Gear.

I do wonder if we’ll ever have a summer – I spent the whole weekend in winter clothes – alas I haven’t even burnt my nose this year…

Perhaps Deafinitely Girly should go on location for a bit, just temporarily to somewhere like Australia – I’m sure the accent would give me plenty of material and I’ve heard the weather’s lovely and warm.

I’m just off to daydream…

Goodbye Lovely Housemate

On Friday I always seem to think about what I am thankful for and, not wanting to break the habit, today’s post is going to be similar.

I am thankful that we are finishing work at 4pm today – this gives me lots of time to go home and sort out the flat for New Housemate’s arrival and help Lovely Housemate move to her new pad.

I am also thankful that I met Lovely Housemate in our first flat four years ago. We met in a flatshare on the river with a psycho landlord and some equally bizarre housemates including one who thought an acceptable way of saying hello was ‘Who are you shagging?’. Thankfully he never got the chance to meet my parents and say, um, hello.

Then, we moved to another flat where we had our first pets, mice. There we waged an endless battle with the little blighters that I think in all honesty they won. They were such frequent visitors that they had worn a bit of carpet down by their entrance to the lounge. Lovely eh?

On one occasion I came out of my room to find a mouse in the hall between mine and Lovely Housemate’s door – and I screamed, probably very loudly. Lovely Housemate flew out her room to see what was going on, saw the mouse, and flew back in again, with a scream to rival mine.

Thankfully, there was a man in the house at the time who took care of the situation and took the poor bewildered and, probably deafened from all the screaming, mouse outside.

If New Housemate is reading this – I would like to confirm that there are NO mice in our current flat. It’s been good to us, this little flat – it’s seen its fair share of dramas and the flat below has joyfully shared occasions such as belly dancing evenings and drunken meals at 3am with us. They love us in the flat downstairs, honest!

I shall miss Lovely Housemate – she always says nice things about my cooking and is happy to be a taste tester for my cakes. More importantly she’s happy to be adventurous and try out new recipes such as Marmite and Salad Cream dip with crudités and oatcakes and microwave syrup sponge that looks more like a bath sponge than an edible one – it tasted pretty shocking, too – but then i had forgotten to add the eggs!

She’s also been the most amazing ears to me and I know that if the fire alarm was going off she’d rescue me. Having said that, I don’t really worry as she’s only living down the road, so she’ll probably be able to hear the fire alarm from there and I know that if I ever need ears, she’ll gladly step up to the job.

So it’s TaTa to the Lovely Housemate in this blog and she will forever more be known as Shakira-Shakira – come out with us on Saturday and you’ll see why!

I have a drinking problem

Remember that movie Airplane! where the main character, Ted Striker, says, ‘It was then I discovered my drinking problem,’ and throws his drink down his face?
Well, recently I have been doing a fantastic impression of that, most memorably in a swish Moroccan restaurant last Saturday.

There I was with NikNak and The Writer, genteelly sipping my mint tea and nibbling on baklava – it was quite delicious. The ambience however, didn’t lend itself to efficient lipreading as it resembled a sort dark cavern with lanterns for mood lighting. The music was also rather loud. This meant that in order to follow what was going on I had to keep my eyes on NikNak and The Writer at all times.

Cue my drinking problem – first I missed my mouth with the mint tea and sent it down my dress and then, I tipped it too far and got a rather large piece of mint – sprig, stem, the lot – the kind you see garnishing very large cakes, wedged in my throat.

*rasp

With visions of the Heimlich manoeuvre flashing through my mind, I tried desperately to will it to go up, or down – I didn’t really care which way it went but halfway, like that rhyme with the Duke of York isn’t really very productive.

*wheeze

Eventually I resorted to a large mouthful of baklava to help it on its way and thankfully it worked but it left me a bit shaken and wondering about all the other times I have found myself doing similar things.

Lipreading instead of focusing on the task in hand has got me into all sorts of strife in the past. Last year at work, I was bouncing around the office like an excitable puppy, as Lovely Housemate and I were due to fly to Istanbul the next day. My Boss gave me a simple job of cutting out photographs using a craft knife and as I did so, I chatted to a colleague about my impending trip looking up to lipread her rather than down at what I was doing.

And then, suddenly, I was aware that the last slice I did felt like I was cutting through butter rather than paper and then I felt pain.

*owwwwwwwwwwwww

There on the cutting board was the side of my fingertip and where it used to be attached, was rather a lot of blood.

*sniff

Now, I pride myself on not being that squeamish but this was grim – the blood just kept coming – and I was soon slumped in the nearest chair asking dumbly if it was possible to stick my finger back together.

It wasn’t – but I got it patched up for my holiday and was ordered to hold it up as much as possible. Easier said than done when lugging heavy luggage to a different continent.

But that trip was amazing, and when the blood started to drip through the bandage, Lovely Housemate and her ma took me to this fantastic hospital under a mosque where a nice Turkish doctor redressed it for me. This was incredibly painful and made me say a very rude word as the last bandage had fused itself to my finger. (It clearly was a universally rude word by the look of shock on his face).

*blush

I never bothered to develop any photographs from that trip though. You see, my finger continued to bleed for the next three days, so as instructed, I continued to hold it up – so in every single flipping photograph I’m there with my gigantically bandaged finger pointing at sod all!

Classy.

I blurry love you

Phew, I woke up this morning and thought it was Saturday, then Friday and then

*sniff

I realised that it was only Wednesday. This week has been a hectic one to say the least and I think I am bit tired. One of the first things to go when I am tired is my hearing… swiftly followed by my speech.

But lets start with the hearing. Last night I was on the phone to my Pa who was visiting my Gma – I can hear my rents surprisingly well on the phone normally, which I love.

My Gma is cool – she’s an octogenarian who moves with the times. She writes texts in txt spk and goes on computer courses so she can whiz around the wireless internet on her speedy laptop.

Her latest move-with-the-times thing is a brand-spanking-new kitchen – all beech and modern and last night my Pa informed me that she had chosen a black door. ‘Where?’ I said as my Gma has three doors in her kitchen and I was struggling to work out why she’d want any of them to be black. ‘The door is black,’ my Pa said. ‘I know,’ I replied, ‘but there are three, which one?’
‘Three?’ my Pa said.

There was a pause and then he clicked…

‘F-L-O-O-R!’ he said to me very slowly and then I clicked. A black floor made much more sense – how trendy my Gma is! She’s got a fancy oven and black granite work surfaces too, apparently!

Oooh that reminds me, this morning the subtitles supporting the BBC weather presenter informed deaf readers of the following, ‘If you are expecting sunny weather, URINE for a shock!’ and yes – if I was expecting sun and I got a golden shower instead, it would be shocking.

But enough deviating from the point of today’s post and onto the speech…

I was once on a date with a boy who was more like Austin Powers than I should have found attractive and he asked me if I was drunk as I appeared to be slurring my voice. Once I had got over the surprise of him asking me that, particularly as I was sat behind the wheel of my car at the time, I replied that no, I wasn’t drunk, I was deaf and tired. Which I guess makes a change from sick and tired.

It’s quite a nice statement to come out with actually – I am deaf and tired of this week/programme/date/boy*

*delete where applicable.

But it’s true nonetheless that when I am tired my speech goes a bit funny. This morning it took me three attempts to say a word coherently to Lovely Freelancer. She was very patient but I did feel a bit silly.

In order to speak the way I normally do, I have to concentrate quite hard on getting the letters out properly, sounding out the ones I don’t hear anymore and finishing words properly. When I am tired, this goes, I no longer concentrate and so quite often sentences come out in a slurring jumble.

But perhaps the weirdest thing is that when I am actually drunk the opposite happens – I suddenly have the intonation of a newsreader and instead of slurring, ‘I blurry love you,’ to everyone in sight, it’s far more likely that I will come out with, ‘I say, I love you ever such an awful lot.’

OK, OK the last bit is a slight exaggeration – but next time I’m out with you, buy me and rum and coke and then you can see for yourself.

Sounding out

This morning I got woken up by the bin men – they were very loud, and my window was open as it was slightly tropical in London last night.

Most of the rubbish in the two big wheelie bins is Lovely Housemate’s and mine as, in preparation for her departure, we have been having a bit of clearout. The ill-fated and downright-annoying pedometer/rape alarm was in today’s consignment and I was quite happy to see the back of it.

Once up, I went into the kitchen to burn my toast and make tea and was rummaging in a drawer when I came across this strange piece of black cord with a pin on the end…

A pin… a pin…

*Exasperated squeak

I had – 48 hours too late – discovered the silencer for the rape alarm that had almost ruined the Saturday of everyone within a 3-mile radius of my flat. Bizarrely I wondered if it was too late to catch the bin men, but what was I going to do, hurl myself into the lorry to find the bits of the offending noise-maker? Not very dignified and I would probably end up a bit smelly.

*Sigh

To be honest, I am not sure carrying a rape alarm is a good idea for me as if it was in my bag and there was other noise going on I am not convinced I would hear it going off. Actually I have to confess, I am actually speaking from *blush personal experience.

When I first moved to London, my Ma bought me a black rape alarm to keep in my bag, which was lovely of her. And, keep it in my bag I did. Then one day I thought I was having one of those self-conscious episodes where everyone seemed to be staring at me, so I checked my pants were not showing, concealer was rubbed in and hair was in place – and it all was so I decided I was being paranoid.

Once at work I was aware of an unrest in the office but as I don’t hear general chatter I didn’t take much notice. Until Boss-At-That-Time suddenly said to me, ‘WHAT IS THAT NOISE?’
‘What noise?’ I replied, wondering what she was on about.
‘It’s sort of going nnnneeeeeergh, neeeeerrgh,’ she replied.

Like a dog with a bone she combed the area until she was finally holding my handbag aloft as the offending item. So I went through it until I finally found my rape alarm, pin missing. Luckily on this occasion, the pin was also in my bag and the two were reunited and silent again.

But, the fact that it was going nnnneeeeeergh, neeeeerrgh would imply it had been going for quite some time and the batteries were going flat. This meant that there was a distinct possibility that I had gone all the way to work with a people deterrent in my handbag – no wonder I had sat alone on the bus and people had been staring. But why hadn’t anyone told me?

I never understand this in London – no one communicates. The other day my bus terminated and I only knew from the flashing lights on the upper deck but the tourists did not. Everyone filed past them and not one person told them… so I did. It took 30 seconds of my time…

So please, if you ever see me walking down the street, my bag emitting a high-pitched screech or some other random sound, tap me on the shoulder and help me track down the offending item – you will make my day!