Bootful of woe

Hahahaha

*ahem

Sorry, but I have just discovered that my legs are outsize!

You see, I was hankering after some nice winter boots but I can’t get any to zip up around my calves – I am told they don’t look fat, but as Shakira says, the zips don’t lie… or that’s what I heard anyway.

Now, I measured my calf circumference and whacked it into Google, alongside the word ‘boots’ and do you know what came up (apart from quite a lot of porn sites – how rude!)?

A disability boot to fit over a plaster cast!

So that means that my leg is the circumference of a normal person’s leg with plaster cast over the top.

*blush

Now, the laws of common sense tell me that there’s not a lot I can do about this – one particularly dubious internet site suggested I stopped eating and let my body consume the muscle instead – but I don’t think that’s a plan. And another even more dubious site claimed to cure big calves with a tablet, twice a day.

Hmmmmmmm!

Now, I know there are various places that offer circumference-fit boots for larger legs – but these all cost so much! Why can’t I get a pair of bog-standard boots for my larger legs, except Evans (I don’t like any there)?

I also have one more concern – I am going skiing this winter and what happens if I break my leg? How am I going to find a disability boot to fit round my width-of-a-plaster-cast leg that now has a plaster cast on?

Suggestions on a postcard please!

I like Imogen Cooper

Last night I went to a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank and it was brilliant. It was a piano recital by Imogen Cooper (one of Pa’s favouritest pianists) and she was playing Schubert.

Now, I like Schubert, not as much as stompingly fabulous Beethoven however, but his music is lilting and entertaining, easy to listen to, and a visual feast if you are lucky to be seated on the keyboard side of a concert hall.

Now, what I didn’t know was that Schubert died at just 31, apparently from the complications of syphilis, but by this time he had written 600 lieder, nine symphonies – including the famous "Unfinished Symphony, liturgical music, operas, and a large quantity of chamber and solo piano music.

Phew – what a busy man he must have been – in all areas of his life!

*Ahem

Now, as I was saying, my Pa is a big fan of Imogen Cooper and he was meant to come yesterday too, but was feeling poorly so he sent Ma instead.

Being a music boff, Pa had booked excellent seats, with a clear view of the keyboard, so I was able to finger read the high bits that I had no hope of hearing in the reflection of the shiny-shiny Steinway & Sons piano. It was fascinating watching Cooper’s fingers fly over the keyboard with an enviable lightness and accuracy, and I found myself enveloped with sound.

How marvellous!

It’s at times like these that all my tantrums about being deaf seem totally trivial – after all, who cares about birds when you can have the left hand and a good deal of the right of a Schubert Sonata. And, aren’t I lucky to have a unique perception of how this music actually sounds? Seeing as I can only hear one octave above middle C I’m guessing it wasn’t as bass heavy as I thought, but still it sounded beautiful.

There is however one piece of music I draw the line at enjoying though, and that is Lakmé’s Flower Duet. It’s unbelieeeeeeeeeeeevably high and was once responsible for me nearly being kicked out of a concert.

To be fair, it was probably my fault, as the decision to go to the ‘Hand-bell ringing and soprano-singing’ concert was not one of my finest. After sitting listening to silence during the hand-bell ringing – all out of my frequency – these rather voluptuous ladies took to the stage and began to warble. The higher they sang, the higher their eyebrows got and the less I heard, so all I saw was these wobbling Miss Piggy look-alikes with eyebrows higher than their hairline.

Needless to say, I soon started to see the funny side of this and a chortle became a snort and even the sleeve of my jumper stuffed in my mouth failed to conceal the laughter literally splitting from my sides.

Hmmm, and this is where I should probably mention that I was unknowingly sat beside the sister of one of the mentioned warblers – who failed to see the funny side.

A few stern words were uttered and all I could do was nod at her, as it would have been too much effort to remove what was now nearly my whole jumper stuffed in my mouth.

As I was only about 15, it was horrible being told off by a random lady and I have never forgotten it. So now, if I am at a concert and I get the urge to burst out laughing/fall asleep/proclaim my disgust or all of the above – I leave. But luckily last night, I didn't!

Please come back later today...

a post will be up this afternoon – I promise!
love
DG

Last night I had the strangest dream

I was travelling on the Tube with a group of random people, going this way and that, and up and down in lifts to places like Goodge Street. Every now and again, I would remember that I should be freaking out, but then forget again – and so the journey continued.

Bizarrely, the Olympic committee were on the Central Line platform at Notting Hill Gate and I stuck my tongue out at someone who looked suspiciously like Seb Coe!

On returning home, in my dream, I poured a cup of tea over the microwave as that was where the sink used to be, and realised that New Housemate had remodelled the kitchen!

It had brown swirly wallpaper, dark Formica cupboards and random bits of 70's paraphernalia attached to the orange tiles with suction cups.

It was most odd and being of retro taste, I should have loved it. But spoiling it was this tall blonde woman screaming like a banshee and vacuuming up Lego, which allegedly belonged to New Housemate and me!

Hard as you may find it to believe, all this was not the oddest part of my dream...

No, that would be the part where I wasn't deaf! The part where I could eavesdrop on conversations through doors, hear someone from another room, and most weirdly, hear the fire alarm, which went off after I blew up the microwave by pouring tea over it!

When I woke up at 6am I found that I was willing myself to go back to sleep, to get back to the strange retro kitchen and shrill blonde woman and world of hearing.

But I couldn't!

And then just one hour later I realised why it would have been a bad idea.

Waiting for the bus, a harassed mother arrived with two children one of whom was screaming and shouting and generally having a massive tantrum! Up close, I could hear bits of this, such as the choking breaths between wails and the long sobs of 'Mu-u-u-ummy'

And so I joined the rest of the bus queue in praying she wouldn't be going in our direction.

She was…

But then HA! I discovered that on the top deck, with the screaming child safely downstairs, the low hum of the bus drowned her out – even the choking sobs disappeared!


Hurrah!

I know she was still wailing like the world was going to end as there were lots of irate-looking people, visibly huffing and puffing, and the top deck was much more full than the lower one.

As I sat there enjoying the peace, suddenly my reality felt pretty darn good!

Hi honey, I'm back!

In the words of Zippy, ‘Hello Everybody!’

After Deafinitely Girly’s longest break ever, it’s time for Monday’s post and it would be criminal not to write about what a fantastic weekend I had with DMK – who, after several rums (ho-hum) was renamed as SuperCathyFragileMystic (SCFM), for reasons that seemed brilliant at the time but in the cold light of day we were struggling to remember. However, that now means she holds the record for the quickest ever blog-name change in DG.

Anyway, back to the weekend. It really was excellent and involved SCFM and me eating constantly. In fact, on Saturday we woke up, ate breakfast, chatted, had elevenses consisting of chocolate crispy cakes and Scotch pancakes, chatted and then had lunch, which was a deliciously fabulous selection of cheese and crackers.

In addition to this, we went for a particularly scrummy afternoon tea in Castle Combe (half an hour after eating McDonalds) before feasting on yet more Scotch pancakes on the way home.

Deeelicious.

On Friday night, SCFM and I went out for drinks with her newly-engaged friends Stevie Wonder…

Eh?

They’re actually called Steve and Wandia (say it quickly and you’ll see where I am coming from). This mishearing was the first in what proved to be a long night of them, which included me thinking that tennis was the second-most important quality that women looked for in a man…

…that would be tenderness

and that the owners of a new shopping centre in the city centre flew a horse around inside it once a month to keep the pigeons out…

…and that would be a hawk!

Perhaps the Wild West Country Air was affecting my hearing…

It’s not affecting SCFM’s hearing that’s for sure, as demonstrated in a particular out-of-town shop. While perusing the clothes, SCFM suddenly burst out laughing and asked me between chokes and wheezes if I had just heard the voice speaking over the tannoy.

‘Um, no’ I replied, somewhat incredulously!

It turned out that this shop was advertising free hearing tests using the PA system, which meant that those who didn’t need them, heard it, and those who did, were blissfully unaware they needed one.

How utterly dumb is that!

Wednesday is the new Friday

For today at least…

Deafinitely Girly is off again for another jaunt! And, even though I’m taking Pink Top on my travels (Climbing Boy convinced me she won’t break this time), I can’t guarantee that I won’t be having so much fun that blogging slips my mind.

You see, I’m off to the Wild West Country to see Doctor-Mate-Kate. She works in a hospital saving lives and dealing with icky situations such as boils on bums… and worse.

I have known Doctor-Mate-Kate since I was 6 years old – she was in my class at school until she got promoted to the year above on account of her cleverness. She also lived across the common from me in the middle of nowhere and we used to meet up quite a lot for ice cream at the local ice-cream factory.

What hardships I had to endure as a child.

One summer holiday, when we were about 13, we spent three weeks camping in my Rents’ back garden, eating our way through funsize Mars Bars and talking non-stop. Eventually her Pa came round and packed up the tent when we weren’t looking and demanded DMK go home.

DMK and I have also been to Scotland together quite a lot. We usually go for a week, hire a car, buy a box of Tesco Value biscuits, drink gallons of tea, and drive as far north as we can get and even further on one occasion, when we took a boat to Orkney.

The first time we went, we chatted in the car, in the farmhouse where we stayed, on walks up the various hills, on the beach, in the garden, in museums, in the distillery where we went for breakfast – hell, I think we even spoke in our sleep – or at least I did – not sure if DMK responded though.

The people are so wonderful up there – they make you gin and tonics that are strong enough to give you double vision after one sip, they make porridge that would give a corpse enough energy to get through the day, and they sure as hell know how to throw a party.

The length of our friendship means that DMK has seen my hearing fade over the years and knows instinctively when I need a helping hand – which in Scotland was often as the accent foiled me completely. She does a sterling job at being my ears and on one occasion while sat overlooking the harbour in Brora she taught me the words to an entire song as we munched on custard creams.

Hmmmm custard creams and tea – I can’t wait to see DMK.

Wild um... Westfield

Yesterday, I met Gingerbread Man at Westfield... or Westlife as London Aunt calls it.

For out-of-towners, Westfield is a massive shopping centre in a strange location with very little parking spaces and questionable transport links.

For in-towners, or me at least, it's bizarre.

Now, don't get me wrong, it had an impact on me. In fact, Gingerbread Man found me wandering around mouth agape like a feeding whale...

It's vast!

It also has mini sitting rooms dotted about with comfy retro sofas and armchairs, where men were sat reading newspapers while, presumably, their other halves shopped, got lost or used the circular layout for track running.

But all this, in Zone 2, just felt weird! London is about the hustle and bustle of the streets, the belching buses, the facades of buildings that once housed tailors and snuff box shops becoming enveloped with the bright lights of Tesco Express. It's about rain, tourists holding gigantic maps, and Evening Standard sellers.

To me, Westfield could have been anywhere in the UK and I actually had to force my brain to accept that outside the clinically white walls of this gigantic building really was the bus-belching London with all it’s variety and everchangingness (not a word, I know).

But perhaps this will make Westfield a success – after all, it kind of removes the boundaries of who can go where. In London, Bond Street is littered with posh, rich beautiful people and a fair few ugly ones. But, as an ordinary person, it would never occur to me to do anything other than window shop there – I would feel like an imposing impostor! And, I am sure I am not alone in this. Those shops are so intimidating – the staff seem to check you out to see if you really are capable of spending money.

But in Westfield, Miu Miu and Mulberry all rub shoulders with H&M and New Look, and it’s easy to wander into any of them. Which means people will, and before they know it, they'll own a £600 handbag not a £6 one!

In these credit-crunch times, it’s easy to avoid Prada and favour Primark – you just go to Oxford Street instead of Bond Street but in Westfield there’s no getting away from it, so unless you have steely strong willpower the money will be spent – I think I am going to avoid Westfield altogether.

Monday Moanday... ba-da-ba-da-da-da

Where to start? Well it wasn't hard to pick the subject of today's rant, and if I was a cheerleader, I would be giving you a B, a B, and a C,

and perhaps a V... sign.

Now, let's see... why could I possibly be mad at the BBC? Could it be anything to do with their subtitles?

If you look out of the window in a south-westerly direction right now, and see steam rising into the air, there's a very good chance that it's mine, and it's coming from my very cross ears.

So, let me set the scene for you... there I was, last night, settling down with anticipation for the third episode in the new series of Top Gear. Did I mention that it's my favourite TV program in the whole world?

Last week, as you will remember, the subtitles ran out during the Will Young interview and all I gleaned from it was a lot of flirting. This week, in the exact same place, the subtitles when bonkers! Mark Whalberg was the star in the reasonably-priced car and suddenly nothing made sense - the subtitles were about 2 minutes ahead of the program.

This meant that I got to read about how his lap was going before he'd even got in a car and then...

*gasp

His lap time was revealed when the picture was still showing him doing it!

Argh! Not content with ruining this for myself, I also ruined it by texting it to another Top Gear fan... who quite possibly still hasn't forgiven me!

But, what I want to know is, why does this always happen in Top Gear? This is now the third time that the subtitles have gone doolally in this programme alone.

Is it that it's so good that the person typing the subtitles gets distracted and simply watches the TV instead of typing? Does the amount of swearing that the stars in the reasonably priced car do disrupt the subtitles as there are so many blanks? Or does the BBC think that deaf people don't watch Top Gear... or the iPlayer... or...

Oh, don't get me started.

I think, possibly, that the BBC have a blog search function that they click on every now and again, as whenever I mention them, I get a few hits from the Beebers themselves, so let's give something a try...

'If you work for the BEEB - one person excluded, he knows who he is - then please, in the name of all that is Holy, STOP COCKING UP TOP GEAR!'

Phew, after all that, I am off for a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

Friday fun

Did someone fast forward this week?

I can’t believe that I am writing yet another Thankful Friday post – how can it be? It seems like only yesterday that I was jabbering on about Lovely Turkish Man and his suicidal, psychopathic cat, Jessie.

Anyway, today I am thankful for my half day. Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words rightfully pointed out that I rarely seem to work a full week at the moment, and she’s right. Between having to use up holiday and work events, the three- or four-day week is becoming something of the norm!

Hurrah to that, I say!

Last night I went climbing with Flo – it was great fun even though I was a bit rusty after a rather long break from it. Gingerbread Man was meant to be coming too, but he’s sick – something to do with a dodgy carbonara I do believe. So spare a thought for him as I don’t think he’s having a Thankful Friday, more seeing Thursday in reverse.

Poor Gingerbread Man…

I guess I should be thankful that he didn’t invite me around for carbonara, too.

So yah, today’s post – well there’s not much to report, except I misheard the bus as saying Halal Brompton Hospital instead of Royal Brompton Hospital, which made my mind boggle.

And so it is on this note that I leave you with some nice and pointless facts about vomiting (in honour of Gingerbread Man):

Whales vomit regularly as a means of the ordinary digestive process, to expel inedible things they have swallowed – and apparently if you find whale puke, you’re in the money.

Emetophobia is a fear of vomiting – luckily Gingerbread Man doesn’t seem to have this.

Ta-ta

I've been edited…

Deafinitely Girly has her own sub editor don’t you know.

Lovely Freelancer, who’s a keen reader of DG, also keeps any eye on things when I get things wrong, and yesterday she pointed out that I hadn’t really explained the real origin of the word malapropism and had put completely the wrong Shakespeare character in the wrong play.

*blush

So, the latter corrected, here’s the proper origin:

Malapropism actually comes from a character called Mrs Malaprop in a Restoration play in 1775 by Richard Sheridan called The Rivals. It comes from the French: mal à propos, literally meaning ‘ill-suited’. The character deliberately misspoke words for comic effect.

Phew – glad we got that out of the way. One thing intrigues me though – what was it called before, when Shakespeare was writing? Or did it not have a name then? If I am being blonde about this, Lovely Freelancer, please write and tell me!

Anyway, that’s all far too much for me to think about on a Thursday, so I am not going to.

Instead, I am going to tell you how much I love London Underground.

Eh?

Hmmm, yes. I never thought love and underground would come together in a sentence written by me, but today I really was impressed. Not by the delays on the Piccadilly Line or bizarre facts about London Aunt’s tube stop on the board where service information should be.

But by the subtitles…

Now, as you know, I really don’t travel on the Tube very much. Since I got squished in my Mini, being stuck in confined spaces at high speeds really isn’t my cup of tea. However, needs must and when I HAVE to, I will catch it.

And, such an occasion arose this morning as I was running late. With London Aunt for company we hurled ourselves through the closing doors with moments to spare and quickly realised there was no room. This got worse at the next two stations as people on the platform surged forward, determined to make room.

*Gasp, wheeze

I didn’t like it very much and liked it even less when we stopped, in a tunnel.

Silence

And then,

‘Pwahtgdfh, adfhkjfghkjh sdjhgkj g!’

Hmmmm

*panic, panic

And then in scrolling red words across the central door of the carriage came the magical words…

‘We are experiencing a delay due to congestion at the next station’

*phew

Isn’t that amazing!? I can hear on the tube again!

Am I completely converted?

Absolutely not! Why would I want to get on a hot, cramped, unreliable tube train every day when I can sit on the top deck of a bus, no armpit in my face, no broadsheet tickling the back of my neck, no garbled messages about why we are stuck in a tunnel. Buses a much more civilised way to travel – as The Writer will tell you.

But, from now on the Tube will be my ICE transport…

In Case of Emergency

Innocence is bliss!

*Teehee

That’s what NikNak said to me this morning when she was describing her food-labelling denial system.

‘Eh?’ I thought to myself wondering if I had misread her or missed some clever twist in this common statement.

And then it twigged that she actually meant ignorance not innocence…

I do this a lot, too – I regularly describe people as being ‘off their tree’ instead of ‘out of their tree’ or ‘off their rockers’ – it’s very embarrassing and recently I have taken to calling everyone ‘bonkers’ instead, to save the inevitable blushing that follows being corrected.

This is actually called a malapropism you know and Google tells me that this is defined as the substitution of an incorrect word for a word with a similar sound, usually to comic effect. It’s very common in Shakespeare, which is where I first came across it – Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream regularly spouted them.

It did however lead me to do some more Googling and I came across what is possibly the most embarrassing case I have ever heard of – and here it is, courtesy of Yahoo Answers:

When I was at a college New Years Eve party in Boston, this chick sitting next to me had on a really low-cut shirt. She looked down and announced, ‘Oh, my goodness! My clitoris is showing!’

Obviously, she meant to say cleavage… and I am so glad I am not her!

The other one Google gave me was the tale of an instructor for a children's law course described statutory rape as ‘When an adult has sex with a statue.’

I would love to continue writing but I have to leave my desk to go and laugh my head of in the loo at work as if I carry on sitting here crying tears of laughter, people are going to think I am off my tree!

Little white lie

It is with a tear in her eye that Deafinitely Girly writes today's post.

The reason for this is actually fabulous – yesterday I saw Niknak in a wedding dress! Not surprisingly, she looked absolutely amazing and, as I sipped my complimentary champagne, I couldn’t fail to keep the emotions at bay!

Obviously, being a superstitious kinda gal, details on any of the dresses NikNak tries on must be kept secret from Country Boy 1, Niknak’s fiancé. However, if he is reading this, the dress is fuchsia pink with blue spots and hemmed with fairy lights. There's also a built-in firework display in the veil!

*hehe

Did you know that I am making Niknak's wedding cake? It's quite an honour to be given this task and requires lots of practise. So in the coming months I will need some stand-in cake and icing testers for when Niknak and Country Boy 1 are not available.

Any takers?

Perhaps by the time it comes to making it, I will have my dream kitchen, or at best, my dream oven...

…anything would be better than the one I have now, which regularly induces Gordon Ramsay-style tantrums.

Anyway, onto today's post! This morning I lied! Now, I hate lying. It's never as easy to conceal the truth as you think it's going to be, which can get you into all sorts of bother. But this morning, I made an exception.

There I was, trundling along on the bus when the driver suddenly stopped and shouted down his microphone. The girl beside me was reading a French book and jumped up looking very scared, before asking me what was going on. Rather than explain that I couldn't hear and panic her more, I told her the driver was just asking people to get off the stairs!

Actually, I had no idea what was going on, but a swift look around showed 50 non-plussed faces, so I figured my explanation would suffice. She believed me, stopped looking like she might vomit with fright all over me, and sat back down.

*Phew

But she reminded me of me. Usually when I can't hear, I get a rising panic and the overwhelming urge to run screaming from the situation. But today, I stayed calm and helped that girl in the same way that a particularly gorgeous curly-haired guy helped me on the platform of Bank DLR last week when I got utterly overwhelmed by having to listen while underground.

Hey, I never said I was normal! But it was a nice feeling to be on that side of the tracks today. Even if I was just pretending!

Bus trouble

I became the most hated person on my bus today – quite by accident.

*sniff

There I was, playing the highly-addictive Brickbreaker on my Pinkberry, when I suddenly realised the woman beside me kept giving me murderous looks. Then I realised the people in the adjacent seats were, too.

A quick check of my reflection revealed that I wasn’t covered in oozing sores and that all my clothes were on, so the logical bit of my brain decided to check the sound setting on the game. And, ARGH!!!!!!, I found that it was on.

‘I can’t hear,’ I wanted to say to the people who all hated me. ‘Don’t judge me until you know all the facts.’

But of course they did.

However, it got me thinking about how quickly we are to judge people and if I was hearing and someone was playing a computer game on the bus at top volume, I would be annoyed, too.

And I would be mortified if the person then told me they were deaf. Which is also why I kept schtum. I didn’t think they needed an early-Monday-morning mortification episode.

But does this mean I am running out of sticking-up-for-myself steam?

What I really need is something to get fired up about – I am sure that will give me back my fighting spirit. It nearly happened last night. There I was, watching Top Gear, when the subtitles stopped for at least 1 whole minute. Given the level of my Top Gear fanaticism, this was a serious problem. I missed a whole bit of the interview with Will Young and so to me it just looked as though Jeremy Clarkson was flirting with him.

But I relaxed pretty quickly once they came back on, and actually lost the urge to write to the BBC and complain. That means that this lunchtime, I must venture out in the rain and find something that is crap for deaf people and needs complaining about.

Failing that, I will get mad about the iPlayer, again, as despite following several lines of complaint and being promised that there would be soon be more subtitled programmes, there are none. So I still can’t find out what Jeremy Clarkson was really doing.

Disgraceful!

Aah, that worked!

Friday is here!

Right, after yesterday’s outburst, it’s time for Thankful Friday.

Today, I am thankful for weekends! I love that feeling of falling asleep on a Friday night knowing you don’t have to get up at Stupid o’clock. I also love that feeling of waking up on a Saturday morning knowing that there’s no work and I can have that extra time to sleep. Although being a morning person I usually still can’t resist the impulse to bounce out of bed and try to cram as much into the weekend as possible.

Yup, all in all, I have no complaints about weekends.

This weekend should be good. Lovely Turkish Man is over from Istanbul so Shakira Shakira has planned various jaunts that I will join them on.

Lovely Turkish Man is, um, well lovely! He lives in a brilliant part of Istanbul and last time I visited him, he had a psychopathic cat called Jessie. She was cute to look at but had the personality of an angry tiger, with toothache, on a bad acid trip.

Except with him.

Never have I seen a cat so in love with someone as Jessie was with Lovely Turkish Man. Last I heard, she’d moved to the country as she kept jumping out of his fifth-floor window… Yup, suicidal AND psychopathic, all in all she made a delightful pet!

Anyway, I also have Sunday lunch with London Aunt at what was one of the best-kept secrets in London, but now is full of Yah-Yah people with three-wheeled all-terrain buggies.

However, the food is deeelicious and so we ignore the Yah-Yah people and enjoy our gigantic servings of roast beef and Yorkshire pud.

My stomach is rumbling already…

Is it lunchtime yet?

I want doesn't get…

Yesterday I remembered I was deaf.

It’s not like I ever really forget but sometimes, just sometimes, I do forget that there is stuff going on that I simply don’t hear. And yesterday, I was reminded that phones really do ring when my colleagues were running all over the place trying to pick them up, and playing ‘which phone is ringing this time?’, which, to be, honest I don’t think they enjoy very much.

But, for the split second that I felt left out, it kind of made me sad. Here’s this amazing piece of technology, which admittedly was invented by an Italian man called Meucci who couldn’t afford the patent and not by Alexander Graham Bell, and I can’t enjoy it.

To tell you the truth, I am a bit disturbed by my recent longing to hear a telephone ring – is it a lapse in my sanity or just that natural urge that all humans have of hankering after the things they can’t have?

People do that a lot I find. You get people wanting to be famous but having nothing to be famous for, so instead they don’t wear pants and fall out of clubs drunk a lot in the hope that a desperate paparazzi who didn’t get any other pictures that night will snap them. You get people who want the perfect body but forget that the public’s perception of what this is changes with such alarming regularity that in order to keep up they end up looking like an artist’s impression of themselves.

And then, there’s um me, who wants to hear phones ring.

I am sure that if you dig a little deeper into this it will probably emerge that what I really want is to not be deaf full stop. But b*ll*cks to that I say, deafness is a part of me and I don't want to change who I am.

But how about you just give me the phones…just for today

…and maybe the TV without subtitles

…and perhaps cats meowing

…ooh and the oven timer

…and alarm clocks

Oh sod it, you know what, at this exact moment, I just want my hearing back.

Walk this way…

Last night I somnambulated. (Is that even a word?)

Anyway, basically it means I went for a walk in my sleep, which for me is quite a common occurrence. I know I went walkabout last night because a drawer and door were open that weren’t when I went to sleep. Spooky!

When I lived with Shakira Shakira, she was always worried that she would come across me on my travels, eyes glassy, looking possessed. And I was always terrified that she would clonk me on the head with something heavy out of sheer terror.

Thankfully we never met up under these circumstances, but in our time of living together, I found myself in the bathroom, looking in the fridge and halfway out my front door. It’s a most, most odd feeling – waking up, not in bed, no clue how you got there.

One time, when I was a child, we were staying with friends and I somnambulated out of the spare room in the direction that our bathroom would have been at home. Only it wasn’t the bathroom, it was their daughter’s bedroom. And then, I vomited on her head!

I don’t remember doing it, but I do remember her waking me up, whimpering and covered in sick! What a delightful child I must have been.

Thankfully, that seems to be have been a one off, although at uni I tried to climb out of a third-floor window as I thought there was a fire. I woke up in time not to break my neck, ankle and everything else.

Some studies say that sleepwalkers don’t remember anything the next morning – and this is partly true, but I quite often wake up in the middle of something, go back to bed and then remember it clearly the next day.

On one occasion I woke up to find shoeboxes all over my bedroom floor and a big bruise on my leg. I was working in Clarks at the time and the only explanation I could think of was that I got work and home confused and had gone into my cupboard and got all my shoes out and then not navigated the mess and fallen over!

How bizarre!

One thing I am most intrigued about though, is how well I hear when I am sleepwalking. If someone spoke to me, would I hear them? Could I lipread? I guess it’s an answer I won’t get until I meet someone on my night-time travels who isn’t so afraid of me that they clonk me on the head with something heavy.

Perhaps I should warn New Housemate about this…

Hit me ostrich one more time…

Avid and dedicated readers (I know who you are) will remember a post I wrote about my Ma teaching her class the song: An Austrian Went Yodelling and them mishearing her and thinking it was an ostrich doing the yodelling… as one does.

Anyway, this single post has generated more hits through Google on my blog than any other post and I find it quite amazing. Most hits are from the US and so I too had a go at Googling An Ostrich Went Yodelling and sure enough there was my blog, listed amongst questions from people wanting the lyrics for it.

Now, is this a genuine case of lots of people mishearing or is there a spoof underground version of what is fast becoming a classic song? I was intrigued to know and I am hoping that the next American to hit on Deafinitely Girly will let me know why they were searching for the yodelling ostrich!

However, never one to give up on a mystery, I also decided to dig a little deeper into the depths of Google and discovered there is a CD called If An Ostrich Can Yodel by a lady called Leslie Zak and what do you know – she’s on there singing the song with the Ostrich yodelling. Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself at http://cdbaby.com/cd/lesliezak2.

So to all the Americans who land up here – you can now follow the above link to buy yourself a copy!

I love having hits from far away places – I’ve had a few from Canada, Italy, India and even China, and I always wonder how that person ended up looking at Deafinitely Girly and whether they will visit again.

I hope so!

In the meantime I can’t stop singing the yodelling song – all together now…

Once an Ostrich went yodelling,
On a mountain so high,
When along came a koo-koo bird,
Interrupting his cry.

Yo-de-le-ah ke-kea, yodeleah koo-koo;
Yo-de-le-ah ke-kea, yodeleah koo-koo;
Yo-de-le-ah ke-kea, yodeleah koo-koo;
Yo-de-le-ah ke-kea, ah yo…

Trick or Treat Darlink

Very few things surprise me about London these days... and I like that.

When I first came to London, everything shocked me, from the (un)savoury streets of Soho to the fact it never gets properly dark! I was quite the country mouse and homesick for many months, or dare I say, years.

But now I love London properly. I love that you can walk around your neighbourhood and nobody except the Six Chicks know your name. It's a level of anonymity that allows you to lead a peaceful existence in those much-needed downtime days.

Anyway, as I was saying, not much shocks me now. For example, by my office there's a guy selling odds and sods who's dressed like Nora Batty right down to the wrinkly tights and prim tweed skirt. However, his outfit is finished of with a pair of running shoes and short back and sides.
Seems totally normal doesn't it?

But then sometimes I do find myself hankering after belonging to some sort of community – to have the security of knowing that I have a friendly neighbour to call on in the event of an emergency. Could such a community exist within the North Circular?

Now, on Friday, it was my birthday (did I mention this already?) and after extensive weekday partying I had the entertaining finale of trick or treating with London cousins 1 and 2... And of course, London Aunt and First-Ever-Friend.

London Aunt lives in a still fairly centralish neighbourhood of town where people can say, my other car's a hybrid and the houses are so big I couldn't afford a mortgage on the front porch. But that's not what surprised me; this is London after all!

What surprised me was that trick or treating around this London neighbourhood was like being an extra in Neighbours. Everyone knew everybody else, children were playing in the street, and at every house was a smiling parent holding out a big bowl of candy. It made me want to go home and invite all my neighbours round for a cup of tea and a nice chat. Except I don't even know who they are and they'd probably think I'd gone bonkers!

This warm and fuzzy, and to be frank, quite disturbing, feeling carried me along through freezing temperatures as I admired the competitively-decorated, cobweb-covered, pumpkin-filled front gardens of each and EVERY house, and munched on candy filched from London Cousins' already-heavy goody bags.

But, I couldn’t help wondering where the real London was, the London where you can do a complete supermarket shop at 10.30 on a Sunday night, and where you can fall from the top to the bottom of an underground escalator during rush hour and nobody notices – in fact I did this once when I was 15 and on work experience at Reuters. It was very painful and not one ‘Are you OK?’ was uttered.

And then, like a bolt from the blue, a sign that I really was in London appeared again...

…in the form of the trick-or-treat goody bags.

London Cousins 1 and 2 had cauldron-shaped things with spiders on and, along with their mate, who'd come as a witch, they cut quite an authentic look. Until I saw her trick or treat bag said Cow Shed on it!!!!

Now, her Rents had just come back from Cornwall and were still unpacking when we kidnapped her for the festivities so I wondered if perhaps her cauldron was in not easily accessible. (Her dad, Blanco, is a reader in fact! Hello Blanco!)

But then, I began to observe the other children's loots bags in the neighbourhood...

Chanel paper carrier bag with black rope handles

Armani paper bag from a Harrods make-up counter...

Hell, I swear one of them actually had a Mulberry Roxy bag.

Boom went the Ramsey Street exterior and back came London... For it is only here that a child will have a designer trick-or-treat bag.

But apparently it's not limited to children. This morning on my bus a pristine lady sat down on the bus beside me. Mui Mui bag plonked on her lap like a small dog. Clasped delicately between her leather-glove clad fingers was a Gucci paper bag. ‘Had she been trick or treating at the weekend?’ I absentmindedly wondered. But then I noticed her size -0 figure, and a nosy peak inside revealed a Tupperware of her lunch – probably a 10-calorie salad!

Evidently not!

What's in a name?

Deafinitely Girly has a disgruntled reader…

The reader, who shall remain anonymous*, is unhappy with his blog name and, in the light of recent news stories, perhaps he has a point. After all, would you want to be associated with two blundering idiots on the radio.

*DISCLAIMER Any assumptions made as to the identity of this person or company are entirely at the responsibility of the reader and Deafinitely Girly bears no liability for this.

So it would seem that the name has to go as he’s not happy, and Deafinitely Girly does not like to make people unhappy. So just as Lovely Housemate became Shakira Shakira, the disgruntled reader is now reborn as Gingerbread Man.

Will he love me any more for this? The jury is still out.

Anyway, let’s get on to today’s post shall we. Once again, Thursday has become Thankful Friday as I am not in work tomorrow. It’s my birthday, don’t you know, and so I thought I’d celebrate with a lie-in!

Today, I am mostly thankful for my friends. Thankful to the Six Chicks, Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words and Clever Katie for humouring me during pass the parcel and eating my cupcakes yesterday, and for all their wonderful presents, too.

I am also thankful for the inventor of airplanes as it means that First-Ever-Friend, who lives in Switzerland, is able to zoom into London tonight and stay for the whole weekend. How fab is that!?

And there’s one more thing I am thankful for, and that is that my deafness, for all its annoyances and inconveniences, still has the ability to make me burst out laughing. Take this morning, there I was travelling to work on the subtitled bus with the garbled voice when I suddenly heard it say ‘Bad Television Centre’.

Huh? I know the Beeb have had some bother recently but scolding them on the bus? Whatever next!?

I looked around to see if anyone else had heard this strange declaration but no one seemed to share my bemused expression. It then occurred to me to read the subtitles, which said:

South Kensington Station

and that made lots more sense. Forgetting I was in a public place I started chortling away at my random hearing. And so, from now on, South Kensington Station will forever be known as Bad Television Centre. Another, if a little ironic, name change for Deafinitely Girly.

Icing is all around me!

I had a tantrum in my kitchen this morning worth of Gordon Ramsay – but minus the swearing Ma, I promise.

The reason for my diva strop was my kitchen. Firstly, the oven is like something out of a 1950's Barbie Dream House and it makes baking cakes very difficult. It has two elements on each side and is so small that my gratin dish doesn't fit in it. I found this out once after I'd filled it with flapjack mix. I stubbornly decided to cook it with the door open – the flat was toasty warm that day.
Secondly, it’s colder than a polar bear’s nose!

So anyway, this morning I got up at 6am, wrapped myself in about 20 layers and set about icing the cakes I’d made at 6am the day before – I really do enjoy baking and I’d love to be a modern-day Martha Stewart, just without the criminal record.

My icing is a top-secret recipe – it’s a complex mix of butter and icing sugar and involves lots of dancing around with the electric beater… usually!
However, last night I'd left the butter out to soften for the icing but this morning, when I picked it up I nearly got frostbite in my fingers. How can you make melt-in-the-mouth icing with butter that would be more suitable as a house brick?

So I popped the butter on the radiator – New Housemate must think I am quite bonkers – and while waiting for it to thaw I sheepishly apologised to him. You see, when I got in last night after dinner with Climbing Boy, I forgot that there were stairs in my flat and promptly fell down them. And I don’t fall gently – I think I sounded like an epileptic elephant as I tried to stop the fall, arms flailing wildly, bouncing off the walls as I went.

Clumsy me!

Once the butter had softened I started to beat it, but it started to cool down again and before long I was beating a lump of solid butter and icing sugar. It was disasterous and my arm got very tired. I persevered though, I added hot water to the mix, I put the bowl over the kettle and then I had my tantrum.

However, I am pleased to report that the cakes are now iced with somewhat stiff, whipped and peaked icing and decorated with tiny pink sparkly bits. I have fed them to my colleagues and they are all still alive and well – so that’s a good thing.

But it’s left me hankering after a proper oven. I think I would like one more than possibly any other consumer purchase in the world. Even more than a Bugatti Veyron, which to be fair I could never park and would probably crash in the first week. There is actually a pink one in existence – it’s disgusting. Everything but cars can be pink.

There is no point to today’s post as my mind is all over the place. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that I had butter icing for breakfast?

Ice is all around me

Wow, it certainly sure is chilly out this morning. There's ice on my car and the pathetic hot water pressure in my bathroom had me shivering throughout my very quick shower.

I often wonder how much I could talk about the weather given the chance. I certainly never leave the house in the morning without first watching a BBC weather bulletin!

But, is it being British that gives me an innate fascination with the weather or am I just a meteorological freak?

If I was one though, I think I would choose to live somewhere a little more weather diverse than slap bang in the middle of the most temperate bits of the world.

Take Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe, about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, for example. Right now it's temperatures are -10°C with a wind chill of -17°C. That’s so cold that people can't wear mascara as it would freeze, weigh their eyelashes down and then they'd fall out (not sure if this is an urban myth or not). But anyway, seeing as the sun sets in October for quite a considerable amount of time, I guess it doesn’t matter if you have to scrimp on make-up as no one can see you anyway.

Or what about El Azizia in Africa, where on September 13, 1922, the highest temperature in the world was recorded at an eye-watering 58°C? In those kind of temperatures, my English rose complexion would be redder than a London bus before you could say ‘Where's my sunscreen!?’

That said, I really don’t mind extreme heat or extreme cold – so long as I am warm, I am happy! So for the former that means basking under a parasol in factor 50, and for the latter wearing four million layers of thermals under a down jacket.

It's when I get that bit wrong that there's trouble. For example, many years ago, on a beach in Fiji, I cooked myself to within an inch of my sanity. I got sunstroke and went completely gaga! Seriously, I didn't make any sense for at least half a day. I had the concentration of a goldfish – it was shocking.

Then, there was my ice climbing experience in Scotland. The weather was being, um... Scottish, and after two days of being holed up in our Station Bothy because the mountains were closed, with only stew to eat that some bright spark added toothpaste to, we finally got to go and do our training.

Ever single bit of my skin was hidden from the freezing temperatures, bonkers blizzards and 80-mile-an-hour winds, as was everyone else’s including my instructor. We trudged up hill for a good hour or so until we found a bit of snow that looked exactly like the snow at the bottom of the hill and then, our instructor spent the next hour teaching us something. To this day I still have no idea what it was as his mouth was hidden behind several layers of down!

This was in my less proactive deaf years, so instead of alerting him to predicament I decided to just copy everyone else! This involved throwing myself down the mountain headfirst, turning myself around mid slide and ramming an ice axe into the snow! It was great! I loved it! Until I lost everyone and realised I was on a mountain unable to see or hear. I was also freeeeeee-eezing cold as in my panic I had started to take my layers off as I thought I couldn't breathe – something that is apparently quite common according to my instructor.

Bugger...

After much panicking and flailing around (it’s hard to run in giant plastic boots and crampons) I finally found the vivid waterproofs of my group – my instructor then made me sit under a piece of canvas until I had warmed up and this moment of solitude helped me to decide that this really wasn’t for me. The next day, I went snowboarding instead – it really does make sense to take a lift up a mountain, slide down and have a hot chocolate at the bottom.

Yoo-hoo!

I am back from my week’s holiday and, well it’s OK. At least the sky is blue, even if the temperature did have me shivering and walking more briskly to work than usual.

I had a lovely week off and it had the perfect end with the arrival of Best-Friend-And-Head Girl and Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words at the weekend. Best-Friend bought her son, Northern Boy, who is extremely cute. His accent is a wonderful hybrid that even I can hear. He say Moomay – like a Brummie, cuppo tea – like a Yorkshire farmer, and Ta – like Cilla Black. At nearly 2 years old, there’s plenty of time for him to add to his vocabulary and I am intrigued to know what new accents he will have picked up by the next time I see him.

Big-Word-Friend bought her fiancé, whose blog name I haven’t decided on yet, so for the moment lets call him René – as in ’Allo ’Allo. Best-Friend has never met him before and neither have The Rents, so it was a chance for them to approve – which of course they did.

There was champagne, much toasting and actually a premature birthday celebration for me, which was great fun. I had a cake and completely forgot to share the blowing out of the candles with Northern Boy – I think he was a bit upset and kept saying, ‘Again, again!’

He’s quite a fascinating little character you know, and has the most incredible ability to put away quite a lot of food. After an extensive roast dinner followed by apple pie and custard, there was afternoon tea with cake and millionaires shortbread. No sooner had the plate been put on the table when a little hand shot out and grabbed a bit. The only evidence that it was Northern Boy was the smattering of crumbs round his little face and his inability to say anything for the next 10 minutes as his mouth was so full!

He is also the exact same age as Mini Clog, my nephew, and seeing Northern Boy made me miss Mini Clog and the Dutch branch of my family. I hope to see them soon as there will soon be an Ultra-Mini Clog on the way. It’s very exciting, although becoming an aunt of two is perhaps also another sign that I should start getting a bit more responsible. With my 28th birthday looming it could be about time.

On second thoughts, I think I’d better enjoy being irresponsible for the moment – there’s always next year after all…

Thankful Friday

Wow! How quickly thankful Friday comes along when you are on holiday. I am a bit baffled today and wondering if I am going prematurely senile as there doesn't seem to be a Thursday post for Deafinitely Girly and yet I am sure I wrote one.

Dear Reader,
Please write and reassure me of my sanity...

Today I am thankful for holiday. I really do feel extremely rested - not £35 a night in Champneys rested - but still, it's amazing to spend time at home with Ma and Pa. It's the little things like not having to hurry in the morning, opening the fridge to find lots of delicious food, edible fruit in the fruit bowl rather than the crusty stuff in mine, a TV hard drive full of Poirot and Inspector Morse, conversations filled with reminiscing, and CATS!

I love cats, they have the most amazing ability to cheer you up no matter what. Last night I couldn't sleep, I was worrying about something. I was lying on my front when all of a sudden I felt a big weight on my back - it was Mabel, The Rents' calico cat. She just sat on my back, her purring resonating through my body, keeping me company until I fell asleep.

This morning she was still there, this time lying on my feet, still purring - I could feel the vibrations - and all she wanted in return was an ear tickle and a pouch of Whiskas - not a bad trade for her unwaning loyalty.

The Rents have always had cats and one of them was actually mine. He was a giant long-haired, salmon pink (you didn't think I'd have a normal-coloured cat did you?) alley cat and had an incredibly camp nature about him. He was around in the years that I was growing up and kind of became my hearing cat. If I was alone in the house and the door bell rang, he came and got me. If the phone rang, he bothered me and if the on-the-hob kettle was squealing, he went skitzo.

I am sure that what he really had was a sensitivity to sound and I was the nearest person to alleviate his discomfort. But growing up, it was great knowing that Pink Cat would rescue me if need be.

And so, I would like to rewrite a common phrase about dogs being mans' best friend as it's blatantly wrong - although Beeb Boy would deafinitely disagree - whoever created that saying had obviously never had a cat.

Eye spy...

Exciting news...

I finally decided to replace my glasses for a nice new pair - and I even resisted getting pink ones.

The decision that I needed new glasses was made my by clumsiness yesterday morning when I snapped a bit of my 8-year-old vintage-looking ones off. I hadn't realised the lens had tumbled out at first - in fact, I must confess I actually panicked that I had lost the sight in my right eye as everything disappeared from view - I really am THAT blind!

So it was something of a relief to discover that on hastily pulling on clothes - the gardener incident had something to do with my speed - I had in fact pulled my glasses apart.

These glasses were also something of an emergency purchase when I was at uni. I had gone on a climbing trip and carefully put my usual glasses in the side pocket of the tent after putting my contact lenses in. I had then gone to the bathroom to brush my teeth and on returning found the tent neatly packed into its bag...

the glasses did not survive.

So, it was on another familiar mercy dash that I embarked yesterday. You see, without my glasses I am doubly deaf. It's hard to put into words but basically, if I can't lipread I am screwed. And, while my contact lenses are good for the daytime, I can't leave them in forever...

At the opticians today, the staff did their best to understand my no sight=no hearing predicament. They removed my contact lenses so they could check my eyes, and then in order for me to lip read them, they had to cope with having my face about 10cm from theirs... it was a delightful bonding session and I almost feel as though I could Facebook them all now!

This particular opticians had a promotion, and naturally I hated every single frame that was in the special-offer bracket... I looked completely 1980s NHS in most of them and one pair actually made me look like Principle McGee from Grease - not a look I was going for.

In desperation I moved over to the designer frames section and even the Chanel frames made me look a sandwich short of a picnic. Then, there was the blingy Versace frames - lovely, but my Cat-from-Shrek eyes were so big that they only covered half of them and made me look like I was wearing a badly-fitted Star Trek visor.

Eventually, after wondering if glasses just aren't my thing, I stumbled upon the perfect pair - they were not in the budget section and, as I discovered, neither were the lenses to put in them - unless I wanted them the thickness and size of Wagon Wheels.

And so, my wallet took another kicking.

But I am pleased with the result. So much so that I keep looking in shop windows, mirrors and even people's sunglasses as I pass to admire them. It's not that I am vain - well maybe a bit - but it's mostly that I am relieved that for all that money, I managed to walk out of the opticians not looking like I'd chosen my glasses in the dark, or had one ear higher than the other, which incidentally I do!

However, all this reflection-admiring concerns me because, between that and not looking where I am going when I'm lipreading, I am unsure how long my spectacular spectacles will last for...

Let's just watch this space eh!?

tsk tsk

Apologies to my avid readers for my tardiness of late.

Onion-Soup-Mate, your hits have been noted :-)

The reasons for yesterday's non existent post was that I was driving back to the country. It's cold up here and very dark at night, too - it's strange not having light streaming through my curtains 24 hours a day.

Back in London I love the hustle and bustle of the road, the glow of the streetlamps and the flashing lights of the emergency services that constantly fly past. Sometimes I leave my curtains open long after it gets dark so I can watch the world go by.

But recently however, I have been closing my curtains as soon as I get in from work - the days are getting shorter so it is getting dark quite early - but that's not actually the reason.

The reason is my neighbour...

Remember the ugly naked guy in Friends - he was the one who could be seen from Monica and Rachel's apartment and was... well, ugly and naked. Well, I have one of those. To be exact, I have an ugly naked woman.

Now, to be fair I have known of her existence for some time, since the days that Shakira-Shakira lived in my room and I had the one next door. I remember Shakira-Shakira's shrieks quite clearly as she stood transfixed to the spot watching the rather voluptious pasty lady hoovering in her birthday suit. It was grim, especially when bent down to pick up something off the floor...

Too much information? Sorry

From my old bedroom window, the spectacle was not as shocking and so, until recently I had forgotten about our fleshy neighbour.

Until one night last week when she spent most of the evening wandering around, light on, clothes off, inhibitions in Timbuktu.

Now, don't get my wrong, I have no problem with people doing things in the privacy of their own homes, but she needs to be reminded that the keyword in that sentence is privacy.

Sometimes I wonder if she has forgotten that when it's dark outside and you switch the lights on inside, it becomes like live TV for all the passers by. Sometimes I wonder if she just hasn't noticed the stonking great block of flats that has been opposite hers for ooh at least 50 years. And then, sometimes I wonder if perhaps she knows the whole world can see her and she's happy about that. And, when I start wondering that, I close my curtains.

Last night I walked into my old room at The Rents' house to find I had no curtains - it has been decorated recently and they hadn't been put back up. 'That's OK,' I thought to myself. 'My Rents live in the middle of nowhere, who is going to look through my window?'

*HA!

I found out the answer to this question, this morning as I was air drying after my shower...

...my Rents elderly gardener!

The poor man was quite innocently cutting back the roses from around my window when he caught a glimpse of quite a different English rose. Thankfully I did the runner not him, as he was halfway up a ladder.

I am still blushing now and in hiding in the front bedroom, which has curtains, praying that he hasn't had a heart attack.

*blush

the latest post ever

Well well, well... It would seem that this is latest post ever for Deafinitely Girly and if I don't type quickly enough on my pinkberry, it may well end up being the earliest post on Deafinitely Girly!! Today has been the first day of my holiday and it's been quite a busy one of pottering, drinking lots of tea and visiting London Aunt. It was lovely to see her and London Cousins 1 and 2... I am going trick or treating with them on Halloween and can't wait! It'll be my first time ever as Ma never let me go when I was little... Partly because most of our neighbours were cows and partly because I was normally full of birthday E numbers as Halloween is also my birthday. I guess you could say I'm a witch... But I'd rather you didn't!

It's not Friday but…

The sun is shining, the birds are mouthing something unintelligible and for me, it’s Thankful Friday – well technically it’s not Friday at all, but I am working out of the office tomorrow so will not be near a computer for my daily Deafinitely Girly update. And, with Pink Top out of action – there’s no possibility of a remote update either.

I am working all weekend…

*sniff

However, the thought that is holding me together is that I have a whole week off afterwards. It will be fabulously wonderful to relax and not get up at the crack of dawn which, now the winter is here, is getting later and later. I have actually been getting up before the crack of dawn recently, which I think is harder – there’s nothing less motivating than knowing it’s still dark outside.

One of my friends once missed a whole winter term of morning uni lectures because of this. She claimed it wasn’t right getting up when the sun still hadn’t! Hmmmm not sure that would wash in the world of work.

Now, after that long ramble, let’s get on to what I am thankful for and today, I am thankful for those subtitled buses I told you about last month. They really are the best thing since sliced bread and make my journey to and from work so deliciously stress free.

Take this morning – there we were pootling along the loooo-ooong road that connects my flat to central London (it really almost is the same road the whole way you know!) when I suddenly realised we had been at the same bus stop for an awfully long time.

I sat there wondering what was going on when suddenly, the bus read my thoughts and the tinny voice announced something. And, thanks to the subtitles, I could read along. It informed me that the bus was waiting at the stop to regulate the service. OK, so I was still annoyed at being held up, but at least I knew why.

What’s also amazing is that buses now give orders – my favourite being ‘NO STANDING ON THE UPPER DECK OR STAIRS PLEASE’. I catch quite a popular bus and normally have to contend with half the population of the borough blocking the stairwell and generally getting in the way.

There’s also a popular horror story that buses topple over when people stand upstairs but am not sure that’s true. Anyway, this morning a posh woman chose to ignore the announcement and carried on standing upstairs flouncing her hair everywhere and hitting me with her Louis Vuitton handbag.

Four announcements later, the embarrassment finally got to her and she retreated! Leaving me to read in peace without getting a faceful of her faux fur. Hurrah!

As a result of this subtitling boom, I have become something of a transport geek it seems. On every bus I travel on I check out the quality of subtitles and whether I know what’s going on. And on that note, I am off to buy an anorak and some thick-rimmed spectacles so I can be a proper bus-spotting Deafinitely Girly.

Hearing voices…

Hahaha!

*ahem

Sorry, but I am still chuckling about an email that Lovely Freelancer sent me last night.

She, like me, loves theatre and emailed me to ask if I wanted to go to see a play by good ol’ Shakespeare as it was audio described. Great I thought initially, sounds good. Then I started to think about what audio described actually meant, and I'm sure it is a fantastic service, if you're blind!!

We had both got it confused with captions! Now, just imagine me going to an audio-described play – not only would I not be able to hear what was going on, I wouldn't be able to hear the description of what was going on either! Sounds like a recipe for pure torture if you ask me.

Anyway, this reminded me of my last visit to see my Gma. While I was there, and in-between reading her Woman’s Weekly and plundering her dark-chocolate digestive store, I helped sort her digital box out as all the channels were a bit wonky. I then turned on subtitles so I could follow the show we were watching.

However, I forgot to turn them off when I left, so poor Gma had them splashed all over her screen when in fact, she can hear brilliantly! A few days later, Nottnum Uncle, the fabulous actor who really should be in The Bill, came over to try and fix the problem. He had a cup of tea, did The Times sudoku puzzle, which he and Pa usually fight over, and assured Gma there would be no more readalong TV.

The next day Gma switched the TV on and it began to speak to her. 'The man is walking to the sink and washing up' it said. Feeling slightly alarmed, Gma changed the channel and still the TV continued to talk to her. So much so that she couldn't follow what the actor people were actually saying.

Eventually, when she could stand it no more she called up Pa and tried to think of the best way to tell him that the TV was talking to her. And, as my Gma still has all her wits about her, and is probably reading this right now (hello Gma!), Pa decided there had to be a more reasonable explanation than um, insanity! And there was.

In his haste to fix the subtitle problem, Nottnum Uncle had turned on audio description service, so the TV was indeed talking to Gma because it thought she was blind!

Thankfully it was easily fixed and Gma’s fears of bonkers-ness were allayed. I am intrigued by this audio description service though, and would love to hear it for myself. I wonder if they do a subtitled version…

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

Ooooh I am feeling all warm and fuzzy and nostalgically 1980s today! If I close my eyes, I am almost back there, black Reebok ankle trainers, leggings from C&A, white reversible Mickey Mouse jumper, and a cardboard circle cut out and stuck on my head to try and make me look like Kylie!

The reason for this is because of the fab evening I had with Beeb Boy last night. He came over for lasagne and to make sure I added to my appallingly small film resume… step one – Star Wars IV. Even New Housemate admits that it’s shocking I haven’t seen this movie.

Technically, I should be feeling nostalgic for 1977 as this is when the movie was made, but seeing as I wasn’t even a twinkle in my parents’ eyes then, I can’t. So it is the 80s I must hanker after today.

Beeb Boy rightfully pointed out that there was something quite special about this generation of kids movies… in short they were brilliant. OK, OK, so I am not a total expert on these as I still haven’t seen ET… but I do love how films from this era so effortlessly take you back!

Flight Of The Navigator reminds me of Sunday afternoons in winter, sat on the sofa with Big Bro eating crumpets and being totally enthralled by the adventure of it all! Short Circuit I also liked, although I remember there being quite a few tears.

Then, there was The Goonies, which was my favourite movie for many, many years – I had a massive crush on Mikey, the one with braces. I hate being underground but would quite happily have been stuck down a well with him!

Everything in an 80s movie was an adventure – it was so clear cut who the goodies and baddies were that you could cheer for them right from the beginning. And no important goodies EVER died.

What’s exciting about watching these films nowadays is that they have subtitles. Back in the days when I first saw them, they were fantastical visual feasts with hazy storylines as I didn’t really hear what was going on. Now, I get to read the classic lines my friends were quoting for years in subtitles and get the sound effects in italic writing at the bottom of the screen.

Last night for example, R2D2’s squeaks and peeps came up even though they were far out of my frequency and I was even informed when Jabba the Hut was speaking in a foreign language. How brilliant is that?

I am kind of glad that I didn’t see Star Wars as a kid as I probably wouldn’t have got it! R2D2 would have been this silent robot that didn’t do anything, Jabba the Hut would have been boring and the storyline impossible to follow.

After all, have you ever tried to lip read Darth Vader?

For some random reason, it got me wondering about what if Darth Vader was my father– what a poignant moment that would have been. He drops the bombshell of my life on me and all I say is ‘Pardon, what was that?’
Hmmm anyway, back to reality…

Today…

I have absolutely nothing to say...

that's gotta be a first for me.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Thanks guys

It's kind of hard to have a thankful Friday when all the news headlines are calling it Freefall Friday and Black Friday due to the current World financial turmoil. I can however thank my lucky stars I don't have an Icelandic bank account – but then the knock-on effects are going to have consequences for everyone – not just readers of Moneysupermarket.com.

I could add it to my list of daily worries but really, what good is that going to do. If I was on a ship in rough seas, I wouldn't try and take over the steering from the captain or jump overboard, I would buy
a G&T and find something to hang on to until the storm passed... and that's exactly my thinking for the current situation. Sure, if the ship actually sinks, I will have to have a rethink but right now, a G&T seems like the best option. I also know, that if I have any worries, I can always ask Shakira-Shakira as she's a financial genius and will give it to me straight, I'm sure.

I'm really looking forward to this weekend as I am off to the Wild West Country to see Jenny M, who is quite a regular feature in this blog. She's in theatre daaa-aaarlink and has her own production company, which puts on plays all year round. Anyway, she's holding a cocktail party and we've been instructed to wear our oldest dresses due to the confined nature at her flat.

Mental note to self – must try and keep the breakdancing under control!

Also there will be Ad Mate – she's a hotshot at an advertising agency in London and she's great!

Do you know, she once read me childrens' stories in a West-Country casualty after I crashed my Mini. She and Jenny M came to my rescue and neither flinched when they saw my horrible deformed face. The crash caused me to punch myself, which resulted in the most fabulous black eye. For weeks after, I had a kind of a one-sided Twiggy look going on, which I tried to convince myself was classy even when small children were pointing at me in Tesco.

That was over three years ago now but we still laugh about that surrealness of that day when we get together.

There was my...
...insane flirting with the firemen – looking like Shrek, I am amazed I thought I stood a chance!
...swearing at the bloke that drove into me – I had him kicked out of my ambulance when he tried to get in to apologise – the naughty man is in jail now.
...belief that my car could be mended – the firemen wanted to fill it with water to stop it exploding and I was worried they'd damage the interior.

So I guess thankful Friday is all about how great ALL my friends have been over the years during the various scrapes, bumps and crisies I have got myself into!
Thanks guys!

Bon Voyage Pink Top

I waved goodbye to my Pink Top today as it embarked on a journey with UPS to Holland. I considered packing myself into the box and hitching a ride to visit Big Bro, Maxi-Clog and Mini-Clog as I haven’t been for a while, but I think I would have exceeded the 6kg weight allowance.

I’m a bit nervous actually about when I will see Pink Top again and if it will be in working order. It only lived a week before it died – much like my Russian hamster Belinda that I had as a child. She tried to escape by squeezing through the bars of her cage and suffocated.

Perhaps I have some sort of strange breakdown effect on things I own…

You know, my mother once bought me a pair of Startrite school shoes and all I did was walk out the shop in them and the soles fell off…

Then there are the things that don’t break as ‘magically’ as the ones mentioned above, such as the set of very expensive stripy glasses I treated myself to from The Pier – they lasted a week.

*Smash!

Or the entire wine and champagne glass set of Old-Housemate-Who-Now-Lives-In-Cornwall – my breakdancing saw the end of most of those. This led me to only drink out of vase-like plastic glasses for many years afterwards.

And don’t even get me started on my hearing aids. In the space of two months as a teenager, I put one pair through the washing machine, dived into a swimming pool in the next set, and lost another pair on a school trip. It started to get embarrassing going in for new ones and when the fourth pair got dropped in the bath, I am afraid I popped them on the radiator and just kept quiet. Problem was they kept quiet after that too, and I had broken hearing aids for quite a while until I plucked up the courage to confess.

Perhaps it’s because I whirlwind through life in a flurry of hurry and enthusiasm… or perhaps I am just a bit clumsy, which thankfully cannot be blamed for Pink Top’s demise.

I only hope that when I get it back, I won’t have such a fear of breaking it that I never use it – that would void my reasons for buying it. But hopefully, so long as I keep it away from the licking boy on the bus and naughty burglars, it should be OK.

Mud, mud, glorious um... Mud!

Everyone, from Persil to Unilever, says that dirt is good for children. Some people even say that it can help strengthen their immune systems and even make them happy – sure I remember being happiest jumping (but not being pushed, Big Bro!!) in puddles when I was little.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t cramming earthworms in my mouth or anything but I do remember one particularly happy day making a mud slide down a steep bank in wet weather in a country lane near my friends house. We had an emergency tree root to grab should a car come along.

Back to dirt – I really hope that the idea that it’s good for you is true. If it does make children’s immune systems stronger, then one that was sat next to me on the bus yesterday will soon have the constitution of an ox!

According to some particular gruesome statistics I found thanks to Google, the average bus seat could be harbouring up to 70 different types of bacteria including lethal MRSA. This kind of thinking leaves me not wanting to touch much when I travel from A to B each day! Sometimes I forget and rest my head against the window before noticing a big greasy mark where someone has done just that before me. YUECHK!

Anyway this kid, who was about 3 years old I would guess, had a baby bottle filled with water with him. I was sat at the front of the bus and he and his mother joined me. This would have been OK but he was shrieking, loudly and within my frequency.

After struggling from the confines of his mother’s lap, he then proceeded to throw water all over the ledge at the front of the bus, which let's not forget is probably equally rich with MRSA and goodness knows what else, and then licked it off!

Delightful!

He did the same to the window and would have licked the floor and quite possibly me had he got the chance! It left me feeling quite queasy!

I almost wanted to ask the mother, who seemed totally unfazed, for her email address so I could write on a yearly basis to check whether her son had caught something deadly from his transport-licking antics – but politeness got the better of me.

Eventually his shrieking got so out of control that she bundled him up, took him downstairs and shoved him in his buggy. When I went downstairs to get off the bus, there he was – licking the STOP button on the handrail.

While dirt may well be good for you, I think I’m a believer of everything in moderation and won’t be encouraging London Cousins 1 or 2 to go around licking public transport, to stop them getting sick, anytime soon.

Fire, fire...

Guess what? I can now text the emergency services...

if I live in Dorset, Wiltshire, Avon (which I thought wasn't a county any more) and Cornwall. It used to be that I could only text them if I was in Hampshire and spotted a cat up a tree, or a burning building. But now at least this service is extended to a whole lot of other places where I don't live.

With all fairness though, this sounds like a really good idea. I mean, there are all the alerts in place for deaf people to inform them of when a fire alarm is going off, but this could be a bit annoying if they then couldn't contact anyone to put the fire out.

As it happens, I have never yet had to dial 999 (touch wood) but if I did, I would much rather text 80999 than call an operator and risk her thinking I was a stupid hoax caller and have her hang up on me.

I nearly had to call 999 once though, when I lived with Ex-Housemate-Who-Now-Lives-In-Cornwall. She had a habit of getting stuck in bathrooms and did it twice when we were studying in Portsmouth.

The second time was after a particularly lively night out. We arrived home, I went into the kitchen to put some potato waffles into the toaster and she disappeared into her room. Ten minutes later, no sign of her, so I decided to eat her potato waffles. Ten minutes after that, I went looking and found her trapped in her en-suite bathroom.

Unable to hear her shouts from the kitchen she had been sat there wondering what to do for the last 20 minutes. However, once there and alerted to her plight, the situation wasn't much better as I couldn't lipread her through the door. Luckily however, she had taken her phone into the loo with her so we texted backwards and forwards as we pushed and pulled the door, but it was stuck fast.

And so, in the light of our lively evening, we forgot that locksmiths really are the best people to get people out of doors that won't open and she called the fire brigade. In our defence though, she is asthmatic and the thought of spending the night in there was making her rather wheezy.

Two minutes later, lights on, sirens blaring, the boys in yellow helmets arrived with axes... EEK... I saw our deposit disappear right before our very eyes but in the end they managed it with a screwdriver and were on their way with very sheepish thanks from us.

But, imagine if that was me stuck in the toilet, what would I do? I guess so long as I make sure I only get stuck in toilets in Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, Avon, Somerset and Cornwall, I will be OK...

Holiday...

Well, it's not really so please refrain from breaking into song a la Madonna...

However, I am not at work today and the reason for this is so I can help my Pa as he's in hospital having 10 injections into his spine to try and sort something out that I don't really get. Whatever it is, it's not going to be pleasant and so I took the day off to ensure he and Ma were OK.

It's chilly up here and so much quieter than London. Last night I woke up and lay awake listening for noises and there really were none. Back in London, even though I am really quite deaf these days, I can still here the hum of the traffic, the drone of the planes and occasionally the shouts of the drunk people from the pub up the road when I lay awake in bed at night. And, I quite like all those noises, they remind me that I am not totally deaf.

Last night there was nothing... I felt really quite deaf. I guess hearies find the country noisy... the birds, the animal shrieks, the wind and the rattles that it causes. But these are all out of my frequency so to me there really is nothing.

I wonder, when I get back to London tomorrow, if it will seem really noisy after my break in the country? I am kind of hoping it does so that even just for a little bit, I don't feel as deaf as I am suddenly starting to feel...

Sad, happy, sad, happy

Today, is Thankful Friday and I am thankful that I have the day off work as I am going to a wedding in Knutsford this weekend.
Do you know, many moons ago before The Rents were married, they were driving to Scotland up the M6 and the traffic was terrible. When it became clear that they were going to have to stop for the night, Pa said to Ma, 'The next junction is Knutsford, have a look in the AA book and see if there are any hotels we can stay at.'
My Ma frantically thumbed her way through the alphabeticalised book, going forwards and backwards before she finally said, exasperated, 'There's nothing between Nuneaton and Oxford!'

Normally, I love that story and it makes me giggle that Knutsford was Nutsford to my Ma... but today it barely raises a smile.

I have some sad news... Pink Top is sick. I tried to turn it on to tap-tap-away on the train home last night and...

NOTHING

*sniff

So today's post is short and sweet as I am going to rush it to PC World, bat my eyelashes and hope that even though I didn't buy it from there, they will be able to perform some sort of life-saving action on it.

Big Bro has also been very helpful - and has his own theories of what might have caused it!!!! He's got me into techy forums and last night I actually joined one and left a note saying 'There's no wind in my Wind' as Pink Top's real name is a Wind.

I am hoping that it will be something simple to sort out...

I miss my Pink Top...

*sniff

I have a question…

Why do people give up their seats to children on buses?
Now, elderly or physically-disabled people I understand – in fact this morning I hurtled up the bus to ask the bus driver to wait as an elderly lady on crutches was almost at the door but he hadn't seen her and was about to speed off.

And OK, I concede that on a very busy bus it might be nice to let a mother put her children on a seat where she can see them – but do these pint-sized people really need a seat each?

This morning however, the bus was not busy. I got on and took a folding seat downstairs as I have a suitcase with me today. Just behind me two kids and their mum got on and the only seats were at the back of the bus. One of these little people stood there are looked at me expectantly, sticking his bottom lip out thinking he was looking cute when in fact he looked like a dying guppy. But what was clear was that he thought I should move for him!

At the risk of sounding like Jeremy Clarkson, where in the name of all that is holy did he expect me to go? To the back of the bus, maiming the shins of everyone with my suitcase on my way? Perhaps there is an argument about me having my suitcase with me taking up space – but it is only a cabin-sized one, which was slotted very neatly out the way of everyone and, had someone in a wheelchair needed the space, or it had got really busy, I would have moved it and balanced it on my head if need be.

This child was about 8 years old – he should be at his most robust, agile and physically fit, so I figured surely he, his brother and his mum were capable of the few extra steps it took them to get to the back.
But no, from every direction, people scattered to accommodate the boy king and his entourage!

Even pregnant women don't get the same treatment – in fact I once gave up my seat to one particularly large gestating lady and someone else nabbed it before she had a chance to manoeuvre her bump into place! Harsh words were exchanged!

On today’s journey, two stops later more little people got on and once again they looked at everyone who was sat down as if to say, “MOVE, NOW!” The mother kept sighing and eventually some poor soul caved! Why? Why? Why? Can these children not walk upstairs? Is the cotton wool wrapped so tightly around them that standing is a physical impossibility? One stop later they got off... They could have walked it quicker!

There is one more thing that gets me, which is actually a little controversial and in the past when I've broached the subject, my more tolerant friends have tried to reason with me. It is this: on London buses, there is a sign that reads buggies may need to be folded at busy times.... Now has anyone actually ever seen this happen? OK, so modern designs are often hard to fold and the various paraphernalia that comes with children do not make this the easiest of tasks. But in busy times I have been unable to get on a bus because there are three gigantic all-terrain buggies crammed in, all empty because the children are sat in all the seats.

I was once on a bus where a lady with her massive pushchair actually begrudged making room for a person in a wheelchair!

Perhaps, when I have four children and a buggy designed for the wilds of Scotland that I insist on pushing along the smooth terrain of London’s streets, I too will expect people to give up everything for me. Perhaps I will think it wise to catch a bus 100 metres and tut at wheelchair users. But my children however, will be taught that they are perfectly capable of standing. And when we are on the bus and someone gets on wielding a suitcase, or needs a seat, I will make my children stand up.

This is not just…

Recently I've been buying my lunch from Marks & Spencer quite a lot!
Granted it's a bit more expensive but the advert reassured me that it's not just pasta and feta salad, it's Marks & Spencer pasta and feta salad! And, it's unfailingly delicious every time.

Being a creature of habit, I usually have the same thing most days, a salad, a packet of copycat Wotsits, which are luminous orange, get stuck in my teeth, and quite possibly make me hyperactive, and a bag of grapes.

The promise of this meal alone is enough to entice me there and very occasionally I also indulge in a packet of Percy Pigs too, but recently I have been drawn there for an entirely different reason...

Embarrassment-free shopping! You see, M&S have moved with the times and installed tills without people...

This coupled with the ban on free bags is my dream come true! No more missing the would-you-like-a-bag question, no more questions full stop – just a nice till that I can swipe all my things through before loading them into my eco-friendly fabric carrier bag!

Hurrah!

If I am having a particularly deaf day, say after, oooooh, a night's partying in Bungalow 8 with Shakira-Shakira, I will always be found in M&S, quite oblivious of the world around me, quite happy playing shop at the self-service till! It really is fantastic!

I only wish the same could be said for all the shops I visit! The other day when I was in HMV buying SATC on DVD, the lady serving me was particularly chatty and, to you hearies, that's probably excellent customer service. But to me it was just downright embarrassing. Music was blaring and every other word I said was pardon! It was a cringe-worthy episode made bearable only by the fact I was buying SATC (hurrah!) and it had subtitles (double hurrah!).

But rather than moaning, I am going to be proactive about this and so, I'm off to write to HMV to ask them for some self-service tills!

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?