Sex & The City 2 with captions? HA!

Today is Thankful Friday, and aside from the fact that I've chosen to wear a dress that does a Marilyn in even the tiniest gust of wind, I have lots to be thankful for!

Most importantly, and excitedly, I am in the running to be a Superdrug Summer Insider again, after being invited to fight for my title.

Eek!

Am very happy about this, but nervous, too. After being sent a wonderful collection of goodies by the peeps at Superdrug, I put my first blog up yesterday, which you can see here at Superdrugloves.com.

Apparently, there's some Facebook thing on each post where you can ‘like’ my post, and the people with the most 'likes' go through to the Summer Insider 2010 competition.

So if you like my post, be sure to click on the thumbs up picture at the top, please!

Anyway, I got the listings for subtitles for Sex & The City 2 yesterday and I definitely wasn't thankful about them. In London, there are a pitiful amount of evening showings and only 13 cinemas in the whole of the London area in total showing it with subtitles.

Of these, only six are even vaguely convenient for me and of these 1 has an evening showing – and because I HAVE A LIFE, I am not free on this day. I could go to Electric Cinema in Notting Hill at 10am on Tuesday 1 June – except, no wait! I have a mortgage to pay and holiday days that need to be used for holidays not watching a movie that everyone else can see in their free time.

I don't understand!! Are deaf people not supposed to work or something? Is there some Government initiative that gives us the right to take paid time off to attend subtitled cinema screenings?

Well, to my knowledge, the answer is no. So I'd love to know what these cinemas are playing at.

My early readers will know that when the first movie came out, Fab Friend and I had to wait quite a few weeks for subtitles, but at least there was an evening showing. Ah that was great – we met for cocktails and half sobbed, half laughed our way through the entire thing!

I'd so love to do that again with Fab Friend – but it's not looking likely with the current listings.
*sniff

But I can't think about it too much or I'll get so mad I'll combust, and that wouldn't be a very good thing to happen on Thankful Friday.

So I'm going to take action. And at lunchtime I'm going to write to all the cinemas who are showing subtitled SATC 2 and ask them to explain why they don't think we deserve equal treatment.

I'm guessing, maybe a little cynically that money will be a factor here, but I'm not stopping until I get some answers.

I'll keep you posted!

My deafness wishlist

This morning on the bus to work, I saw a friend of mine who works for O2. He’s a great guy and always listens to my O2 rants with patience and helpful suggestions. So it was fab to let him know about my recent success with contacting O2 via the press office team on Twitter.

We chatted about technology for a while and this eventually turned into useful apps for my iPhone in terms of my deafness and other things I’d like to make life easier in my Hard-of-Hearing World.

When we were talking though, my mind went quite blank, but now I’ve had a chance to think a little bit more about it, it’s made me resolve to start compiling my Deafness Wishlist – things I want changed or services I’d like to see.

I mean I know I write about them often, but perhaps if I put them all in one place, it’ll make it easier when I bump into VIPs on the bus…

So here we go:

1. Subtitles at all cinemas for more than just one movie, at one time, once a week.
2. Accessibility email addresses for all major companies so we don’t have to call.
3. Email or online booking in all doctors’ surgeries and dentists.
4. Deaf plates for bicycles – they have these in Holland and I have one, although English drivers won’t have a clue what it means.
5. Subtitled announcements in train and tube stations.
6. All tube trains to have subtitled announcements so when stuck in a tunnel, we know what’s going on – the District line already has this.
7. Subtitled options on all movies and TV shows on iTunes.
8. Subtitled on the iPhone BBC iPlayer app.
9. Prettier vibrating alarm clocks.
10. An iPhone app that converts speech to text live – so if you’re in a meeting or at a non-subtitled, play it translates it for you.
11. An internet provider that gives deaf people a discount for their internet even if they don’t take a phone line.
12. All extras on DVDs to be subtitled.
13. Better live subtitles from the BBC. Am sick of reading ‘Urine for a nice sunny day’ when the weather forecast begins.
14. An app that links my iPhone to the unhearable things in my flat – such as the fire alarm, cooker alarm, door alarm, so it’s all in one useful place.
15. Birds that tweet lower! OK, this is one for Mother Nature, but I’d love to hear a robin sing just once.
16. Deaf-aware quiz masters in pubs. Admittedly I am normally very lucky with this, but when they’re bad, they’re very, very bad.
17. Subtitled exercise DVDs! Would love, love, love this as it’s quite hard to lipread someone when you’re bobbing about on the spot.
18. Ways to alter the pitch of the warning noises in my car.
19. More subtitled comedy shows – I know the Soho Theatre did one recently, but I want to be able to see any comedian and for some tech-savvy person to work out a way to subtitle them efficiently.
20. Deaf-friendly store alarms – am sick of setting them off and being pursued down the street by security, completely unaware I’ve done anything!

And that’s just the beginning. Please add you own at the end of this list, or let me know if you know something I don’t, and let’s see how many get ticked off by the end of this year. If just one or two could be achieved, I reckon I could live without a tenor-voiced robin – for now, anyway!!

Waking up on the wrong side of my vibrating alarm clock

And it's back to being chilly again!

Gah!

This however provides me with excellent people watching opportunties on my bus to work this morning.

The lady next to me is in full on winter garb, while the woman in front is in a floaty white dress and gladiator sandals. I'm kind of a mix in between, of lots layers that can be removed when I suddenly find myself sat on top of a heater on the bus, like right now! I'm not kidding! It's tropical in here, and the full-on winter garb woman is starting to wilt.

The traffic is terrible as well today. And I know for a fact that the local tube line is stuffed, which means any moment now, there'll be a deluge of tube commuters boarding my bus, with no understanding of bus etiquette, standing on the top deck until the computerized woman has a total meltdown from repeating 'No standing on the upper deck or stairs please' fifty times over!

Phew, do you know, I think I got up on the wrong side of bed this morning. I definitely woke up on the wrong side. Upside down to be precise. Head under my Cath Kidston quilt and vibrating alarm clock between my toes.

Harumph!

I think it's probably just that I'm tired and behind in my household chores, and in need of a holiday, but I miss waking up and throwing on my running gear and embracing the day. Right now the only thing moving at anything faster than snails pace in the morning is my vibrating alarm clock as I hurl it against the wall.

However, on arriving at work, I was helped slightly out of my grump by the arrival of a parcel from Superdrug. I’ve been invited to fight for my Ultimate Summer Insider title over the coming months and can’t wait to get started. Having just had a disaster with the mascara they sent me though, I think I’d better get to work immediately!

Keep a look out at Superdrugloves.com for my latest post.

Subtitles on my iPhone

Phew! What a fabulous weekend of weather we had!

First Ever Friend and her Ma came over from Switzerland to visit, which was great fun. The Rents joined us and we went to Kew Gardens in the baking Sunday heat. It was amazing but very, very hot!

I'm not good in the sun. I require factor-50 sun cream and a big sun hat. If I'm not watered regularly I keel over, too. So Sunday was spent looking like a dessert dweller, shrouded in a lightweight scarf and sheltered by a big straw hat that I bought in the men’s' department at Debenhams.

Anyway, yesterday I booked my first ever cab online. And it didn't go well.

With a BBQ at Gym Buddy's house, we decided to travel there in style rather than throwing ourselves on the hot, rammed, smelly, unreliable tube. It couldn't have been easier to book and I got quite excited about the thought of having this online booking service at my fingertips no matter where I was in London.

So we waited, and a text came through saying the cab was 20 minutes late. We waited for 20 minutes and no cab arrived. So I tried to call them but couldn't hear clearly enough. In the end, Gym Buddy took over and when it became apparent that our car might never turn up, she cancelled it, before securing me a full refund and politely having a go at the clueless woman at the other end!!

It was so frustrating. Like a half-finished convenient service for deaf people.

One thing I am very excited about though is a new application I have discovered for my iPhone called ‘Subtitles’. This allows you to download subtitles for movies and then read along from the screen as the movie plays on the TV. The first thing I did was check if there was subtitles for Withnail And I – London Aunt’s favourite movie – and there was. She has been trying to watch it with me for years and the DVD isn’t subtitled. But now, I have the subtitles downloaded onto my phone so we can finally watch it together.

I’m hoping that the new Sex & The City movie subtitles will be added onto it relatively soon so that I can go to that as soon as possible instead of waiting for a subtitled showing. It would be amazing! Just think, subtitles at the cinema without being at the mercy of the scheduling people.

Subtitles at the cinema and erm…

…a flat iPhone battery!

Ah well – you can’t have everything!

I'm lipreading, not staring at you!

So last night was fun!

I went the pub with GBman and The Singing Swede and made an utter idiot of myself!

And I'd also like to add that I was drinking Diet Coke, as I haven't been able to drink alcohol since the Bank Holiday fiasco.

So anyway, it was quiz night and I was late. On arriving I discovered the quiz master not only had a beard, he also had an Irish accent – neither good for lipreading, but I wasn't in the mood for explaining my hearing loss, so I just concentrated really hard, which of course meant staring at him.

And this of course freaked him out until he eventually piped up ‘I'm that goodlookjng aren't I?!’ cue big blushes from me. So then GBman piped up that I was deaf and needed to lipread, and then someone else piped up ‘And you're not good looking.’

Erm... and that someone was me!

*blush

And I have absolutely no idea what on earth possessed me to say that out loud – especially as it wasn't true.

I mean he's not my type but that's no reason to tell the poor bloke he's not good looking. And I can't even blame it on the alcohol.

So a good thing to do at this point would have been to shut right up. But no, I gabbled on, digging a pit so deep I'm sure I saw the lights of Sydney Harbour Bridge at the bottom.

I thought I would never live it down – until GBman tried his hand at breakdancing...

And after that, I felt much, much better!

Subtitles Tennessee Williams

Last night I went to see a Stagetext captioned performance of Spring Storm by Tennessee Williams, and I enjoyed it so much that I'm still grinning from ear to ear over 12 hours later.

Tennessee Williams is my favourite poet and playwright you see. In my final year at uni, I lived, breathed and even spent all my beer money on that man, ordering rare books from America, soaking up the poignant mix of tragic characters and humorous lines, and generally falling in love with him. He’s even on my dream dinner party list, along with Jeremy Clarkson, Clive James and Katie Fforde.

When I saw there was a performance of one of the few plays of his I hadn't dissected through lengthy study sessions, I jumped at the chance to see some of his work from a fresh perspective.

Now, I'm still quite out of practice at going to the theatre and when I read that the performance was 2 hours and 45 minutes long, I was slightly concerned that I might fall asleep or get bored. But what I was forgetting was that I would be watching it as a hearing person. I would be able to follow every single little thing.

And not only was it magical, it was also the quickest 2 hours and 45 minutes of my life. I didn't want it to end. And even though I know Tennessee rarely gifts his characters with happy endings, I couldn't help hoping that this time he would.

One hilarious moment was when Hertha, the dowdy bookish underdog declares that at 28 she's an old maid. At 29 and 30, and both single, Miss K and I burst out laughing. It was a fascinating perspective of Deep South attitudes of that period, and how one mistake could leave you sat rocking on the porch until the end of your days waiting for your man to come back.

If that's the case, I'd better start looking for a house with a porch! Teehee!

These are a few of my favourite things…

In the light of no post on Friday, today is thankful Monday!

Today I am thankful for the wonderful weekend I had with Penthouse Flatmate and her growing brood. I am godmother to her eldest daughter, and this weekend we celebrated her 4th birthday and her little brother's 2nd birthday, as they were born two years and one day apart.

Penthouse Flatmate had an incredible vision for the birthday cake, so armed with all my baking tools I descended upon her on Saturday morning. First Uni Housemate was also there and together with their husbands we created the fairy castle of all fairy castles. It was great being able to help make this masterpiece, but all credit has to go to Penthouse Flatmate for her incredible idea.

I am also thankful that I got to see Jose Gonzalez live at the Royal Festival Hall on Friday night. He was breathtaking. With his low voice and captivating across-all-octaves guitar playing, I really do forget I am deaf when I listen to him play.

And it's obviously the month for seeing my favourite things, as tonight I am going to see a captioned showing of a Tennessee Williams play. Having done my dissertation on Williams at uni, he will always have a place in my heart and, this is the first captioned performance of one of his plays I have ever seen, which makes it doubly exciting.

Wonder what the favourite thing hat trick is going to be this week...

Looks like we're just gonna have to wait and see!

I'm hearing in my dreams

Last year for my birthday, Fab Friend gave me a book called Teach Yourself to Meditate.

In the madness of the move to my new place, it got packed up into a box and then unpacked onto a bookshelf and until now, I haven't felt the urge to get it out.

Until yesterday that is.

You see recently I've kind of been feeling as though I'm on a super-fast roller coaster that I can't get off. This has led to some questionable decisions that haven't pleased me. Plus, I feel exhausted.

So last night I came home and read the introduction before heading out to dinner at Niknak and Country Boy 1's flat. And already I liked the direction it was heading in. The encouragement to slow your thoughts down can only be a good thing after all.

I'm feeling positive I can learn a lot from this book... and that doesn't mean I'm going to turn into some clichéd, chanting hippy – although I think that look could suit me! I'm just going to utilise the best part of my thought process, not the worst.

Anyway, this week I've been having ‘hearing’ dreams again. No interesting content to report other than the fact that I can hear things in the dreams that I can't normally hear. Things like a whispering in my ear, a group conversation in a noisy pub, and most incredibly, a cat meowing are all audible in my sleep.

Now the latter is what confuses me the most, as I don't think I've heard a cat meow for over 20 years, and even then I certainly don't remember what one sounds like. Although I'm guessing it goes something like meow!

It’s just odd that’s all – but it got me thinking, do blind people see in their dreams? Do hearing people not hear? And are stupid people clever? Something for you to ponder on, as I will be meditating!

Evolving deaf services

Well, we have a new Prime Minister! And he may look young now, but give him time and soon the curse of the PM will get him and his face will slowly start sliding down his body.

Seriously though, watching all the news, I couldn't help wondering that, if Gordon Brown had come across the way he did during his ‘Bye-Bye’ speech yesterday during his entire time as PM, he might have actually succeeded in gaining enough Labour votes to win this General Election.

There was something rather lovely about him.

Bravo to his speech writer I say.

What’s great for me during all this election stuff is how I’ve been able to catch snippets and thoughts of others that I would usually miss out on in general conversation, through Twitter. It’s given me a new perspective of what’s been happening, especially during live TV broadcasts when the subtitles aren’t that reliable.

And better still, because I choose who I follow on Twitter, it means I have a select narrative forming – much the same as if you’re conversing with friends. It’s great!

It’s things like this that remind me just how much technology has changed for the better for me. I remember when The Rents had to spend over £200 on a video recorder that played and recorded subtitles on the TV. But even then you had to hope that the show was actually subtitled in the first place. I also remember trawling through Blockbuster with my friends trying to find a captioned movie. Sometimes there weren’t any we all wanted to watch, and I’d be left with just the pictures.

And then there’s the theatre – OK so there aren’t many subtitled performances, but there are some, which is a long way from where it was when I was doing English A-level. I remember going to see Macbeth and almost wishing he’d murder me too, as I was so bored of sitting through hours of inaudible Shakespeare! I thought I must be terrible uncultured to be so bored – when really I was just deaf.

And now, this year for the first time, The Globe is captioning things – ‘Bring on Shakespeare’ is now something I can finally say!

I also remember buying Smash Hits and Fast Forward magazines religiously just so I could cut the song lyrics out and learn then to prevent embarrassing and wrong renditions of Kylie songs. Now, I can get lyrics online at the drop of the hat, and have an application on my iPhone that I play my iPod through and the lyrics for each song are automatically brought up!

Amazing!

It’s all this that gives me hope, when I discover things like the iPlayer for the iPhone to be lacking subtitles, or a lack of subtitles on iTunes. Only recently, I discovered a programme you can download that adds subtitles to things – and while it’s all gobbledegook to me now, I fully intend to research it to see how it can help me.

I’m incredibly excited for the day where I can attend the theatre at the drop of the hat and know there’ll be subtitles, see films with subtitles at any time, any day and any week and buy movies for my iPhone safe in the knowledge that I’ll have the same extras as a DVD and be able to switch on captions.

I wonder, sometimes optimistically if there’ll eventually be a day when I come to write my daily blog and realise that I have nothing bad to say about services for deaf and hard of hearing peeps – imagine that?! Which is why I am going to continue to complain to companies like the BBC and O2, who I think could be doing better, until they do, do better. After all, it can’t hurt, can’t it? And maybe if enough of us do, then these companies will eventually take note.

Fingers crossed, eh! Fingers crossed!

When train subtitles go wrong

Today's blog comes from the train on the way home from The Rents' house. I had a lovely weekend with them both – although they've both been quite ill recently, Ma with a chest infection, and Pa with pneumonia.

As a result we had a quiet weekend of chilling out, watching cheesy movies and catching up. It was perfick.

This morning though, my train almost gave me a heart attack! After a particularly speedy journey to the station, I was able to just make, by running, the earlier train. I didn't even bother to look at the details of the platform, I just jumped on the train waiting to leave and sat down.

And so it set off. Then, there was a tinny announcement on the tannoy that I couldn’t hear, so I read the subtitles scrolling on the screen and it welcomed me aboard a train going somewhere completely different!

Um...

I sat for a moment contemplating the situation and then decided to ask the guy next door me, who confirmed I was, thankfully on a London-bound train and the subtitles were in fact wrong!

Phew! I’ve never been so pleased in my life that subtitles were actually incorrect!

*teehee!

Anyway, I finally have 3G coverage on my iPhone! Awaiting me at The Rents' was new SIM card from O2, with no instructions whatsoever. It didn't work. So I decided to visit an O2 shop instead. There the staff were lovely and explained that the SIM card probably hadn't been set to my phone. They also did not disagree with my opinions of O2 online customer service and in 15 minutes flat had sorted my new SIM!

Utterly brilliant!

Now I know I have brilliant contacts at the press office, a disabilities email and helpful staff in O2 shops, I feel much more reassured that I will now get the service I am paying for…

Maybe it is easier being deaf after all!

General election gripe

Today is Thankful Friday, and it can't have anything to do with politics. But while I am on the subject of politics, there is something that really riled me when watching the news this morning. And that was voters up in arms that they couldn't vote in time.

These are probably the same people who moan and are surprised about Ikea being busy on a bank holiday Monday!

I mean seriously, the election is every five years. Did they just think they could rock up 45 minutes before and it wouldn't be busy? That's like turning up at the gym just before closing and expecting it to accommodate you while you do your work out and shower.

Plan ahead people! The rest of us did! Dragging our sorry backsides out of bed early to make sure we got our (however worthless) vote in. And if it really wasn't possible to get to the polling place on time, then surely you qualify for a postal vote?!

On the other hand, perhaps there’s something the political peeps can learn here, too – longer voting times? Applying for set voting slots – like parents’ evenings? But the thing is, we all knew the voting times, and we all knew it would be busy and the people who were that worried about their vote made damn sure they voted as soon as possible.

And while I am sure some people were genuinely caught out by the whole thing, I’m betting the majority went home and ate their dinner in front of the TV before going out to vote, instead of joining the queue as soon as they could.

It's like they expect to have their hand held throughout this whole process, never taking responsibility.

And now to me, it feels like the country has just had a raucous sleepover party and now we're all sat here waiting for the adults to arrive and take charge. In fact, one of my favourite authors, Jenny Colgan, tweeted something very similar this morning.

But that's quite enough about silly people at polling stations.

Today I am thankful for erm... ah... well... I'll come back to you on that I think.

O2 issues resolved

So, today I voted!

And it just goes to show what a little bit of last minute campaigning can do as well! I was teetering on the edge between two parties in my ward and this morning a leaflet dropped though my letterbox and answered my final concern.

Sorted!

But enough about that, as you know I don't really like talking about politics here.

Most importantly, it's time for an O2 update.

Well, all I can say is if you want something sorted, and can't use the phone, then contact the O2 Press Office on Twitter.

They sorted my SIM card issue for me before the day was out, and it's currently in the post!

Whoop! Bring on 3G!

But at the same time, another Twitter peep contacted me with a disability email address for O2 – disabilitycustomercare@O2.com!

Confused as to how, when I had repeatedly asked O2 if something like this existed, only to be sent a link to the Access-for-all page of the website, I wrote an email to the press office. No reply. But within the hour, I had an email from an O2 customer service peep confirming that, yes I could use this email to contact O2.

I am intrigued as to why it’s not obviously placed on the O2 website though – some text along the lines of, ‘If you are unable to use the phone, please email us on disabilitycustomercare@O2.com’ would surely suffice.

But honestly, it doesn’t matter now – I have my contact with O2 sorted, my SIM card is on the way, and I just received news that Cath Kidston does floral iPhone covers – everything is good in the world once more… until the election results come in, that is!

Happy voting.

The problem with deaf customer service

Apologies for my silence this week – I’ve been recovering from my bank holiday weekend, which included my running race.

I completed it slowly and steadily, without stopping, which was quite an achievement as it was pouring with rain and freezing cold. But the camaraderie between the runners was fantastic and Tigger stayed by my side as promised throughout.

Now, I’ve just got work on getting faster – this morning I had a jolly good go at it, but my egg timer failed so I have no idea whether I was quicker or not! Ho hum.

Anyway, I’m back to an old bugbear today.

O2!

As regular readers will know, I have an iPhone, and the recent upgrade procedure – done completely online with no human contact whatsoever – demonstrated that in some areas O2 have got better in making it possible for deaf people to use its services. However, what I didn’t factor in was that, as I have been a loyal – and long-suffering – customer with them for almost 10 years, my SIM card was too old to receive 3G coverage.

I thought it was my iPhone that was the problem, so spent my entire lunch hour queuing at the Apple store only to be told that lack of 3G was due to the fact that my service provider still appears as BT Genie! Remember those days?

So, I went onto O2’s website and had a good hunt around through the FAQs to see if this was fixable online – but it wasn’t. I had a look at the contact us section, which features lots of phone numbers for all sorts of reasons, and one email us section. I even bit the bullet and called O2 – and after 10 minutes of saying pardon, asking the call centre peep to repeat himself, reminding him of my hearing loss and trying to request yes or no answers, I gave up, red faced, conscious of the fact that once again I was hitting a brick wall with what should be a disability-friendly company.

So, counting to 10, I filled in the convoluted email form and sent it off. And guess what? They will endeavour to get back to me within 24 hours. When people on the phone get an instant service. How is that fair?!

It just makes me cross that after years and years of technological developments, O2 does not have a designated email for hard of hearing people – or if it does, it certainly doesn’t advertise it.

Surely there must be someone in O2 thinking, ‘Hang on a minute, this can’t be fair – a crap service for people who can’t use the phone?!’ but then, seeing as they’re a phone company, this is probably not the case.

But what I want companies like O2 to recognise is that it is more than just a phone provider now – and for a deaf person like me, my phone is my lifeline – I can book tickets on the internet, find out train times, send emails, chat on MSN, text, search for traffic issues when I am stuck in a jam, check London travel situations while on the move, and even, when stuck on an overland tube, find out if there are any problems on the line. All this, is invaluable to me – it saves me from trying to communicate, it enables me to build relationships, keep in touch and maintain friendships. And when it goes wrong, I literally feel as though I have lost a large area of my world.

To have no way of contacting O2 quickly to sort this out is a big problem for me.

Now, I know that I could cancel O2 and go elsewhere, but guess what? You need the phone for that. And also, apparently, I can go into an O2 shop and sort things like my SIM card out – even though I am an online customer. And I have done this on occasions, but it reall does seem to depend on the friendliness of the shop staff as to whether they can actually help you. So with the whole SIM card issue, an O2 shop is going to be my next port of call. But I’ve heard a rumour that I may be charged for a new one.

Charged for 10 years of loyalty!?

Well that makes sense, doesn’t it.

But, it shouldn’t be relevant whether or not I can go into an O2 shop for service. I am an O2 online customer. I should be able to get a decent service from my provider. I mean, I certainly pay enough.

It’s not rocket science, I don’t think. O2 need to give deaf people the same service they give hearing people. And if that’s really not possible, then deaf people should get a reduced tariff as an apology for substandard customer service – plenty of other companies offer just that, from theatres to travel.

The 24-hour window of the email response I have been promised by O2 has almost run out – I’m hoping I hear from someone. I’m hoping that they’ll tell me that a new, improved 3G-friendly SIM is in the post to me, free of charge.

I’m also hoping I win the lottery and achieve a 7-minute mile by the end of the month. And right now the latter wishes are looking more feasible.

UPDATE: Oh the power of Twitter! Through it, I contacted O2 and I have been assurred that I can go in store and get a new SIM for free and that I will soon have an email back in reply to the one I sent yesterday. It was so nice to actually have a conversation with a real person from O2, that I got carried away and asked them about an easier way to get in touch with the online peeps. I was forwarded a link about access for all, but it only gives phone options or the email form that I filled in yesterday and have yet to have a reply from. So I am not sure how this helps. So I said that – and it's gone quiet for now. I will keep you posted!

Would I hear a burglar?

Today is Thankful Friday and I am extremely thankful that Tigger is coming to stay. I haven't seen him for absolutely ages so it'll be good to catch up. Plus we have our run on Sunday!

What I am not thankful for is Sunday's weather forecast! Rain and wind! Gah, not exactly optimum conditions for my first running race ever.

But it'll be an experience no matter what, I'm sure!

Anyway, isn’t it lovely that we’ve got a nice long weekend coming up, and that it’s payday today. This month has been expensive – I spent £300 on broken things in my flat, which is half the price of a Mulberry handbag. Although now I am a house owner, I should probably stop pricing things against Mulberry handbags, seeing as I will never be able to buy one ever again.

Next on my expenditure list is sorting out my windows. In typical London fashion, I have single-glazed sash windows, which while beautiful, are somewhat on their last legs. Several have broken panes and all of them could do with bits replacing. Ideally I would like wooden ones with double-glazing in, so they’d be energy efficient and safe, too. But I think that’d be several dozen Mulberry handbags, so I might just have to make do with face-lifting the existing ones.

Part of me wanting better windows is a safety thing – you see, sash windows just don’t seem very burglar proof, and after spending vast amounts turning my door into the equivalent of Fort Knox, it seems bizarre that the rest of my house is protected by single glazing and rotting wood.

This all hit home this week when my neighbour emailed me to say she had caught some men with a ladder in our garden. I freaked out, partly because I worry whether, if someone broke into my flat, I would hear them? And once they were in, would they ever be able to get out my Fort Knox of a front door?

I had one sleepless night over it. And then I pulled myself together and reminded myself that I keep my toolbox under my bed – the obvious place for such a thing don’t you think? – and in that toolbox is a very large wooden mallet.

I slept well last night.

Running with music

So the countdown is almost at an end – my run is almost here!

*eek

Actually, in a weird way, I'm looking forward to seeing if all this training has paid off. This morning's run would imply that it has, as I didn't get tired until right at the end of my 30 minute jaunt, and before I started this running lark, I couldn't even run for a bus without getting uncontrollably out of breath.

It really is amazing, and quite satisfying, too.

Anyway, today I tried something new and different on my run. I tried running with my iPhone playing music. Now, it was quite good, except that I didn’t have a playlist and so hitting shuffle meant that any old song could pop up at any time and these were not always best suited to pounding the pavements.

What I also struggled with was actually hearing it, above the sound of the traffic and general rush-hour din. I never listen to my iPod in public places for this exact reason – for instance, on the bus, I would have to have it on full volume just to get the bass, and I’d be one of those people on the posters being inconsiderate about my music. Except I wouldn’t be being deliberately inconsiderate, I’d just be trying to hear the bloomin’ thing.

So where, was I, erm… yes I didn’t really hear much of it. I’d miss the first minute of the song and then finally get the bass line and realise what I was listening to, and then my head would make up the rest. And because my head was so busy making up music it forgot that it was running and the whole thing flew by.

Not quite the point of running with music, but if it works, I’m not complaining. I do however, need to source some bass-heavy music to run to so that I can actually hear it all the way.

Time to get Pa to dig out his Napalm Death album I think.

Happy 2nd Birthday to MEEEEEEEEEE (DG)

Guess what?

I forgot my own birthday!

Deafinitely Girly's second birthday to be precise!

It was on Friday, but I was so flustered from sleeping in, I forgot and nattered on about Thankful Friday instead. But then, I had a lovely comment from a reader who reminded me it was my birthday and also said great things about my blog!

*big grin

Looking back, it's hard to believe this of started two years ago, and that I've more or less blogged every week day since 23 April 2008 – give or take hospital visits, hangovers and holidays.

What on earth have I had to say?

Let's have a review shall we!

Well, in the beginning I addressed my past. From going deaf to boy struggles – I recounted the stories that had shaped me, blown my embarrassment factor out of the water and given me something to say in the first place.

Then where was my Down-On-The-BBC era, which lasted a long time and to be fair, was quite justified as the subtitles are often rubbish during important things like the news and Top Gear.

In these two years I've had over 18,000 hits and more if you count the ones through Deaf Read that don't register on my hit counter.

I've also got a column in Hearing Times, which I love writing, and my Superdrugloves.com blog, which has caused my make-up bag to double in size since last summer when I won the competition to be the Ultimate Summer Insider, and has seen me jet of to Barcelona on an amazing 5-star weekend away with London Aunt.

But perhaps the biggest change is me. I feel older and wiser, more proactive about my deafness – ready to fight the battles worth fighting and quietly ignore the ones I’ll never win. I've come to learn over the last two years that some people are not worth the hassle and some people are more than worth the hassle. I now know that some people will never learn about my deafness and some people will actually know more than me, teaching me in their own unique way how to do more than just ‘get by’ and instead get out there and grab every opportunity that arises.

Deafinitely Girly has put me in touch with amazing people from all over the world and reconnected me with people from my past.

But most importantly, she's helped me be me. To get it all out, and put fingers to keyboard about what I'm really thinking. It’s amazingly therapeutic, and when I have sad, bad or mad days, the support that comes flooding in really is overwhelming.

Just last night, I was watching a recording of Young Musician of the Year. It was the strings final and as a kid, I always used to watch this with The Rents. But this time around, I couldn’t hear anything. Nada – not a pip, squeak or scrape for most of the performances, with the exception of some low bits from the harpists.

Now pre-DG, I wouldn’t have known how to deal with this and would have probably felt rather sad for the remainder of the evening. But last night, I simply fast-forwarded the bits I couldn’t hear and enjoyed the interviews with the performers instead.

I dealt with it in a positive manner, and not only got on with it, but enjoyed it, too, rather than dwelling on what I couldn’t have.

And that’s what I’ve learnt from DG in the last two years – she’s made me happy to be me.

Which, really, can only be a good thing.

Now, it’s time to bake that birthday cake I think!

Sleeping through my vibrating alarm clock

Today is Thankful Friday and I'm extremely thankful that I woke up at 8.15, just 10 minutes before the latest time I can leave the house for work. Any later and I would have been stuffed, but 10 minutes was enough time to throw on clothes, eat toothpaste and even watch a cat fall out of a tree, but that's a whole other story…

I am quite amazed though, that I managed to sleep through two vibrating alarms without even stirring.0

I must be shattered!

Anyway, today I am also thankful that my toilet is fixed – unfortunately however, my boiler is not.

You see, my foolproof plan of photos and arrows that I sent to the plumbing company, was not so foolproof! The lady who I emailed, ordered the wrong part, in spite of the fact that I checked with her that she had all the information she needed from me.

Gah!

But I'm getting there gradually with this home-fixing lark, and next time I'll just make sure I send detailed descriptions as well as photos, so that people know what I'm talking about.

The plumbing company, to be fair, were lovely about it. They texted me about things instead of calling and were very apologetic. But all that doesn't fix my heating.

*Sniff

But that's quite enough about that.

I'm off to enjoy my Friday. Hope you do, too.

Deafinitely Girly's political musings

I'm having a weird week for lots of reasons.

It's hard to describe why. I've laughed and cried in equal measures – possible more than any other week this year.

I'm exhausted and exhilarated.

Anyway, I saw Gingerbread Man this week and he commented on the fact that I never talk about politics and the forthcoming General Election on my blog. I pondered as to why this was, and realised, shockingly, that it's because I don't know enough about it to comment in depth.

So yesterday, I sat through a Lib Dem party political broadcast – the one where Nick Clegg is walking in various locations surrounded by hundreds of sheets of paper.

‘Must pay attention,’ I thought to myself, and then I began to wonder whether they cleaned all the paper up afterwards or if they'd done a fancy camera trick to get it there.

‘Focus!’ I chided myself, and began to read the subtitles.

It has to be said that Nick Clegg gave a lovely speech. He uttered inspiring things about tax, education and the banks having to pay for the mess they make.

But then I remembered something Gingerbread Man said about how even if the Lib Dems come 2nd in the election and beat Labour, Labour will still have more seats than the Lib Dems because of way our system works.

And that naturally makes you think, what's the point? And I don’t think I'm alone in having this thought process.

When I read about the political parties' aims if they got into power, I don't believe them anymore. I don't believe that once they'd got in, the stuff that made people vote them in, would get done. And I believe that of all the parties.

Which once again begs the question, what's the point?

But then, even in my political ignorance, I’ve concluded that there is a point, and I will vote for someone and encourage my discouraged friends to put crosses in boxes, too. Because if we don't vote, then there's a chance that other parties, with even less honourable intentions than the three main ones, will gain more say in how this country is run, and that really might not be a good thing.

So that's it. That's my one and only, and quite frankly not very informative political musing.

Now I'm going to go back to wondering just how Nick Clegg cleaned up all that paper in his party political broadcast.

Cold showers aren't fun

Phew, boy do I feel invigorated this morning after a cold shower and hair wash! At one point I thought my brain was going to shut down, the water was that cold!

Luckily however, I have a boiler man booked on Thursday to hopefully fix the problem – at great expense...

Plumbers it seems are like supermodels – they don’t get out of bed for less than a set amount.

Oh the joys of flat owning.

Recently however, I've noticed how much better I've been sleeping in my little flat. And I think part of this is to do with lack of worrying when I settle down at night – largely due to my fire alarm system. You see, by having the vibrating pad under my pillow and flashing light by my bed, I am totally prevented from lying awake for a few minutes thinking about whether or not there’ll be a fire and if I'll wake up and if anyone will rescue me before I drown in smoke – like the gruesome TV advert.

Now, I know that this is no longer an issue, so I have one less pre-slumber worry!

Amazing!

So anyway, this week, apart from the cold showers, is going well. This morning I ran 3 ½ miles, just half a mile shy of my race length, and apart from a wavering moment two thirds of the way around, I really enjoyed it.

And the best thing is how I feel afterwards.

Invigorated!

Positive!

Alive!

All great ways to start the day.

Indeed, I was feeling great until that cold shower…

Roll on Thursday!

The problem with being deaf when things break...

Boiler broken: check

No hot water or heating: check and check

Toilet broken: check

Just as well I’m old enough to own a Mastercard isn’t it!

Seriously though, things breaking in my flat are a nightmare for me, as I can’t just pick up the phone and get it sorted. However, when I first moved in, I found a local plumbing company to service my boiler and was able to arrange the whole thing by email. So this morning, as I was having my cold shower, I resolved to email them as soon as I’d warmed up and sort the whole thing out.

The problem with email is that there’s lots of too-ing and fro-ing with questions that could be answered quickly if I was on the phone. So this time, I thought I would email them with everything I could possibly think of concerning the boiler/toilet issues. So I took pictures of the offending boiler and toilet and photoshopped in arrows and text to illustrate what the problem seems to be.

But on reflection, this probably means that right now, there’s a gaggle of west London plumbers rolling around the floor laughing at the email they’ve received with pictures of a toilet and broken boiler and blonde-girl speak written all over it trying to explain what the problem is.

Maybe I should go to plumber night school so I no longer have these communication problems. And while I’m at it, I’d better go to electrician night school, too. And maybe car mechanics night school. And if I can’t learn how to fix it, perhaps I’ll just have to make lots of plumber/electrician/car mechanic friends who I can text when it all goes wrong!

A fool-proof plan… no?

A visit from the Godson

Whoop! Today is Thankful Friday and I'm thankful for so many things it's not possible to list them all here.

Firstly though, I'm thankful for my gorgeous godson, and to his mum, Best Friend And Head Girl, for asking me to be godmother.

They live Oop Norf, but yesterday all popped in for dinner along with Friend Who Knows Big Words, as they’re down here on holiday. It was so lovely to see everyone again. Northern Boy is 3 years old now and growing fast. He simply adores Friend Who Knows Big Words, and stuck to her like glue all evening.

My godson is gorgeous – quite gorgeous! At 7 months old, he's smiling, giggling and gurgling and even managed to miss throwing up on my carpet, projecting it onto the kitchen tiles instead! So considerate, don't you think?

Now they’re all gone again, I’m missing them lots.

Anyway, I am also thankful that my running is getting easier. This morning I did 25 minutes without stopping, quite an achievement in my scheme of things. Even better, I wasn't overtaken by anyone, which reassured me that I must have speeded up in the last 8 weeks, too!

The run is drawing nearer.

But I’m feeling ready. And I am also thankful I am not running the Brighton Marathon this weekend. Lots of luck to those who are.

The 'What can I hear?' game

So, no blog yesterday... sorry!

But I have been rather busy lately with the running, my column in Hearing Times – due in Friday – and a few secret projects.

Don't get me wrong, I like it that way, but I do find, if I don't get my sacred bus journey to work for some reason or other, then the blog doesn't get done.

It's Wednesday already, which is great news. Wednesday is my favourite day of the week as by the end of it, the weekend is almost here.

This weekend, I am headed to Pompey to see Penfold and DangerMouse. DangerMouse is in a bike race on Sunday so we're gonna cheer him on, and I may take my running gear and take advantage of the endless sea front.

Anyway, this morning I woke up early. Stupidly early – 5am – knowing that in order to fit in my now 40-minute session on my walk-to-run program, I only had another hour in bed.

Unable to go back to sleep, I played a game that I used to play in my old flat when lying awake at night. It's called 'What can I hear?'. Since moving to the new place, I haven't played it, and it transpires that this was in fact for good reason. I can't hear anything. I mean it's not completely silent, but in the 15 minutes that I lay there listening, I heard maybe two cars... and that was it! In my last flat, I heard two cars a second, and I couldn't hear my TV if the window was open.

It gave me some understanding of just why my new housemates in the last place used to look so traumatised after their first week of living there. To hearing peeps, it must have been dreadful!

I do like the silence in my new place... but now I need a new game for when I'm lying in bed at night unable to sleep...

Perhaps I should just count sheep!

Lipreading Mamma Mia... kinda

This morning, I wrote my blog on the bus and emailed it to myself, as I do every morning. Except this morning, it didn’t arrive. Which means that someone somewhere in my iPhone address book got my unedited blog for Monday… and I got absolutely nothing.

My bleary-eyed state on the bus also means that I can’t actually remember what I wrote, either! Most annoying.

I do know that I wrote about having a marvellous time with Whiskey Cousin. We shopping, ate a lot of food in China Town at a place called Wonky – or Wong Kei as it was actually spelt, and then went to Mamma Mia. Thanks to the lovely box office peeps, we had premium tickets near the front for a fraction of the price, so I was able to follow a little of what was going on, and could even lipread some bits. It was a totally brilliant evening – especially the bit at the end when everyone jumped up from their seats and sang along with the cast.

I think at this point Whiskey Cousin wanted to crawl under her seat with embarrassment as I sang my heart out!

Teehee!

Anyway, yesterday a French man saved my life – OK, alright, he didn’t actually save my life, but he certainly saved my sanity after the tube I was travelling in stopped in a tunnel, for what seemed like an eternity (probably about 2 minutes!).

You see, I had just dropped Whiskey Cousin at the station and it was the fastest, and only route home, given the weekend tube closures. Hating the tube, I was not feeling overly enthusiastic when I got on the train, but I consoled myself that it was only a few stops – pah! A few stops and a long wait (2 minutes) in a tunnel.

So, the train stopped.

I took a deep breath and sat down.

The train didn’t move.

I got out my iPhone and tried to play Scrabble to distract myself.

Still the train stayed put.

I looked up wildly, and asked the man opposite me if there had been any announcements. He looked totally freaked out that someone had actually spoken to him and ignored me.

And that was when the lovely French man stepped in. Seeing my wide-eyed stare, he asked if I was OK and I admitted I hated the underground and asked if he could chat to me until the train started moving again.

And so he did…

In fact, the first thing he did was tell me he had a girlfriend – I’m guessing he must have wondered if I was actually running an elaborate pick-up plan – and then we chatted. I found out he was a PHD student working at a company over here and he was from the Loire Valley but studied in Lyon. He totally cheered me up and distracted me for the eternity (2 minutes) that we were stuck in the tunnel for.

As he walked with me from our station, I marvelled at how nice he had been in my time of need – and at how good looking he was.

Perhaps it should have been an elaborate pick-up plan after all… but then pitching myself as a neurotic, wide-eyed blonde is not perhaps the best idea.

Hmmm… back to the drawing board!

A not very Thankful Friday

Today has not been a very thankful Friday so far. I overslept, had hideous dreams, smashed Friend Who Knows Big Words' favourite glass, cut my finger and shut another one in a door.

*sniff

Not even the sun is cheering me up. I just want to crawl back into bed and pretend today isn't happening.

On a positive note Whiskey Cousin is coming to stay. She's 13 so I've got us tickets to see Mamma Mia – half price on account of my deafness, and premium seats, too. I don’t know if I'll be able to follow much, but the guys in the box office reassured me its very similar to the movie script, so I will watch and memorise that in advance! They also announced that they are looking at doing a captioned production soon. Yay!

I'm also planning to take Whiskey Cousin to Portobello or Camden and maybe the Tate Modern for some cultcha.

Should be fun!

Finally, I do have one more thing to be thankful for... that I managed my jawlk home yesterday. The Runkeeper application on my iPhone said it was 6 miles and I reckon I ran for two thirds of it at least. Running down Oxford Street was not an option, so I walked that bit. I'm still not fabulous at it though, and always seem to get this moment about 1 minute in where I want to give up, but the more I ran, the more I got into it. And without my rucksack, I reckon it would have been a whole lot easier.

Running is getting easier.

And if that's not something to be thankful for, I don't know what is.

Running or chocolate

Hurrah! More sun!

It's amazing how that big burning ball of fire has the ability to put a spring in my step, even during the most challenging of weeks.

It's fabulous, I love it!

But while I am still in tights and knee-high boots, and at least 4 layers, there is someone on my bus this morning in a floaty skirt and gladiator sandals...

In April!!!!

All I can say is, she must have pretty warm blood because, while it may be sunny, I'd struggle to use any warmer adjectives when waxing lyrical about the weather.

Anyway, today is another planned jawlk home from work as I really need to pull my socks up with this running lark. Tigger runs 10 miles on a bi-daily basis, so our run will be a walk in the park for him, quite literally!!

Most importantly, I have decided to give up chocolate until this run is over because I am totally addicted and it can’t be healthy.

Hmmm, I have a feeling this will be more challenging than the run!

An unexpected trial of my deaf fire alarm

Last night I nearly got the chance to try out my new vibrating/flashing all-singing-all-dancing fire alarm – except I was out at the pub.

On returning from the pub – where we came second in the quiz and won some lovely cider glasses, the acrid smell I had smelt the time my neighbours actually did burn their flat down, greeted me. It had me in a flap. My heart was racing and my eyes were imagining the strobe light of my alarm before I’d even got through the door.

There, Friend Who Knows Big Words was able to find out from French Boy, who had passed on the pub quiz in favour of watching football, that there had indeed been a fire – a very little one, in the form of a smoking tubigrip bandage.

You see, since he fell down a waterfall in Vietnam and trashed his ankle, poor old French Boy has been limping. To alleviate the pain, he’s been wearing a support and last night, in an attempt to get rid of a loose thread, he burnt the said loose thread and rested the tubigrip bandage on the suitcase in my spare room.

But the tubigrip bandage had other ideas and continued to smolder – burning a hole in itself in the process and melting the suitcase.

‘My carpet?’ I gasped on returning.

‘Unscathed!’ was Friend Who Knows Big Words reassuring reply.

*Phew

‘French Boy?’ I enquired.

‘Thankfully not wearing the bandage at the time of the fire…’ she added.

It was scary though – and made me all the more thankful for my flashing, vibrating fire alarm.

Three cheers for London Fire Brigade I say!

As good as new

Well, another Easter is over, chocolate has been consumed and fun has been had, and now it's back to normality.

What's nice about this morning's normality is that the sun is shining and the birds are most very likely to be singing. It's also Tuesday, so we're one step closer to the weekend already.

Anyway as you know, this weekend, my Ma was visiting and she brought her hearing aids with her as they've recently been turned up. She complained that everything was too loud, but looking back, I think she did a lot better than normal, and it was back to me saying pardon most of the time instead of her.

However, it reminded me that while they can help, they're still don't make everything perfect in the same way that glasses do.

I mean, without my glasses, there quite frankly is no world. In some ways, I can't wait for the day that hearing aids are as good at glasses. Then all I'd have to do was sort out my Crohn's and then I'd be as good as new.

Here's hoping eh? Here's hoping.

I said, brrr it's cold out there

Today is my Friday as it's my last day of work before the Easter break.

Hurrah!

Today I am thankful and VERY happy because Friend Who Knows Big Words, Gingerbread Man and I finally won the pub quiz last night!

After time after time of coming second to a bunch of alleged Google-cheaters, we finally won!

And even better, I actually knew some of the answers because it didn't centre totally around sport or audio clips – thanks to a new quiz master.

In fact, the whole quiz is deaf friendly, mainly because right from the start of this new guy doing the quiz, I have drummed it into him, and spoken up when he’s been out of sight and I can’t lipread. That means, that I hear everything. It’s therefore the best pub quiz I’ve ever been to – and my friends agree too, as they don’t have to keep relaying the questions to me.

Anyway, blogging from my iPhone is tricky today because my fingers are numb – it is so flipping cold! I know I haven't rabbitted on about the weather for quite some time now – Miss K used to think I was bonkers – but seriously, it's April tomorrow... I want teenage temperatures not preschool ones.

And on that note – I’m just off to sit on the radiator. It’s the only thing for it.

The running deaf girl races!

OK, Deafinitely Girly has some very erm… exciting, no wait, that’s the wrong word for it… SHOCKING news!!!!

She is running… in a race!

*pauses and waits for people to get back up off the floor

I know!

I don’t know what came over me, but Tigger inspired me. He’s visiting soon you see, and he suggested we do a race together that weekend. So we are...

Eek!

Seriously though, I am a teeny tiny bit excited – even though it is only a 5k run – as it will be my first ever running race since the house cross country nearly 20 years ago, when I came last out of the whole school… and you wonder what put me off running!

I’m hoping that this race will also give me added incentive to get out there and keep running. This morning – despite only having 4 hours sleep – I still got up and pounded the pathways of my local park. And I actually felt better for it.

OK, who’s kidnapped DG and put this odd running deaf girl in her place?!

It’s all thanks to Tigger really though – he kept quietly encouraging me. And now I have ‘come out’ as a runner – he’s noisily encouraging me. He even wants me to do the Great South Run in October but I’m… aherm… most deafinitely busy that weekend.

But if I am really going to keep at this running business, I really ought to invest in some running trousers that aren’t frayed to the knees, a top that isn’t meant for skiing and something more sophisticated than an egg timer.

Time for a shop at lunchtime today, I think!

Passionate about St John's Passion... erm!

Today I missed my morning run because I forgot to change the time on my alarm clock!

I woke up an hour late and have felt out of sync ever since.

*sniff

It also means that I have to go tomorrow – but hopefully the rain will hold off and enable me a dry meander through my local park.

The main thought getting me through this week is that Ma is coming to visit! She’s coming down for a long weekend for Easter, with Pa joining us later on. It’ll be great to relax and catch up with her – and if it’s rainy we can simply relax and enjoy crap TV while sitting on my lovely sofa.

Anyway, I had the most lovely weekend with SuperCathyFragileMystic and The Photographer. The car journey was quiet as I really couldn’t hear a thing – but we ate our weight in Percy Pigs from M&S, which would have kept us quiet anyway.

On Saturday evening, we went to watch SCFM singing St John’s Passion by Bach in Colston Hall. It was very official, with a traditional Baroque orchestra, which I found fascinating! Luckily, I was sat a mere few metres away from the bassoon, double bass and cello, so they more than made up for the fact that I couldn’t hear the violins, oboes or flutes.

I must confess, I was a little scared about sitting through two hours of no-interval choral music, but I was actually pleasantly surprised. What I could hear was very nice – and if the bits I couldn’t hear, weren’t, then it didn’t matter to me!

It’s sung in German – which isn’t the most attractive language in the world to lipread but I managed to pick up a few German words I recognised, and we were provided with a loose translation in our program for the rest of it.

Am I now passionate about Bach’s Passion? Absolutely not. But it was a very good experience and I was most impressed with SCFM’s singing abilities… two hours in rising temperatures and a big velvet skirt must have been character building.

The only thing I would have changed if I could, was the uncontrollable giggles I succumbed to just 10 minutes in. I can’t even remember what triggered it now, but the Photographer and I set each other off and I was silently (I hope) laughing so hard that I nearly fell off my chair. The more I tried to stop, the worse it got.

*blush

MUST… BEHAVE… BETTER!

Hearing in my car

Today is Thankful Friday.

I am thankful that I finally get to see SuperCathyFragileMystic’s new house in the Wild West erm… Country – it’s called Christmas Cottage and it looks really rather cute in the pictures.

The Photographer – SCFM’s boy – and I are driving up after work in my little car. Once it gets dark, I will no longer be able to hear him and drive in a straight line at the same time on account of lipreading issues.

Don’t worry though (especially if my Ma is reading this), I will pick to do the latter not the former!

And that reminds me, I had better warn him that conversation will be sparse and that he should bring music, as the only thing in my car right now is the Glee Soundtrack and Pavlov’s Dog – an eclectic mix of pure cheese and bonkers-ness.

Poor guy – it could be a very long journey!

Lipreading silent letters

You must excuse me, my cheeks are still glowing a warm shade of red from an embarrassing episode in Pret a Manger this morning.

There I was, buying my banana and sparkling water and after the 10th pardon, still with no clue what the man behind the till was saying to me.

*blush

It’s a noisy place, to be fair, but even my lipreading skills were no help, because in this instance, it turns out he was pronouncing a letter that’s usually silent – and this letter was the ‘p’ in receipt.

This ‘p’ and closure of his lips in the pattern of this word completely threw me. I had no clue what he was saying.

I looked to his colleague, who also seemed to pronounce the ‘p’, which was no help and eventually he gave up and said – do you want the paper thing?

Hurrah! Now I knew what was going on… but by this stage I was a gibbering, stammering, embarrassed ball of blondeness and he was pretty baffled, too.

‘I’m deaf,’ I reassured him – desperate for him not to think it was his English that was the problem – although it kind of was, but I don’t think he understood me.

So I grabbed my stuff and legged it – still red – to work.

It’s a long time since my lipreading skills let me down – I’m normally too on the ball, nosily reading people’s conversations in bars and restaurants, or from my bus in a traffic jam.

The other day I witnessed THE BEST fight between a couple – I think tourists – who were lost on Oxford Street. The guy had his back to me, so I was treated to a one-sided conversation as the girl ranted and raved about the fact that he didn’t know know where they were. It was getting so heated that I almost felt like getting off the bus and telling them where they were, just so she’d stop going mental at him.

Tomorrow, when I go into Pret, I am going to be on ‘p’ alert – or maybe I’ll just buy my banana from Somerfield like everyone else.

Jawlking home

Hurrah the sun is shining, the birds may well be singing and spring has finally sprung.

All this is a sharp contrast to yesterday evening when I made the decision to jog/walk or jawlk home!

Keen to try out my new running trainers, I decided last night I would walk the 4.9 miles back to my little flat. I set off and it started to rain. Halfway home, it was really raining so I decided to speed things up a bit and jog. Now, as I am only in week 4 of my walk-to-run program, I had no idea how I would fare, but I did alreet, running for 15 minutes and speeding up my journey considerably!

My goal now is to run the whole way home, but maybe I'll leave that until week 8 or something!

Having decent trainers that match my running style has really made a difference though. For starters my feet didn't hurt, and it's much easier to keep running when your feet don't hurt. Secondly, because I know they fit me, I worry less about getting nasty things like bunions – sore feet for life in exchange for fitness doesn’t seem like a good deal to me.

Ooh, and while we're on the subject of trainers, yesterday I won a pair of MBTs. For those of you that don't know, these are trainers with funny rounded soles and they are meant to improve your posture and give you a workout as you walk. More importantly, they cost a fortune!

So imagine my delight when I learnt I would soon have a pair for absolutely free.

Between them and the running, I will have my double-figure figure under control in no time at all.

Or at the very least, I'll break even in relation to my chocolate addiction!

Teehee!

Content with my deafness

Don’t know about you, but I am loving the warmer weather we’ve been having.

OK, so it’s not really warm as such, but it’s deafinitely not a cold as it has been.

Today, I even considered shedding the fleece on my morning run – leaving me with just three layers on, not four!

What I am not loving however, is the roadworks that are still happening outside my house – two months after they started and well over their deadline. It’s so frustrating as it’s making my morning commute much more stressful – and I’m not the only one. People are still behaving incredibly irrationally – driving down cycle lanes, ignoring pedestrian crossings in a bid to get through while the lights are on green, and winding down their windows and shouting at each other.

If it wasn’t making me late for work, I would almost be entertained by the whole thing. But really, it’s not entertaining anymore so I am going to write to the utility company in CAPITALS and tell them exactly what I think of their lateness.

Crikey, if I am doing this now, at 29 years old, imagine what I am going to be like as an old lady – I’ll get RSI from all the complaint letters!

Anyway, today is my Friday as I have tomorrow off for the arrival of my new deaf fire alarm. I am MOST excited about it – mainly because, well, I’ve never had a fancy gadget in my home that helps me with hear stuff before. To know that when I close my eyes at night, there’ll be no chance of me ending up drowning in smoke like on that hideous fire-warning advert on TV at the moment, makes me very happy.

What also makes me happy is that I am gradually becoming more proactive about asking for things I need. I’ve never really been very good at that.

Having my Wear My Hearing Aids Day yesterday, has also given me a new contentment with what I can hear. Hearing aids don’t make it better, I have confirmed that for another year. What’s more, it made me realise just how much I like my world with not much hearing…

OK, so that didn’t come out very eloquently, but I guess what I am trying to say that, lack of cinema outings, subtitled Virgin Media On Demand, phone calls, and whispered sweet nothings aside, I am more than happy with what I can hear.

And, also with what I can’t – as the bawling baby, lipread only, on the bus this morning confirmed.

It’s making me feel unbelievably content – for the first time in ages. Rather than just getting on with this whole deaf thing, I am actually happy about it.

At last…

Today is Wear My Hearing Aids Day

Today is a very special date in my annual calendar.

Yup! It's DG’s Wear My Hearing Aids Day!

This rare and sometimes forgotten occasion last took place over a year ago and came to an abrupt halt before 9am after a police car went by and sent me hurtling for cover, my flight reflex telling me World War Three had begun.

So naturally today, I'm intrigued to know if my hearing aids will make it to lunch!

Now, I must let new readers know that I have absolutely no ‘issue’ with hearing aids, they don't dent my sense of identity in any way, nor do I feel self conscious, they just don't help me an awful lot, that is all. I’m rather jealous of friends like Fab Friend who get on with theirs so well – it’s not just me being stubborn, I promise.

At my last hearing test, I had the chance to try out three of the latest models – and remained optimistic that at least one would make a difference. As the most important thing to me is speech clarity, we popped over to the children's clinic where I did a Word Test sat on a teeny tiny blue chair, trying to resist playing with the Lego. I did one Word Test without hearing aids, and then one with each of the new models.

In the end I chose the pair that helped me hear just three more syllables then when I was aidless. And for one week I knuckled down and wore them. And for that one week, in spite of high-tech digital tuning, I found myself not hearing what I wanted to hear and being unbalanced by the extreme volume increase of things I could already hear in the first place.

Hmmmm…

So today, on my way to work, I sat on the bus and heard the whirr of the air con, the chug of the engine, but not one single voice! And people were talking, I could see them. So in fact, my hearing aids actually succeeded in drowning out the sound of voices – something I usually have even without clarity! It felt as though I was in some bizarre 2D world with only the sounds of machines for company, and no sound of life!

On arrival at the office, what can I hear? The whirr of the air conditioning, the clicking of my keyboard, and softly, underneath all that, some voices. But with no clarity.

I hear no phones ring, no fire alarm test and no office gossip. It's like my non-hearing-aid world, only with louder air conditioning.

So technically, I am wearing expensive digital hearing aids so I can hear the air conditioning more clearly.

On attending a morning meeting, someone with the lurgy sat down beside me, and sneezed.

‘Jesus!’ I exclaim, halting the meeting.

I am wearing expensive digital hearing aids to hear people sneeze better and embarrass myself in public.

Which brings me to think maybe I should cancel my annual Wear My Hearing Aids Day and get back to hearing 'normally'. It can't be any worse than this, surely?

Hearing(?!) a clock tick!

Ooh, today the weather feels positively spring-like don't you think?

This was definitely reflected in my lack of layers when I went running this morning. I'm improving every time I go now, although I'm still not completely won over by this whole running thing...

Today I'm thinking about the weekend... already! You see, it's gonna be another weekend of DIY as I attempt to put right yet another piece of shoddy workmanship in my flat done by a previous owner.

And to help me with this one is DIY expert, Onion Soup Mate. Together with FSA Boy, she is renovating her own lovely house and having just done her bathroom, I reckoned she was the expert to ask for help with mine!

I will of course be doing some work, too, but I shall mostly be doing what I'm told.

Anyway, as I was lying in bed last night, I heard(?!) the strangest noise. ‘Tap, tap, tap, tap’ it went. My heart was in my mouth as I wondered if it was my heating again, but thankfully the heating had been off for some time, and it was a different tap. (At ease, Blanco!)

I got up to investigate, noticing that it got louder in the hallway. ‘Tap, tap, tap’ it went.

High and low I looked until my ears and eyes finally came to rest on a bright pink cuckoo clock given to me by NikNak for my birthday.

I've never really heard a clock tick before. Not since before I lost lots of my hearing, and certainly not without holding it up right to my ear.

How could this be?

And then it clicked. In my unsupervised DIY mania, I had put the clock up on a hollow wall, which was acting as an amplifier... even for deaf old me!

Incredible!

But then of course, I was torn between so happy I could hear something like a clock ticking but also not being able to sleep because of it.

In the end I reached a compromise. By day, the clock ticks and by night, time stands still.

I wonder what else I can nail to the wall to make it louder?!

Would this happen if I wasn't deaf?

Well, I started my day in style today, by falling down the steps at my rents' local station. Not quite sure what happened but basically, I went one way, my case went another, and my pride went out the window.

All in view of a cute guy...

What is it with me, cute guys, and public transport?

The said cute guy jogged over to me, collecting my suitcase on the way. He checked I was OK before safely depositing me, the suitcase, and my pride on the train.

Happy Monday to me!

Anyway, this weekend from a Mother’s Day point of view, was a bit of a disaster. Namely because I had somehow managed to book the spa day for the erm... wrong day!

We turned up on the Saturday to discover we should have been the allegedly on the Friday. Confused I checked my iPhone and the original email I sent was requesting appointments for Saturday 12th – and seeing as Saturday was the 13th, I began to see how this could have happened.

But what frustrated me was that I did say Saturday, and I also said I was deaf, so couldn't call, and if I had said Saturday 12th on the phone, I'm pretty sure she would have asked me which date or day I meant. But she didn't on email. She just said, yes that would be fine for the 12th. No mention of the day and that was that. So when the confirmation email came in, work being busy and all, I didn't really pay much attention to it. My bad!

But even so, when I didn’t turn up on the 12th, no attempt was made to contact me, which is just poor customer service in my book!

So OK, this whole thing started with an error on my part, but what wasn't my fault was the way the peroxided-to-within-an-inch-of-her-life woman at the spa reception dealt with the whole thing. She did that beauty school-belittling thing you often come across and left me feeling more than a little wounded about the whole episode.

It’s frustrating and I tweeted about it – wanting to add the # of: Wouldn’thappenifIwasn’tdeaf because I really think that’s true.

However, on a positive note, it’s only the first time ever that internet booking has not worked out for me. And would I really want to hang out at such a snooty spa anyway?

Most deafinitely not!

Just thankful it's Friday

Today is Thankful Friday.

It’s Friday, I am thankful.

Nuff said.

The silent, singing mouse

Phew – today is Thursday, which means tomorrow is Friday and then it’s the weekend!

Hurrah!

It’s Mother’s Day this Sunday, so I am off home to The Rents and on Saturday, I am taking Ma to a Spa – she’s having some tension melt back massage thing, while I laze around the facilities, which all sound rather fab. Afterwards, Pa is going to meet us for afternoon tea!

What a high life I lead eh?

Back to earth with a bump though, and today I am still struggling with this flippin’ cold. This morning I looked like a fish out of water as I kept dropping my jaw to try and clear my ears – with little success. It was only when the guy beside me on the bus shot me a rather strange look that I realised I must look quite odd and stopped. But the stopping seemed to make it worse and I began sneezing, lots.

At this point the guy on the bus moved.

What is it with me and frightening guys on public transport?

I suppose I should be used to making a fool of myself by now, I’ve been doing it for 28 years or so. But I think last night just about won the award for ‘Biggest fool made in quite a while’!

Shakira Shakira came for dinner and to see my new flat for the first time. Wine was poured, shepherd’s pie was eaten and the mood was jovial. It was then I picked up a soft toy mouse on the table and said to her, ‘Look what my Ma gave me at Christmas.’ I then proceeded to dance about with the mouse.

She looked at me quizzically.

‘It’s not doing anything,’ she said, trying not to laugh.

‘You mean it’s not playing a recording of Jingle Bells with a Polish accent?’ I said, going bright red in the realisation that I had just danced around the room to absolutely nothing.

‘No,’ she said, not even trying not to laugh.

This stuffed mouse is meant to play Jingle Bells when you squeeze it, but I had forgotten to do that. I can only hear it if I hold it right up to my ears, so I hadn’t realised it wasn’t playing.

*blush

Thnakfully Shakira Shakira knows me well, so she wasn’t shocked, or surprised by me dancing around the flat holding a silent mouse.

Mental note to self – No doing that on the bus!

A wasabi deaf fire alarm!? YUM!

Right, important things first – it seems I was hasty to contact the London Fire Brigade to ask them to sort out an alarm that would shake me from my sleep.

I should, according to this week’s Stylist magazine, have contacted Japan.

It says, and I kid you not, that a Japanese company has created a smoke alarm for hearing impaired people, using wasabi paste!

Erm…

Air Water Safety Services discovered that virtually every person with hearing difficulties woke up after the wasabi smell was released as its odour was so powerful!

Amazing stuff – but I think I’ll stick to my vibrating under-pillow pad thanks so I don’t wake up craving sushi in the event of a fire!

Anyway, enough about that and onto more about me, me, me!

At the moment, I am in week 2 of my Walk-to-run-in-10-weeks program, and it's going well.

I have proven to myself that I can run – something I've always doubted, and I'm already noticing the difference in my recovery time after each running section.

However, being unsure about whether I'm going to stick at this running business, I haven't really invested in any kit. I've got decent trainers as I don't want to get bunions, but beyond that, all I've got is a mash up of ancient sports gear.

On my first run I went out very unprepared and froze to death. On my second, my body was warm but my ears were cold, so ear muffs were added.

Classy huh?

On my third run, my hands were cold so I popped on some fluffy Peruvian gloves that Fab Friend gave me to complete the outfit. Then for good measure I added a Quicksilver fleece with flared sleeves as it really was bitterly cold, and the running outfit was complete.

But ah-ha! I haven't told you what the icing on the cake is yet!

My egg timer!

You see, the Walk-to-run plan involved walking and running, which requires a timer as there's no way I'm counting while trying to get a grip on putting one foot in front of the other at speed and remembering to breathe in and out at regular intervals instead of just randomly gasping for breath at sporadic intervals!

And, as I said earlier, I don't want to splash out on all the kit if I am not going to stick at this running malarky, so an egg timer is the only thing for it really!

So, if you see an ear-muff wearing, Peruvian-glove clad little michelin girl half walking, half running, around a park while clasping a bright orange egg timer, be sure to give me a wave, won't you!

My can't-hear cold!

Does anyone believe that an ulcer on the tip of your tongue means you've told a lie?

If so, I must have told the most humungous lie as I have the most humungous ulcer. It's so painful that talking hurts, and people who know me well will know it takes a lot for me to stop talking!

What I really need is some Bonjela and a week in the Bahamas… think we all know which one I'll be buying at lunch.

Anyway, the love/hate relationship with my iPhone continues to rage. When I accidentally poured water over it the other day, I realised I loved it and apologised repeatedly for ever thinking bad thoughts about it, promising to never think bad things again if only it would keep working.


But then, when auto correct changes words that are already correct into completely insane alternatives, I find myself tempted to immerse it in an entire bucket of water as punishment. It really is driving me bonkers.

And another thing, I never thought I could miss buttons this much. I never thought I would ever write a sentence about missing buttons.

But on the other hand, I love iTunes and Pocket Lyrics, and the tube application that tells you how many minutes away a train is, even if the station display board isn’t telling you.

Love/Hate – it’s a very fine line indeed, it seems.

This week I've managed to catch the tail end of the lurgy that has left French Boy bed bound for two days and knocked Friend Who Knows Big Words off her feet as well. It's not nice, but so far the main thing I have is blocked ears. It feels like the pressure is constantly changing and I can't clear them.

Naturally, this makes me a whole lot deafer.

For example, my TV is on twice the normal volume right now, and I'm sure I'm shouting when I speak, too.

On the whole, I'm not really aware of it until I do something so loud that even I notice. Like this morning when I went into tidy-up mode in my flat – Niknak is coming to dinner tonight – and started putting lots of things away in a hurry. It was only when I made the floor shake that I realised I was probably being very noisy, and then I remembered that French Boy is bed bound and sick and that noise will probably not make him feel a whole lot better.

I resolved immediately to be a whole lot quieter...

... and at that moment managed to drop a large box of cutlery onto my stone-tiled, kitchen floor!!

*sigh

I did try, honest!

What?! No Subtitles!?

A few weeks ago I had a bit of a Twitter disagreement with Virgin Media because I felt it was unfair to advertise broadband as costing less when you took a phone line in addition, than if you just got broadband on it's own.

Now, I know that just broadband is cheaper than a phone line and broadband put together, but what I really wanted to know was why, if broadband only costs £12.50 to line-renting customers who pay a further £11 for their line rental, it can't cost just £12.50 for broadband customers? I mean, I’m deaf, I don’t want a phone line, but I do want broadband for £12.50 a month.

Does this make sense? Or am I just being blonde about the whole thing?

Long story short, it was a discussion that went nowhere, so I bought a Vodafone Pay-As-You-Go Dongle for my laptop, which is incidentally fabulous, and forgot all about Virgin Media.

Then yesterday, I began to wonder if perhaps I shouldn’t have been so hasty after all when I was at London Aunt's house. You see, she has the broadband, phone and TV package with Virgin Media and, as we were tired, we thought an afternoon movie might be a nice idea.

There was nothing on TV that caught the imaginations of London Cousins 1 and 2 so we decided to investigate the Movies On Demand section, which I didn’t even know existed. ‘How exciting,’ I thought. ‘This would be worth paying that little bit extra for!’

With a massive selection of movies to choose from, Night At The Museum 2 was duly selected and we pressed play.

But…

…no subtitles

‘Doh, silly me!’ I thought, before stopping the movie, going into settings and turning on the subtitles.

Still no subtitles!

Seriously, I checked three further times just to make sure but there really didn't seem to be any. There wasn't even an ‘S’ in brackets like you get on normal TV when calling up the programme information!

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?!

With two excitable cousins waiting to watch the movie, I couldn’t very well suggest watching the EastEnders Omnibus instead, so I watched Night At The Museum 2 without hearing a single word.

London Aunt and Cousins 1 and 2 did an admirable job at keeping me informed of the storyline as much as possible, but apart from that, all I could do was watch the pictures. It was like being back in the 90s again. It was depressing. Even worse, it cost London Aunt £3 and something pence to buy! The DVD with subtitles and special feature probably doesn't cost a whole lot more than that – in fact, I just checked and it’s available for £6.98.

Keen to see what they'd say about this, I tweeted Virgin Media this morning first thing and eagerly awaited their reply as they were very speedy last time. Nothing has come through yet, but once it does I will update this post.

However, a quick Google revealed a press release from Virgin Media about the lack of subtitles currently available on On Demand. So it really is true. And although I am sure, like the iPlayer, something will eventually be done about this, it makes me sad that there are no apparent – please correct me if I’m wrong – concessions for a service that doesn’t serve deaf people well.

There’s only one thing for it – at lunchtime, I’m ordering the Night At The Museum DVD from Amazon using my laptop and internet from my Vodafone Pay-As-You-Go Dongle.

Hearing plane announcements

Hurrah! It’s Thankful Friday again and today, I am thankful for my latest visitors – French Cousin 3 and his girlf, whose blog name I have yet to decide on.

They arrived last night – him from Birmingham, where he is studying, her from Paris, where she works and I found them huddled in the cold by the tube. It’s cold alright, and poor French Cousin 3 forgot his hat, so this morning he departed wearing a rather fetching crochet and flower-adorned number belonging to his girlf!

He did look funny!

I am also thankful that tomorrow I can sleep, relax and hang out with London Aunt, reminiscing that this time last week we were on our way to Barcelona – or actually just delayed at Heathrow for hours and hours and hours due to a French air traffic control strike.

Pah

Hopefully this weekend I will also collect the amazing photographs that London Aunt took so I can upload them along with my account of how fantastic the weekend was.

It really was!

The only bit I’d like to change is the flight home.

You see, I’m not that keen on flying. Something about the announcements sends me into a tailspin – I can’t hear them but I can hear the voice, so in my head I’m hearing, ‘The plane is failing, we’re gonna crash!’ which is bonkers, I know, but I can’t help it.

So anyway, as you know, last weekend there was a terrible storm lashing France and Spain and I was more than a little worried that the flight home would be bumpy and plagued with apocalyptic announcments – and, feeling a little fragile as a result of alcohol, I decided to ask the BA air steward on arrival on the place if the journey to Barcelona had been bumpy.

‘Oh, yes!’ she said, brightly.

BRIGHTLY!!!?

‘How could she be cheerful about this?’ I wondered. And then she saw my face paling at the prospect of bumps, unheard announcements and a hangover in a confined space and realised she’d said the wrong thing.

I sat down with a huff beside London Aunt and took out my crossword puzzle, but my hangover prevented me from reading the clues, let alone understanding them.

Closing my eyes, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the lovely air steward from earlier to check I was OK – even though we had yet to leave the gate. I assured her I was fine but just hated turbulence, while London Aunt threw quizzical looks at me.

Not content however, the lovely air steward went and got the pilot from the cockpit to have a personal chat to me. London Aunt by this point was hiding behind her paper, cringing with embarrassment, while I felt like a 5-year-old child.

In many ways, I was most impressed by the service I was given – it’s just that, I only wanted to know if there was going to be bumps on the way back to London. That’s all!!!! I didn’t want to be the focal point of the plane, which I was fast becoming.

And then came the icing on the cake. The empty seat beside us was waiting to be filled by the MOST gorgeous man – except he couldn’t sit down as the pilot was having a chat to me. He was stood behind, smirking at me, as I went redder, and redder until I practically shooed the captain away to fly the bloomin’ plane.

By this point, my mouth and brain were completely disengaged and when he signalled that his seat was in our row I declared, ‘Fabulous!’ a little too loudly.

The cabin once again focussed on me.

He sat down, a little baffled.

I sat down, red.

London Aunt sat down laughing so hard, the Daily Mail she was hiding behind started to quiver uncontrollably.

‘Made a new friend I see,’ he teased.

‘Erm, bliuejhvskdjhkv kjhkh’ I replied, quite unable to speak.

Once more, a quizzical look.

Once more, a red-faced DG.

When the place landed, I clapped – which in context was an illustration to something I was saying to London Aunt – but out of context, to the cute boy made me look like some sort of Fruit Loop.

I learned something on that flight, you know. And here it is: Never, ever fly hungover and ask an over-enthusiastic air stewards about turbulence… especially not when the cutest boy you’ve met for some time sits right down beside you.

Travelling it seems, is insanely bad for my love life.

My Make-things-better-for-deaf-people wish list

Phew, how can it be Thursday already?

This week has been a bit mental to tell you the truth. Yesterday I had my day ruined by a barium X-Ray, which involved drinking 5 cups of chalky white stuff, being X-Rayed a lot and prodded with a wooden spoon – all high-tech stuff I'm sure you'll agree.

Anyway, it left me feeling pretty rubbish and so the only place I wanted to be was my bed. So there I went.

But that's enough boring health stuff.

More importantly this week, I got an email from London Fire Brigade, offering me a home visit where they'd fit a flashing, vibrating fire alarm... for free!

How amazing is that?

Now, I knew that councils offered this service but the fact that the fire brigade do is bloomin’ fabulous.

I'm rather excited in fact that soon, I shall know when my smoke alarm is going off when I have burnt my toast.

It will give me one less thing to worry about – and that can only be a good thing.

It always gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling when things happen that make my deafness better – like digital subtitles that can be recorded, the iPod lyrics app on my phone, Stagetext captioning being available at The Globe, and anything that used to go beep that now vibrates.

Every year I have fewer things on my Make-it-better-for-deaf-people wish list, but right now at the top is subtitled movies extensively available on iTunes, subtitled iPlayer on the iPhone, and subtitled cinema at sociable times.

If I get all that this year, I'll be a very happy DG...

Guess I'd better think of new things to add to the list, just in case.

New beginings

Phew, today's post is late because I have the day off and am recovering from my amazing weekend in Barcelona.

More will be revealed on the weekend for my Superdrugloves.com blog so I won't give too much away. But it was absolutely brilliant - from the amazing room overlooking one of the nicest streets in central Barcelona, to the literally life-changing visit to see some of Gaudi's work.

We even found some time to stay out partying until 3am, with me telling London Aunt our hotel was just around the corner continuously for 10 minutes as there were no taxis.

Barcelona gave me a chance to really think about things - what I want, how I react to stuff and how easy it is to change things.

And today I started on one tiny thing I have been thinking about doing for a year, but have never done.

Running.

Knowing that if I just went out and ran, I would fall over after 30 seconds, I have found a beginners programme and today I got started. And, do you know what? Once I got over the weirdness of wondering if everyone was looking at the red-faced girl hotfooting it through the park, I really enjoyed it. Just me and my egg timer - an odd running companion I know, but I have to do interval running apparently and build up slowly.

It's step one of my new beginnings...

I'll keep you posted on the others.

Barcelona calling

Today is Thankful Friday.

It’s pay day, which I am most thankful for as home-owning is expensive business don’t you know.

This week hasn’t been a great one for blogging. Work has been very busy and even lunch breaks were quite a rarity as we fought to get everything done for deadline day.

That has now come and gone and as if by way of celebration the sun has come out.

This weekend I am finally claiming my prize that I won by becoming the Superdrug Ultimate Summer Insider – yes, it’s taken me a while I know – and I’m off to Barcelona with London Aunt.

We have a 5* hotel booked and it’s all paid for, so all we need to worry about it which tapas to choose to go with our beer, and which Gaudi exhibition to visit first.

Yay!

And, before anyone gets any ideas about me giving away my location this weekend – I have people house sitting for me!!!!

It is quite scary though, reading about all this ‘I’m away – come burgle me’ in the news. I follow various people on Twitter who are forever giving away their location – be it on holiday, on business or just which restaurant they in for the evening, and while I am not a crazy person or a burglar, you have to wonder if there are people out there who literally scan the social networking sites looking for burgling opportunities.

Anyway, so where was I? Ah yes, Barcelona!

I first had the privilege of wandering this fabulous city last April with Miss K – we had a fabulous time and she gave me a wonderful guided tour that will hopefully come in handy this weekend when trying to find various favourite haunts – namely the absinthe bar – otherwise known as Bar Marsella!

Friend Who Knows Big Words also told me about a bar owned by Manu Chao – El Marachi… The Guardian called it a clandestine drinking den – guess we’ve got to check that out, too then.

CORRECTION: FHKBW has just informed me the bar is actually called Sin Copa – guess it would be rude not to check out both!

And that concludes Thankful Friday.

I have a half day so I must be getting on!

Have a good one peeps

DG

No time to write

Phew! Today is so busy, I couldn't even write my daily blog in my lunch hour, as I didn't get one.

What I did get time to do though, was eat an entire pack of Percy Piglets from Marks & Spencer – in one mouthful.

I would highly recommend Percy Piglets if you fancy a sweet treat – but I wouldn't recommend eating an entire packet in one go.

I

FEEL

SICK!

Things that go crash in the night

Phew, sometimes it really is possible to feel like you've had the whole day before the sun is even properly up.

Take this morning for example, when I woke up at 5.30am.

‘Brilliant,’ I thought to myself. ‘I've still got another hour at least of sleep.’

I flung the covers over my head.

Crash!!!!!

Even with my limited hearing, that did not sound good.

My first task was to locate my glasses, so I patted my bedside table gingerly. There was water and no glasses.

Next my thoughts turned to my iPhone, so I patted the floor, desperately hoping it had been thrown out of harms way in the drama.

I found my glasses!

The next step was to face the music and turn on the light.

Carnage greeted me!

Somehow, I had managed to catapult an entire glass of water over my bedside table and into my open handbag. The bag was wet, the table was wet, a gang socket was wet, my iPhone had gone flying through the air and was dry as a bone several feet under my bed. My brand new carpet was soaking.

Needless to say, I spent the next half an hour sorting out 2 seconds of clumsiness, and on finishing knew, that if I returned to bed, I'd never want to get up again!

*yawn

So anyway, this morning I was forced to watch the drivel that is GMTV because BBC breakfast was completely without subtitles! Nothing! Nada! Not even a haphazardly constructed sentence of spelling mistakes!

I don't like GMTV. It's like those terrible real-life story magazines you can buy with headlines such as, ‘I married my brother’ or ‘He liquidised my cat, but I still love him’.

I mean, this morning there was a whole host of important news to report. A car bomb in Northern Ireland, the Gordon Brown bullying fiasco, and sure, while they touched on those things, do you know where one of their roving reporters was?

A house in Liverpool that had been trashed by a Facebook party.

Not only are Facebook parties old news, so people really should know better than to put a public invitation on the biggest social networking site in the world, but honestly? Who cares? Who cares in the grand scheme of things about red paint on dirty washing, of a bathroom GMTV deemed too shocking to show viewers?

If I had done that as a kid, my dad wouldn't have gone on GMTV to discuss it, he and my mother would have stood over me until ever last bit of their house had been put back together and then sent me to boarding school for the rest of my life – without leave!!

So inevitably after listening to five minutes of this drivel, I turned back to the BBC and thankfully the subtitles had retuned... just in time to tell me about a Henry Moore exhibition at the Tate that I really want to go and see.

That's more like it! Proper, interesting news! Fingers crossed tomorrow, the Beeb will be on the subtitling ball, so there's no danger of me being subjected to a GMTV bulletin of a break-dancing granny from Kent, a rollerblading parrot or a follow-up human-interest story of the house party in Liverpool!

Here's hoping!