Deafinitely Girly 'hears' a fire alarm

It's Friday. I'm thankful. Mainly because it's Friday. But also because I've discovered something rather marvellous about the place I'm working at the moment....

Earlier in the week, the fire alarm went off. It was a planned test. I knew about it in advance. But the strangest thing happened.

You see, I can't hear things like fire alarms. Not even with my posh Phonak Nathos hearing aids in. Not even, if I stand right under the alarm. I hear nothing. But today, in the small office where I am working, where there's a radio playing that's loud enough for me to hear, I did notice that the fire alarm was going off.

How? Everything else got quieter. Namely the radio. While the alarm rang for 30 seconds (I'd been warned this was how long it would ring for) everything else sounded like it had been put on mute. Muffled. Like I'd turned off my hearing aids but left them in my ears.

OK, I reasoned, so things like the general hum of conversation would die down during the alarm as people struggled to hear over it, but the radio? The voice of the person sat right by me? That was more unexpected.

And I think it's great. You see, what I've started realising over the last few years of wearing hearing aids is that it's not about getting 'conventional' hearing back. It's about getting anything back.

It's so different to my ultra short-sightedness. I mean, if I left the optician with mediocre vision that sometimes meant I could see things I had never seen before, I'd march straight back in and demand they did something about it. But it's different with my ears.

I know that I will never have perfect hearing. That no matter what I do, I will never be able to make out conversation without lipreading, listen to the radio and catch more than the odd word and hear things like babies crying at a distance, phones ringing and indeed, fire alarms ringing.

But if my ears can give me a clue that this is happening. If I know that when the office sounds muted, then the fire alarm is going off, then that is most definitely better than nothing.

And that makes today a very thankful Friday.

Have a good one peeps.
DG
xx

Deaf Girly's working it out

I've been thinking about a lot about what happened last week with the whole 'your deafness means you can't do this job' rejection email.

I've been thinking about it in a way that took me back to when I first moved to London and was struggling to work out how to explain my deafness to new employers. Back then, I made it seem like it was nothing. I tried my hardest to use the phone. I was terrified that if I didn't, I wouldn't do well. I wonder now if I was basically right.

Back then, I never relaxed. I was always on edge about being deaf. Ready to spring into action to hide any evidence that I was struggling. This meant most nights I went home exhausted and miserable from pretending to be someone I could never be.

Maturity and a need to be less exhausted, meant that I grew out of that habit and relaxed more about my deafness at work. I tried to hide it less. I asked for more help. I acknowledged my limits but offered my employers my ways of working around them to get the same results as hearing people. I dropped my guard.

Until last week. Until dropping my guard meant getting overlooked for some work I should have been given a fair shot at.

The thing is though, deep down, I know that someone with hearing who can pick up the phone and communicate effortlessly and instantly with people at the other end, is technically a more attractive candidate that me. OK, so I can offer alternatives, but as someone once said to me, as she picked up the phone and dialled the number of the person I was waiting for an email from, 'Things are so much quicker by phone' as she smugly trumped me to get the much-needed information, leaving me red-faced and humiliated.

Since last week, my head has been full of questions. Things like: What makes me better than the person with the perfect hearing? How can I demonstrate that on my CV and in person? Is this going to happen again? How can I stop it happening again?

I've began wondering whether I should be 'trying harder' with the phone. But I'm not sure how to.  I've tried amplifiers in the past and the t-loop hooks for my hearing aids, but they don't really help. I still don't get that clarity of speech. Without lipreading, I get nothing but noise. Without lipreading, I feel like I am the least attractive person in the CV line-up for work.

'So what are you going to do about it?' a nagging voice has been saying in my head all week.

And honestly, right now, I don't know. But I'm on the case. Whether it's finding a new bit of technology that magically makes using the phone easier (all suggestions welcome) or working out a new way of explaining that I don't use the phone without it sounding like a massive negative, I will work it out.

Because I am determined not to let this happen again. I am determined to show that I am as good as that person with the identical CV who can use the phone. That I am worthy of the jobs I am more than qualified to do.

Happy Monday peeps.
DG
x

Deaf Girly's employment issue

This year, it will be thirteen years since I stepped out of my post graduate course and into the big bad world of work. Thirteen years of working my up, in and around a career I had dreamt of doing since I could talk.

Recently, I decided to go self employed to enable me to pursue my own stuff – writing mainly. I've written a book you know, it's not perfect yet, but it's coming and maybe one day, someone will publish it and yay, that'll be great.

In my thirteen years of work, I've been pretty lucky. I can count on one hand the number of times I've felt that I probably missed out on a job because of my deafness. And until today, I could count on one finger the times I definitely knew.

But today, the second time occurred and I was totally unprepared for it.

You see, I'm lucky enough to get most of my work from one amazing company. A company that has always supported me and my deafness. Who makes no issue of it. Who knows that I can do my job with or without ears. But I thought I should probably put myself out there a bit more to ensure all the days of the month were filled with paid work. Or as many as possible.

So today, in response to me sending in my CV for work, a company contacted me and requested a short phone call pre-interview stage after noting I had all the skills they were looking for. I had scrutinised the job advert for any mention of needing to use the phone and there were none. So I wrote a quick, polite reply explaining that I was 'hard of hearing' – I felt less likely to scare them than 'deaf' – and could we do it over email.

'It'll be fine,' I thought confidently. 'This is 2016. People don't discriminate against hearing loss when the job description makes no mention of phone use.'

'It'll be fine,' I thought less confidently some time later, when I'd had no reply.

'Maybe it won't be fine,' I thought sadly, as I realised that someone somewhere was working out how to get out of telling me I fitted the requirements of the role.

And then a few moments later I was put out of in to my misery.

It wasn't fine. I wasn't suitable for the role.

But the thing is, how – from the description of 'Hard of Hearing' I gave can that person who has never met me know that I am not suitable for the role? How, without asking how I've very successfully made a career over the last thirteen years – all visible on my CV – can that person possibly judge my efficiency of communicating without the conventional telephone call?

I would understand it if I'd applied for something massively outside of my 'hearing' limits. If I'd applied to work as a receptionist, PA, call centre person, or any of the other roles where hearing is kind of essential.

I mean, I would secretly love to be a personal assistant. If I had hearing, it'd be the job I'd do for fun. Organising, sorting, making things happen. But I would NEVER apply to be one as a deaf person because I just don't think without hearing I'd make a very good one.

That is however irrelevant because I chose a career where hearing shouldn't be an issue. With careful guidance from an amazing person early on, I chose a section of my industry where I would face the least discrimination. And until today it's worked marvellously.

Earlier, as I was having a cry in the toilets, I realised how lucky I am to have got this far and faced so little discrimination. How lucky I am to have had amazing support from amazing employers. And how lucky I am that I won't have to work for the people who today deemed me not acceptable for a role I could have definitely made work. If they'd just given me a chance.

Sometimes that things that aren't meant to be are definitely for the best because they leave us free to pursue our proper dreams and the things that are true to who we actually are, rather than just earn us money.

Happy hump-day peeps

DG
xx

Deaf Girly and the noisy car

Well, I had a marvellous weekend visiting Penfold by the seaside – missing out on the snow but definitely not missing out on an excellent selection of gin, conversation, food and shopping.

However, on setting out for London last night, I realised that one of my headlights wasn't working. It was not yet dark. I had one hour of daylight left. The journey was more than one hour.

This put me on edge. Not least because driving with one headlight in the rain and twilight is less than fun, but also because it brought one of my biggest 'Things I can't hear' worries to the forefront of my mind.

My car.

Yep, my car has always been something that I can't hear. Sure I can hear the engine, but I can't hear the revs that well, which has resulted in me driving on the motorway for considerable distances in fourth gear, before my rapidly decreasing petrol gauge alerts me to this.

And I can't hear beeps or any of the strange noises that people say they hear their cars making shortly before they break down. I have never been privy to the sound that a tyre makes when it's going down or flat and the only thing I did hear in my old car was when the exhaust fell off, in the middle and started grinding along the road until I could pull over.

So last night, I was on edge. And, I decided that rather than just driving straight into London on the road I was coming up from the seaside on, I took the M25 to drive around to the road I wanted. I don't often do this. In fact, I don't think I have ever driven on this stretch of M25 in my car.

It's that weird orange/brown colour instead of black tarmac, which I know can be noisier than traditional road surfaces but as I pulled on and accelerated, my ears almost had a heart attack.

'Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang,' came the noise from my tyres.

'What the heck is that?' I panicked, slowing and pulling over in to the slow lane. The banging continued. It echoed through my little car. I opened the window, it didn't get worse. I checked the balance of my steering (as much as you can on a largely straight section of road with cars whizzing past in all directions) and whether the breaks worked evenly – hoping that all this would indicate whether I had a flat tyre.

But nothing except the banging seemed to indicate anything was wrong.

For the next 8 miles I barely breathed. I gripped the steering wheel. I considered pulling over to check everything – but I didn't want to die and the hard shoulder on the M25 is not exactly a safe haven. So instead, I muted my 'volume 58 on the car stereo' music and I strained my ears to try and decipher this sound I had never heard before.

And then the road went back to black. And the noise vanished. And as my ears searched in vain to hear any clue of something being wrong with car, there was nothing.

It was simply the road surface. A road surface that made my car so unbelievably noisy that I thought it was broken.

In complete disbelief I checked my car on arriving home and found all four tyres alive and well.

Still, at least now I know what this road surface sounds like in my little car. At least next time I find myself on an orange road, I won't panic and wonder if my car is about to fall apart like the ones in the cartoons.

Happy Monday peeps

DG
xx

Things Deaf Girly can't hear

So, last week I wrote a blog post about things I can't hear, which the launched a discussion on Twitter about all the things that made a noise that I couldn't hear and that others couldn't hear.

It was a revelation! So many things beep, whistle and chime that I never knew about before. Things like contactless payments in shops and Oyster barriers. The latter was my absolute favourite discovery. The fact that if there's no money on your Oyster, the barrier beeps more angrily rather than just beeping you through.

Since I went a lot deafer in my teens, I've retained a kind of audio memory bank, so that when I know a noise is happening, I can imagine it. I use this a lot when listening to familiar classical music that I once heard more of. I simply imagine the violins, flutes, oboes and other such high-frequency instruments and add them along to the bass that I can hear.

This is not always successful with music I don't know though. FJM remarked the other day that I will often sing a completely different tune to what is playing on the TV, but that works perfectly with the bass – I kind of do an accidental vocal mash up on TV theme tunes.

This also translates weirdly across lots of music. I will often think that two completely different songs sound alike because of their similar bass or beat. It's like my head is a DJ mixing desk – a deaf one, that can't sing in tune and that isn't privy to about two thirds of useful sound.

So anyway, like I was saying, I've got quite good at imagining sound – so now that I know that Oyster card barriers beep when you pass through them, I've started imagining it in my head. And when my card didn't work and I barged through the barrier without realising the other day, much to the embarrassment of FJM, I imagined an indignant beep.

This morning however, I was reminded that there is just some things that you cannot imagine. Such as an announcement on my bus that I couldn't hear. I tried to work out if the bus driver was telling people to move down inside the bus, or not stand on the top deck, but none of the sounds sounded familiar.

'Oh well,' I thought, 'No one is running from the bus screaming so it can't be that urgent. What's the worst that can happen?' and settled back into reading FJM's Economist that I nicked for my journey this morning – it's very interesting and nice change from my terrible guilty pleasure that is The Daily Mail. Ten minutes later I looked up from an article about North Korea and realised that the worst that could happen was that the bus driver was announcing a diversion and driving in completely the wrong direction to the one that I needed.

But what I don't understand is why the driver didn't press the computerised announcement for this that sets of the scrolling subtitles. I know there's one that goes 'This bus is on diversion, please listen for further announcements' because I've read it hundreds of times. If he'd just put it on this morning, I wouldn't have been the crazy woman running in heels, bobble hat bobbing to get to her desk on time.

I did however cheer myself up on arrival to work by imagining the lift pinging as it arrived on the ground floor and pinging again as it deposited me on the right floor.

So thank you for getting involved and letting me know all about the things that make a sound.

It's made my week.

DG
xx

Deaf Girly and the train doors

I have gone through a large part of my life not realising that certain things make a noise.

When I was first told about my deafness, I discovered that green men beeped when you crossed the road at crossings and that birds – other than pigeons – sang. I found out that people could actually hear whispers and it wasn't about guessing what was being said.

But even after 25 years, there's still things I am finding out make a noise. For example,  the LED lamp that I use for my gel nail manicures apparently beeps when the light goes on and off. There was I thinking I'd chosen something quiet to do while FJM snoozed on the sofa.

Then at last year, NellyMac told me that supermarkets played music. Actual music. Who knew?! I certainly didn't.

Another of the things I really didn't realise when I first moved to London almost thirteen years ago was that most public transport has noises that are out of my frequency. When you press the stop request on a bus, that makes a sound. The tube doors make a sound just before they close. And apparently bus doors do this, too.

I first discovered the tube doors one after jumping on a tube and watching as the doors closed on my friend who was half a step behind me. When we met up at the next station, she asked why I'd got on when the door closing signal was sounding.

'There's a door closing signal?' I marvelled, and suddenly the time when a tube door closed on my head as I looked out to check the destination of the train finally made sense.

Since then, I approach tube doors with caution. I rarely dash for a train that's already on the platform in case the doors are beeping inaudibly and I get taken out by them as they close.

But then the other day, while sat on a snazzy new Circle Line train, I noticed that just before the doors closed, an orange light, about eye level by the door flashed. Unsure if it was just coincidence, I watched it for the next few stations and sure enough, just before the doors closed, this light flashed.

'Amazing,' I thought. 'That is truly amazing.' And the very next day I got to test it out with my Ma – who also can't hear the door closing signal. There was a train on the platform, a new snazzy one so we made a dash for it. But just as we got close, the orange light flashed and the doors closed inches from my nose. Without that light, they would have closed on me. It was brilliant.

Now though, I need to go on the older trains and see if it's just something – in my tube-avoiding world – I've never noticed before.

It's fabulous how much TFL have done to make things easier for deaf people on tubes – the captioned announcements were the first thing that I loved. No more sitting listening to unintelligible chat from the driver. Just a clear scrolling text about red signals or waiting for platforms. Obviously that system doesn't cover people on the track and other emergencies but usually in those situations someone is more than happy to enlighten you.

So now I'm on a quest to find new things that make a noise that I didn't know about. Do lifts make a noise when they arrive on your floor? Do the doors ping when they open and close?

All enlightenments welcome.

Happy Friday peeps

DG
x

Deaf Girly and pronunciation

Ok so you'd think by the grand old age of 35 my pronunciation mishaps would be getting less frequent.

You'd also think I'd be able to tell the difference between clear and black mascara before applying the latter to my eyebrows but that's a whole other story...

Anyway, yesterday while looking at the different countries that visitors to my blog come from, I remarked that I'd even had a hit from South Korea – from Seoul (that's See-owl when it leaves my lips by the way).


'The what now?' FJM enquired.

'See-oll?' I tried again, more nervous this time and having flashbacks to the whole Versailles and Marseille fiasco which you can read about here.


'Soul,' FJM replied. 'Like the bottom of your foot.'


'Soul?' I checked, amazed that no one had ever pointed this out before but also wondering whether I'd ever said it out loud before... But whether or not I'd said it, I'd definitely heard it.


But not correctly, it appeared.


And then I twigged. It began with an S – my lipreading and sound nemesis. Impossible to lipread in normal speech and also usually higher pitched so out of my frequency.


I kind of have to imagine s's when I hear a word with them in. And it appears that I imagined an audible 'e' too.


So there you go. That's my new word for the week. Seoul like soul. And if you're my single reader from Seoul, 
'Hello, and thank you!'


Happy Wednesday peeps.


DG X

What if I had never met Deaf Girly…?

Recently I've been thinking about this a lot. You see, when the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve and hailed the arrival of 2016, over the next few days, it wasn't just the messages from friends and family over text I received, it was messages from my Twitter peeps, too. People who without Deaf Girly, I would never have the wonderful pleasure of knowing, meeting and calling my friends.

After all, what if I had never met Deaf Girly... or to be more accurately, what if I had never created Deaf Girly? Yes, my phone would have chimed with texts from family and friends, but my Twitter feed would have been silent... or non existent... all those marvellous Twitter peeps would have been wishing other people Happy New Year, not me.

It's such a horrible thought, I don't often dwell on it. But what if, after that job interview where I was asked to write my ideal column, had I taken a different turn. What if I had chosen not to write about my deafness for the 2nd around of interviews? What if I had written about whatever was playing on my mind the most in April 2008, eight years ago, and a whole lifetime away now?

In all honestly, back in 2008, it was mostly my deafness that was playing on my mind. The world was a lot less deaf aware then after all. Smartphones were finding their feet, social media was for the savvy and companies were only just coming around to the idea of communicating with customers in ways other than the telephone. I had quite a lot to rant about, write about, cry about, get angry about and most of it was deaf related.

As Deaf Girly approaches her 8th birthday, I can't imagine life without this slightly mad alter ego, who I can blame all my quirks and weirdness on, when in reality I know she is me and I am her. She's given me so much more than a coping mechanism for my deafness. She's given me so much more than a platform to ask for equality in NHS Walk-in Centres (DONE), captioning on iPlayer (DONE) and find out why the company who released Dr Quinn Medicine Woman – I never said I had intellectual taste in TV – on DVD didn't subtitle any of it... not one jot (THEY COULDN'T JUSTIFY THE COST). Deaf Girly has given me friends. Amazing, wonderful friends who get a part of me that even I don't sometimes. From interpreters and audiologists to writers and people who I just somehow ended up chatting to in 140 characters – some who are deaf, some who are not.

I've met some of them in real life too – after discovering shared enthusiasm for writing, museum exhibitions or afternoon tea and it was great. There was always a nervousness that the real me might be somewhat disappointing. That DG might be better online, blogging or ranting on Twitter. But so far everyone's been far too polite to let me know.

And let's not forget Country Writer, who took me under her wing and introduced me to a whole world of people who might be able to help then next stage of DG's journey get off the ground.

So what are my resolutions for 2016...

Well, I am going to try and blog more. I'm going to start going after the things I am passionate about again. Subtitles on Catch Up TV and at the cinema for example – asking for answers all the time, because while I know that someone has asked these questions before, the more people who ask, the more the people who can make things better, will wonder if they should.

And I'm going to get Deaf Girly on a bookshelf... where she'd quite like to hang out, tell her story on paper for a change rather than on screen.

Yep that's the plan. Wish me luck folks.

DG
xx

Deaf Girly and subtitled Star Wars

HAPPY NEW YEAR PEEPS!

Feels like ages ago that I was getting ready for Christmas and now it's all over... *sniff

One of the best pre-Christmas things I did was go and see the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie with subtitles.

However, before I was allowed to go and watch it, FJM insisted that I watch the first three Star Wars movies – he's banned me from watching the Prequels – so that I would understand who everyone was and note all the references.

And so we devoted a rainy December day to ploughing through them one by one. I have to admit, I was a bit worried I'd hate them... but actually I loved them. It was great seeing a young Harrison Ford and mercifully, most of Luke Skywalker's moaning was out of my frequency (God, he's annoying in the first movie isn't he?). Sadly one other character who was out of my frequency was R2-D2 – the cute droid. I couldn't hear any of his bleeps and whistles and, although the captions showed when he was making a noise, it obviously couldn't convey the frequency or rhythm of them. And FJM felt that this was important.

So he did something amazing. He interpreted R2-D2 for me, in all the movies. He transposed the bleeps and whistles to a frequency I could hear and let me know when he was sad, nervous, happy or angry. And it was brilliant. It brought what would have otherwise been to me a silent character and really made the movie. It was also highly entertaining watching FJM do this *beams.

In the new movie, there's BB8 and FJM had promised to do the same, but amazingly BB8 had a much lower 'voice' so I could hear him alright – but hearing him nervously go somewhere, or bleat angrily made me realise how much FJM had helped me in the first movies by giving R2-D2 a voice.

There's more – according to FJM, the subtitles in the new Star Wars were also very informative. They told you who was speaking. Helped you identify characters easily and even made one section of it – giving nothing away – much clearer than it would have been without them.

I enjoyed it so much, that I am going to see it again at a showing this month. And this time around, now I know the storyline, I will be able to relax a bit more and enjoy the general feel of the film rather than staring transfixed at the subtitles. I'm intrigued to find out if I will notice anything I missed last time.

There's just one thing more worth noting about the new Star Wars movie and that's how many cinemas showed it with subtitles and how many showings there were... LOADS!!

I honestly had my pick of local cinemas – and it doesn't seem to be too difficult to go and seeing it again.

If only cinemas would do this with more movies. OK, so the demand was obviously much higher for Star Wars as seemingly the whole country went to see it, but if they can do it with Star Wars, then they should do it with other films.

Here's to 2016 and hoping they do...

DG
xx

Deaf Girly and the Baby Monitor

With the madness, the parking wars and the tubes full to the brim, I'm a big fan of online shopping at Christmas. Sure, I support local shops where possible, but sometimes it's all about a glass of mulled wine, a Christmas movie and the endless possibilities of what I can buy for friends and family on the worldwide web.

The only problem with this is the delivery. You see I live in a block of flats. With a buzzer. That I can't hear. I used to be able to hear it with my hearing aids in, but recently I haven't been able to, which means I'm missing deliveries.

Yesterday, after Amazon rang for the third time to say they had been unable to deliver my package – luckily SuperCathyFragileMystic was there to take the call – I finally got confirmation that they would be delivering a package that afternoon. Stressing about the door buzzer, SCFM suggested I download a baby monitor on my iPhone and iPad and set one up opposite the door buzzer to pick up the noise when it went off.

Genius eh?

And so that's what I did. For £2.99 I bought Cloud Baby Monitor and installed it on my tablet, phone and main computer. And it's great. OK, so the flat is so small, it picked up me coughing from the other room, but that also reassured me that it would pick up the tiny bleating noise the buzzer makes that I can just about hear it I press my ear to the intercom system when it's going off.

And so I sat in and waited. I worked on the 2nd draft of my book. I wrapped Christmas presents, drank tea and watched The Gilmore Girls on Netflix. The buzzer didn't go.

I sat in some more. 

And then I decided to check the status of my Amazon order online. 'Delivered to Hall' it had declared, some two hours previously. And while I was happy that after a third attempt, I finally had my Amazon package, I felt a bit cheated that I'd spent hours waiting in for it and rigged up a baby alarm and I didn't get to 'hear' the door buzzer.

The same is not true for my new Nest fire alarm however. I had the pleasure of 'hearing' that – as did my entire building – last week. It's so sensitive to steam that on coming out of the shower, it decided to go off, shouting something intelligible but I presume about the fact it was about to go off and then letting out what I believe must be a piercing alarm. It was so loud that I could feel it. Panicking, I grabbed a chair so I could reach the 'stop going off' button and bashed it repeatedly until the Nest lady stopped talking. It was only then that I looked down and realised that in my panic, my towel had come off and I was stood on a chair, completely naked in front of a big window overlooking a busy street smacking a fire alarm with a shoe.

It's when I think about things like this that I realise there may be another reason Amazon don't want o ring my door buzzer – Fear of the Crazy Lady.

Happy Humpday peeps

DG

x

Deaf Girly and the FaceTime fear

Ever since the summer disappeared, I've been in full-on hibernation mode. I'm like a squirrel that won't see food for the next six months – snaffling peanut butter-themed things that FJM and Big Bro sent me, all of which you can imagine are tremendously low in sugar and calories!

So anyway, yesterday after seemingly forgetting I was actually a member of a very expensive gym, I decided to go and pay it a visit and actually work out. It involved getting in my car and driving somewhere. It was cold and getting dark. The traffic was on the cusp of becoming murderous. I almost wavered as I locked the front door. But I didn't.

One minute into my cross trainer workout I was wondering if I'd done enough to work off the three peanut butter cups... but then my phone rang.

Well FaceTime went off to be exact and it was Big Bro calling me on his way home from work. My knee-jerk reaction – probably stemming from my forced-phone call days is to reject any call to my phone. Sometimes I forget that I can actually follow FaceTime.

I looked around the gym. It was basically empty. So sod it, I thought and hit connect. And there was Big Bro and there was I, sweating it out on a cross trainer. After he'd finished laughing his head off, we had a great chat. Me getting more and more out of breath and red in the face, him finding it more and more amusing. Although I have to confess, it is quite hard to lipread while striding along like a mad woman on a cross trainer.

But what was amazing was that by the time I'd found out how he was and told him how I was, 30 minutes had flown by and I'd actually done enough to work off about one quarter of a peanut butter cup, which is better than nothing right?

Obviously, I'm not going to make a habit of FaceTiming at the gym. I don't really want to become the most hated person there, after the ridiculous person who does handstands at the top of the only staircase to get in and generally makes a complete nuisance of themselves while putting the whole thing on Instagram, probably with a scowling me in the background. But it was reassuring after yesterday's blog about not communicating well with kids, that I can keep in touch with people. Not in the email and text sense (which is easy), and all very well and everything but there's nothing quite like hearing (kind of) someone's voice and seeing their face to make you feel connected.

I need to remind myself to FaceTime people more. To ring up the people I miss and love and see their faces rather than relying on text messages and email. OK, so it's not as simply as just picking up the phone. Outside of the big cities, you need a reliable wifi connection to FaceTime and you can't just pick up when you're out and about if you want a reception good enough to lipread on, so yes, it takes more planning. But I need to make that effort.

It's so easy sometimes to sit back and go 'Woe me, I can't use the phone, I can't listen to podcasts, the radio is no good, cinema is only good once a week in July at 4.30pm on a Tuesday,' but the reality is things are so much more awesome than that.

I think I just forget it sometimes. And if I'm honest I am a bit nervous about the whole phone thing. The idea that you're not disturbing people if you call them unannounced as I've always had to plan FaceTimes and have never really used the phone.

Silly really.

So in December I've decided to FaceTime someone once a week (aside from my rents or FJM who I do talk to more often) and keep in touch with the people I miss and love. Be spontaneous...

First on my list is my 93 year old Gma who has just got an iPad... she's not that keen on it, and I've been putting off FaceTiming her in case it's not switched on, or she gets stressed out... but I'm just going to give it a go. After all, this is a women who sends text messages in text speak and can beat most people in the completion of The Times daily crossword... so if she's up for it. So am I.

Happy Tuesday.

DG
x

Deaf Girly and the children

Do you know there are two things that almost never reach my ears when they're undressed:

Cats meowing and children.

Cats are just silently opening their little furry jowls at me – except when I have my hearing aids in and then they make low meowing sounds that I find quite fantastic but no one else hears the same way – but children, while I can hear the noise they are making, it very rarely makes sense. 

I noticed it greatly this weekend – FJM and I met with friends who all had children. There were double figures of children. All under 8. And I personally spoke to none of them. 

I realised as we drove home that I've almost stopped attempting to interact with children as they are so hard for me to hear. And this makes me a little bit sad.

It's something I've thought about before. In fact, when Elle magazine ran a competition for a 500-word piece on Relationship Goals, this was what I entered with. It wasn't selected. But that was OK, because what these 500 words do is remind me that the children who are important will be heard by me. Now and in the future.

So here it is:

DG on Relationship Goals

It’s 4pm on a Saturday and I’m surrounded by a gaggle of children (four to be exact) in the country kitchen of one of my best friends. My boyfriend is busy playing catch with the three boys as they chat about Minecraft, spiders and farts. At least that’s what I think they are talking about, because I can’t hear them. My nine-year-old goddaughter is quizzing me on whether I’ll let her design my wedding dress. I am not engaged. I’m hoping my boyfriend can’t hear her.

But in truth I can’t really hear her either. And it’s not because she has a lisp or talks fast. It’s not even because she looks down to fiddle with her loom band bracelet or that the conversation bounces from one unpredictable subject to another. It’s because I am deaf.

Having lived with my disability for much of my life, I don’t often feel sad about it anymore. I’ve learnt to get by with lipreading, clear explanations to others about my needs and an almost bullish determination to get what I want. When it comes to relationships, it takes me longer to form them. I can’t get to know people easily in a group setting. My best friendships are formed over dinners for two, chats with coffee and cake, FaceTime and text messages. This works very well in the adult world. But with children it’s different. You can tell them you don’t hear. But expecting them to understand what that means is quite a tall order.

When I look at my nine-year-old goddaughter I am filled with terror that I am missing out on getting to know her, that I could be a better godmother and that my deafness is causing me to miss out.

This weekend was no different. Watching my boyfriend effortlessly interact and seeing the kids chase after our car when we left yelling how much they loved him, I felt both a pang of pride for him and heartache for me.

With children you get back what you put in. So I just have to find different ways of interacting with my goddaughter, of getting to know her. This includes giving her an old phone of mine that works over wifi, so I can ‘What’s App’ her and say hello at no expense to her mum. That way she can keep me updated about her world and then the next time I see her I’ll have the right questions and a better ability to follow her quirky, intelligent train of thought.

I know as she gets older, so her understanding of my deafness will get better. But I want to make sure that the promise I made, to be there for her always is honoured. I want to make sure she can talk to me about anything. But most importantly, I want her to remember that just because I don’t always hear her, doesn’t mean I’m not listening. And certainly doesn’t mean I don’t care.

Happy Monday peeps

DG 

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Deaf Girly's (very) Thankful Friday

Apologies for the radio silence of late – I've no idea where September, October and November have gone... it seems like yesterday I was sunbathing on our little balcony and now I'm working out how to rig up multiple strings of Christmas lights on it without annoying the neighbours.

Anyway, today I'm having a very thankful Friday as FJM is back in the UK and despite hating peanut butter more than anything in the whole wide world, he bought me back a huge bag of every peanut butter confectionary known to man.

I'm also thankful for a rather amazing person – Country Writer – who has spent the last two months making me believe that the last 18 months were worth all the hard work, fights for plugs in the library  and tea consumption.

So today, after eating Peanut Butter M&Ms for breakfast – it was either that or a pink grapefruit and to be honest it wasn't a hard decision – I went to the post office to try and track down a missing parcel. It's a present for my goddaughter and the Amazon Marketplace seller requested I check at the sorting office before they gave me a refund.

Without thinking about it, I set off without my hearing aids and on arrival realised this was a grave mistake. You see, the armoured counter that the posties are behind has a big metal bit just where I need to see to lipread and so I couldn't hear a thing the guy was saying.

I ducked down and peered through the gap between the glass and the counter – ignoring the funny looks he was giving me – and managed to make sure he knew I was after a book-shaped package and was it there?

He replied something and looked around the front office. I managed to catch that he didn't think it was here. And then he disappeared off, saying something as he left.

I stood there for a moment wondering if he was coming back or whether his parting words had been 'Sorry I can't help you, bye,' and I just hadn't managed to catch them.

And I waited. And I waited.

And the problem I had was that the counter is not manned constantly. You ring a bell once you get there to alert them of your presence and they come from the back of the sorting office and serve you.

After a few minutes I was wondering whether I should just leave. But then I worried that he might be out the back rummaging through hundreds of parcels and come back with my parcel to find me gone. But if he came back around the front to find me there after wishing me goodbye 10 minutes earlier, he might think I was a crazy woman. And I would die of embarrassment.

Deciding I could handle the embarrassment over losing out on getting my goddaughter's Christmas present, I carried on waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

Until finally he reappeared, looked completely unsurprised to see me there, said something that I decided can only have been, 'I don't have your parcel,' and gave me a helpful wave indicating this to be the case.

So this time I left. Sad that the parcel appears to have gone AWOL and vowing to always wear my hearing aids on trips to my local sorting office.

And I should also be vowing to wear them in Sainsbury's it seems – as shortly after my trip to the sorting office, I lost my volume control while buying dinner. FJM says the whole shop knew we were having Fajitas for dinner and that we'd run out of loo roll.

Awesome eh?

Have a lovely weekend peeps

DG
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Deaf Girly and The AA

I have been a member of the AA since 1977... three years before I was born.

When I passed my test in 1997, the rents put me on their membership until I finally got my own membership a few years later, which means for at least 15 years, I have been paying the AA a yearly fee to come and rescue me.

And they've been great. When I had my ancient Mini, I met more than my fair share of AA peeps – the exhaust fell off, the seal went on the oil something or other, the battery went flat and numerous other things occurred.

Then the AA brought out a text service (which honestly I have never really trusted) so that if I broke down I wouldn't have to struggle with making a call and I was happy to pay my yearly membership.

This year, for some reason, my auto-payment on my credit card didn't work. I wonder if it's because I had a new credit card issued by my bank and therefore they didn't have my correct details... who knows? But the first I knew about it was a letter informing me that this had happened.

So I tweeted the @TheAA_UK who gave me the customer service email address and I contacted them. Apparently payments cannot be made over email, which I guess is fair enough, but there was no other way for me to renew than to make a call. A bloody phone call. And if I couldn't, then I could get someone else to do it for me.

Now, I am MORE than used to getting people to make phone calls for me. I've had friends book all manner of personal appointments, renew insurance and everything else in between but I am getting a bit embarrassed about asking people...

So I didn't. And then I forgot about it for a while.

This morning, with half an hour to spare before work, I thought I'd contact The AA on live chat and ask them if there was any way (apart from calling) that I could renew my membership. There wasn't apparently – except for via a touch type phone, which I do not use – and also, because I'd left it so long, my membership could no longer be renewed. My bad for sulking about the need to make a phone call I guess... BUT ALSO THEIR BAD TOO, FOR MAKING THAT PHONE CALL NECESSARY IN THE FIRST PLACE!

So now I have no breakdown cover and I am faced with a more expensive fee if I rejoin the AA. So this lunchtime I am going to research the RAC – are they deaf aware? Or The Green Flag? What about them?

But I can't help but feel a bit sad – after all, I remember being so chuffed of my AA membership... of the friendly people who put my little Mini back together when she'd rattled herself apart on the bumpy roads around where I grew up.

And I can't help but feel, in a world where lots of other companies can do alternative ways of taking payments that perhaps the AA should step up and sort it out, too. Before they lose another loyal customer. Before they lose me...

Deaf Girly's deaf week

I'm having a bit of a deaf week if I'm honest with you. And it's only Tuesday.

I KNOW!

A deaf week for me is when I find myself being constantly reminded of my deafness. In the olden days these weeks would reduce me to a gibbering wreck on the sofa by Friday – holed up with my housemate watching Ally McBeal DVDs and lamenting my need for subtitles.

But these days, I just find myself wondering at or simply side-stepping the issue of me being deaf.

Yesterday of course, there was the Starbucks episode. The 'Pardon, pardon, pardon, NO I DON'T WANT KETCHUP WITH MARMITE, ARE YOU MAD?' event.
Deafness 1. DG 0.

But before that, I failed to mention that I had got up at 5.50am to try a new form of exercise – you see doing a HIT workout in prescription swimming goggles really isn't working out for me. This new exercise routine is downloadable off the internet and is circuit training. You don't need a scrap of hearing – it's all picture based. Brilliant eh?

Deafness 1. DG 1.

Well kind of. You see yesterday morning at 6.15am, halfway through and about to pass out from lack of breathing, FJM stumbled into the living room wondering where I was, and found me, mid step-up on the coffee table holding a 6kg weight. I didn't hear him until he started to laugh and then that scared me so much that I dropped the weight, forgot to breath and almost threw up on the living room floor. Brilliant that deafness of mine, eh?

Well not really. After all, what girl dreams of the man they adore finding her standing on a coffee table, red in the face, hair everywhere, holding his dumbbells (CLEAR OUT YOUR MINDS PEOPLE).

Deafness 2. DG 1.

Last night, neither of us could sleep. I wondered if it was because FJM was still traumatised from his discovery that morning. So he put a podcast on his phone and began to listen. I watched him press play. I knew there was a podcast playing. I could see him chuckling at something funny being said. But I heard nothing. And that made me sad. It reminded me of what I am missing out on. Of the information that hearing people can effortlessly access when they can't sleep, without the blue glow of their mobile phone screen feeding it to them. But then I remembered there is an alternative way of accessing information without a blue glow of a mobile phone screen, and I picked up a book.

Deafness 2. DG 2.

And then I fell asleep. For eight whole hours. And looking back on yesterday, yes, there were loads of ways my deafness kicked my butt and I am sure there will be many more times when I am mortifyingly embarrassed by my deafness. Like the time, my iPad – unbeknown to me – started blaring out Taylor Swift on the tube and an enraged man had to ask me to turn it down. Or the time I thought a shop assistant was asking me if I wanted a bag so I kept saying no and in fact she was asking me to enter my pin – thank goodness for contactless eh?

But I will keep finding ways to kick it right back, because my deafness is going to work with me whether it likes it or not.

Happy Tuesday peeps

DG
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Deaf Girly in Starbucks

This morning I was reminded embarrassingly of my deafness when, as a special treat, I decided to get a toasted Cheese and Marmite panini before work.

With Starbucks, I always try to pass the Denny's test when giving my order (you know the one where you have to get your entire order through without the waitress asking any qualifying questions) and usually I do well. I make sure if I'm ordering a drink I give the size, clarify that I won't want any bells and whistles and that I don't want anything else. It's a self preservation thing – I find it so hard to hear in Starbucks, Pret, Itsu and all the other breakfast and lunch places in central London.

So today I thought would be relatively straight forward. After all, it was a Cheese and Marmite panini to take away, no hot drinks. But apparently not.

The woman behind the counter asked me something. She asked it again. And again and again. She was embarrassed. I was embarrassed. The information I gave her about being hard of hearing fell on deaf ears. The situation was too far gone to salvage.

Eventually after leaning my head between the till and the counter in such a way that had I been in a bank, I would have set alarms off and been carted away, I managed to grasp that she was asking me whether I wanted Ketchup or brown sauce with my Cheese and Marmite panini.

Never in a million years would I have guessed she was going to ask me that, because ketchup or brown sauce with cheese and marmite seems to categorically wrong that I simply can't envisage it. And that's coming from someone that eats baked beans on lettuce and adds salad cream to practically everything.

Failing the Denny's test was a stark reminder that I am deaf. And while most of the time I can wing it, some days, like today, I fail spectacularly. But just incase, from now on I am going to add that to my Starbucks order.

'Cheese and marmite panini please. Toasted. To take away. No ketchup or brown sauce (no I'm not crazy). No hot or cold drinks. No receipt. Thank you.'

I'll let you know how I get on.

Happy Monday peeps.

DG
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Deaf Girly & Twitter

This morning, I was frustrated because the programme on Rugby and head injuries I'd downloaded onto iPlayer iPad app to watch on the way to work didn't have subtitles. I was frustrated because this hardly ever happens anymore. Especially not on iPlayer.

This year, I've been frustrated that the subtitles didn't work when I visited Odeon. It was annoying. I ate plastic cheese – that was horrendous.

But what I have to remember is that things have changed.

They really have.

When I look back at my early blogs – I can't believe I've been writing Deafinitely Girly's ramblings for more than eight years now – so many of my posts were full-on rants about how many things were inaccessible to me in London.

If I went to see a subtitled movie it was a massive event. It normally didn't work. This year, I have successfully watched four subtitled films at the cinema. Things have changed.

Other blogs I wrote were about my difficulty in contacting customer services for companies. Anything from British Gas and O2 to car insurance and doctor's surgeries.

But things have changed. And the thing that's changed it the most for me personally is Twitter.

Now, I don't even consider calling a company if I have a question, a problem or something I want help with. No longer do I struggle with the automated options, the beeps, the strong accents and the fact that I am a deaf person trying to make a phone call.

Nope. In the last two years alone, I have sorted out my phone via the @O2 Twitter peeps, sorted out a meter problem via @BritishGasHelp and got @TheAA_UK to email me about something when I couldn't find how to contact them by email on their website.

Yesterday, I had a text from DPD to let me know they were going to deliver a parcel to my flat. The postcode was wrong. I was at work. Online, I could alter the delivery so that I could pick it up at the DPD depot, but I still had a lot of questions, such as 'Would they hand it over if I didn't have documentation with that postcode on?' and 'Had I changed the day correctly online?'

Forgetting about the power of Twitter for a moment, I lifted the phone (I know!! Why do I even bother?) and got trapped in an automated recorded message with loads of options and no way of hearing them. And then I remembered Twitter. And Tweeted @DPD_UK. They got straight back to me. They followed me and continued the conversation over direct message. And by the end of the day it was sorted. Just like that. No tears of frustration. No roping poor, unsuspecting – but never complaining – friends and colleagues to sort it out for me.

'This must be what it's like for hearing people when they call up customer services,' I thought. But do you know what, I think I'm luckier. I don't have to go through a million options on the phone before getting to a real person. Real people are on Twitter for these companies and more than happy to help me... and most likely anyone else who Tweets them.

Twitter has totally changed how I interact with companies for the better. So many of the struggles I used to blog about are disappearing little by little, year by year.

Amazing huh?

There is however just one final thing I want to fix. And that is having a GP surgery where I can make appointments online. So I don't have to get someone else to make an appointment for that embarrassing problem (NOT THAT I HAVE ONE BY THE WAY) and so that I can finally take control of most aspects of my life.

So yesterday, I trawled through all the GP surgeries in my area until I found one that I could make online appointments with. And I'm going to join it. I am ridiculously excited about this.

Sure, there's still things that could be improved, and I'm sure I'll rant about them at some point, but today, I'm quite happy to say that from Deafinitely Girly's point of view, things are changing. It's not so hard anymore.

Have a lovely day peeps

DG
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Deaf Girly works out

So I've blogged about it before, but I am a bit of a fan of the subtitled workouts you can download from iTunes. I have a couple now – a Pilates one where the woman says 'Good job' so many times, I actually want to throw her and my laptop out the window, a dance one that I am completely and utterly useless at, and a HIT one, which I think is brilliant.

 The thing I love most about a HIT (high intensity) workout is that you have to work hard, but the end is in sight at all times. So recently, before settling down to work from home, I've been doing one of the four workouts that are included in the download.

 But there is just one thing that frustrates me, and it's not my hearing – for once – it's my eyesight. As my Pa once said, when everyone else was queuing up for the good hearing and vision qualities, I was making a beeline for the 'good taste in handbags' one and missed the senses boat. So not only am I deaf, but I am also incredibly short sighted – as in 'glasses slipping down the nose from the weight of the lenses' short sighted.

 Without my glasses or hearing aids, I am literally helpless – as I once discovered while camping in the middle of a French forest when I went to the toilet (in the great outdoors) but forgot to put my glasses on, turned my head torch off for privacy and ended up unable to work out where the hell the campsite was anymore. I had to stand there and shout until someone came to my rescue and guided me back.

 I KNOW!

 Anyway, so because I do the HIT workouts before my morning shower, it means that I don't yet have my contact lenses in and this means doing a workout in my glasses, which when you're doing press ups and burpees and trying to read the subtitles from all manner of angles, is not very productive. I kept missing what the instructor was saying, my glasses kept falling off and it really wasn't working. 

But then I remembered I recently invested in some prescription swimming goggles – quite a life changing addition to my swimming technique as I no longer do granny breaststroke with my glasses on – so I quickly got them out of my gym bag and popped them on. And do you know what? They kind of worked.

OK, so I was sweating so much my eyeballs felt like I'd popped them in a sauna, and my hair got a little matted, but I could read the subtitles mid press up, burpee and whatever else she was yelling at me to do.

 But a quick glance at my reflection confirmed that I looked like a complete nutcase, working out in prescription swimming goggles... so if there's some magical solution I haven't heard of, please do let me know.

 Have a fab weekend peeps

 DG x

Deaf Girly's volume control

One of the things I most hate about my deafness is the times that I lose my volume control. When I'm yelling and don't realise it.

This usually happens on public transport – perhaps because my good lower frequency hearing means to me it's very noisy so I shout over it, or perhaps because my deafness is hell bent on humiliating me in front of a sea of strangers who, being Londoners, don't do talking on public transport except in extreme circumstances.

As a result of this, I tend to whisper on public transport and when I slip up, hope that whoever I am with – usual FJM – lets me know that I am YELLING AND EVERYONE CAN HEAR ME.

So anyway, last night I went to the gym and as always before I left home I took out my hearing aids. I like to watch iPlayer on my phone with subtitles and headphones to support them. It's an ace way to spend an hour on the bike or cross trainer.

FJM joined me and on the way home in the car I was telling him about something and he started to laugh...

Wondering what was funny, I noticed his hand was on the volume control for the car radio – he'd been trying to turn my volume down...

*blushes bright red*

Apparently I was yelling so loudly (I do this when I am not wearing my hearing aids as I don't 'hear' my voice in my head as clearly), and he'd had quite and early start and busy day at work, that he went into autopilot and reached for the radio controls in the car.

But it got me thinking, a volume control for me would be amazing. To alter my voice to makes sure it matches the background noise that hearing people hear. So that I don't shout on public transport, whisper in crowd situations and yell when I'm not wearing my hearing aids.

I guess with my hearing, I am lucky enough to have that volume control. I mean hearing people can only reach for ear plugs to make things quieter. Whereas I have loads of choices. If I want 2D sound with no high or middle frequencies to speak of, I can take out my hearing aids. If I want 3D sound I can wear my hearing aids with Sound Recover on. If I want less sound, I can turn them down. Less 3D, I can turn Sound Recover off, more amplification – there's the T-loop setting and my portable loop.

I don't think I'd ever really appreciated all the options open to me hearing wise. OK, so it's not perfect hearing and I can't ever switch my hearing to 'Hear a podcast' setting, but it's really nice to have options.

Luckily last night, while FJM didn't have the option to turn my volume down using a control, he could just tell me to stop yelling, after we'd both stopped laughing our heads off that is. And that makes today a very Thankful Friday.

Happy Friday peeps.

DG
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Deafinitely Girly and Prom number 63

Yesterday, I told someone at work that I was going to a Prom and the first thing he thought was that this was a high school prom involving big dresses, limousines and layers and layers of fake tan. And, while I was flattered he thought I was the Dougie Howser of the workplace and merely masquerading as a 34-year-old woman who was actually still at school, I was relieved that I was actually off to a musical Prom.

I'd chosen this Prom because I thought that FJM might like it. It had a guaranteed easy-listening hit of a Mozart Piano Concerto (No 27 in B flat major) smack bang in the middle of Messiaen's Hymne and Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in E major. And he did like it.

I did, too. Thanks mostly to the seats I chose.

If there's one thing I've learnt from going to the Albert Hall it's that I sometimes 'lose' the sound. But with seats in the choir – facing the rest of the audience and, most crucially, overlooking the orchestra, I was able to read the conductor, which helped me work out who was playing when and of course what tempo, and most importantly during the piano piece, 'hand read' the pianist – a very wonderful and enthusiastic Igor Levit, who did an encore, before the interval. Brilliant eh?

After my previous experience with Messiaen I was pretty sure that Hymne would be 12 minutes of largely unintelligible sound, and it kind of was. The high strings were totally out of my frequency. But this meant I was able to play around with my hearing aids and see which settings helped, and which didn't.

My Phonax Naxos hearing aids have Sound Recover, which moves the frequencies I cannot hear into a frequency I can. In the Sound Recover setting, I could hear quite a bit more, but it sounded even more discordant that I think perhaps Messiaen himself intended. Without Sound Recover, I lost the entire string section save for the cellos and bass. And then I decided to take my hearing aids out. After all, until three years ago, I attended all classical music concerts without my hearing aids.

I will never do this again. Without my hearing aids, it was almost entirely silent. The difference was so marked, I frantically searched the orchestra and watched the conductor in the vain hope there was just a really long rest in the music. But they were all moving.

'Do not cry,' I told my frustrated (and a little bit devastated) self. And so I, totally didn't, hold it together until the Mozart.

And if the Messiaen had me crying tears of frustration, the Mozart had me weeping tears of joy – yep, I was the crying blonde girl in the choir yesterday if you were there. As the strings started and the piano began, although I knew there were lots of notes quite simply not reaching my ears, there was enough that I could imagine the complete score. I could recognise the comforting phrasing and lilting melodies I grew up listening to before I got really deaf.

And I could follow Igor Levit's hands on the piano and see what he was playing.

I was happy again.

And then came the Bruckner with its low bass notes and emotional second movement. And I absolutely didn't weep my way through this either. Nope. That was definitely not me snivelling between FJM and the rather bemused old chat next to me.

Standing up to cheer my head off – probably a bit louder and 'Pretty Woman'-like that FJM would have preferred – I realised that I just have to focus on the positives with music. That I can still hear enough to make it enjoyable. That it is still enjoyable. Provided I choose my pieces well. And that means that Messiaen is out...

And Mozart and Bruckner are most definitely in.

*beams

Happy Thursday peeps

DGx

Deaf Girly and the tennis

The strangest thing has happened to me recently.

I have become a tennis fan.

If you'd asked me even two years ago whether I liked tennis, I would have muttered something about Wimbledon and changed the subject.

But now, I'm a proper fan. I have an app on my phone – well several in fact – that give me draws, results, news and basically minute-by-minute update on matches and tournaments... day and night. I shout at the TV too, when I am worried that the amazingly wonderfully fabulous Andy Murray won't win.

And I love it.

The reason why? FJM has taught me about it. He's explained the rules, the way the points system works – ANDY MURRAY IS NUMBER 2 IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW YOU KNOW? – and who's who in the amazing ATP and WTA tour and beyond.

He's taken me to see live tennis at Rotterdam, Queens and Eastbourne and last night we got the double treat of watching Belinda Bencic and Andy Murray win their respective tournaments in Canada (on TV sadly). It was brilliant.

Growing up I had an average interest in sport. Top of the list was rounders – possibly because it was the first sport I learnt and I was the least deaf then – and then hockey, netball, tennis and cross country running were all grouped together in the 'things I regularly tried to get out of' category.

Looking back, apart from the cross country running, which is just evil, I think part of the problem with the other sports was that I had no idea what was going on. I had no idea what the rules were – and for some reason it never occurred to me to find out – and I couldn't hear the teacher yelling instructions or the whistle. 

Randomly though, this didn't stop my PE teachers from putting me in the teams. I was goal keeper in hockey and a wing for the year above. I had absolutely no idea what a short corner was (to this day I still don't) and yet I still had to take them, which usually involved the referee yelling something at me until I thwacked the ball in the vague direction of someone on my team and hoped for the best.

With tennis, I really didn't understand the rules and it didn't help that the teacher had the strongest Welsh accent in the world and a beard. It would have been easier trying to lipread a chipmunk on a trampoline. He'd shout and yell at me and I had no clue what was going on. I used to be pushed forward and back in doubles, hit the ball in all directions and gradually – in about two weeks flat – decided that I hated tennis.

Why didn't I say, 'Um, Sir, what the hell is going on?' Well I guess at 8 years old, and not yet aware of the fact that I was going deaf, I just assumed that everyone else had no clue what was going on. Something I did a lot back then. I thought that French listening was meant to be difficult to hear and that Dictation – where the teacher read out a story that you had to write down, was intermittent words so you had to make up the rest.

I did not understand school at all. It felt like one big challenge that I couldn't work out.

Looking back, I wish I had known about my deafness back when I first started to learn tennis. I wish I had been the proactive, TELL ME WHAT I'VE MISSED, person that I am now, as I might have actually learnt it earlier, been able to play it and understand it, and had a lifetime of being a fan under my belt. As it was, I was so completely hopeless that I got moved down to join the juniors with the giant red plastic racquets and yellow foam balls, which destroyed any interest I had in the sport for the next 25 years.

All is not lost however, because I get it now. I understand and love it.

So perhaps now I should see if I can put my knowledge into practice and try actually playing tennis again. Twenty five years later, you never know, I could be alright.

Happy Monday peeps

DG

Deaf Girly and the silent Prom

Yesterday I went to the see a Prom with The Rents at the Royal Albert Hall. I love going to the Proms – there's something about the amazing location, comfy seats and usually excellent selection of music that means that you float out afterwards inspired and happy.

Ondes Martenot (Image from Wikipedia)

Last night Pa was very excited as it was a performance of Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony, which features an instrument called the Ondes Martenot – an electronic piano invented in 1928. Even more exciting was that the person playing it actually knew Messiaen when he was alive.

And so, after the first half, which was John Foulds' Three Mantras – wonderful wonderful music – we settled back and waited for the performance to begin.

I was so excited to hear what this funny-looking piano might sound like – Pa described it as other worldly – but as the music started and the performer began to play, I realised that I couldn't hear it at all. Maybe it was because we were sat behind the orchestra and the sound was projected forward only, maybe it was because the brass had very active roles in the piece and I can hear brass better than any other instrument, or maybe it was because it was high-pitched. Whatever it was, I still don't have any idea what the Ondes Martenot sounds like.

I sat there for a while trying to make sense of the sounds I could make out but they lacked structure and being quite modern sounding, I was unable to guess the bits I couldn't hear. This is something with the big classical composers like Mozart and Beethoven I can do – I can imagine the violin parts when I hear the cello and double basses play. And imagine the flutes and oboes alongside the clarinets and bassoons. I'm pretty sure it's not accurate but my head just fills in the blanks for me to help make the music more 3D.

Anyway, as unintelligible noise assaulted my ears, I started to feel my eyes close, which when you're sat behind the orchestra in full view of the rest of the Albert Hall – and known for sleep shouting – is not ideal.

'Must. Stay. Awake.' I ordered myself as I dozed off again. 'Must. Stay. Awake.' and then I remembered I had my Kindle in my bag with Lucy Robinson's new book The Day We Disappeared waiting to be read (which is brilliant by the way). And that's what I did. For the 60 minutes left of the performance, I tucked my Kindle inside my programme, so as not to appear to rude and read. And do you know what? It made the music I could hear more bearable. When it was the secondary thing I was concentrating on, the loud brass was interesting and rhythmic and the bassoons were amazing.

Applauding loudly at the end, I realised that for the first time, maybe ever, I wasn't feeling sad about the fact I'd just sat through a largely inaudible classical performance. Something that in the past would have reduced me to tears of frustration. But last night, I was OK with it. And it made me wonder if perhaps I've laid my sadness about having to give up my violin and flute and any musical ambitions I might have ever had to rest. Finally! Or maybe the grieving period is over. 

I've realised I don't miss my flute anymore. And up until three years ago, I couldn't even open the box without feeling an acute pain in my heart. About the instrument I had begged to be allowed to play and the instrument I did my final recital on where most of what I could hear was in my head not in reality. 

But I do miss music. So I've decided to take advantage of the fact the Proms have tickets left still and go to a whole load. See what I can and can't here, armed with my Kindle just in case.

In the meantime though, if anyone has access to, or knows where I can find, an Ondes Martenot can you let me know as I'd love to see if, in a quiet room, with my ear pressed to the speaker, I could hear the instrument that seemed to capture the whole Albert Hall with complete glee last night.

Happy Friday peeps

DG
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