Deaf Girly visits John Lewis Haberdashery

Two weeks ago, after reading a news article in The Telegraph which said that John Lewis Haberdashery would be closing, I did something I've never done before – I set up a petition. A petition appealing to anyone who had ever bought a button to sign and show their love for John Lewis Haberdashery department.

I'm sat here in a cafe in central London looking at that petition and marvelling at the 5,562 of you who signed it, many in the first day, many in the first hours before Peter Cross, Director of Communications & Brand Experience at John Lewis got in touch to reassure me that, despite the news stories and rumour, John Lewis Haberdashery was safe.

One of the things Peter also did was invite me to visit John Lewis's flagship haberdashery department on Oxford Street and talk with the haberdashery buyer Ian and Emma from his comms team. And of course I jumped at the chance to meet the person who is in charge of John Lewis's button selection – amongst other things.

Here's what I wanted to talk about:

1. Buttons and trimmings
2. Haberdashery department development
3. Customer interaction
4. What makes the haberdashery buyer tick

And don't worry, everything I found out and was reassured about, I will go back and check on in 12 months.

But it really wasn't just about me. It was about the 5,000-plus people who signed the petition and many of you were still worried. So I asked you to get in touch and let me know what you wanted me to ask – my email account went mental.

What you guys wanted…

Many of you were worried about the fabric selection being scaled down and the increase in 'kits' rather than individual things you could buy separately. Trimmings came up a lot – you wanted trimmings available off the roll rather than pre-cut, and ribbons fell into that category, too. 

Others asked if John Lewis could showcase and celebrate British suppliers of wool, scissors, patterns and other such things. Those outside of London also pointed out that some of the kits and wool felt very 'London priced' and what you really wanted was affordable, good quality products that you knew would do the job. You felt that starter kits and one-stop projects were taking away your shelf space.

And it wasn't just requests. I read comment after comment of people praising the knowledge of John Lewis staff in the haberdashery department and expressing a wish that these kind of people remain at the heart of this department.

In addition to the staff, you wanted classes, tutorials, workshops and places within the department where you could share and learn. You wanted haberdashery to stand proud in store, not be tucked upstairs with children's things or out the way in sports and leisure. If you had your way, make-up and beauty would be quietly moved to get haberdashery back on the ground floor. There was also many suggestions of putting it near home furnishings.

So, armed with all this, I went to visit John Lewis Haberdashery on Oxford Street. It is tucked away upstairs on the fourth floor past the kids's clothing, but it is there. And I was immediately greeted by 'The Makery Table' and two women knitting and having a chat with each other. 

I met with Emma and Ian, who has been a buyer at John Lewis Haberdashery for six months and there's no getting away from the fact that he is passionate about John Lewis Haberdashery.

So what did I find out?

Firstly, and this was in answer to my direct question and two more slightly differently worded questions, John Lewis is NOT and will not being getting rid of its haberdashery department. Nor is it scaling back on the size of them.

According to Ian, 16 John Lewis Haberdashery departments now have places where people can meet and make. In the Leeds store, there is a community room which can be used for that purpose.

On the products, Ian told me the following:

• FABRIC There are 1,200 different fabrics available at John Lewis Oxford Street. Other John Lewis's have on average 900 different fabrics. 
• WOOL When it comes to wool, John Lewis is very UK focused, working with British suppliers and ensuring the Wool mark is on their products. They are offering pattern books and pattern folders and have begun to re-catalogue these according to clothing, home, kids and hobbies. I had a flick through and they look good. If you don't have them at your John Lewis, let them know that this is something you want.
• KITS Yes there are kits – quite a lot of kits actually – and I told Ian that this was not something you were thrilled about. Ian explained that in an Etsy and Pinterest-driven world, some customers are looking to copy what they find online and John Lewis is working with those Etsy people to bring their work in store. Does it take shelf space away from more traditional items? Sadly right now it does. But I hope that Ian meant it when he said that they are always looking at what people are buying and responding to that. 
• BUTTONS It's good news for buttons – Ian and his team are in the process of re-working the button department, which means that 2017 will see a refresh and revival of the wonder that is those little plastic tubes of buttons of all shapes, colours and sizes. I personally can't wait for that.
• TRIMMINGS Trimmings also are getting a refresh – 100 extra trimmings are hitting the shelves on cut-to-order rolls and I was assured that this was not just a 'London thing'.
• EVENTS These are having a comeback, which is good news. Ian and his team are looking at how they can get experts in to run workshops and classes across the country, not just in London. They are also looking at making sure that your experience of sewing machine buying doesn't stop as you walk out the door with your shiny machine and two-year guarantee. John Lewis wants you to make with them, in store, and it wants established talented crafters, knitters, sewers and creative types to inspire a new generation of people.

As Ian and I were finishing up our chat, I got to meet Sylv – she has worked at John Lewis in the haberdashery department for 47 years. I watched her afterwards moving around the shop floor, chatting to people, picking things out and I realised that it's people like her that matter more than ever.

Ian asked me to send him your comments, which I am going to do (without names or emails attached as many of you requested this) – collated and laid out so he can browse them and see what else made more than 5,000 of you speak up. 

I know I am a bit of an optimist, but really do hope that Ian, and the peeps at John Lewis, will listen and that haberdashery remains safe and even better, grows. They told me that they want to make haberdashery more relevant. And relevant is about giving you what you want. So go in to your local store and let them know what you want, and what's missing. 

You know I did that in my local Sainsbury's once as I really wanted them to stock something specific. I asked in store every week whether they had it, and eventually they did. And it's still there and I still buy it.

But if Sainsbury's ever stops stocking it, I will speak up again, and that's what I think must be done with John Lewis. Keep visiting your haberdashery department, keep an eye on it, spend money in it and let's make sure that John Lewis never ever thinks about closing it, because it quite simply makes too much money and is too loved.

And as I said, I will be going back to John Lewis and checking that everything I was told would happen, is happening.

Finally though, I wanted to say big thanks to all of you who got in touch, tweeted and supported me in my petition – it worked, John Lewis noticed us and even though the closing of the haberdashery departments turned out not to be true, it did so much to reaffirm the importance of haberdashery in the 21st century.

DG x

Deaf Girly & the John Lewis petition update

So yesterday was a bit of a weird day – but weird in a good way.

On Monday night, when I set up the 'Save John Lewis Haberdashery please...' petition, I had no idea that it would gain nearly 5,000 signatures.

Or that I would receive an email of reassurance from John Lewis that haberdashery was safe – and more importantly not being downgraded.

Nor did I have any inkling at how brilliant the comments would be that so many petition signers chose to leave, reminiscing about their loyalty to the buttons and bobbins floor and how important it is that John Lewis never, ever get rid of it. Especially not in favour of a bikini wax salon.

The power of the internet – particularly Twitter – never ceases to amaze me. While there are plenty of negatives surrounding social media, I feel very lucky to have such a lovely bunch of followers and follow such a lovely bunch of people. Every day someone makes me laugh, or cheers me up, or tells me something I didn't know – not just about deafness-related things but about life in general.

What's more, my little petition even made the BBC news story about John Lewis not downgrading haberdashery!

And today, when I woke up to a Twitter community in despair at the news from America, I went back to the petition and re-read the comments left yesterday and today – despite me changing the title stating that John Lewis Haberdashery is safe – and cheered myself up. Here are just a few of the amazing comments...

To paste them all here would take up the internet – there are literally hundreds. And many of you had a sense of humour about the bikini waxes.

I hope that I am going to meet with the peeps from John Lewis soon and chat to them about the future of haberdashery at John Lewis and get a tour of the department. I can't wait to do this. I can't wait to tell the staff about the comments on the petition – about how loved and valued they are and about how genuinely upset people were when they thought it was true.

But in the meantime, thank you lovely people for getting behind such a great cause and showing that somethings really should be around forever.

Now, I hear someone's started a petition about Toblerone... shall we all head over there and sign that?

Happy Wednesday peeps

DG
xx

Deaf Girly's John Lewis Haberdashery update

Ok, so my Twitter followers will know that yesterday I set up a petition to save John Lewis Haberdashery departments after news articles appeared on The Telegraph and The Pool. 

And here's why I did it! 

When I was four years old, my grandmother made me a party dress. It was white, with puffed sleeves and the prettiest pink floral smocking across the front. I wore that party dress to every party and attempted to wear it to a good many non-parties. I loved it. I still have it.

Since my first memories were made, sewing, craft and creating things have been an integral part of my life.

My ma, like my grandmother was, is an amazing seamstress. She made my school uniform when I first went as I was too small for the regulation one, and then continued to make my school uniform because hers was quite frankly better quality and better fitting. It was so close to the real thing, no one noticed, but it had clever hems to let down and all sorts of other things.

I used to get home from school and she'd have a craft project ready - from cushions to cross stitch, soft toy making to t-shirt printing, we did it all, and it was amazing.

And at school, where I struggled to hear traditional subjects where teachers stood at the front of the class and recited facts, I found that in textiles, I could still excel.

So that's why, when I read that John Lewis is downsizing, doing away with, getting rid of its Haberdashery departments in favour of prosecco bars and bikini waxes, I set up a petition to let the company know how much its Haberdashery department is loved and valued. And this is coming from someone who loves prosecco.

And at time of writing, nearly 1,000 of you have let me know you feel the same way.
John Lewis was the place I headed to one Christmas to buy red and green felt, glitter fabric paint and ribbon with which I created hand-made personalized little stockings for all my friends - many of whom still hang them on their trees every year.

It was the place I bought elastic and cotton to help make hair scrunchies with my cousins when the 1990s started becoming fashionable again.

I headed there to buy a denim patch when I went through the knees of my favourite jeans - and I really don't have the kind of knees that should be poking out of jeans.

And when London Cousin 1 declared a proper interest in sewing - it was to John Lewis I sent her to buy her first machine. And she excelled from the moment she got going.

As a deaf person, I have a lot of solitary hobbies. I find them easier, more enjoyable than group events or team sports where I struggle to hear. Craft, making things, creating and designing - however badly as I'm really not that good at it - is something that a great Haberdashery department like John Lewis allows me to do.

So imagine my happiness when I received the following from Peter Cross at John Lewis this morning after my petition had received more than 2,200 signatures:

In the above, Peter Cross confirmed that John Lewis haberdashery departments would not be downgraded or shut... he said some very nice things about haberdashery in fact.

So that's great news! Head to John Lewis this weekend, buy your craft supplies safe in the knowledge that they are here to stay...

Good work peeps and thanks for all your support!

DG
xx

Deaf Girly and the Hearing Dog

Meet Hebe – my dog daughter!

On this very Thankful Friday, I'd like to introduce you to Hebe – a Hearing-Dog-in-training – who I have sponsored with Hearing Times in return for writing my column for them. You can read all about that here. 

Sponsoring a Hearing Dog is very easy – you have several options: a monthly payment of £3, £5, or £10 a month or a one-off donation. The charity is very clear about how your donations are spent – examples include £10 paying for a selection of training aids and £30 being the amount needed to provide a Hearing Dog with its distinctive jacket and lead slip.

But that's not all. Here are five reasons why sponsoring a Hearing Dog is so great...

1. You get to be a fairy dogmother or dogfather

Since I met Hebe, I've been showing photos of her on my phone to anyone I meet at every opportunity. I would have put her on Facebook but I don't really use Facebook, but I get to boast that this gorgeous pooch is being trained to do something amazing and I'm helping! 


2. Get to tell chuggers very smugly that you already donate to a charity
I don't like chuggers and Hearing Dogs for Deaf People is very clear that it doesn't use them to raise money. In London, I get stopped every day by someone with a new pitch about why I should give them money. I don't like walking past and ignoring them – they are people after all – but I usually just say that I am already donating to my favourite charity and walk on. One time a chugger replied that I was clearly donating to the wrong charity and I put him straight and left him quietly contemplating his words.



3. You will change someone's life in a way you never imagined possible
When I went on the Hearing Dogs' tour of The Grange last week, I met people whose lives have been completely transformed by their partnership with a Hearing Dog. One lady had had four hearing dogs with her latest about to retire. She spoke about each one with such love and confidence, I actually had a little cry. 


4. You get to be a great present giver
Did you know that you can sponsor a Hearing Dog as a present for someone? That someone who always says, "Oh, I don't need anything..." and you're left panic buying them something on Christmas Eve in your local supermarket. This gift is brilliant – sponsors of Hearing Dogs get access to exclusive content, updates on their puppy and all sorts of other great things. You get to see your puppy grow up and get ready to change someone's life. I know I keep banging on about it being life changing, but it really is.


5. It's not all about sponsorship
Of course, I know that committing to a monthly sponsorship is not for everyone, but there are tonnes of other ways you can support Hearing Dogs for Deaf People. You can collect your stamps, which they then sell to raise money, you can share this blog, ask for a dog sponsorship for Christmas and tell everyone you meet about Hearing Dogs... 

My very lovely Ma does this at every opportunity – since we found out I was deaf aged 10, she's been a huge supporter of this charity. In her excitement she once called them Deaf Dogs for the Blind, but that's a whole other story!

My amazing dogdaughter Hebe who is learning to be a Hearing Dog

*Hearing Dogs did not ask or pay me to write this post. Due to the fact I am sponsoring Hebe with Hearing Times, they invited me to meet and see the amazing work they do. And it is amazing and I will happily shout about it all day long! 

Always love on this day

Today I'm sat at my desk. I am at work.

On this day for too many years, I can remember exactly where I've been. The day, all those years ago, I remember the clearest.

Today is about remembering the person who taught me along side one my favourite people in the whole world to love the big scary world that is London. The guy who watched episode after episode of Grand Designs with me while drinking beer, who never criticised my inability to time cooking new potatoes with pie, meaning one was burnt if the others were edible, or the potatoes were more like weapons of mass destruction.

This is a person who watched Flashdance with me and remarked it was basically porn but still busted out some moves while making the best Thai green curry ever. A person who on his wedding day grinned so hard I thought his face might fall off – and as he was marrying one of the best people in the whole wide world, who could blame him.

He taught me how to buy a travel card when they still came in paper form, how to change platforms at Earls Court without asking for help, how to become a devotee to BBC Breakfast London Travel bulletins so that your entire morning wasn't ruined by a signal failure.

He taught me that sometimes when you pick up children, you drop them. That rice really does need to be soaked for longer than you think, so start cooking before you get hungry. That there is a limit of how many Krispy Kreme donuts a four-year-old child can eat and that yes, if you go over that, it ends up in a big big mess.

He also – and he never knew this – invented a new verb... "to Pret".

And so today, on this day, I am most definitely going "to Pret" and send all my love to wherever you are.

DG
x

10 things my deafness makes me better at

The other day I was thinking about what I might be like if I wasn't deaf. Firstly, I wouldn't be here as Deafinitely Girly. I'd probably be blogging about other things though... but this wouldn't include defending myself against a coat stand with a hot water bottle and many of the other scrapes I've found myself in as a result of not hearing much.

But what about the other things that I think my deafness enhances. The things I've become better at, quicker at, more efficient at. Here's my round-up of the 10 things I think I do better than I would if I was hearing:

1. Form filling

Who doesn't love a form eh? Especially those ones with the boxes where you have to get your letters just inside and hope your email address isn't too long to fit. In my life I have filled in countless forms to do with my deafness – from Freedom passes and my recent application for a Hearing Dog (YAY!) to complaints online about subtitles, service and applications for various things to help. You name it, I've filled it in. I love forms! 

2. Planning ahead

I wonder if I'd be quite so organised if I wasn't deaf. If I'd be more laissez-faire, leave things to the last minute, and fret less? Maybe not, but I do know that being deaf means I consider all options, all scenarios and all possible outcomes when planning, organising and booking things. This means I can request pre-boarding on planes, seats at the front of talks, or tweet the relevant people my questions and worries and ensure that at no point is my deafness going to trip me up. Of course it invariably does, but I'm still on a quest to plan ahead to the point that it doesn't.

3. Finding out names

I am terrible with names. I never hear them and then am too embarrassed to ask someone to repeat their name. But this means I have a stealth-like skill at finding out people's name and NEVER forgetting them ever again. When starting in a new office, I always draw a floor plan in the back of my notebook and then find a friendly face to help me fill it in. I will hit up linked in and match faces to names, whatever it takes. 

Of course, I could simply admit that I hadn't heard their name three weeks ago when I first met them, which is why for the first two weeks at one of my recent jobs I called a guy Tom and not Adam, before LinkedIn told me otherwise… but that would be too simple wouldn't it?

4. Understanding ignorance

Do you know I once pointed an empty seat on the tube out to a blind person by saying 'There's a seat over there'? It was one of the most embarrassing disability unaware things I have ever done. But it made me realise that when people ask you odd things about your deafness – 'Can you drive?' being one of the most asked and ridiculous ones – I don't get so riled anymore. After all, if I can forget that pointing to an empty seat is really not helpful to a blind person, then hearing people with little knowledge of deafness deserve a break.

5. Sleeping with the light on

I can sleep pretty much anywhere – planes, trains and automobiles and even trendy nightclubs... actually especially trendy nightclubs. One of the reasons for this is that I've spent much of my life sleeping with lights on – I hate darkness you see, it feels like I have no senses left and it's very isolating. As a child, my parents used to leave the hall cupboard light on, when I lived alone I left my hall light on, and in my current flat, if FJM is away, lights galore provide me with the visual reassurance that all is OK. My light resilience is very useful when it comes to needing naps in non-nap friendly places.

6. Making up stories

Before I knew I was deaf, I spent much of my life guessing what was going on. After I knew I was deaf, I continued to do this as well. Things like Chinese whispers at sleepovers – I always made my own ones up as never heard the whisper. Or Dictation at school, which I treated like a creative writing exercise. Or basically any conversation I ever had was pieced together with lipreading and a good amount of guessing what was going on. I've now written a book. A whole book. And I love making up stories.

7. Having a specific morning and evening routine

Every morning and every night I have the same routine. It's meticulous. It works. I could do it with my eyes closed. I could do it drunk. Why? Well it's all about my hearing aids and making sure I don't get halfway to work and wonder why I can feel cold air in my ears and then realise in a panic my hearing aids are somewhere they shouldn't be, not right beside my glasses on my dressing table ready to go in straight after I've finished putting on my make up. OK, so it's vaguely OCD, but it works. In the five years I've had hearing aids, I've forgotten them three times.

8. Bagging benefits

I don't mean the DLA variety. But in life, there are many benefits available to deaf people and I make sure I boldly ask for them all. Things like friends going in free as carers to museums, country houses, zoos and art galleries. Getting pre-board on planes so that you can be the first on, not miss your row being called and let the crew know that you can't hear announcements. Or asking for discounted tickets at the theatre if a subtitled show isn't available – I've done this and taken a script for things I really want to see. The Barbican has an access card, which gets me all kinds of benefits and I could write a whole blog about what else is available. My deafness means I am never afraid to ask – nicely, in a non-demanding but totally, hard-to-say-no-to way.

9. Laughing at myself

Deafness can be embarrassing sometimes – like the time I leant my head out a changing room to lipread my mum, tripped, pulled the whole curtain rail down and found myself flat on my back and naked in the middle of a shop. In those times, you've just got to laugh… and drink gin.

10. Being determined

This is perhaps my favourite thing. I wonder if I'd give up more easily if I had hearing. If I'd take things for granted, be less bothered about things. When I look back at what I've achieved and what I want. At the forecasts from teachers or even my own worst fears, I can see that I somehow found a bloody-minded determination to go after what I want. Of course it wavers in the same way it does for everyone else, but for me, there's always the nagging in the back of my mind that I need to do this, and my deafness isn't going to stop me.

Happy Wednesday peeps! Hurrah – it's Bake Off Semi Final night!

DG x

Deaf Girly and guessing words

One of the reasons I find 'listening' so tiring is that an awful lot of guessing goes into what I think I might be hearing...

I've always had to guess what words are – I remember being in my teens and my amazing audiologist at the time showing me the speech banana in relation to my audiogram and explaining that was why I was so bad at 'hearing' words. I'm missing consonants... and I don't really have any vowel distinction either.

For example, I cannot hear the difference between 'yes' and 'no' when it's said in the dark and I have no visual or lipreading clue to guide me.

I was reminded of how much I guess words the other night when, on arriving back from the gym, I poured FJM a glass of sparkling water before starting to cook dinner.

'Fizzy water is so distressing,' he said as I put the glass down in front of him.

'Well,' I reasoned, 'I know it's not a beer or anything, but I think that's a little dramatic.'

Cue, lots of confused looks from him.

Distressing and refreshing it turns out, sound exactly the same to me. I heard the three sylables, I heard the 'ing' at the end and I guessed the rest.

Granted, I could have guessed better, but it's interesting how my brain fills in the gaps of speech without me asking it to.

I think I honed my skill for guessing words before I knew I was deaf, in the 1980s, when dictation was a thing at school. Those lucky enough to remember this will recall the teacher sat at the front of the class reading a passage from a book and you had to simply write down what she was saying.

At 8 years old, I thought that this was a guessing game. I thought the point of dication, was not a test of spelling and grammar, but of working out what words the teacher might be saying to get the best story. I was terrible at dictation. I think on one occasion I was told sternly that it wasn't a creative writing exercise.

The same goes for French listening. I thought that it was again, a creative exercise of guessing what the people might be saying... once my deafness was discovered and I started having French listening read to me by a teacher, my marks went from 10% to 100%.

But I think that the one amazing thing to come from guessing words and making up stories during dictation is that it gave me an early introduction to writing. It forced me to think about alternative plot lines, use of language and indeed working alone – school was an incredibly lonely experience for me in so many ways as I just didn't know what I was meant to be doing half the time.

The creative side of school embraced that – it allowed me to go off on tangents due to mishearing and in later times – and certainly during my degree, I wasn't penalised for it. Whereas the more structured side – the maths and the sciences – had no room for my deaf interpretation and lack of understanding about what was going on...

I think the time I realised that science was not for me was during my GCSE Biology practical. That year, my hearing took a MEGA nose dive – I didn't have a notetaker at that point and just seemed to 'get by' in lessons. But this 2-day practical revealed that I was doing anything but getting by.

It was an experiment to test the clotting agent in milk... (or something), and going into it, I had no idea what I was meant to be doing. Not because I was stupid or I hadn't been paying attention, but because I quite simply hadn't heard enough to have a clue. And my 15-year-old self (I was very young for the year) didn't know I should speak up.

I spent two days in exam conditions – no talking, no sudden movements – trying to work out how to get milk to clot with no idea why I was doing this. By the second day, I was covered in clotted milk and vaguely hysterical. I was escorted from the practical and failed on it.

The teacher was horrifically unsympathetic. And again, I didn't know how to convey the fact that I didn't have a clue what was going on.

I will NEVER forget how I felt that day, trudging home up the hill to my parents' house covered in rancid milk and wanting to lie down on the pavement and cry.

It's easier now to look back on those days with the hindsight and confidence I have now and think how I could have dealt with that situation differently, but then I remember it really doesn't matter. I will never have to do a Biology practical again. And if they worst I do is guess words wrongly every now and again with amusing results, well, I'm OK with that.

Happy Thursday peeps

DG

Deaf Girly: Hearing in my dreams

Recently, I've been having nightmares. Nightly. Which wake me up at 5am, in a sweat. They're the kind of dreams that make you get up and go and stick the kettle on, staring out the window as you wait for it to boil, willing your brain to stop whirring with whatever hideous thoughts were in it – the thoughts that jarred you awake.

The past few times this has happened, while staring out of the window, I've found myself marvelling about the fact that I am never deaf in my dreams.

I've blogged about this before. I've blogged about the fact that I can hear whispers, shouts, people talking to me without me being able to see their lips. I've blogged about the marvel that in my dreams I am a hearing person, even though really, I have no idea what it's like to be a hearing person.

Sure, I have a memory of what it's like to be less deaf, but it's definitely not the same as being hearing.

In the most recent nightmare I had, involving someone I really really don't like, a phone rang and it was for me. I took the call. I had a phone conversation. I can't remember what it was about, but that doesn't really matter, because when the phone conversation was over, I took the phone and threw it down the stairs before running down after it and smashing it to a pulp.

Maybe I'm not that hearing in my dreams after all...

Deaf Girly hears an echo (echo)

Living in London, I sometimes forget that the general din of the city drowns out other things. I know, when I'm walking down the street that the only thing I am hearing is the chugging of busses. Conversation, laughter and any other general noises, including a cyclist yelling at me to get out of her way – which happened today – are all lost.

Whenever I head back to the countryside, I am always shocked by how quiet it is – I can't hear the things that make a noise in the countryside – namely birds and other animals – so it really is just me and silence.

So yesterday, while away for the weekend in the country imagine my shock when I heard an echo.

It was late, it was dark, one of the cats we were cat-sitting had gone AWOL. We had to head back to London, but I didn't want to leave him outside, when he's never been an outside-at-night cat, has a phobia of heights and cannot jump. He's the most uncatlike cat I've ever met. He wags his tail when you tickle his tummy, he follows you around like a small dog. Forget lean, mean killing machine, his most notable prey to date is a butterfly and that was by accident when he thwacked it with his gigantic fox-like tail.

So I wasn't overly keen at leaving him out overnight until the other cat-sitters arrived.

Standing at the back door, the night dark except for the glow of the moon, I called his name and listened – although what for I'm not sure seeing as I have NEVER heard a cat meow. But instead, I heard my voice echo in the night.

I heard my very first echo.

Amazed, I called the cat's name again and once again, it came bouncing back clear enough for me to make out.

So I said it again, and again, more for the fun of hearing an echo than trying to get the cat back. The neighbours must have thought I was a screw loose.

My deafness really is the oddest thing. Sometimes it floors me with the detail it takes from my life. It takes away the conversations, the television, the podcasts, and quite possibly my career development. It takes away my confidence frequently and happiness sometimes. And it rarely ever gives.

But just sometimes, it says 'Hey DG, how about this?' and gives me something totally unexpected. Like the time I heard my best friend's newborn baby cry while I was snoozing on her sofa and was up and holding the said bawling infant before knowing anything had happened.

Or the time I went to see David Gilmore in concert and the Division Bell that had been inaudible on the MP3 track on my iPhone was suddenly very audible in all its metal glory.

And then last night, I heard an echo. A beautiful, clear echo. It was so amazing, it made me want to cry. Or tell everyone. Or run around letting people know that my deafness had just given me a break.

Do you know, echos remind me of the harmonics I had the brief privilege of hearing on my violin (I reckon I had harmonics for about one year before my hearing took a nose-dive). They're clear, they're ethereal, they're only there if you treat them carefully and listen carefully, and last night I did. In the stillness of the countryside.

In other news: the cat stayed out all night.

Deaf Girly's and the world of work

The fab peeps over on Twitter will know that since I quit my job to write a book and be an au pair, then got a permanent job for one year and then left it again, I've been going it alone in the world of employment. With varying degrees of success.

But this morning as I was walking to one of the offices I am working at, I suddenly realised I should in fact feel incredibly proud of myself.

When I first started out working in London many many moons ago, I used to look at the freelancers who came into our office on a regular basis and wonder how they did it. How they slotted into a different team, got to know different people and different ways of working and didn't panic about it.

I mean, me getting a job in the big bad world was the reason I started this blog. Learning how to be deaf in a professional environment sent my head into a spin, I cried every day - in a cupboard where I did much of my work. I loved that cupboard, it was my safe haven away from the people who could use the phone and be efficient in the world of new millennial media.

In my 20s, I clung to every job like my life depended on it. My food and rent certainly did depend on it. I was terrified of redundancy and so eager to climb the ladder that I think I lost perspective of what made me good at what I do in the first place.

And then in 2013, I had that brainwave to quit my job, rent out my flat, write a book and be an au pair. All of which were varying degrees of successful... But all of which taught me an awful lot about myself and my capabilities as a deaf person.

And then I finished the first of many drafts of the book, got a job while being an au pair (RESPECT TO WORKING MOTHERS HERE BECAUSE THIS WAS A MENTAL TIME IN MY LIFE), then stopped being an au pair, left my job, continued to rent my flat, and had to rent another one...

You still following?

So what does a thirty-something deaf girl with a patchwork CV and an unpublished book with bills to pay do?

I did something I'd never thought I could do... I went freelance.

To be fair, at the start I kept it local. I contacted former colleagues who gave me work and gradually built up my confidence again. But then - because I really did need a bit more money - I sent my CV out to random places to see what happened.

And that had varying degrees of success.

There was the company who contacted me and were really interested having seen my
CV but then on finding out I was deaf, told me I wouldn't be suitable for the job and they needed a hearing person who could communicate well... All without finding out whether I can communicate well and dismissing the fact I have a CV showing 13 years of communicating well. *scowls

Then there was the office who gave me chance but was so frantic I swear I only peed once the whole time I was there...

Shortly after the 'you're too deaf to do this job' rejection, I got an email from another company I'd sent my CV to. They offered me some work – a trial. I accepted. But as the dates drew nearer I found myself getting more and more anxious.

What if my deafness let me down? What if I was required to use the phone and there was no other alternative? Should I have told them in advance about my disability? What if they had a problem with me not telling them about my disability? The worry list went on... and on... and on... I almost talked myself out of doing the work.

On my first day, I went through all the possible disaster scenarios before shooing myself out of the door reminding myself that the need to earn money was greater than my anxieties about being deaf.

On arrival, I discovered my lovely manager had a Scottish accent, which meant revealing my deafness in the first second of our meeting. And he didn't bat an eyelid. Not even a tiny flinch. He just accepted the information. I passed my trial.

And since then, in the three months that I have worked at this office, my manager has continued to accept the information I give him about my deafness. He's made phone calls for me, repeated things without any issue, reminded me of people's names and he always, always comes over to speak to me rather than shouting.

It's amazing.

I am lucky. I know I am. Not all offices are like this. But I think quite a few are. And now, when I realise that freelancing is going OK, and I'm not falling apart in a deaf-related anxious heap, I can't help but beam to myself.

It's made me realise that some of the things I've avoided in the past because of my deafness are do-able... and it's made me wonder what else is...

I'm just off to make a list!

Happy Tuesday peeps

DG
xx