Deafinitely girly

Deaf Girly and classical music
Deafinitely girly I didn't know I couldn't hear until I was 10.I have this really clear memory of seeing two girls signing to each other in a garden centre when I was about six years old and being fascinated about the idea of being deaf... little did I know, I already was.I didn't know that birds sang or green men beeped or that song lyrics were meant to be understood. I thought dictat...
Mon, Jun 19 2017

Deaf Girly: 5 things I wish I'd known about work at 23
Deafinitely girly I got my first dream job aged 23 in London. It had never occurred to me that I would struggle to find work because of my deafness, but in all honesty I think back then I added a hefty dose of denial to just how deaf I was. But if I could go back and give my 23-year-old self some advice, what would it be?1. Be fearlessBack then, I was scared of many, many things. Livin...
Wed, May 17 2017

Deaf Girly: 10 things I love about my deafness
Deafinitely girly Ok, so this week is Deaf Awareness Week and my Twitter is filled with fabulous infosnacks about deafness and advice and wotnot. It's brilliant.If there's one thing being deaf and the experiences that come with that have taught me, it's that no one size fits all with deafness. It's personal. And no one can tell you how you should be feeling or hearing.So with that in ...
Mon, May 15 2017

Deaf Girly and the London Underground
Deafinitely girly Yesterday evening, I got to watch the third episode of Inside the Tube: Going Underground presented by Rob Bell – and his Rab jacket – on Demand 5 after subtitles were finally added! And it did not disappoint. In fact, it's a must for anyone with a love of our amazing underground network.I've had a fascination with the London Underground since I was a little gir...
Wed, May 10 2017

Deaf Girly and the Great British Dog Walk
Deafinitely girly Last weekend, I was invited to take part in the Hearing Dogs Great British Dog Walk at Windsor Great Park and it was brilliant fun. This annual event helps raise money for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People and there are 20 walks around the UK – at time of writing there are still 11 walks you can get involved in too, from Exeter to Aberdeen... (although not literally of ...
Wed, May 03 2017

Why Deaf Girly doesn't carry cash
Deafinitely girly Back in February, I took part in a two-day induction at Hearing Dogs – there's a big blog coming soon about that – as part of my application process. It was amazing and I met so many wonderful people and had so many lightbulb moments about my deafness while talking to them.One of the loveliest people I met – Tracy – took me, and an adorable Hearing Dog, to a g...
Tue, Apr 11 2017

Deaf Girly and the Fitbit Blaze
Deafinitely girly I'm a bit of a tech geek - always have been, which was quite exciting in the 1980s and 90s when technology was moving at a fair old pace. I remember the first time I got a caption reader to add subtitles to videos, my mind was blown. When mobile phones came out, I got a really early one – a brick-like Panasonic with a capacity for 10 text messages and a massive k...
Wed, Apr 05 2017

Deaf Girly and the opticians
Deafinitely girly When it comes to vision and hearing, I am unfortunately blessed with very bad levels of both. I am comedy short-sighted, to the point that, if I was ever without my glasses or contact lenses, I would have a lot of difficulty navigating my way anywhere.I first realised just how short sighted I was while on a climbing trip at university. We were staying in a cheap camps...
Mon, Apr 03 2017

Deafinitely Girly world of employment
Deafinitely girly This morning, I read the latest report from the brilliant charity Scope about 'Why we need to see changes in support for disabled people in work' and it really struck a chord for me.I am disabled. I lie awake at night worrying about my job prospects and where my career is going. About my earning potential and the restrictions my disability places on my ability to do j...
Tue, Feb 14 2017

Deaf Girly and Jose Gonzalez
Deafinitely girly One of the highlights of this week – apart from a very lovely dinner with Fab Friend last night – was seeing José Gonzalez play live at the Royal Festival Hall with The Goteborg String Theory. I've loved José Gonzalez since I first saw him perform live in the mid 2000s – there's something about the richness of his voice, the lightness of his touch on the guit...
Fri, Jan 27 2017

Deaf Girly and the Gap advert
Deafinitely girly Yesterday was a beautifully sunny day and so I decided to go for a walk to get the things I needed to make curry that evening.On my way to the supermarket I walked past Gap's window and – as I am blessed with four fabulous godchildren – I took a look in the window to see what spring offerings were on show and what winter sale bargains there might be.And this caugh...
Mon, Jan 23 2017

Deaf Girly and the emergency sirens
Deafinitely girly One of the things I really don't hear – not even a little bit, not even at all, not even with my fancy Phonak hearing aids in – is ambulance sirens. I just about hear police sirens, if there's not too much background noise, and I can hear the low honking noise that fire engines make in built-up areas, but ambulances, I just cannot hear.I've had some near misses wi...
Wed, Jan 18 2017

Deaf Girly and the (inaccessible) Christmas Movies
Deafinitely girly One of my favourite things about Christmas – aside from the lovely family gatherings, endless snacks and chocolate, the sparkly tree and presents – is the festive movies. I absolutely love a Christmas film. Even terrible ones... and believe me, there are some terrible ones out there.There's just something about them – the warm and fuzzy feelings, the amazing sce...
Fri, Dec 30 2016

Deaf Girly downloads Netflix with subtitles
Deafinitely girly Today is thankful Friday and on waking this morning I was very thankful to receive an email from Netflix.In this email, Netflix told me that the recent iOS app update meant that I could now download programmes to watch offline!!I know!This was almost as exciting as when BBC iPlayer released this feature.But, being deaf and endlessly disappointed by these sort of thing...
Fri, Dec 02 2016

Deaf Girly visits John Lewis Haberdashery
Deafinitely girly 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 ...
Fri, Nov 25 2016

Deaf Girly & the John Lewis petition update
Deafinitely girly 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...
Wed, Nov 09 2016

Deaf Girly's John Lewis Haberdashery update
Deafinitely girly 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 t...
Tue, Nov 08 2016

Deaf Girly and the Hearing Dog
Deafinitely girly 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 o...
Fri, Oct 21 2016

Always love on this day
Deafinitely girly 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 Des...
Thu, Oct 20 2016

10 things my deafness makes me better at
Deafinitely girly 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 abo...
Wed, Oct 19 2016

Deaf Girly and guessing words
Deafinitely girly 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 con...
Thu, Sep 22 2016

Deaf Girly: Hearing in my dreams
Deafinitely girly 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,...
Mon, Sep 19 2016

Deaf Girly hears an echo (echo)
Deafinitely girly 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...
Mon, Sep 12 2016

Deaf Girly's and the world of work
Deafinitely girly 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 incredib...
Tue, Sep 06 2016

Deaf Girly and subtitled LIVE iPlayer
Deafinitely girly OK, so regular readers will know how much I rant about lack of accessible content online. Things like out of time subtitle on a programme that aired two days ago and was pre-recorded – There's No Such Thing As The News – although to be fair, the @iPlayer peeps on Twitter were great at sorting that out.Or subtitles that quite simply aren't there on some days – wh...
Thu, Jul 28 2016

Deaf Girly and the cinema
Deafinitely girly Regular readers will know that I love going to the cinema but rarely go due to the lack of times and venues showing the movies I want with subtitles. And I know I am not alone in my plight.Recently, I've been keeping quite erratic working hours which rather brilliantly means I've been able to attend the 3pm screenings of movies with subtitles, but with my working hour...
Wed, Jul 20 2016

Deaf Girly and the tax man Part 2
Deafinitely girly I am now in year three of doing my self assessment for HMRC – having never done this before in my life, I liken my capabilities to that of a Year 3 school child, but one that needs extra coaching at every turn.When I decided to quit my job, rent out my flat, become and au pair and write a book, I didn't envisage that the most stressful thing in all that would be fil...
Wed, Jul 06 2016

Deaf Girly and 4th July
Deafinitely girly Eighteen years ago today, two of my favourite people got married. On Independence Day. The very best date for those two people.It was amazing. It was hot and sunny. Everyone was happy.And I played my flute during the signing of the register. It was one of the last times I played my flute in public. And it was definitely the best time.Sometimes you live specific days a...
Mon, Jul 04 2016

Deaf Girly and the whistling
Deafinitely girly If there's one thing I know I deafinitely cannot hear, it's whistling. And I know this because FJM whistles a lot and to me, it looks like he's pouting. His tunefulness is wasted on me.But last night for some bizarre, unknown reason, I decided to try whistling as we were clearing up the kitchen before going to bed. I couldn't hear myself, but what I could feel was the...
Thu, May 26 2016

Deaf Girly and the doctor
Deafinitely girly One day, I am really worried that my deafness is going to kill me.Not in the 'walking out in front of an emergency vehicle because I haven't heard the siren' kill me – although that has almost killed me on no less than four occasions – but in a 'it's so hard to access the NHS' kill me.This morning, I went to the GP. I have been thinking about getting an appointmen...
Mon, May 23 2016

Meeting Deaf Girly's deaf heroine
Deafinitely girly For those of you who don't know, I have written a book. It's not there yet – I thought it was, as someone who has never written a book may think, but it's not. Quite a few of the lovely agents who I sent it to have said this.Actually some of them have turned me down in such a nice way, I've had a little cry at the wonder of lovely words and it's given me hope. ...
Tue, May 17 2016

Deaf Girly and the vibrating alarm clock
Deafinitely girly Recently I've been getting up at 5.45am to write, bake and generally fit more into the day. And I'm loving the difference it's making to how much I achieve.However, FJM is loving it less. You see, my iPhone vibrate isn't loud enough to wake me up. So that means, every morning at 5.45am, my phone goes off, I keep on sleeping like a baby and FJM has to wake me up. Poor ...
Wed, Apr 20 2016

Deaf Girly and Jeremy Paxman (again)
Deafinitely girly Ok, so it's been more than a month since my last blog – bad DG! But in my defence, I've been rather busy with my day job, eating my way around Edinburgh and getting stranded in Dorset with a broken car.Anyway, back in February, I blogged about a talk I went to by Jeremy Paxman about British politics. It was a very good talk, but I didn't hear very much of it, which ...
Wed, Apr 06 2016

Deaf Girly's 'deaf question'
Deafinitely girly If I am truly honest with you, I've been in a bit of a confidence slump since the 'too deaf for this job' set back in earlier in the year. It really upset me. It made me question not only my professional capabilities but also my personal qualities.In short, I've spent a large portion of the first part of 2016 thinking pretty negative thoughts about myself. The problem...
Thu, Mar 03 2016

Deaf Girly and the hearing aid batteries
Deafinitely girly It's been 25 years since I first got a pair of hearing aids. I've worn them on and off since then and finally every day (except when I've had enough of noise) for the last three and a bit years. During that time, I have changed the batteries more times than I can remember. Sometimes I change them using free batteries I pick up from my audiology clinic, but mostly ...
Mon, Feb 29 2016

Deaf Girly and Jeremy Paxman
Deafinitely girly The other day London Aunt asked me if I wanted to go to a talk with her. It was a talk by Jeremy Paxman and it was almost sold out.Usually, I shy away from going to talks as I find them so difficult to hear, but after considering it for a moment, I decided that if anyone was going to be easy (ish) to hear it would be Jeremy Paxman – indeed, I often find myself not r...
Wed, Feb 24 2016

Deaf Girly and the sirens
Deafinitely girly A few weeks ago I wrote about blog about the fire alarm at work and how, when it went off, I couldn't hear it but that everything around me sounded muffled and quieter.It was a new thing I've noticed, and I found it kinda fascinating.Anyway, last night FJM and I were walking back from the gym. It was quite late and the roads were fairly quiet. There were no loud, low ...
Fri, Feb 12 2016

Deaf Girly and the hearing test
Deafinitely girly Back in June I went to get my hearing aids spring cleaned. While there, the audiologist suggested that I should have a hearing test booked as it's been a while. But instead of being able to book one directly with the clinic, he needed to send a letter to my GP who would then refer me back. Or something bizarre like that.And then I completely forgot that this had happe...
Wed, Feb 10 2016

Deaf Girly and hearing the weather
Deafinitely girly Abigail, Barney, Clodagh, Desmond, Eva, Frank, Gertrude, Henry, Imogen...It might sounds like an alternative version to the Beautiful South song or a poor attempt at NATO phonetic alphabet but it's the UK storm names – makes you sit up and notice the weather a bit more when it's personified I think.Hearing weather has always been a bit hit and miss for me. I've alwa...
Mon, Feb 08 2016

Deafinitely Girly 'hears' a fire alarm
Deafinitely girly 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 Nat...
Fri, Jan 29 2016

Deaf Girly's working it out
Deafinitely girly 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 us...
Mon, Jan 25 2016

Deaf Girly's employment issue
Deafinitely girly 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 i...
Wed, Jan 20 2016

Deaf Girly and the noisy car
Deafinitely girly 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 ...
Mon, Jan 18 2016

Things Deaf Girly can't hear
Deafinitely girly 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 abs...
Wed, Jan 13 2016

Deaf Girly and the train doors
Deafinitely girly 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...
Fri, Jan 08 2016

Deaf Girly and pronunciation
Deafinitely girly 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...
Wed, Jan 06 2016

What if I had never met Deaf Girly…?
Deafinitely 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...
Tue, Jan 05 2016

Deaf Girly and subtitled Star Wars
Deafinitely girly HAPPY NEW YEAR PEEPS!Feels like ages ago that I was getting ready for Christmas and now it's all over... *sniffOne 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 ...
Mon, Jan 04 2016

Deaf Girly and the Baby Monitor
Deafinitely girly 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. Yo...
Wed, Dec 09 2015

Deaf Girly and the FaceTime fear
Deafinitely girly 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 expens...
Tue, Nov 24 2015