Deafinitely girly

Hearing at my gym
Deafinitely girly This morning I woke up unable to move without pain. The cause for my old lady hobble? A kettlebells class. See, on Saturday, I went to the gym with the Singing Swede. She had tennis, I was going to do a circuit class. Except it became horribly apparent in the first few minutes that I wasn't going to hear anything, so I left. Fifteen minutes later, as I was running on ...
Mon, Feb 06 2012

I'm bad at making phone calls
Deafinitely girly Phew! What a week I'm having. As well as being super busy in my day job, my little flat has also decided it wants some attention and the boiler has stopped working. Last night I got home to a freezing house and no hot water and glumly I wondered how much it was going to cost me to get the boiler up and running again. And then I remember that through my contents insura...
Thu, Jan 12 2012

Getting things done without the phone
Deafinitely girly Today is the first Thankful Friday of 2012 – and what a lovely sunny one it is. I'm thankful that I am gradually getting back into the swing of waking early, working for 8 hours and still being upright at the end of the day… it's amazing how just one week off sent my usual routine spinning out of control into an abyss of lie-ins and overindulgence. Anyway, this we...
Fri, Jan 06 2012

Deafinitely Girly's noisy morning
Deafinitely girly Last night I went to bed at 10.30, woke at 3am and woke at 5am. The 2nd time, I was so convinced it was time to get up that I switched on my bedside lamp and lay in the brightness, clearing the sleep from my eyes. Then I put my glasses on and looked at the clock. Hmm! However, there's something lovely about being awake at that time of the morning. It's so peaceful and...
Thu, Dec 22 2011

I've sponsored a Hearing Dog
Deafinitely girly When it comes to giving money to charity, I'm not sure I do enough. I'm as guilty as the next person of dodging charity muggers 'chuggers' in the street – always being careful to be polite but at the same time being firm that, no, I don't want to give my bank details to a stranger on the street who's stalked me halfway to Boots in my lunch hour, when all I want is a...
Fri, Dec 16 2011

Deafinitey Girly, the broadband and the Mac
Deafinitely girly Something amazing happened yesterday. I finally got the point of Skype… I finally saw the point of broadband… And I finally realised that I need a new computer – and in an ideal money worry-free world, this would be a Mac Book Pro. 'What?' I hear the people who know me cry. 'Deafinitely Girly might get the internet at home? And hell hasn't frozen over?' I know, ...
Mon, Dec 05 2011

The hear-changing iPad
Deafinitely girly Ah what a lovely weekend I had at home with the Rents, doing a spot of Christmas shopping, catching up and giving them iLessons, which were necessary after they became the proud owners of an iPhone and iPad! It all started when Pa decided he wanted an upgrade on his Nokia, so we popped into their local O2 store. There, he chose a free iPhone 3GS with 300 minutes, unli...
Tue, Nov 29 2011

An iPhone noise alert
Deafinitely girly Yesterday I bought an app called Tap Tap, which alleges to notify you when sounds occur which you cannot hear. Guess what? It's rubbish! I thought it would be a bit of a long shot but seriously it even goes off when I breathe, and even I draw the line about being notified about this. Take yesterday evening when I tried it out with my microwave timer. It went off every...
Wed, Nov 23 2011

Deaf Girl learns to tap
Deafinitely girly Last week I missed my tap class. It was too cold, I was too tired, I had stuff to do. The reality is that all of the above were just excuses as I'm actually finding tap quite hard now I'm six lessons in. While this may be because I have the coordination of a drunk newborn foal, last night I went along to check, and actually it's not that. During the class, I loo...
Tue, Nov 22 2011

Deafinitly Girly and the Boris Bike
Deafinitely girly Wow! What a brilliant weekend I had with SouperLouper when she came to visit from the Wild West erm... Country. On Saturday we woke to bright blue sky and sunshine so jumped on a bus to the nearest Boris Bike station and hired bikes. Having never done this before, it's surprisingly easy to work out what to do and soon we were pedalling through the streets of London bo...
Mon, Nov 21 2011

Hearing at the opera
Deafinitely girly Today is Thankful Friday and my first post in a while. I've been rather busy you see with my day job, with seeing Roxette in concert, with getting my Christmas copy into Hearing Times and reading books on my Kindle, and this means I've forgotten to blog. However, I do have lots of things to be thankful for today, and one of the best is that SouperLouper is coming to...
Fri, Nov 18 2011

Deaf girly and the flashing fire alarm
Deafinitely girly I don't know about you, but sometimes the whole 'staying in hotels and wondering if I will hear the fire alarm thing' stresses me out. But then I am a natural worrier. I don't get on a boat without first wondering where the lifeboats are, a plane without counting my seats to the emergency exit, and car without first making sure the driver isn't a complete nutter… An...
Tue, Nov 08 2011

Flying to New York
Deafinitely girly I had a very legitimate reason for not blogging last week, and here it is; I was in New York! *Squeal! I've never been to the Big Apple before and having only seen it in the movies and of course Sex & the City, I didn't really know what I would make of it. So let's start at the very beginning of the adventure shall we? In a week of NYC blogs. So, it really started...
Tue, Nov 08 2011

Not hearing at my gym
Deafinitely girly This morning I slept through three vibrating alarm calls. Three! Before waking up 10 minutes before I had to leave the house. The shock of seeing the time on my watch saw me sit up in bed so quickly it actually fell off the wooden blocks that make it high enough to store my shoes underneath, before flying out of bed, tripping over my phone charger cable and face plan...
Wed, Oct 26 2011

When I could hear music…
Deafinitely girly Last night I went to see one of my favourite pianists perform at the Wigmore Hall – Cédric Tiberghien. Playing an array of Debussy, he had the audience captivated throughout and on finishing provoked calls of ‘Bravo!’ from the many French people in attendance. The review in its entirety will be in next month's Hearing Times, but what yesterday did resurface w...
Wed, Oct 26 2011

A big mishearing mishap
Deafinitely girly Today is Thankful Friday. And I am thankful to Gym Buddy for making me laugh until I nearly fell off my chair last night. We went for dinner in Covent Garden to a little Italian place with a very amorous waiter – I think he was flirting with me, but it’s been a while, so he could have just had something in his eye that caused him to wink at me constantly. Anywa...
Wed, Oct 26 2011

My tough deaf week
Deafinitely girly Today is Thankful Friday. It’s the Friday of what has been quite an emotionally challenging week. And I’ve got by with a little help from my friends – namely Penfold, London Aunt and of course the wonderful NDCS audiologist, Vicki. And that is what I am thankful for – that when I need help, it is there. Miss K often says I don’t ask for help enough… and ...
Fri, Sep 23 2011

Deafinitely Girly and cochlear implants
Deafinitely girly Who am I? I am Deafinitely Girly. This has been me for more than three years, and before that? I was a deaf girl who occasionally had tantrums about it and wasn't really sure where she belonged. For the last three years, I've had a sense of belonging through my blog. I've met amazing people, done amazing things, I've laughed, I've cried and I've still had the occas...
Tue, Sep 20 2011

Deaf girl does Pilates
Deafinitely girly I love the sun! And luckily for me today there's a lot of it. There's a good portion of blue sky, too - although not enough for Wise Friend I wouldn't mind English winters if there were just cold - with blue skies and sunshine and then the odd day of rain to keep the reservoirs topped up. But as I was explaining to the French Man yesterday as he looked out of my l...
Mon, Sep 19 2011

DG does deaf dating
Deafinitely girly Well, last night was an experience! Meeting up with the lovely Shakira Shakira and Miss K is never dull
Thu, Sep 15 2011

Deaf girl injured
Deafinitely girly Amazing weekend! Amazing! And the amazing beings I spent it with? SuperCathyFragileMystic, The Photographer and Blackberry of course! SCFM lives in a little cottage in the Wild West Erm... Country and I always love going there. It's what I imagine my house would be like if I didn't live in London. And there's something about seeing a friend you've known practicall...
Tue, Sep 13 2011

Recharging my deafness resilience
Deafinitely girly Yesterday, I had an embarrassing deaf moment… We were talking about Catchphrase – you know that game show in the 90s where people had to guess what well-known phrase the picture was depicting. ‘Who presented that?’ I asked, ‘Was it Roy Castle?’ Cue the first set of giggles as it was in fact Roy Walker. ‘Was he Welsh?’ I asked… Cue hysterics as I was informed he w...
Thu, Sep 08 2011

How do you contact your GP?
Deafinitely girly Today I want to talk about GPs and how you contact yours. When I first registered at my GP, I was thrilled as it opened at 7.30am, which meant if I needed to make an appointment, I could simply pop in before work. Hurrah, I thought. No more asking friends to call for me, which when you have Crohn's like I do, pushes the boundaries of friendship considerably. Althoug...
Wed, Sep 07 2011

I need light to hear
Deafinitely girly Happy 1st of September to you! September to me means shorter days, colder weather but also crisp sunny mornings as summer finally decides to put in a last-minute, somewhat hungover appearance. It's also a time for change. New schools for 11 year olds, first schools for little kids, university and college, new jobs – everything is changing Another two big changes ar...
Thu, Sep 01 2011

A great iPhone app for Deaf Girly
Deafinitely girly Apologies for being a little bit quiet lately – I was taking some holiday, a break from the big smoke, a few days in the country. And it was marvellous. I love staying with the Rents. It means leisurely breakfasts, interesting days out and in this instance, tickets to Jack Gibbons’ Farewell Piano Party in Oxford. This piano extravaganza was absolutely brilliant and J...
Tue, Aug 30 2011

I can deafinitely hear the organ
Deafinitely girly A positive night for London although not for several other cities around the country. I still can't help waking up utterly disgusted with the people responsible for this mess – and that doesn't just include the rioters. Anyway, last night, despite feeling ill, I met the rents for a Prom. Pa, who is oracle of all music, had treated us to this Prom as he knew I'd hear ...
Wed, Aug 10 2011

The London Riots
Deafinitely girly It’s hard to know what to write about London at the moment. The city I’ve come to know, love and call my home is fast descending into the kind of chaos no one ever imagined would occur. It makes me feel incredibly sad, frightened and angry. Frightened being the worst emotion out of the above because it means the rioters are winning. They are relying on us being afr...
Tue, Aug 09 2011

My deafness and the tears-of -frustration reflex
Deafinitely girly As I type this morning, I am actually in tears, which is ridiculous as I am a grown up, and grown ups should only cry at movies, death and when they’re dumped. But cry I do, as I’ve just tried and failed to make two very important phone calls about my mortgage to Halifax. Halifax is based in Scotland. They clearly don’t have call centres on the other side of the wor...
Thu, Aug 04 2011

Having lipreading collisions
Deafinitely girly Wow! Wasn’t the weather marvelous this weekend? Penfold and her husband Dangermouse came to stay and we had a fabulous time. I do love sun – even if I am under a hat and in Factor 30 suncream, there’s nothing like the warmth of the rays on my skin, especially my feet. I love having warm feet. And on the subject of feet – this weekend my feet got a bit of a hammering...
Mon, Aug 01 2011

Having a deafness wobble
Deafinitely girly What do you do when you can’t leave the past in the past? When emotions you thought you’d never feel come bubbling to the surface again and no matter how had you try you cannot ignore them? This week, my past slapped me right across the face, hard! Except, that section of my past is so clueless, it didn’t even know it had done it. So what did I do? Well, I called ...
Wed, Jul 27 2011

Deaf girl goes surfing
Deafinitely girly Deafinitely Girly’s silence over the last few days has been because I’ve been on holiday in Cornwall. It was a visit of many reasons – a wedding, a catch up with an old friend, and a chance to gatecrash London Aunt’s holiday in Padstow. And what a brilliant time I had. The first two days were spent catching up with the Blinky – an old uni mate who now lives and wo...
Tue, Jul 19 2011

Today I'm blaming EVERYTHING on my deafness
Deafinitely girly Today I am having one of those days where I would quite like to just start again. For a start, I had the strangest dreams last night – Prince William and Kate were my flatmates and Kate’s insistence to cook healthy meals led to her getting water all over my wooden kitchen surface and damaging it. This then meant I had to explain to her the whole fiasco of being rippe...
Wed, Jul 13 2011

A very thankful deaf day
Deafinitely girly Today is Thankful Friday. It is also the first day of July and the cherry on the icing on the cake, is that it’s gorgeously sunny outside. This week has flown by. My post-Switzerland funk has slowly been carried away in the haze of sunshine, rumble of thunder and prospect of the fabulous weekend ahead. And what am I thankful for? Well, that would be for my readers...
Fri, Jul 01 2011

What about a text phone?
Deafinitely girly Loving this weather! You know when it’s sunny like this, I remember what my dream place to live looks like – and it doesn’t include my nutty neighbour. Ever since I was little I’ve always seen myself to have a place with doors in the bedroom that open up onto a sunshine-filled balcony with an amazing view. Hmmmmm, does a sash window and a fruit-filled cherry tree c...
Thu, Jun 30 2011

Deaf Girl in Switzerland
Deafinitely girly I’m back! And with a resolution to learn how to type one-handed while standing up on the tube, so that this blog doesn’t get neglected as much as it has been recently.You see, on the bus, it was easy for me to write my daily thoughts, but on a busy tube train, it’s not such a piece of cake.And speaking of cake… …the one I made for First Ever Friend’s wedding was a c...
Wed, Jun 29 2011

Hearing dreams
Deafinitely girly This morning it was not my ears that let me down, it was my eyes. You see, while washing my hair in the shower – without my glasses on, obviously – I suddenly became aware of a rather large black blob moving in the corner near my face. And you see the thing is, if I could see it even without my glasses on, that meant that whatever it was, had to be massive. And, upo...
Tue, Jun 14 2011

When I had a hearing cat…
Deafinitely girly Hello on this rather grey Monday. This week looks set to be a busy one at work, a fun one at play and a lunch-hour-filled one of being yelled at by a very over-zealous spinning instructor. Last week, three people walked out of her class in the first 10 minutes. I stuck it out and even when she was yelling, ‘MORE, MORE!’ and ‘YOU’RE NOT TRYING!’ at the top of her voi...
Mon, Jun 13 2011

Deaf girl on a bicycle
Deafinitely girly Today is Thankful Friday and I am very thankful that I timed my late lunch perfectly with the break in the apocalyptic London weather. As I write this while munching my Tesco vegetable thing, it’s bucketing down outside. But actually I am thankful for this too, as we kind of need rain right now… The thing I am most thankful for this Friday though is that I finally t...
Fri, Jun 10 2011

Losing my volume control
Deafinitely girly I am here, I promise! I’m just a little busy right now with my day job… On a positive note, spending so much time at work at the moment means that I get to eat all my meals here – Marmite on toast, peanut butter on toast, jam on toast, just toast, you name it, I’m eating it with toast at the moment. Toast really is the most wonderful comfort food. If I was in a bur...
Thu, Jun 02 2011

Deaf girl camping
Deafinitely girly What a marvelous weekend I had. It was a weekend of learning many things it seems. Firstly, I learnt that driving at speed down country lanes does tend to scare people who more commonly live in London – poor Advertising Whizz’s husband was at this point regretting asking me for a lift to Drama Queen’s wedding. I also learnt that putting up a tent in the rain and ho...
Tue, May 31 2011

Deaf girl sleepwalks
Deafinitely girly Ever had one of those weeks where if someone could just give you a few more days or even hours to fit stuff in, then it’d go a whole lot better? I’m having one of those years at the moment. There never seems to be enough time to fit everything in, and while I love the whirlwind that my life is, it is frustrating watching sections of it crumble or simple dissolve into...
Wed, May 25 2011

Chocolate martinis, subtitles at the gym and a lipreading...
Deafinitely girly British Gas emailed me this morning to remind me that they needed my electricity meter reading. They will not be getting it. Regular readers will know that the reason for this is that the meter is in the basement of the old house my flat is part of. This basement has a winding staircase thinner than a supermodel doing a somersault and more spiders than the scary woo...
Tue, May 24 2011

Things I can't hear
Deafinitely girly Good grief, it’s Monday again already. It seems like only yesterday that I was off to see Imogen Cooper play at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank. She was playing Schubert on Friday night with the Takács Quartet. Now, I love watching and listening to Imogen Cooper play the piano. Her grace and poise is amazing and even if what she’s playing is too high for m...
Mon, May 23 2011

Can I hear if I'm noisy?
Deafinitely girly So, as I have mentioned quite a lot recently, I am making a wedding cake this week. Last night was the top tier and 60 hand-made chocolate roses. It was also the night that saw me put my Dualit mixer straight through the bottom of my best mixing bowl. Harumph… It’s a wonder my cakes ever come out edible if I’m honest as I’m a bit of a disaster in the kitchen. Indee...
Wed, May 11 2011

I want a portable lip-reading light
Deafinitely girly Hurrah hurrah for a lovely weekend in the Wild West erm... Country with Jenny M!I had the most marvellous time catching up, seeing her family, enjoying the Wap, which is an ancient, annual tradition in her village involving throwing the mayor in a pool of water, a queen and several Morris dancers.Then, when I got back to London, I dashed out to a BBQ at Neu's house. T...
Mon, May 09 2011

Deaf Awareness starts here
Deafinitely girly It’s hard to believe it’s Deaf Awareness Week already, isn’t it?It seems like only yesterday that I was writing about it here…So it seems fitting that yesterday, I could have done with asking for a little deaf awareness.You see recently, I have joined a new gym. It’s a lovely, shiny, all-singing, all-dancing gym, with every class imaginable and lots of fancy equipment...
Wed, May 04 2011

Turning 3 and going deafer
Deafinitely girly Today is another Thankful Thursday! Hurrah to all these bank holidays I say.So firstly, I am thankful that Kate and Wills are getting married… I get a day off, get to watch the festivities with the Singing Swede and…Nope… thanks to the timing we don’t exactly get a lie-in tomorrow, do we?I’m off to the Singing Swede’s for breakfast bright and early and ready to watch ...
Thu, Apr 28 2011

Saying words I can't hear
Deafinitely girly Wow, what a lovely Easter weekend I had with The Rents oop norf.One of the things I notice most when I am at The Rents is how comfortable I am with my speech. I don’t worry about making faux pas with my pronunciation, which means I make plenty... usually followed by giggling corrections from either Ma or Pa.This weekend I got ethereal and Godalming wrong, giving both ...
Tue, Apr 26 2011

Proving my deafness
Deafinitely girly Yesterday, I got stopped at the ticket barrier of my tube station near work because of my Freedom Pass. Actually I got called to, just after coming through the barriers successfully. It is because of the possibility of this happening that I always slow down when I come through ticket barriers as I can’t hear people asking to see proof that it’s my Freedom Pass – given...
Wed, Apr 20 2011

My deafness makes me...
Deafinitely girly Today I really realised how deaf I am and how much I need subtitles when watching BBC Breakfast local news. Usually I can roughly get what’s going on from the stilted, delayed subtitles, but today, there were none.Not a single scrap of text for the first few minutes of the news. I missed the travel information and only just got the subtitles back in time for the weath...
Tue, Apr 19 2011