Deafinitely girly

Sleep walking Deaf Girly
Deafinitely girly Today, I'm not feeling my usual beamy self. When I woke up this morning I felt nothing short of exhausted. I had gone to bed at 11pm. Not too late. And had no specific reason to feel so tired. Or so I thought. Regular readers will know that back in April I starting using a Jawbone UP, a wristband that tracks my steps and sleep pattern by measuring tiny movements....
Mon, Jun 17 2013

Deaf Girly's thankful Friday
Deafinitely girly Today is Thankful Friday. My word, that came around quickly. And today I'm thankful that it's not raining. Because no rain means I can finally wear my curtain coat that Ma made for me last weekend.  I am sat on the bus right now wearing curtains... as a coat. Eat your heart out Maria Von Trapp. I am extremely thankful for my talented Ma. I am also sat o...
Fri, May 31 2013

An extra-deaf day
Deafinitely girly I left my hearing aids at home again today. By accident of course. It's strange – I always realise that I've forgotten them at the exact same moment. I am always halfway down my street, which has a bend on it, and as I get to the bend, there's usually a slight gust of wind, which blows my ears gently, without  causing the rustle of the micropho...
Wed, May 29 2013

Deaf Girly and the amazing new curtain coat
Deafinitely girly It's Tuesday. Tomorrow will be Wednesday and that means we'll be halfway through the week. How simply marvellous! Eh? I'm still basking in the warm glow that was my bank holiday weekend – it was aces. And what did I do? Well, I reacquainted myself with my Kindle – for 6 hours in the garden – and my rents' amazing hanging chair that feels lik...
Tue, May 28 2013

A drink with my (24-year-old deaf) self
Deafinitely girly Today is Thankful Friday. I'm thankful there's a three-day weekend ahead of me. I'm thankful that I get to spend this with the rents. My amazing rents. The sun had better shine because I want cups of tea on the terrace with Ma while whatever amazing new band my dad has discovered blares out of the living room. I'm 33 this year you know. And...
Fri, May 24 2013

Deafinitely Girly and the mega noise panic
Deafinitely girly Yesterday did not start well. I woke up at 4am in the middle of a massive nightmare. A sweating, almost weeping, horrifically real-feeling nightmare. After calming my heart rate and returning to sleep, my vibrating alarm clock decided to go rogue again, at 5.43am. And then again at 5.53am. All of this on a Sunday flipping morning. I was not impressed. All this l...
Mon, May 20 2013

A very Thankful deaf Friday
Deafinitely girly Today is thankful Friday. It's been a while since I've done one of these blogs. Or indeed blogged at all. I've not been on top DG form if I'm honest. But that's life isn't it. And that doesn't mean there's nothing to be thankful for. So today I'm thankful that despite getting soaked on my morning commute today, the sun has now come out. Albeit wit...
Fri, Apr 26 2013

Leaving my hearing aids out
Deafinitely girly Today is Tuesday, except it feels like Monday. Yesterday felt like Sunday, and as I have Thursday and Friday off work, I predict that by next Monday I will be utterly confused and only able to function if my Filofax is superglued to my hand. For example, tomorrow I have a hair cut. It is a very important hair cut as on Saturday I have a very important wedding. Not my...
Tue, Apr 02 2013

Deaf Girly and her hearing aids
Deafinitely girly This weekend has been amazing. I've had Miss K staying don't you know as it was her hen do. I was half in charge of organising this, along with the Mountain Climber and luckily, it was a complete success. Aside from that though, for me it was a little bit bittersweet, as I realised just how deaf the non hearing-aid wearing me was... and the fact that I actively deci...
Sun, Mar 24 2013

Deaf Girly and the vibrating alarm clock
Deafinitely girly Last night, my vibrating alarm clock went rogue. *pauses Gosh, that sentence sounds so much worse than it is. With a spate of early starts recently, I'm relying on this little gadget more than ever to shake me from my, quite simply, comatose slumber in order to make sure I can fit the maximum amount of stuff into my day. On Wednesday morning, it failed. Luckily my...
Thu, Feb 07 2013

Wanted! Some ears...
Deafinitely girly Today, on the first Thankful Friday of February (pinch, punch etc etc ) there's one thing I'm very thankful for. And that is that Pa is out of hospital and on the mend. This time last Friday, when I met The Rents and Big Bro in Southampton before a wedding, he was anything but on the mend, suffering from a bad chest infection and in pain from falling backwards down t...
Fri, Feb 01 2013

Hearing in my dreams
Deafinitely girly Last night I had the worst dream... It was possibly worse than when I dreamt I ran over and killed Kylie Minogue on my Raleigh Apple bicycle aged seven, which was probably brought about by the excitement of receiving the former's album in my stocking that year and finding the latter propped up against the Christmas tree on running downstairs that morning. Anyway, th...
Thu, Jan 24 2013

When people are my ears...
Deafinitely girly Yesterday I locked myself out of my bank card. Stupid? Yes! Very. The company is it with have a live Internet chat service so I logged in and got a chat person instantly. 'How can I help you?' he tapped. I explained the situation and that I was deaf so couldn't call to sort it out. ''Ive made a note of your deafness on your account,' he said, 'Brilliant!' I repl...
Tue, Jan 22 2013

NHS deaf update
Deafinitely girly Sometimes there really is no pleasing me, and this morning I couldn't help but feel disappointed that there wasn't even so much of a frost greeting me when I opened my blinds and peered out. I have a feeling I may regret saying this when a snowy chaos descends upon central London later, but like I said there is just no pleasing me!! Actually that's not entirely true...
Fri, Jan 18 2013

Missing my old deaf world
Deafinitely girly Another day, another blog about how cold it is. Another journey to work wearing my blanket in lieu of a scarf. I'm actually typing this while trying to breathe breath rings on the bus it is that cold. Thankfully I am wearing my iPhone friendly gloves, which I got for Christmas (thanks Ma), and these mean I can type without my fingers turning to icicles and falling of...
Thu, Jan 17 2013

Deaf Girly in winter
Deafinitely girly Ok, so this morning I woke up to the beautiful sight of snow scattered over west London. From the comfort of my onesie while stood against my radiator, it looked beautiful. I turned on the TV. Snow it seems is the apocalypse. The news was reporting that world was going to stop working bit by bit, starting with public transport. Winter has arrived, I thought to mys...
Mon, Jan 14 2013

A very thankful (deaf) Friday
Deafinitely girly Hurrah! It's Friday and I've made it through the first week of my new job, albeit with a lot of Lemsip on the side. And for that I am very thankful. I am also thankful for good advice. This week has thrown up all the usual issues that a new job throws up, but for me, it's also thrown up some deafness-related ones.  You see, the longer I am i...
Fri, Jan 11 2013

Deaf Girly's broken hearing aid?
Deafinitely girly On Saturday I woke up to discover a herd of tap dancing elephants had moved into my skull. And I hold my guilty hands up and admit this was a hangover. I punished myself by not changing a single one of my Saturday plans. I climbed with Art Man and as the day wore on, I wondered whether I'd crossed the age threshold that brings about 2-day hangovers as the tap dancing...
Tue, Jan 08 2013

First Thankful Friday of 2013
Deafinitely girly Today is Thankful Friday and it turns out in 2013 I already have quite a lot to be thankful for. Problem is I can't really write about it on here. But I can tell you it's good, exciting and a little bit scary all rolled into one. There's gonna be some change though, but what has surprised me is that I don't mind that. Change seems to happen for a reason. Change is o...
Fri, Jan 04 2013

Happy New Year from Deaf Girly
Deafinitely girly Well, it is now 2013, which is great news really as 13 is my lucky number, so I'm expecting amazing things from this year. My New Year's Eve was spent in the Wild West Erm... Country with Jenny M. I've known her for more than 20 years now and, as we've never spent a New Year's Eve together before, this year we decided to. After an amazing Thai meal, we finally ended...
Wed, Jan 02 2013

Blogging from my new iPhone
Deafinitely girly Phew, Christmas went by in a flash, didn't it? Seems like yesterday I was arriving home at the rents, laden down with presents and bags, excited to be spending the festive season with them. And honestly, it's been amazing. Brilliant fun, brilliantly relaxing, brilliant food. In fact, the only thing it's not been brilliant for, is my clothes. They're all too tight as...
Fri, Dec 28 2012

My deaf fire alarm
Deafinitely girly Yesterday, I came into possession of some free baking potatoes – not through theft I might add.  'Excellent,' I thought as I did a mental Ready Steady Cook thinking about the beans and cheese I knew I already had at home. But of course jacket potatoes, if you want them with tasty skins are not something to hurry but given the fact that my hunger ratin...
Tue, Dec 04 2012

My life enhancing hearing aids
Deafinitely girly This morning I put my hearing aids in earlier than normal after waking up at 5.30am and not being able to get back to sleep.  I lay there listening to the sounds of a Monday morning and marvelling at just how loud everything sounds in my flat. What I could mainly hear however, was the pub around the corner and up the road from me getting a keg delivery....
Mon, Nov 26 2012

Hearing the rain
Deafinitely girly Today is Thankful Friday and I'm thankful for the way that each of my individual friends inspires or teaches me something. Lesson one was from Miss H in the art of confrontation, after an old lady was rude to us in a café on Monday. You see, this café is amazing but as a result it's also always rammed. We queued politely to get to the counter where we ordered...
Fri, Nov 23 2012

Bye bye internet dating
Deafinitely girly Yesterday I closed my online dating profile and breathed a big sigh of relief.  It was for the best really. My heart wasn't in it. My head wasn't in it and my diary certainly wasn't having a bean of it. I realised halfway through writing an email to Trifle Man that suggesting meeting in January probably wasn't going to be conducive to getting to know each othe...
Tue, Nov 20 2012

The power of (deaf) Twitter
Deafinitely girly Every day I am more and more amazed by the power of Twitter. Twitter – in all it's 140 characters of sometimes hilarity, sometimes abuse and often just random chatter – is becoming quite a fixture in my life. But not just in a way to showcase my latest baked goods or banter with some of my favourite Twitter peeps – come back soon @grouchotendency â...
Tue, Nov 13 2012

Hearing aid update: my flute and Paper Aeroplanes
Deafinitely girly Yesterday was a music-filled day and I loved it. You see, since coming home on Friday evening after work, broken from my week of partying, I wasn't able to get the amazement that I'd been able to hear my neighbour's daughter playing her flute in the downstairs flat. I mean, if I could hear that flute, then surely I'd be able to hear my own. So yes...
Mon, Nov 05 2012

Deaf Girly's quilt of memories
Deafinitely girly This week I have a very important to-do list and it goes like this: Watch Grand Designs while drinking a beer Dance around the flat to Flashdance Iron badly Cook inedible boiled potatoes and eat them with lashings of Ketchup and pie Peer through all the windows at dusk of the houses of people who leave their curtains open Cook perfect basmati ric...
Thu, Oct 18 2012

Deafinitely Girly's available for dates*
Deafinitely girly This month I am 32. It seems like yesterday that I turned 30, surrounded by a wonderful selection of my family and friends at my favourite local pub, drinking rum – which makes me fun – and diet coke. What's odd, is that that night, I thought that perhaps I may be one step closer to growing up a teensy bit. 'This is it,' I thought, as I dressed in sh...
Tue, Oct 16 2012

Deaf Girly's hearing aid update
Deafinitely girly So, I have been a hearing aid wearer for almost two whole weeks. After the euphoria of being able to hear iPhone ringtones died down, it was time to get down to the bare-boned reality of life with my new ears and of course, with the smooth, there has been some rough. Not least, because I managed to catch the worst cold I've had in quite some time. The ki...
Mon, Oct 15 2012

A very thankful Friday
Deafinitely girly Today is thankful Friday and whoa, where to start, eh? Its been a bit of a roller-coaster week if I'm honest with a lot of thinking, a lot of hoping and some crazy dreams thrown into the mix as well. Perhaps what I am most thankful for is that the way that my new hearing aids have seemlessly blended into my life. There's none of the panic that I'v...
Fri, Oct 05 2012

Deaf girly gets HEARING AIDS!
Deafinitely girly I'm writing this blog today wearing hearing aids... Hearing aids!!!! I KNOWWWWWW! I'm pretty surprised if I'm honest that I'm wearing hearing aids, because the whole of my deaf adult life has been about coming to terms with the hearing I don't have, learning to use what I do have and enjoying every little thing as my ears choose to hear it. ...
Thu, Oct 04 2012

Deaf Girly's accessible NHS update
Deafinitely girly Howdee, This is the first thankful Friday blog for a while, but it turns out I have a lot to be thankful for. Firstly, there's news from the NHS accessibility campaign. Parsons Green Walk-In Centre is going to be trialling two vibrating pagers that will notify people when their names are called! Whoop! It'll be like the food court at Westfield, ex...
Fri, Sep 28 2012

My first ever friend – before deafness
Deafinitely girly Ahhhhh, what an amazing weekend I had in Switzerland with First Ever Friend! We went walking in the Alps, with the Eiger and crystal clear blue skies and sunshine as our backdrop. We ate cheese for every meal and drank tea by the gallon. We chatted until our faces hurt and ate breakfast on a brilliant train journey. We cooked, we danced to stupids songs that we...
Mon, Sep 24 2012

Thankful Friday
Deafinitely girly Today is Thankful Friday and I've got quite a list week and here it is: I'm thankful that I got to see Caitlin Moran yesterday and that she was wonderfully entertaining and actually quite easy to lipread. It was only during the hysterical laughing moments that I had no clue what was going on. I'm thankful that the wedding last weekend was a complete success, th...
Fri, Sep 14 2012

The deaf/NHS campaign continues...
Deafinitely girly OK, so this week I've had some great reader feedback regarding my NHS campaign to make things more accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Firstly from The Interpreter, who just so happens to interpret BSL. In one of my last updates I reported back how someone had suggested that BSL be taught to medical professionals as part of their degree course. The Inter...
Thu, Sep 13 2012

Deaf Girly's accidental wedding
Deafinitely girly I'm getting married... To erm... I have no idea! And here's how that happened: So, yesterday evening I decided to take back the bridesmaid shoes that weren't worn at the weekend's wedding and get my money back. They were for the other bridesmaid, so when I took them back I said 'These were for the bridesmaid but she got her own instead.' I ...
Tue, Sep 11 2012

Deaf girl bakes
Deafinitely girly Sorry for the radio silence everyone! I've been busy the last few weeks making a wedding cake and doing bridesmaid duties. It was marvellous fun. Here's the cake: Now I'm just off to get some much needed sleep. Back soon, I promise. DG x
Mon, Sep 10 2012

Changes are deafinitely happening! (NHS)
Deafinitely girly When you ask for something repeatedly that you truly deserve, and still you don't get it, it's very easy to become completely discouraged. To lose faith that people really do have your best interests at heart. Last night, Trusty Camerawoman put a tweet out about my blog and NHS campaign and another twitter follower questioned whether I was simply wasting my tim...
Tue, Sep 04 2012

Taking on the NHS UPDATE
Deafinitely girly Well, this morning as my Twitter followers will know I had a meeting at the Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust or the CLCH as it's more conveniently known as part of my campaign to get the NHS more accessible. It follows some feedback I gave to PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) when I had a bit of a bad experience at my local walk-in centre after t...
Wed, Aug 29 2012

Thankful for my hearing
Deafinitely girly Today is Thankful Friday and it's pretty easy to work out what I'm going to be thankful for – getting most of what hearing I had left back… After the shock of waking up on Wednesday and realising that the loudness of the Pavlov's Dog gig had brought on something a bit more long-lasting than just a few hours of tinny, muted hearing, I've never been more than...
Fri, Aug 24 2012

The gig that made me deafer
Deafinitely girly This morning I have woken up deafer than ever before, and it's all my own fault. I went to a Pavlov's Dog concert and didn't wear earplugs. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WAS THINKING… I mean I always take earplugs but on this occasion I was so excited I didn't think about it. *sad face Last night after the concert it took all my willpow...
Wed, Aug 22 2012

Hearing back from the Royal Free London
Deafinitely girly Despite my silence on here, I can tell you that I've been beavering away trying my hardest to see if I can help change the challenges facing deaf and hard of hearing people in the NHS. What I discovered though in my rants is that lots of you do have accessible GP surgeries and hospitals. One of these is the Royal Free Hospital in London and I was notified that it had ...
Tue, Aug 21 2012

MIssing Mabel, the marvellous cat
Deafinitely girly This is Mabel. She was one of my parents' beloved cats. She died on Saturday morning after being hit by a car on the country lane in the idyllic English village my parents live in. The lane idiot people, despite the speed restrictions, still speed through. Mabel was a pretty awesome cat. She was a rescue pedigree reject. She didn't make the e...
Sun, Aug 05 2012

Accessible Olympics and the time the bus driver asked me out
Deafinitely girly Ok, so I've said what I love about the Olympics, but what about what I'm struggling with. Honestly, and unsurprisingly, it's the accessibility. From the venue to the TV coverage it's really hard to follow what's going on. Subtitles are either slow or non existent and well that's it really. Take the hockey last weekend. At the beginning the rules are expl...
Wed, Aug 01 2012

Deafinitely Girly at the Olympic Games
Deafinitely girly As a Londoner, I'm not really meant to be a fan of the Olympic Games. In the seven years since we won the bid, it's been drummed into me just how much it's costing me, what chaos my life will be thrown into, and how we couldn't possibly get it right and make it a success. I remained detached from the hype. I didn't apply for tickets and the most excited I got w...
Mon, Jul 30 2012

Before I knew I was deaf…
Deafinitely girly Last night, while marvelling at how the heat in my bedroom was preventing sleep, I whacked my iPod on shuffle and attached it to the speaker that sits by my bed. The shuffle selected Starship's 1987 album No Protection and suddenly I was catapulted backwards to memories of my 9-year-old self, dancing around the living room to Beat Patrol, the opening track. ...
Thu, Jul 26 2012

Changing the little deaf things
Deafinitely girly Phew, after a quiet few weeks, I think it's time for an update on everything DG. I'm not quite sure why I don't blog anymore. Perhaps it's because I'm so happy and supported in my day job that I don't need to rant about my deafness in the way that I used to. Indeed, my current company has done everything in its power to make my job feel as thought it was always ...
Wed, Jul 25 2012

Deaf access update
Deafinitely girly Today is Thankful Friday and I am thankful that my quest to make NHS services more accessible for deaf people seems to be gaining momentum. So far, I have had loads of feedback, supportive messages, offers of help and useful information given to me by all you lovely people on Twitter and through the blog. For the first time, in a long time, when it comes to improvi...
Fri, Jul 06 2012

Deaf Girl takes on the NHS
Deafinitely girly My Twitter followers will know that at the weekend I had a fight with a cup of tea and lost, resulting in a big burn across my stomach, which was level with the kitchen work surface when the boiling water went flying towards me. Not only did it hit this bit of me, but it also went down my jeans and onto my feet. I was in pain and in shock and my two brilliant frien...
Tue, Jul 03 2012