It's been a whole year since I posted a blog on here. Life's been happening. And I guess I am no longer 'deaf in the city and having fun'... I am deaf in the countryside and having fun. And I am still having fun. But it's a whole other kind of fun. It's an 11-hour working day, being a mum, exploring where we live now kind of fun. And I am here for that. But it is exhausting. Particularly the work bit. Because in a virtual world, I now do all my communicating over video calls. Which means I am missing the full body language that helps me understand and piece together what people are saying ..read more

When I went on maternity leave last August, one of the things I never considered was that I'd be returning to work in the middle of a global pandemic. But in May this year, that's just what I did. Before I went on maternity leave, I had been working both in the office and from home and it was great. I'd have video calls with my colleagues around the world at odd times in my pyjamas and then head into the office to have real-life meetings and conversations. I liked this balance. My deafness is a tough one when it comes to speech. I can hear the human voice quite well, but the clarity of what ..read more

There's been a lot in the news and on social media recently addressing the issues around face masks and deaf people being able to lipread. Poorna Bell wrote this piece for the iPaper about how deaf people are being affected by the Coronavirus crisis. I'll admit, this subject scares me so much, I've not really wanted to talk about it. Or think about it actually. One of my biggest fears is ending up in hospital and being surrounded by masked people and having no clue what is going on. Especially if I'm in hospital with COVID-19 because I know I also won't have any of the family support I rely ..read more

This month, FFB has learnt that his voice can do more than just yell, giggle, screech and cry. He's learning that he can also make more distinct sounds. And he started with b. We had two whole days of him concentrating so hard he almost went crosseyed to get his little mouth to form the right shape and then off he went with a flurry of b-b-b-b-bs and bobobobobobos and bubububububs. He was thrilled. Beaming from ear to ear. He showed off his new skills proudly to Grammoo and Grandude on his nightly FaceTime catch up while he had his tea which resulted in me wearing quite a lot of his dinner a ..read more

I was never going to be one of those people who rushed moving my baby into their own room. The anxiety I had about hearing FFB started long before he was born, and a bedside crib was the only place I wanted him at night for the first 7 months. As well as being deaf, I am also extremely short sighted. So from the moment FFB was born, I've slept with my glasses on every single night so that my vision will help me hear him. When FJM is away, I also sleep with my hearing aids in. When FFB was in our room, it worked well. Somehow, his cry was enough to wake me, and if it didn't, then FJM would wa ..read more

Today our little family - me, FJM and FFB were meant to be going to the cinema to see a subtitled screaming of Frozen 2. As you can imagine FJM was not exactly excited about it but one of the many things I love about that man is his complete support when it comes to my deafness and, if something is subtitled, knowing how rare it is, he will always come with me. I was really looking forward to today's little New Year's Day outing. FFB loves the cinema. The last time I took him, he was captivated by the moving pictures and lights. We had popcorn, we had hot chocolate, I was excited. I don't t ..read more

Today is a very thankful Friday. Why? Because I am able to report on an amazing development in our quest for subtitled cinema. It's a local one... but it gives me hope that change will eventually come. So let's start at the beginning shall we? As you know, I've been helping Deafie Blogger with her fantastic subtitled cinema campaign for a while now.  We've had some progress, which you can read about here. My subtitled cinema tweet went viral which you can read about here. And I even went on Sky News to talk about it, which you can watch here. If you look very carefully at my appearance on ..read more

Things that go beep fascinate me. Mainly because I’ve never heard beeps. Not even when I was younger and less deaf. When I found out I was deaf at 10, beeps and birds singing were two sounds - along with green men - I discovered existed but couldn’t hear. Even with hearing aids - not that I ever wore them back then. After all, 1990s hearing aids were definitely not on my list of favourite things. Anyway so yes, things go beep. Who knew? Which is why I ask often ask the marvellous hearing and indeed hard of hearing or D/deaf peeps Twitter what goes beep so I can add to my list of things I di ..read more

This time last week,  I had just experienced my first ever TV appearance. On Sky News. And I loved it. So how did a deaf anonymous blogger end up on Sky News with her face in full view? Well, it's because of subtitles and how important they are. Since I first started my blog way back in 2008, I've been fighting for better subtitles. Back in the day when iPlayer didn't have good ones, and then the iPlayer app didn't have any at all. And cinemas had even less than they have now. And most museums had never considered adding words to their videos. When there was an opportunity to ask for bette ..read more

Back in May, during Deaf Awareness Week, I put out the following tweet: and then went to lunch with ma and thought very little about it, until part of the way through eating my cheese and ham crepe, my phone started going stark raving mad and the tweet took off. At first it was mainly my followers who were commenting and showing their support of subtitles but gradually, as the evening and indeed weeks that followed wore on, people from all over the world retweeted and commented on my little tweet and shared the reasons why they used subtitles. And the majority did not use subtitles bec ..read more