Slow down

Why has it taken so long before I figured out that I only had to say slow down. When the lady from the hospital phoned to make the appointment for my treatment she was speaking too fast.

I actually asked her to slow down. I explained that I am partially deaf and needed her to speak slower. Which she was happy to do. The conversation was much easier for me to understand. Very often, and my husband is guilty of this, people think that because I have a hearing impairment they need to increase the volume. Sometimes that is the case but usually I can hear them but my brain has to translate what it’s hearing. If someone is talking too fast my brain can’t keep up and it sounds like a foreign language.

When I say slow down I don’t mean speak in an exaggerated slow speech. Just speak normally but not too fast. If we are talking in person please make sure you are facing me and don’t cover your mouth. It is so annoying when people talk to me when facing away or in another room. Equally (I had a supervisor who did this) talking with their hand partially covering their mouth.

Wearing face coverings in the last year hasn’t helped. Stupidly I find myself wanting to remove my mask in order to properly hear what is being said. As if that helps!

Yes I have not one but 2 hearing aids. I don’t wear them as much as I should. In many situations they don’t help as they magnify all the sounds around me but don’t help with conversation. I tend to wear them more to listen to the TV.

Thats another bug bear for me. Why can’t everyone on TV have their microphone on the same volume. I can be watching something and hear one person clearly but not others.

In the days when I had control over what to watch on TV, I kept the TV controller to hand. If it was a commercial channel I would have to turn the volume down for the adverts but up again for the program.

Is it just me ? When I listen to music I find that a lots of the music over the last couple of decades I have no idea what they are singing. The words are not clear enough for me. When I hear Will Young singing leave right now I hear the words Pooh Bear right now. There are several songs where I hear the lyrics incorrectly. Those are only the songs I can hear distinct words. Many songs are a jumble of nonsense with the occasional word decipherable.

That reminds me. Recently I tried to use the word tenterhooks. Only I had never seen it written down and always believed it to be tender hooks until a friend pointed it out to me.

Tonight on a question of sport (TV sports quiz game) one of the sections was about sports personalities whose surname began with the letter G. I heard E. For this reason I have s tendency to use the phonetic alphabet when telling someone my email address or post code even my name sometimes. Just ensure they get it right. I also using it to check that I have heard something right.

I’m pretty sure one reason I prefer to communicate with written words is so that there is no misunderstanding what I am hearing/reading.

Magic

So here are a few of today’s songs from the golden hour on our local radio, can you guess the year from these?

first there was this which of course I remember as if it were yesterday

Then we had this little piece of magic to which I sang along effortlessly

I won’t go through the whole hour but it was completed with one of my favourite stars of the time. My friends and I all adored David Essex.

I have been feeling a bit depressed this week.

On Wednesday I had an appointment at the hospital to see the anaesthetist who feels that I am fit for surgery and will recommend this to my surgeon. On the upside he did describe me as ‘slightly overweight’ I guess it is all relative and he said I am young. I told him I like him 🙂

This week I shall be back at the hospital for an MRI scan followed a few hours later by my first mammogram. Neither of which I am looking forward to. I had my only ever panic attack during my first MRI scan. The second was a better experience, both of these were way back in 2001.

I am now awaiting the letters giving me dates for my pre op consultation followed by my op. (Nothing major just something that requires either an epidural or a general).

Anyone who knows me will be aware that I love my job, except lately it has been getting harder to be enthusiastic. We are going through a period of transition and it is making our job very difficult and quite disheartening, Yet our manager has high expectations that are not always possible to attain.

On the upside I did apparently manage to impress the ISO auditor who sat by my desk on Friday (whilst I was feeling unwell) so that I could explain our processes to him, so that put a smile on my face.

Yesterday Owl and I went down to the beach. This is the first time I have attempted to upload a video to Youtube.

see it here

Secrets of No 15 is making progress although slow this last week, I have not been in the zone for various reasons. However I have had an offer to edit what I have written at a discounted price. Thanks sweetheart 🙂

The last piece of magic is that we have new visitors to our garden, Mr and Mrs blackbird have been visiting in the last few days.

Howzat

This morning on the local radio they have been doing their usual ‘what’s the year?’ feature where they play a variety of songs and mention various news items from the featured year, over the course of about 45 minutes. Listeners then phone in their guesses for the year.

I hadn’t been paying attention as we were having a chat, when I heard Howzat by Sherbet. I couldn’t resist singing along. After the song ended I commented that the song must be nearly 40 years old. By my reckoning it must have been mid 70s. A little later I found myself singing along to Barry White ‘Let the music play‘ .  The song played before the year was revealed to be 1976 was Chicago ‘ If you leave me now‘.

What amazes me is that I can sing along to songs from 1976 with no problem but anything recent is more difficult even though I hear them regularly yet these old songs I only hear on rare occasions.

Singing is something I enjoy a great deal, it lifts my spirits even if nobody else enjoys my singing. Nothing will stop me if I feel like joining in with the radio.

I have these songs on vinyl, maybe I shall dig them and a few others out and play some of my old records whilst I write the next instalment of ‘my book’ which I am yet to find a title for.

I will survive

Joyce commented on my last post Serenity that it was the most personal post she had seen from me. I was touched by her comment. so maybe I will post one or two more like that as time goes by.

This morning as I lay in bed listening to the radio they were playing a couple of songs that were featured in a listener’s favourite 5 songs. This is a feature that this radio station have been running for many years. A listener tells them their top 5 songs and the station then play 2 of those 5 songs. I have never sent mine in because how do you chose just 5 out of all the many many songs I have adored over the years of my life.

If pushed to name my 5 songs I would start with  this song by 10cc it was one of my favourites when I was at school. Some songs just send a thrill down my spine and this was one of them. 

Next would always be this Moody Blues Classic again it sent shivers down my spine and still does every time I hear it. Both these songs were always played at parties and disco’s during my teens and early 20s.

A third song that struck me in a similar way as a young adult shortly after I had left school and begun working was this 1977 release by Rose Royce.

So now I have 3 out of my 5 songs but what else has struck me in the same way? There were many many songs that had a lot of meaning to me. Many also that I just loved to sing along to. The ones I danced to and ones I later loved to. I have countless songs in my head that I loved as soon as I heard them. Others that grew on me.

But how do I choose just 2 more out of the thousands?

There is one more song that I have long thought of as my personal anthem. I am sure you are all familiar with this classic song by Gloria Gaynor I will Survive. Being a child of the 60s I loved the disco era, Stylistics, Diana Ross, Hot Chocolate, Amy Stewart, Tavares to name but a few. I couldn’t not love this song.

In 2001 I was diagnosed with stage III Cervical Cancer, my then husband told our children that I was going to die. My children at the time were aged 5 through to 13. Obviously this was devastating news for them. However I had other ideas. With four sons to watch growing up I wasn’t about to give in to something like cancer. I had too much to live for. So I will Survive became my anthem. As you can see I did survive and have been in remission since September 2001. I do not however take my continuing life for granted.

In 2005 I reached a stage where my marriage was no longer bearable. Again I will Survive became my anthem as I struggled to get through the awfulness of a messy divorce where we both continued to live in the same house. I turned I will Survive into the tune played by my alarm on my phone so that each morning I would awake to the sound of these powerful words.

A couple of years ago I was thinking about this song and came up with my own version.

You  made me feel so small
You bullied me without me realising it
You told me nobody would want me
How could I manage on my own with four children
It was a long time before I could relax
Afraid you would return
I grew strong
I learned how to carry on
But you won’t disappear
into outer space
You keep calling
Wanting to try again
I changed the locks immediately
Your key wouldn’t help you
I hoped and prayed that
you would stop bothering me
Go on Now leave me alone
Delete my number don’t ever call
Cause your voice is not welcome in my ear
weren’t you the one who tried to hurt me with threats
You thought I would crumble
You thought you could make me lose my mind
Oh no, not I
I have survived
As long as I know how to love
I know I will stay alive
I’ve got all my life to live
I’ve got all my love to give
and I’ll survive
I will survive
It took all the strength I had
not to fall apart
kept trying hard to mend
the pieces of my damaged confidence
and I spent oh so many nights
glad you were gone
I used to cringe
Now I hold my head up high
and you see me
somebody new
I’m not that chained up little person
still afraid of you
and so you felt like calling up
and just expect me to be free
Now I’m saving all my loving
for someone who will cherish me

So I guess this would be my fourth song but number 5 is still elusive as there are just too many to choose from.

What would be your top 5 songs and why?