Climbing

After 10 years break and finally found a climbing buddy who happen to be deaf, under assessment for the cochlear implant, she lives quite far away but will be in my city for few months, I geared up for first climb, in a very long time, and put my spare rechargeable battery in my shorts "just in case".
I tackled the walls fairly quickly and were 6a plus within an hour! It was just like riding bike again after long break! But man, my arms, fingers, back was so sore afterwards.
When I got home and put all my clothes in the washing machine, I forgot to check the pockets. Yup, I have one washed and squeaky clean rechargable battery! It's still working, Whoo hoo and it hasn't even been in the dry and store yet but I will do the wise thing and put it in tonight and tomorrow night to make sure it's absolutely dry.

Rosie's Hen Party

Last weekend, because I am the bridesmaid it's traditional for us to organise a hen party of the bride. For months, I had secretly organised a weekend in wigwams http://www.wolferlowwigwams.co.uk/ and a greatest day out at the "Go Ape" http://www.goape.co.uk/whats-it-all-about. We had such a brilliant weekend and it couldn't have been any better for Rosie.

In the evening we had campfire and played a lot of games. There was 7 of us who is profoundly deaf (and I am the only one with CI) we were in our comfort zone and signed for England, there was also Rosie's mum and her sister, who both are hearing all weekend we encouraged them to join in and they both had great time and laughed a lot even there is language barriers but they seems comfortable and enjoyed being with us and never showed any signs of isolation, Rosie, I and few others took turns by keeping them in the loop with the signing, we translated everything they had said etc we didn't feel it was a burden to do it. It's only fair when they cannot understand 7 deaf people signing very fast! what hitted us as one of the girls had said recently that if it was 7 hearing people and 2 deaf people the attitude of the hearing would be completely different such as not making sure that the deaf people are fully participate. It's always like "never mind" "tell you later" or "u have your deaf friend with you, talk to her/him" or fully explain to us what the game is about or inviting the deaf people in the game (which is mostly verbal), for us deaf it's quite sad and isolating. It's one of many reasons that I am not too keen on outings/events with hearing people apart from few people who I know very well and who bothers to explain every details of the event/whatever like it's no trouble for them I am forever grateful for those people.

Interesting isn't it?

Austria July 2010

I had returned to Austria during what was the most unusual weather for the area my parent lives, Austrians weather is almost similar to typical British weather but not while I was there. It was so hot and it was 39 for few days, the lowest it went were 29 which is higher than average but the weather was beautiful with cornflower blue skies with very little puff of mare tails. I had swam in the local pool just few steps from my parents house almost daily, there were virtually no chloride, just pure mountain water, little chilly but it was nothing better than dunking in a chilly pool after a very hot day. Of course the CI remains in my room in the house. I had to rely on my mum for communication and awareness of what's happening but that didn't stop us from enjoying the pool.

We went blueberry picking whilst my dad went mushroom hunting, I heard the waterfalls. We had a dog staying for the weekend, I took him for a walk through long grassed fields and I heard a lot of noise! It was the crickets and there was A LOT of them leaping out as we walked through the grass.
We took a day trip to Bibione Beach in Italy, My parents fell in love with this beach and vowed that next time we would stay in Bibione for night or two to make most of the sea! It's 2 and half hours drive which is not ideal for daily trips to the beach! And it's not far from Venice.

My parents had made alot of friends in their village and I am so happy to see them enjoying their new life in different country where there is few language barriers. I (and my brother) became the important person in their life as their friends always asks after us and wants to see us when I am in Austria. One lady in particular who speaks half a dozen languages! were so interested to see how I developed spoken language even I was born profoundly deaf. She and I spoke quite a lot last time I visited but this time we didn't have time to visit her. There was another lady who lives opposite to my parents house, she got a nephew who lives in Germany and he has got a CI. She had always asked my mum how I got on with mine. I went to her house with mum but my mum didn't stay long and left me with her. At this point I would have clammed up and tried to escape but I was totally chilled. I was feeling very confident talking to her in her fluent english with soft accent! I loved listening to her! We talked quite a bit. I don't see them often as I wished but I am glad I can understand her well. On my final day my mum and I went to another person's house, I said to mum "why are you coming with me?" realising that I am perfectly capable of speaking to people so she left me and smiled. This person, He has very strange personality but very intellgent, a very nice man but sadly not in the best of health. We spoke for a bit in fluent english with beligan accent then we said our good byes, I walked back to the house.

When we reached the airport, I realise that wearing CI through the metal scanner is harmless so I decided to see what will happen, since this airport is very small it only got one detector and small group of security it's not possible that they would always have female available. Few times they had refused to turn the detector off for the sake of the queues so I had to wait until there were clearance. But with it being very small airport my flight could have gone without me! So this time I went through with CI on my ear, switched on, card in my hand, the detector beeped (yeah the first time I ever heard it beeps!) the lady guard wanded me and I heard the noise from the wand as it got near my ear. With the german card, She was happy to let me go. And I was completely unaffected by the experience and will contiune to so.