When are big companies going to get with it? Perhaps I should write a letter…

Today I took a trip down to London on the train. A friend of mine was due to join the train at her stop and we’d have a natter together on the train for the remainder of the journey before arriving at Euston and making our way to a lovely party. At one point during the journey before the train had arrived at my friend’s station, the train stopped in the middle of nowhere and was at a standstill for ages. I was quite worried as I was exchanging texts with my friend to check that she knew the train was delayed and to make sure she didn’t get on the wrong train (easily done as trains to London from her station are far more frequent than from mine).

There was the familiar ding-donnnnng sound that my hearing aid picked up and then some mumbled echo of the tannoy announcement. Did I understand a word? No, of course not. Did I approach anyone to find out what it was? Um, I would normally, I guess, but considering the entire carriage existed of just me, and two other groups of rowdy blokes then I can honestly say no, I wouldn’t consider it. No conductor went my way either during this time, so I couldn’t ask them either. But that’s not the point is it?

If trains now have those lovely rolling red word screen things with details of where the train is stopping next and the time of arrival (including changes of times) and warning you not to leave your bag unattended, yada yada, then why can’t they also provide a brief interpretation of what a tannoy announcement said? It’s common sense to surely regardless; what if a hearing person had their Ipod on, or if they were on their mobile at the time? But anyway, come on Big-Name-Train-Companies – It would provide such relief for someone like me, who then was wondering if it had been important or not if you could organise for relayed messages on those fancy screens.

Fortunately we were soon on our way and I could text my friend and let her know that we were approaching her station, she got on the right train, she found me and we had that natter we planned to have before commencing onto the party which was simply Just Lovely. Thank goodness for text messaging. Isn’t text messaging simply the best thing since sliced bread? I might write that letter though. Don’t you think its about time really that tannoy information was made more accessible?

As an aside, I can’t believe it’s been nearly 6 weeks since my operation! It’s also 2 weeks tomorrow since the switch on.

You can hardly notice that there’s an area behind my ear where the hair is so much shorter than the rest now. Although the photo below doesn’t paint such a pretty picture, rest assured I don’t walk around with my hair like this all the time. I prefer plaits these days – it hides the bald-er (yes I know that’s not a real word) quite nicely. The skin is covered, the rest of my long hair does the job. I fancied a change from the purple today, so switched to this snazzy green colour to match my new glasses. You like? 🙂

I have another appointment tomorrow at HARC so I’ll be having a long hard chat with them about the worries going through my head. The distortion still hasn’t improved and the biggest thing playing on my mind is that nothing has improved even slightly, in the two weeks I’ve been wearing it. On the plus side, during my trip to the Village today, I was told that an old school-friend who had a CI implanted a month before me is also finding it hard. I was sorry to hear that she’s struggling a little bit too, but  it was indeed reassuring to find I’m not alone in my little boat as up until now I’ve felt a little bit singled out with how hard I’ve found it compared to the many blogs I follow and forums I read. A friend who had one last year has empathised, and explained that he found it very hard too at first (but loves it now) certainly helped but knowing someone is at almost the same stage at me currently helps put it into perspective.

Will keep you posted, hope your January has been a good one. See you next month!